This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth and Lazarre.
Hello, everybody nailed it, joined us always buy our bark. Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars. I said we weren't going to get into the steam minutia, but that that was it. That's what we do. I said, I was gonna set the table first, but.
We didn't say pleasantry.
You guys don't believe in pleasantries over over at the hub.
You got no we got we gotta show it.
You're you're not into pleasantries, so we're not gonna do pleasantries here today. It's Evan Lazarre, Alex Barth, Patriots Catch twenty two with you until about four o'clock here today, so we gotta get a long show today morell we got. We got almost the two full hours here, so it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be good. Alex. We were just talking before we we hit record on the show that everybody is against your boy. Now everybody hates me, Alex.
I I am I I am too negative. I'm the grinch that stole Christmas or the week one moral victory for the New England Patriots, and uh, everyone hates me. Everyone's mad, everyone's fired up. They're on the YouTube comments, they're emailing, they're they're they're they're tweeting at me. Uh, they're they're coming after me for my my Tuesday PU show, talking about me everywhere, just kidding about how negative I was about this Patriots team. So right off the top
of the show, here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we're gonna do, so that all of you get off my back and tell me that I'm not being negative anymore and we can all move on from that. I'm gonna give you three three whole nice things about your offense, Patriots fans, three nice things about the offense. I'm gonna go one at a time. Let Alex interject in between. But I'm gonna say three nice things about this offense
right now. So get off my back, all right. Get this is positive, positive energy only, and I'm being one hundred sense sincere, you ready go for it.
Let's see, let's see how since here you can really be here.
Number One, I loved what I saw from Bill O'Brien in this game. Thought Bill O'Brien had a great script. I thought he had great call sheet called good plays in this game. I think a big reason why the offensive line that was completely overmatched and overwhelmed in this game.
Despite some narrative I said, it's gonna be positive something, all right, and here we go, I can't even do it, okay, despite the mismatch between the offensive line and the defensive line, I thought a big reason in this game why it didn't take over the game for Philadelphia is because of how O'Brien called the game. Yeah, and I understand that some people get annoyed by the thirteen screens and all that kind of stuff, but it had to be it
had to be done. It had to be done. In this game, I thought that they at least changed it up enough with the screens that there was some different ones that thrown in there, and then they finally sprung the one for Romandra in the fourth quarter. The bunch formations were excellent. And I think that this is something that I really love about O'Brien, and he's talked about this in some of the coaching clinics that he's done.
One of the things I really love about him is that when he finds something that works against a defense, he's not afraid to just keep pressing the button. A lot of offensive coordinators and we're going to maybe talk about one here later on in the show that I a play caller, I guess I should say later on in the show, think that every single play needs to be unique and different, and like they want to win.
They're trying to win every single play, right And I'm not saying O'Brien's not, but like you understand what I'm saying, Like everything is different, window dressing, different design, YadA, YadA YadA. Bill O'Brien figured out that the Eagles were having difficulties
with the bunch formations, especially those tight bunches. That what we saw in Kendrick Bourne's touchdown, the throw to Mario Douglas on the sideline on the corner route, and he just kept pressing the but and he just kept hitting the play, hitting it, hitting it, and until you stop it, I'm not gonna let you off the hook by going
to different things. Really enjoyed that with Bill O'Brien, thought that he called the game well in terms of managing the offensive line and managing the situation of the game. And I thought he had Mac buttoned up in terms of his decision making and where his eyes were going, and like things like that. So overall made in voyage of Bill O'Brien in the regular season, I give him an A minus an a minus. The only knock that I had on this plan out of everything, I wish
there was a little bit more motion. I wanted them to kind of stress the Eagles the same way Kansas City did in the Super Bowl by using motion. Maybe a little bit more motion, a little bit more downfield RPO. You know, I love both those things. That might be the next iteration, but in terms of what we saw in Week one, really enjoyed this game script from Bill O'Brien and I thought he called a good game.
I thought he did too. Again, you talk about this, this is everything I've been yelling for the offense to be for two years, right it? Remember last year is that we were talking about, No, the strength and in this wide receiver group is the depth. It's not the top of the depth chart. And they shouldn't have anybody that really plays over an overwhelming amount and mix and match the combinations, put them in different formations. Last year was the same three guys in like two or three
formations and that was it. And that first drive. I mean they're subbing in and out like this and like that, and they're in bunch and they're five wide and they were in i think three at one point, depending on how you want to qualify time Montgomery, and I mean he got weird in a good way, uh throughout the game. So I really liked what I had, what I was off O'Brien. The one nitpick I had was on the play before the final play, the kaishaon booty fourth down.
The screen on third and thirteen felt very McDaniel's ish to me.
It was tough. I under the defensive line of the Eagles made a great play on it.
So but that's the thing, like I understand the defense of that, Like, hey, they knew it was four down territory. They wanted to try it. They weren't trying to get it all once. They're trying to get to like at least a fourth and six, fourth and seven. But against that defensive front, with the way the screens were working in the game, I know Wheremandre hit one big one, but outside of that, I didn't think they're having a
ton of success on it. I'm not against the philosophy, like they didn't need to pick up the thirteen yards on third and thirteen. I'm not against that, but was there a was there a better way to get six or seven yards than throwing the ball into the backfield in that situation. That was my one nit pick. Besides that, I thought the offensive game plan was awesome this week. I really liked what they did, especially given the circumstances of who they had available and who they were facing.
Yeah, the screen I watched back those those final two drives this morning just to make sure I had it right in my head, and the screen was. It was set up to hit because they the Eagles were in a too high safety shell. There was not a whole lot of players in the box. I think there was only one off ball linebacker on the play, and one of our guys, Jordan Davis, made just a ridiculous play to come off his rush and really force Remandre to cut.
If Remondre doesn't have to take that extra jump cut to get around Jordan Davis, then he just goes right up the field, up the gut off of David Andrews's block and gets probably eight nine yards before the safeties come down and crash on him. But Jordan Davis made a fantastic play on that. But I understand that you wanted them to be a little bit more aggressive there, and I don't fault you for it. But overall, I
thought O'Brien was great. I did want to like talk a little bit more about the bunches and the stacks that they were using. I just love this part of Bill O'Brien's playbook. I think it puts the defense in such a mind pretzel trying to cover these types of routes because what the Patriots will do with the route a lot of the times, there'll be an option on one of the three routes side of the bunch that
is just breaking off of leverage. So for example, on the Tomrio Douglas throw on the corner route, this is just I don't know for a fact, but I'm just like guessing Tomroo Doug I believe has a post corner like he can break onto the post or it can break on the corner, depending on how the defensive back plays it. Right, the defensive back sits inside, he's going to break the corner. If he sits outside, he's going
to break the post. And a I just think that that's such a mind f like, you know, if you're the defensive back, like you're trying to pick him up out of the bunch formation. Now he's got this two way option, there's all sorts of space. He really can't jam him because he's in the bunch to begin with, so you can't get hands on early, and he just has all this freedom to just then go ahead and
make a move and get open. And the other thing I liked about that play in particular too, is that the Mario made the the right read, ran the right ran the right route. So I was really impressed with the bunches, the stacks, you know, they run a lot of that two lane you know, to option routes. One at twelve yards, one at six yards. That worked like
multiple times. It worked on a on a Kendrick Born throw for about eighteen yards, you know, Kendrick cott the underneath option and then turned it upfield and ran for about fourteen yards after the catch, and worked on fourth down to Hunter Henry even though you had to one hand and catch it, the concept itself worked and got them open. So I thought that a lot of that was really good. I think you'll continue to see a
lot of that moving forward. It's just fun to watch those, like to break them down and to see them the spacing and the sequencing of it together, and the different options that they have off those bunch formations, a lot of different things you can do with them. So I was really impressed with that. So there's one positive. I did it. That was all positive. Right, you brought up the screen.
No, you brought up something before that.
Yeah, set, Yeah, but I reset, I reset, you know, we kill kill right, reset, We did it again. Number two. In this game, I have said a lot of negative things about Mac Jones. I will own that. Gonna give them a positive in this I thought that Mac Jones as well as Bill O'Brien did a really really good job of managing the rush in this game. Two point three eight time to throw on average, which is very
very fast. Now, a lot of that's quick game screen, I get that, but that's all part of it, right, that's running all those things is all part of it. And I thought he did a really good job of getting the ball out.
Yeah.
I thought he did a really good job of managing the rush in the pocket, you know, maneuvering, making little subtle, those subtle movements we talk about all the time. That didn't seem like he has had that innate miss last year. He handled pressure well for the most part. Yeah, and he was able to for.
What it was against that rush with the offensive line he had, he handled pressure well in this game.
Yeah, I agree. And I think which was.
The biggest question coming into the season with him.
Yeah. Again, I thought that there was a lot of the reason why I said earlier, and I know I said no negativity, but the reason why I said earlier that the offensive line performance was really not that good despite what we've heard about, you know, not giving up a sack until the fourth quarter.
I'm actually kind of with you on that one.
But the offensive line performance was not that good because a lot of guys were giving up hurries, but they were hurries and not hits or sacks right because of Mac, And I give Mac a lot of credit.
It was that Mac was his own best pass protector in this game. And he said how many times we say that this offseason, that's who Mac's gonna need to be in twenty twenty three, And I thought he absolutely was his own best pass We'll get to the offensive line I'm with you on that one. I think for what it was, it was fine. Yeah, but there's some really heavy qualifiers that come with that that just are applicable to this one specific game.
Yeah. And lastly, just on Mac with the pressure, I thought he did a really good job of controlling the depth of his drops in this game, which is an underrated, sneaky thing.
I mean, how many times did we see him last year when he got pressured where he double back and he'd start twisting around like I don't think did he do that once in this game?
And he did a great job. I thought he was really dropping for the most part. So the rule of thumb is that you want to get the rusher on we're talking about edge rushers now, you want to get edge rushers ten yards past the quarterback ten yards. Yeah, if it's eleven yards in the quarterback gets sacked, then that's on the quarterback. The quarterback's got to step up in the pocket. Now, if there's interior press, like I get,
there's other factors. But the point is is that if you're a tackle, your job is to block the edge rusher ten yards past the quarterback. I cannot tell you how many times in this game, Mac was dropping to like seven or eight yards on purpose because he knew that Calvin Anderson was probably gonna be a little shaky over there in his first game. And they did a really good job at controlling the depth of the pocket, really really good job. And he threw made some throws
while under pressure, most notably the kender Born drop. Unfortunately, but that throw is a great throw. Well, it was some pressure in his face, Seemer. There was a lot of a lot of positivity about Mac Jones. All right, I said a lot of positive things.
It was the insistence to not acknowledge any of this earlier in the week and not a breakdown that was puzzling.
A lot of positive things about your quarterback.
So where was this on Tuesday?
We'll get the tuesday anyways. Is that enough gushing about the quarterback? Said three things? Yes?
Oh about the Yeah, all right, yeah, last one.
Round of applause to the captain David Andrews. Great game by David Andrews. I thought David Andrews played one of his better games I've seen him play in a while, not only blocking like snap to snap individually, but I give he was helping those rookie guards out a ton pre snap and he did a great job in this game with a ton of chaos around him and two guards that were getting beat like a drum on both sides of him. And David Andrews. I said, no, dang it,
but still David Andrews. David Andrews, great, great game from him. I hope that the hamstring's okay. I think it will be. He's a tough guy, he'll play through it. But I really was impressed by by Da. He was great in this game.
I nothing about the Jamario Douglas or Kendrick Bourne makes it into your positives. Not yet, Oh come on, not yet, not yet. We're not gonna talk about it yet on the show. Or not yet. You're not willing to compliment either of them.
But I didn't say I'm not ready to compliment any of them. Don't know, you don't get all crazy. I just said that, like, we'll talk about it, we'll get to it. Yeah, but these are my three like gold stars, okay, Like.
I look, you watched the line closer than me, so I'll give you the Andrews one for me. Like one of my biggest takeaways coming away from this game is just Kendrick Bourne. All the stuff we talked about, you know, can he take off this year? Can he have that remember that we were talking about, like to break out year in year seven? Yeah, kind of like an abstract. I don't think there's anything fugazi about what he did
in this game. He's back. And this is why last year I was red in the face saying it's malpractice. They're not putting this guy on the field because he can change the game. He can change the game. And I thought he showed in this game why he makes that and he and this is all with him having a bad drop. I'm not gonna say he was. He should have caught that ball on that third down late in the game. That's probably Max's best throw. But there were other things as well that cost him the game.
It wasn't just that. And I thought Bourne was excellent in this game.
I agree with you that I agree with you that one hundred and ten percent about last year with Kendrick Bourne. I agree with you one hundred and ten percent this year that Kendrick Borne needs to be on the field. And it Yeah, we said before the season started. I think both of us were in lockstep on this on one of the previous shows on Catch twenty two that we felt like Bourne should be the most targeted receiver in the Patriots offense, and nothing that I saw on
Sunday deters me from that point. I will say he has some route running miscues on film that I think, in the coach's eyes, probably hold him back a little bit from being the guy that we all want him to be. But at the same time, I'm not sure for this particular football team that that can matter. Like, so I would if you want to run guy right, because like, if he runs like I think maybe in this game he had two or three routes, I would say probably two. I think the third one would be
a nitpick. I'd say there's probably two routes where I thought that he ran the route incorrectly, But that doesn't wipe out all the routes that he ran great right like, and he runs too many good routes to take him.
Off, And I would just say that was a massive nitpick. Again, you're being positive, but great shot with it. No, but I would like that it goes back to something we talked about the soft steins. If they wanted that guy DeAndre Hopkins was available. Yeah, Jerry Judy was real. I mean, now you're talking about a top twenty receiver, right if the biggest knock on the guys two routes he ran over the course of the game, and that's why you
can't feature him. Can then in the drop, but like then you needed to go get Like he's as good as they have and he's pretty good. But if you're expecting elevation they they clearly felt based off what they did in the offseason, I would argue that they don't need a receiver better than what Kendrick Bourne did on Sunday.
Yeah, and I again, I I his miscues are not big enough for me to take him off the field by any stretch of the imagination, because of how good the good plays are with him. But at the end of the day, the couple running miscues that he had did hurt them, and then obviously the job hurts them. Yeah, and that's just I'm with you, that's the difference between But.
That's not even like I don't want to say it's not his fault, but like, that's not he gave you as much as you can realistically expect him to give.
I agree if you want more. That's about the players they have. I'm just simply telling you why I didn't give him a gold star.
Okay, that's it.
So those are my three gold stars. Bill O'Brien, mac under pressure, maneuvering pressure, managing pressure, and uh and and David Andrews, who I thought was great in this game. You mentioned Damario Douglas. I am buying all the to Mario Douglas stock. I want Damario Douglas on the field as much as possible. I think that he is the one guy that is dynamic in this offense besides maybe Kendrick that can get open, that can run with the
football a little bit. I am clamoring, clamoring to see him with the football in his hands with some space.
Yep.
They unfortunately couldn't get him loose in this game. They were close on that throw that Jalen Carter made Max Sale, But I think that if they can get him in those types of matchups. I really like the Mario Douglas and how he ran the routes in this game. One one conversion that he didn't run properly, but it's a rookie in his first game. I'm not gonna and I'm sure there's many more that the coaches know about the DIDO,
but like, you know whatever, I just similar to Kendrick Bourne. Yeah, he's gonna have some mistakes, he's gonna have some growing pains as a young player, but he's too good to not play him a lot.
Yeah, their three bet went once they get healthy. I think it's pretty clear at this point. There's been some reporting to this points as well. When they're an eleven, Yeah, Parker Bourne Pop Pop. That's that's And I know people want to knock Kashan Booty in this game too, Like I wouldn't take him off the field.
I didn't love Kashan Booty in this game.
I didn't love him, but I didn't like he belonged. If that makes sense, I don't know. I mean he doesn't need a true red shirt, like.
He's No, I don't think he needs a true red shirt.
But just to get back to we can get into Kashan buy because later, because I feel like that changes the conversation. But the point being like, when you're an eleven, Parker Bourne Pop, that's got to be the group right now, Like those are the three best receivers. And I don't know that it's close.
I don't think it is. And I also would just say that I like how those three compliment each other.
Oh, you have a really wide range of skill sets there, and no, I think it beyond. That's part of why I like it. I think that group elevates, they all elevate each other again because of that diverse the diversity of skill sets within there.
Yeah, I really like Douglass in this game. I did. So those are my three positives, and we started the show there. We're going to open up the phone lines here in a second, eight five to five, pats five hundred. It is the phone number. Got three people on hold already. We're gonna get to you and just a second, I promise. I think the one thing I do want to say about you know what I said on Tuesday about Mac and and just I don't want to beat a dead horse.
I've already talked about Mac and my my critiques about Mac enough, but people that just listen to this show, I want them to understand where I'm coming from as well. Right, Yeah, and uh, I think the biggest thing with Mac is I want to say two things. One, Uh, I want Mac Jones to be great. I really do, and I think that people now, uh, maybe a little bit more
publicly than I would like. Yeah, I know that I love Mac, Like, Mack's a great guy, and I enjoy covering him, and I enjoyed the conversations that I've had with him. I'm not we're not friends, Like, I'm not saying any of that. I'm just saying like I enjoy interacting with Mac. With that being said, where my frustration comes from with Mac is I truly do want him
to be great. But for him to be great, he's the little details of the quarterback position, the nuances that you get from studying film over and over and again. He has to dominate that, Like, he has to be really really good at that because he's not going to change dramatically from a physical standpoint. So if he's gonna
be great, then he has to have clean footwork. He has to throw from a solid base, he has to make good decisions with the football, he has to throw on time, Like these are the things that he has to do to play with his margins. And my frustration comes from when I watch the film and I'm like, you're not controlling the controllabulls Mac. You got to be able to control the things you can control. He can't control the fact that he's not Lamar Jackson, and he
can't control the fact that he doesn't have it. People get mad when I bring up Josh Allen that he can't control the fact that he doesn't have an army.
Can control the he doesn't turn the ball or four times.
That's why people get mad. He can't control the fact that he doesn't have an arm like justin Herbert. He can't control that. But what he can control is his own individual process and over the course of a game. So my frustrations with him come because I'm like, I want you to be good, dude, but like you're these
are the things you're missing right now. And I think the main thing from this game that I was concerned with, and I'm willing to give him the caveat in the and within that caveat give him the time for the offensive line to get healthy, is that his footwork being off in this game for large stretches might have been related to the fact that he was not being protected well.
So the other thing I would say to that, because he his footwork was good as a rookie it's not totally new. He this goes back and I know people are gonna roll their eyes and see me pointing a finger at Matt patric again. But last year, do you think he had a coach that when they in and broke down the film could get to that level with him? No work on that and I and so, yeah.
Like I wonder, Look, obviously we all would love to be a fly on the wall in any of those meetings, but I really wonder what the coaches feel about it, because the bottom line is is this is where my concern came on Tuesday, is that when he doesn't throw from a solid base, he doesn't throw at a ton of all.
And look, I'm sure he knows that, and I'm sure the coaches know that. And it's not like they just got out here, right, they had camp and all of that, But a game environment changes things. Like he was I thought during camp he was doing a good job of setting the feet and all that, right, And you I think you agree with me on that. Yeah, I don't know that there was somebody that was going to go to him in last year, last year and say, hey,
this is kind of a mess. Yeah, And I think he developed some bad habits, and I think when you're down two starting guards, maybe someone last year started creeping in the back of his head like I'm going to take a beating today. We all thought that in the press box. We were talking about like, he's not going to make it through this game. Yeah, with two rookie
guards against his defensive line. Yeah, Like you mentioned, Bill O'Brien did a great job kind of helped him out, and he did a fantastic job himself of keeping himself clean. But I think that was part of it. I think there's a lot he's thinking about in this game, specifically beyond mechanics. I look at it and say, all right, yeah, look, I thought Mac was better than you're giving him credit
for in this game. I think if that's Mac Jones' worst performance of the year, this team's making the playoffs. I'll say that right now. Or if Mac Jones playing that way to that level is their biggest problem, and they have no bigger problems than Mac Jones performing like he did on Sunday, when again he threw for three hundred yards and three touchdowns against the top ten defense in the league. If that's their biggest problem, they're gonna make the playoffs and that's good. Now maybe it's not.
Maybe it gets worse. Can the coaching staff fix those little things that you're talking about, and can him and Bill O'Brien get in the lab and basically does he go in there? He was hard on himself after the game, so I think he knows what you're saying. Yeah, can they go in the room and say we need to fix A, B and C and then come out on
Sunday night and A, B and C are fixed? And this to me, when it relate, whether it relates to Mac, whether it relates to the the offense, whether it relate to some of the coaching decisions, this is the great Uh. This game was weird in terms of having to sit up there and evaluate it. I wrote like three different columns because I didn't like them, and I kept having to scrap them because I think this feels people are gonna hear this as a fence sitting take. I will no,
but it's not. It's not. There wasn't because the Patriots played such a polarized game. Whatever your preconceived notion was about the team going into that game, you have something to point to and say it was true. If you want to sit here and say, hey, Bill O'Brien's here, the offense looked different. They moved the ball against this good defense at times, and hey, it's the you know, defending NFC champion. It wasn't gonna be perfect. I think
that's a perfectly valid take. And you could sit here and say the issues they had, and I believe this, the issues they had, while similar to the issues they had last year, the problem last year wasn't that they were making those issues in September. A lot of teams make similar mistakes to the ones they made in September. The problem was they were still making them in December. They never got fixed. And that was the case last year. It was the case the year before that, it was
the case the year before that. So you're absolutely allowed to sit here and say I saw a lot from that game that I liked. I saw a lot that looks like progress. Yeah, it wasn't perfect, but to go toe to toe with the defending NFC champion in Week one and have time to build on that with the new coaching staff, I'm encouraged. At the same time, I do think it's fair to say yes, but we felt encouraged in twenty twenty early in the season. We felt
encouraged in twenty twenty one early in the season. Even last year early on, there were some moments where we were like, Okay, here we go, let's see and then So it's not a moral victory thing though, No, it's a benefit of the doubt thing in a bubble. Listen, just let me finish it. Let me finish in a bubble. I'm young team, third year quarterback coming off a year they missed the playoffs, goes toe to toe with the
defending NFC champion. I think a lot of with making mistakes that are pretty textbook to make early in the year. I think a lot of teams you would look at that and a lot of circumstances and say, there's something to build on here. It's not a moral victory. Think it's not necessarily feel great about it, but it's when we're projecting out over the course of a seventeen game season, if the things that usually get fixed across the league by teams get fixed, they'll be in a good spot.
I think that's an absolutely fair evaluation of this game. But you can also bring in the caveat that we felt that way about this team in twenty twenty and they never made the fixes they needed to make. We felt this way about the team in twenty twenty one, and they never made the fixes they needed to make. Obviously, last year they never made the fixes they needed to make. So our Bill and O'Brien and Adrian Clem that much
better that Obviously they're better than Patricia. But like the McDaniel statts in twenty and twenty one, are are Patricia? Are mcdan the third try? Are O'Brien and Clem?
Yes worth?
The best benefit of the doubt that not only can you look at it and say they are going to fix these things, but say they are going to fix these things that they haven't been able to fix in each of the last three years. That's essentially the question me coming away from this game. Are you taking the cheese on it? Are you going to after what we've been through the last three years of them falling apart
November and December? Are you still willing to look at this and say it'll look better by Thanksgiving, it'll look better by Christmas than it does now.
That's a fair take. I don't disagree with a lot of that I think where my bigger concern came from. I guess from this game. Because I can nitpick mac Jones all day long, I'm not going to do it. You know. There's little things with his footwork that I didn't like, especially throwing the ball to his right. I thought that throwing to the ball to the right sideline, the ball died on the mall game long, and that
it was footwork related to me. Like I think because for him, and like I said earlier, like he needs to have a solid base and solid footwork for him to generate velocity. He can't generate a velocity of platform. Yeah, so he has to have a solid platform to throw from. So I think that that's where a lot of my
concerns came from. The other concern that I had in this game was, like you said, coming into the year, confirming a prior, and my prior was now when the chips were down and it was the fourth quarter, and Bill O'Brien can only take you so far because it ultimately comes down to the players on the field winning a game for you. I did not think offensively, not offensively, not just Mac Jones, the entire offense. I did not think that they had enough talent to win those games.
So I guess this goes back to my point. I think some people will just agree with you. Flat some people will say, look, it was no secret that the Eagles defense had more talent than they did on offense. I don't know how many teams in the league have more talent on offense than the Eagles do on defense. It's a very short list. Yeah, I think some people look at that and say, this one they didn't win. But more often than not, in that situation, Bill O'Brien
will be the difference that they will be able. And you have the stat was it owen thirteen?
Right? Oh? And twelve in in uh twenty five plus points games? No.
The other one the game leading drive on he has one in thirty three, one and thirty three.
Okay.
I think some people look at it and say, Bill O'Brien's gond increase that number in this one specific instance, he didn't. Yeah, and it's against a very good defense. But let's see them get in that situation against Miami. Let's se him geting that situation against some of the other teams on their schedule that aren't as good defensively and it may not go from one to thirty three to thirty three and one, but or thirty three for thirty three or whatever. But like and it doesn't need
to it needs to be about five hundred. But so again, is Bill O'Brien gonna fix it? There's another number. I gotta find the stat I.
Just don't know if Bill O'Brien's enough.
And that's where so and that's that's basically what the question is. I think coming away from this game, it was the first week Bill O'Brien had to work with them, and there's I think you'd agree with me on this any new coach. And we were actually arguing about how much of a difference a new coach makes before the show, So I know you're with me on this. Any new coach, you need a game or two to really get things fixed, right, So I think the argument is all right. Here we
are with this team again. It was promising, but it definitely wasn't perfect. It was good but not good enough. Is Bill O'Brien the guy to get them to good enough from where they started on Sunday?
So I don't disagree with anything that.
You just let me make one more point on top of it. I think that the counter to that is people talk about, you know, one one in the twenty So this is the twenty five points thing, scoring more when the opponent scores more than twenty five points. What was the number again? Oh and twelve with mac Jones, they are without Tom Brady three and twenty five. So it's without Tom Brady or Randy Moss. Because of those three wins, two of them happened in two thousand and eight.
They're one in twenty five, one in they won such win basically without Tom Brady Randy Moss. Is it a mac Jones problem or is it a because if it's a mac Jones problem, maybe Bill Obriant can fix it. Yeah, if it's a Bill Belichick problem, right, I don't know how much it helps.
It's gonna give it, so that that's kind of where I was headed with it. Yeah, when we say Bill Belichick problem, we mean a roster construction problem.
Well, could be a roster construction problem or like a game approach philosophy problem.
But I think the main thing is roster construction. Game Like, I think they're both together when I say Bill is trying to win the game. In my mind, twenty four to twenty right, like he's trying to get he's trying to build on defense to the point where you're not going to score, right.
I think Bill might say points, Bill might say truth here, and Bill Belichick here. If you allow twenty five points, you've already lost that kind of thing exactly.
So to that point, the play that really put me over the edge and led to a Tuesday's show and all this this crap that I've taken. The play that really put me over the edge was the fourth and three play on the second to last drive of the game for the Patriots, because on fourth and three they I believe they emptied the backfield on it. It might have been one back regardless, Mac and the gun, and they have Juju in the left slot there. That's your guy, right,
like that's your big money offseason free agent edition. We'll get it apparently, but that's supposed to be your guy, right. And the initial read on the play is Juju on an option route, run it and get open. He doesn't have to break any particular way. He doesn't have to. It's not a you know, a leverage read necessarily, it's just make your guy miss, right, Just get open on the route. So that's that's the guy you paid twelve million dollars a year or two to get open on
this route. And the initial nitpick or not even a nitpick. This was just a bad play for the team. The initial hiccup is that Juju just doesn't get open. He gets suffocated off the line of scrimmage and doesn't get open. So at that point Mac has to come off his first read and make something happen out of it. And then there's pressure, right, So here's the second problem with
the play is the pressure. So MATC comes off the first read, tries to get over to the other side of the field to the second and now there's pressure in his face, which you and I are both on the record numerous times talking about the short fallings in
the offseason about offensive line personnel. Yeah, here you go, your rear in your head, right, So your twelve dollars million dollar receiver can't get open on a one on one when you created a matchup for him out of the slot on fourth and three to get four yards, he can't get open.
Right.
Then your quarterback goes to move off of it correctly and he can't get to the second read without there being three people in his face. Right, and Maac breaks the pocket. Good job, right, gets out of the pocket, gets out of the pressure. As he's rolling to his right out of the pressure, Kendrick Bourne is streaking across the field on a crosser and he's wide af open, wide af open behind the linebacker. And this is not one of those like Mahomes fifty yard right now, wrist
like eight or nine yards Dounfield's. It's a ten yard throw maybe. And you can throw it with touch like you can loft it like you don't. He doesn't even need to drive it into any hole. He's not fitting it into a window.
No.
All he's gotta do is layer it over the linebacker, puts a mayror under it to let Kendrick Bouran run underneath it, and just feather it over the linebacker. I think I sent you the play. I'm sure you've watched it on your own, Alex. I promise you that if he makes that throw, it's a touchdown.
Yeah.
Kendrick Bournan is gonna run under it. There's nobody there to stop him, and he's gonna score a touch on the seat in the middle of the field.
It was a misthrow. Again, I'm I think you're being You've been too critical on Mac this week, But I'm not gonna say he was perfect and that was a missed opportunity.
So instead, what happens is is Mac kind of panics frankly and takes a sack on the play instead of making the throw. And those three boxes, to me, are the Patriots in a nutshell right now. They don't have a good enough receiver to win the one on one Juju, Yeah, they don't have a good enough offensive line for the quarterback to go through the progression. And then Mac Jones is not a play creator. He's not a second reaction
extended play creator outside the pocket. And so if you are xing off all three of those boxes all at once in a critical moment, you're gonna get what happened on Sun.
And just just for the record, you can work around one of those things, the offensive line well, and any of them, I'm saying, like you you can.
There is really tough.
You don't have to have all three. Basically, don't have all three.
But if you don't have a money winner, like if you don't have like a guy that when it is an absolute need to have it down. If you don't have a receiver that the quarterback can go to, it's hard.
No, But but this is what I'm saying, Like, if you have one of those three things, you're in good shape. I think if you have if you have two of good three, you're you're you're pretty cooking, right.
But they don't have that.
They don't have. But that's my So I think you say that, and I'm just like translating here and I'm not disagreeing with you, but it's like you say that, like they didn't check any of these three boxes. They don't have anyse three things, and people like, oh no, blow it up, Like, yeah, you don't necessarily need all of those threes exactly right, this is my point.
And so yes, this is exactly my point. So this is my whole take on this, right, And this is exactly my point. If you had a receiver, if you handed aj Brown a Patriot jersey on Sunday and you had a receiver that could win that route out of the slot, then you're golden.
Then right, then none of the other two things don't come into into play.
Play. If you had an offensive line that allowed mac John's to go through the progression. Then he hits Kendrick Bourne from the pocket with a touchdown on the other side of the field instead of having to move right. If you had a quarterback that was a wizard when the play breaks down, then you would have had another touchdo right, right, But they struck out on all three.
So like and there were good teams Like I would say, the Chiefs don't have all three of those things, No, but they have Patrick, right, But that's the point. Or the Niners don't have all three of those things.
They have two of three. They have the offensive line, they have the receiver.
Yeah, but some people would hear that and say, if you don't have the quarterbacks to qualify, And that's just the point of trying to prove, like there's ways to make it work. And this is why we were pounding the table for Jerry Judy, this is why we were pounding the table for DeAndre Hopkins because we talked about after those moves ev in this offseason, what was the plan. The plan was they were banking on Bill O'Brien and Adriene Klem to elevate the group they had rather than
add to it. But at the end of the day, it's a spot where you need somebody to win. Rout might not be able to get that.
Yeah, it's just that's what it is.
And and and let let me let me let me say this, like O'Brien and Klement elevated that group on Sunday, Yeah, they absolutely did. But it was just to the extent that they were never gonna be able to do to the extent which they need to because down two guards, down the number one wide receiver. I know you're rolling right, Oh,
we're celebrating twenty points. Given the scenario, twenty points. You told me they were going to put up three hundred and eighty yards and twenty points in that scenario, I'd say they did a pretty good job all things considered.
Yeah, but they but they gave. They're not saying to be happy about team the way I look at it, and I know that this is probably not how you're going to look at it. But to an extent, they netted six points.
You you, you can't come away from that game and say, Bill O'Brien did a badge.
Of I didn't say that I gave. But that's to the point I'm.
Trying to That's the point I'm trying to make and your you're putting my point is like I'm agreeing with you. Ohbrian and Clem. The plan was for O Brian Clem to elevate the group. They elevated the group on Sunday.
But that's the whole plan for the whole team.
But this is my point. I don't this is what I'm saying. I think what you're saying is basically they might not be able to elevate them to the point that they need to.
Elevate them, not not in those big moments, right, And I the the difference is and I so this is this is my other mistake of why I came in so hot. On Tuesday. After I watched the Patriots film and did did my my uh after further review and all that stuff for the Patriots and got that out of the way, I I turned on Chargers Dolphins and I watched the Chargers Dolphins game, and in that particular game to A played out of his mind. He was fantastic.
We played against a coach defense, but yeah.
He played out of his mind. He was really freaking good. Justin Herbert also really good.
I know that.
And so I watched two quarterbacks that right now might be like top five, top ten quarterbacks in the league after watching Mac and the Patriots offense.
And oh so this is just recency bias seven, that's all.
This is partially the what. And I'm telling you it's not just the quarterback play. So I don't want people to focus in on that either. It's not just the quarterback play. But when I tell you that it looked like the Miami offense was playing a different sport, I
really am not saying like it really was. Because the Patriots offense needs to go ten plays on an eighty r drive and like meticulate, matriculate down the field and all that kind of stuff and not make any mistakes to go backwards, to stay ahead of the chains and beyond schedule and all. The Miami just like throws it up to Tyreek and it's the touchdown, right, So.
Yes, but they don't have This is what's what's annoying to me about your take. And by the way, they don't need to do that. They went sixty three plays in six yards for touchdown before they had plays a good two minute. That was a great two minute trail.
I almost put that as a gold star, But I just gave it to.
O'Brien, Okay, fair enough. I mean O'Brien played a big part in it. They went They did that without calling a time out, which is impressive. So you have proven that Tyreek Hill is better than any receiver on the Patriots. Congratulations on your hot take.
I'm not saying that. I'm just telling you that the execution, the speed, the dynamic playmaking, like all that stuff from the quarterback on out was just different in that game, and that, as a Patriots fan, most importantly, is frustrating because we've been talking about this for four years now, really five, like going back to nineteen Brady's last year, and it's the same story about the talent on the team. I agree with you that they looked better. I agree
with you that Mac looked better. Everybody looked better on offense. The coordinating was better, the play calling was better, the play design was better, the quarterback was better. But at the end of the day, they still have middling talent.
They just do. So you're right. I don't think they need to change the quarterback to make it even to get over the hump, if you want to call it that, but they had to change something and now We're in the season, so they're probably not going to make any drastic changes to the roster.
I mean, is there a change they could make at this point that would I guess Mike Evans would be the one.
Yeah, if Mike Evans or like T Higgins comes available or something like that.
I don't think the Bengals are tracking a right.
But let's I don't want to get too bogged down all this as we already have, so let's open up the phone lines and then I do want to talk about the defense. We're going to talk about the Dolphins. So let's turn the page here and uh, we'll see what you guys have to say. Roger's in Wakefield. Roger, if you're still there, I really appreciate you waiting on hold this long.
Yeah, nobody.
Be good. How are you?
Let's move on from this game. We had enough discussed the back and will pell at the cross to building. So I just have two comments. One is from the Dolphins game, which I want your response. How the fazious defense is going to handle the hall the whole motion thing of Tyre Kim, How Jonathan Jones and the other cornerbacks who will be trying to cover him tackle that And the second one is what I felt is they they played a lot of bookies in the game greats
except one troop. He played only ten steps.
That is market.
I think they kept him safe. That's what I think. I want your take.
So you think, what was it on Marty Mapu? Sorry, I I think they were hiding him for this game.
They are not unleashing him in that game. They just want to be use his powers in this game, his speed or something like that. That's what I think.
Got it, got it. Thanks for the Colorajer, you really appreciate it. And we'll we'll we'll answer that question. Do you think they were hiding Mark. I don't know if they were hiding him.
I think he said for this game, like why they didn't see him in the in the summer. I mean he was hurt as part of it.
So I don't know.
I don't think they hit him in this game. I mean you saw him spying Jalen Hurts, he was covering a J. Brown down the field. He was everywhere.
Yeah, I mean only played like ten snaps.
Yeah, he played some high impact snaps. He did like the assignments they gave him time.
My guess is that the way that they view So Christian Zal is gonna playe hundred percent of snaps every week right like he's he's out there, he's first round pick. He's going to play all the time. I think with Kean Whiten and Marte Maphu to not put like too much on their plate right out of the gate. My guess is the plan, like you kind of just alluded to, is to pick and choose your high impact spots with those guys. I thought Mapu was fine. I mean I
there was one rep that I really really liked from him. Obviously, the post safety rep was was nice with Gonzalez on the post, but he had the post corner route to a J. Brown that was good. But there was a play and this was a this was an issue for them, uh in terms of picking up the crosser from this passing strength going to the weak side of the field and uh, Marty mop who was in the week cook and and he actually turned and picked up the crosser for the first guy that did it right like you
know Bentley I thought missed one. I think it was Bentley.
Uh.
And then somebody that was playing in the slab I don't remember who it was somebody that was playing in the slot, miss miss Dallas Goddard on that post corner route and he was wide open if if Jalen Hurts had thrown had thrown the crosser, and I thought Marty mop who did a really nice job of taking that away. So maybe it was something they came to the sideline and they said, hey, guys, we gotta we gotta clean this up, and and he was able to be on it. I don't know, But do I think they were hiding
him No. I think that they are easing him in is a better way of putting it. I don't think that they feel like he's fully ready to play as much as like Gonzalez played, for example.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
All right, let's take this file from Todd. What's up Todd?
Hey, guys. So, I think the difference between McDaniel's offense when you know Mack was in it, and then.
Of course last year's debacle is.
That Bill O'Brien can actually game plan and just develop an offense based around mac talents. I don't think McDaniels did that. I think he's you know, might have changed his opens a little bit, but it's still McDaniel's offense. He wants you to run it. The same thing is happening at the Raiders is like, you run my offense. That's why you know last year there was quarterback controversy because you know, it wasn't wasn't as a round peg
in a square hole, vice versa whichever. And I think that maybe, just maybe, you know, as a league, as the year progresses, we're going to see something from Max that you know, this is the year, This is the year when he gets a chance, because this should be his offense and designed around him. So I think this is a make or break here. In all honesty, I don't see him coming out of this year with either being successful or gone. I can't see any other thing.
I don't see him continuing. If he's not successful, he's done because this offense is his. What do you guys think safe?
Yeah? Great, great call to great call because I couldn't agree more about the difference between O'Brien and McDaniels, because this is something Alex said, I don't necessarily want it to be. You know, I love Josh McDaniels. I'm a big McDaniels guy, but I agree with Todd one hundred
and fifty percent that McDaniels is McDaniels. McDaniels runs his offense to the point where, frankly, other than like the read option stuff that they put in for Cam Newton, they were asking Cam Newton to like do Tom Brady thing. Yeah in twenty twenty, Like, they didn't change the passing concepts of that offense a whole lot for Cam Newton. So I agree one hundred and ten percent that McDaniels is you do my you run my things like this is my offense.
You figure how many like scheme touch guys that they try to bring in here under McDaniels that's never worked out, like you'd see those pass and stuff.
Yeah, and he what's happening with the Raiders. And I think that they drafted mac Jones in part because they figure kne Josh McDaniel's going to be his offensive coordinator. Maybe they thought it was going to be a longer runway than it ended up being. Yeah, but they thought Josh McDaniel's going to be the offensive coordinator, and in that draft, he was the best fit for the McDaniels offense, And that's why they they drafted him in the first round.
So I agree wholeheartedly that that's a great way of putting the differences I feel between McDaniels and O'Brien, because I will add this, I don't think that the pat I don't think it's I don't think it's fair to say or categorize and say that the Patriots are running
the same offense they were running with Josh McDaniels. I think there's a lot of pretty significant schematic differences between how O'Brien approaches the offense and how McDaniels approached the offense, both from a formation grouping standpoint, obviously not having a fullback and not having twenty one personal and not using at avenue. But also I would just say from the way that their passing game is is designed, I think
it's significantly not not say significantly maybe, but different. They have a lot of the same concepts, they have a lot of the same ideas in terms of, like you know, option routes based off of leverage and like things like that, but like in terms of how they design their offenses, I don't think it's a fair, uh categorization to say that this is the same offense. That they were running at twenty twenty one.
No, it's definitely not. I mean they're related, you know, it's they're they're closer to each other than they are to Patricia's offense.
Their cousins.
Well, no, but I mean like they're close to each other than they either one is to Patricia's offense, but they're not. Yeah, they're not the same thing either their cousins. It's like, you know, like when you talk about like languages, right, and it's like, you know, like English and French and languages.
It's like if you were speaking uh, you know, Italian. Yeah, but like sometimes like Northern Italians different than Southern Italian.
Like, I don't I even thought it was more different than that. I was going to say. More, it's like, you know, like French English, it's spand it they all come from like the Saint they all come from Latin, right, and then there's everyone it's called like other languages and other parts of the world.
So you think that that they're both romance languages.
Right, But that's the term I'm looking for res Like, yeah, so they're in that same family, but they're different languages.
Yeah, I agree with that, And but I hear that a lot like that, Oh it's the same offense, Like, no, it's really not, it's really not.
And then it's this, now, all right, I'll say this if it's if we're going to compare it to something that and I don't think I'm breaking any news here. The comparison to Mac Jones past is to Alabama, No, to his rookie year.
Yeah, because that was the other thing I was about to say was that, you know, McDaniels doesn't run any of this college stuff, like he doesn't run. Yeah, he doesn't run any of that kind of stuff as much I should. You know, it's in his playbook, but he doesn't really. He told me in twenty one. I remember asking him about it and he said, we don't major in RP.
He was like, mad, at you've asked.
Well, I mean, it was ridiculous that they weren't running them. I love the guy, but like, yeah, this quarter this RPO quarterback that lit it up on RPOs in college and they just never called them for Mac his rookie year. It was it was ridiculous. Anyways, I digress, but I agree with Todd that that is a feather in O'Brien's cap that I think O'Brien will continue to build this offense around Mac Jones, and I think he already has.
Like the fact that this offense didn't have a whole lot of deep shots in this game, I think was related to the offensive line, but I also think it's related to Mac Jones. I think that they know that they're going to time up their deep shots, but they're not necessarily going to be like we saw last year in the first six weeks of the season before Mac
got hurt. I should say first three weeks of the season before Mac got hurt, it was bombs away, right, And they're definitely not going to be that kind of offense this year. So I agree that McDaniels are in, O'Brien are different, and O'Brien, I think is I don't know if it's necessarily that O'Brien's changing his offense for Mac, but his offense is already almost pre built to fit Mac and to fit what Max's done in the past a little bit better. All right, let's go to Sean
and Vancouver. What's up Sean?
Hey Evan.
First off, I'd like to say Shanatova.
To Alex too, both of us, right, Alex.
Oh, both of you both.
I didn't even know Alex. I didn't realize you were Jewish as well.
But yeah, really, okay, that's a compliment, I think.
No, I know, it's just most people.
It's it's anyway, happy New Year, to thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. So, Evan, when I called in on Tuesday, didn't get a chance or I wasn't able to respond when you you were wondering why I was encouraged by today you with your three points, you answered it. That's exactly why. And I don't have expectations that a lot of people do for this season, like we've we've talked a lot during the off season about team construction and how disappointing that was. So I don't expect the Patriots to make the playoffs. That's that's not where my my brain is.
But looks like you were saying earlier, you know, it's encouraging without being a kind of a consolation prize of not winning. You know, I'm just thinking like, okay, yeah, we've seen this before. It doesn't always work, but maybe it will this time. And that's where I am as a Patriots fan, Like if I were a Canadians fan, I wouldn't even be there. Like in terms of the NHL, I would just think, I'm going to wait for them to show me something because it's just too dismal to
even bother with. But with the Patriots, it's I've always been a Patriots fan, even back in the nineties when you know, ninety and ninety one, ninety two, when it was terrible. It's it's just what I do. So I have to be encouraged and these are the signs. In last year it was just a total mess, And like what you said with Bob, it's it looks like, okay, there is some structure, we can make some headway and things can move forward. So that's what I'm getting at.
Yeah, no, that's great. On Tuesday August, just to give you context, thanks for the call, Sean, people were just calling in and saying I still have hope, and I was like, can we just like add some context to your hope, like just saying that you have blind hope? To me, it means nothing.
That's that's fan. I mean, we're ultimately rooting for laundry. But no, I think what the college just said is exactly my point. Do you know what a Rars Shark test is?
Uh?
No, So Rors Shark test does, yeah, green does? Yeah? You know you know all right, it's an ink blot test. Ink blot test. Okay, So it's like a psychology thing. So they have they have like you have like six or eight piece of paper that they just drop ink on and they show me to you without any context, and you say, what you see. It's like looking at clouds, and the idea is supposedly based off what people see in the ink, you kind of learn about who they
are as a person. You can learn about their personality. This game, to me is a Rars Shark test. What you saw in it depends on and tells me about what kind of fan you are.
So you're basically saying I'm a I hate fun You're.
Like exactly or the other one. Just to flex my c and ap psych senior high school. You know, Schrodinger's Cat is no. Schrodinger's Cat is this thought experiment that basically there's a cat in a box with like a little like like just basically the idea that if there's a cat in a box with poison, you don't know if the cat is alive. Or dead until you open the box. And the like philosophical thing behind that is so, until you open the box, the cat is both simultaneously
alive and dead. If that makes sense, both things are true, right, both things are true. So this game in some ways Schrodinger's game, because we don't know, we don't have the box open. Is this because it does both look like that's as much again I got to see in the classes, as far as I'm gonna go, that's absolutely they do. Somebody in the chat said one p sych course in college, try one side course in high school. This game, it is both simultaneously the first step under Bill O'Brien and
in that bubbles and encouraging first step. It is also the continuation of the post Tom Brady hour in the last four years and until we take the lid off the box play more football games. I think both interpretations for now are correct. And if you want to call that a cop out, call it a cop out. It probably is a little bit. But like I can't you know how I am. I'm gonna sit here and tell you what I believe. If you make a valid argument, even if I disagree with it, if you back it
up I'm going to agree with you. I think you could make either argument in a way that I would agree. We talk, we were arguing to the other night. I said, yes, you're not wrong. They haven't proven they can win that game, and I am gonna need to see him do it. But at the same time, a team with a first year roc with a young quarterback doing what they did against that defense, well, it certainly wasn't enough for week one to say this is the floor you have, this
is what you're building on in theory. In theory, yes, Week one is your worst perform So.
But this is I guess. This is where I come from with it, is that I knew this was their floor going into the year, so I didn't learn anything new. I knew, okay, but you're.
Almost acting like this is closer to the ceiling than the floor.
I suppose, like I guess that's where they just people. I think the way I look at it, and this is, you know, kind of where I'm coming from with all of it, is that I think this is a floor football team. I think this football team is designed and built to have the coaching and the operation and the program and all of this stuff put a good floor of eight or nine wins, and then they hope that
you get it. You get a good bounce here, you get a bounce there, you play a backup quarterback here, you play a backup quarterback there, and then all of a sudden, you're ten to eleven wins, right, Like you.
Know, right. So, I think given the opponent, like I think, a lot of people expect them to get stopped because the Eagles are.
That's the other thing is I didn't so going into this game, I picked Eagles twenty seven Patriots twenty.
I think the Eagles were top two teams even if you want to go beyond the romantics of that. The Eagles were top four team in the nflast year.
But but, but, but but you have to put this in context. The Eagles did not play a soul in the preseason.
And because the Patriots played so much.
But I'm saying that all the trends of the Patriots being at home on Tom Brady's return against a raigning Super Bowl loser that did not play anybody in the preseason told you that the Eagles were probably not going to be firing at all cylinders to come out here and blow.
Down when teams used to come in here and it was close. Even though the Patriots won, we would say, oh, it's a scrappy team. That team might be building something. Patriots are just on the other side of that. Now, that's all that is. I think being five points worse and the defending NFC champion does carry some weight with a lot of people. Whether you think that's fair or not, kind of gets to my point of the game is whatever you want to.
But my only point of of all this and then we're getting bogged down and classically in an argument that we're not going I think.
That's what people want to hear after you've lost your mind on Tuesday. Apparently I didn't even hear it.
I say, did you even listen to the show?
No?
But I had not.
Even on Twitter. I had friends texting me asking if you were okay because it was so I can only imagine it was spectacular.
It was spectacular. I'm proud of it.
So I think this is what people want to hear.
Against Bill Belichick.
Uh.
Here's the thing that my whole thing I think coming into this game was I thought that the Eagles would be a little bit rusty. I thought that the Patriots would keep this close because of all the things I just laid out, So just being competitive, I expected them.
Okay, being five points worse than the Eagles is you know, how many points better are the Eagles involvement?
But they're not five points worse than the Eagles team that took the field in the Super Bowl in February. They're five points worse than an Eagles team that essentially treated this game as a preseason.
Okay, but they're going to grow. It's not like they're not going to have opportunities to improve either.
I get it. I'm just saying that the reason why I came into the game thinking that it's going to be a one score game to begin with was because of all of the trends with the Eagles, right, and so I didn't expect.
But the Patriots don't get trends.
Is kind of like, because my point is that I don't think I think a lot of people, like you kind of said a few minutes ago, a lot of people thought the Patriots are going to get blown out in this game.
I never felt that way, even when even when we got the inter report and Mike and went and Cole Strange weren't playing and Devonte Parker was ruled out.
I was more I was a little bit concerned at that point, but I still didn't think the Eagles would have the execution offensively to run away with it because of how little those guys did in August. And that's just you know. I think Reese put it in his Sunday notes coming into the.
I think what we've unlocked here is not that you're being too estimatetic. You may have been being too optimistic.
Maybe I think that's the real problem here, is we've launched it was it was a combination of of my expectations coming into the game, where maybe a little bit higher than other people, because I thought the Patriots would compete in the game to begin with. I think the reason why is I said the trends. But I also mention I think the Patriots are going to compete in a lot of games because they have that floor. Their
coaching is good. Their coaching is good, and I want to talk about the defense who coached their butts off on that side of the ball against the Eagles. Their coaching is good. They have good coaching, So they're going to be a floor team because of that they're not going to stink because they're coaching is really really sound
on both sides of the football. So I can't thought, coming in along with the fact that I thought the Patriots are going to hang in there against most teams this year, that the Patriots would be close in this game against Philadelphia. And that's exactly what happened. And as the game was ending live, we sat talked to him about this on Tuesday, so Marine can back me up. Deuce and Paul were saying, they're gonna win the game. Patriots. Yeah, they're gonna drive in, They're gonna win the game, and
I kept on saying, no, they're not. Just just wait, I was.
I was with you on that. I was sitting next to my cad like, and right after the jabill peppersonly goes, do you think they're gonna win? And I'm like, they can win, but they haven't won this game in like four years, right.
And it's so that was that was the beginning of my turn. Was I had to write the same story that I've been writing for for four years.
So that's my point is where I wonder if you're over correcting a bit, And because because I like I told you, I told you I wrote three.
Separate therapy session. Now, like, what's really I I.
Wrote three separate post game calls because the one thing about covering a week one game, and there's a lot like covering week one is very different than covering any other game, just to pull back the curtain a little bit, because you have so many preconceived notions going in. And like the example I always give is in twenty twenty, remember when Mike when when who came out started playing right tackle, hadn't played right tackle at all in camp
even yeah, and he was amazing at it. And that's like, you never have to adjust to seeing something like you do in week one. Every it's all unexpected. You're on your toes. Sometimes you go into a game, you have an idea of kind of what you're gonna talk about postgame, and it's like, well, you know, I know, I'm gonna focus on this one thing and if it goes this way, I'll do this, because that will do that whatever. Week
ones the one time you can't really do that. The one thing you do not expect covering a week one game, Evan, is to have to worry that you're gonna be repeating yourself,
and that was my thing. After the game, I was like, because how many times last year did I have to write and you and everybody that stupid column that was like it was it's been the story of the year, or here we go again, and I'm running out of synonyms for late game failure or whatever, and I'm sitting here, it's like it's week one and I'm having deja vu,
like this shouldn't be a thing. And I think that's where some of the issue in breaking down this game comes in, is because you shouldn't be repetitive week one, and yet here we are. This game might have as well have been played as Week nineteen of the twenty twenty two season. It would have fitted playing It looked a little weak, not you get what I'm saying, Like it looked different, the O'Brien and Patricia stuff. It looked different.
But the game flow, the game story, it was like, yeah, I've written this before, right, And that was kind of jarrings because you don't expect to do that in week one.
And what I keep coming back to and I'm going to keep her. I don't care if I sound like a broken record. It looked better it looked sharper, the play designs were nicer, it looked prettier, it looked better. But the talent level is the same on offense. The talent level is the same. So when it came.
Out, all right, I would push back on that, it's not the same. I don't know that it's good enough, but it's not the same. It's the same. They have Tomorrow Douglas. Now, okay, they but they have Ezekiel Elliott.
I know it's Tomorrio Douglas beter than Jacobe Myers because Juju wasn't on the field, So I can't you can't, Okay.
Well, I mean I'm more so talking about like, you know, they're not throwing Nelson Agler out there, They're not throwing a kil Harry out there.
Okay, Yeah, their receivers are better than they were two years.
But maybe it's a wash in some of the other they didn't have their offensive line, right, maybe it's a wash in some of the other direct The talent.
Level is in the same ballpark. You can tell me that this guy's a little bit better than that guy. That guy's a little bit better than this guy. But at the end of the day, the talent's in the same ballpark, and when it was fourth and three, when it was fourth in the game, they're just there's there's nobody to it doesn't Yeah, it doesn't happen, they don't.
But it's again that's it goes back to my thing of like, I really didn't want to be repetitive covering this game. How many times in the spring and in the winter, and going back to last year the stupid Tuesday meeting thing that we had to explain and the coverage dictating wide receiver, It's like.
Fourth and three was the Tuesday meeting.
It picked, right, it picked when's the last time? How often do we joke over the summer or when we're covering OTAs or even during the drive we're talking about this now and watch we're gonna get to week one, We're gonna throw it all out, right. How many times do we kind of say that when we're talking about the team? Do you ever remember? And we've only been doing this for six years, but I think that's a decent sample size. You remember the last time Week one?
It was the takes from training camp to the game were so seamless.
I think last year we knew the offense was a disaster.
We didn't know it was that bad. I think we did okay, but it wasn't.
Maybe we didn't. We were still I'll speak for myself, I was still rose colored glasses a little bit last year, so maybe I didn't see it, but I think it was gonna be that bad. But I think that we should have seen that.
But there was also stuffs like they'd added Parker and it was like, okay, they've done that, and Remandre and like I think he had a bigger role expected.
We knew this. The system and the coaching.
Was but this was like, I mean, like the game could not have happened and the talking points would be exactly the same if we were just carrying on another week from camp. Nothing changed, And that's weird for week one. Usually week one changes things.
Okay, I'll give you that. All right, let's go back to the phones. Mason's in Connecticut. What's up, Mason?
How you guys doing good?
Hey?
All right, so I gotta get this out quick. I actually have to leave in a second. But Evan, I know that you're not a Kashan Boody guy, and I get it. I understand. I agree with you that he didn't look great on Sunday.
Okay, he made some.
Mistake obviously, had the two pass, he didn't get his feet down. More importantly, I think on the second one last play of the game, I think he ran a lazy route. I think if he runs a stem hard there and he sells vertical, I don't think Joe breaks on it fast enough to push him out of bounds. However, for the guys starting in his first NFL game that who was kind of playing out a position, Okay, I
think there were times where he attacked leverage well. I think he looked like he was thinking out there a lot of times. I think he showed explosiveness off line of scrimmage a few times, which was a question mark for him coming into this season. I think specifically on one of the touchdowns of Kendrick Bourne, he was running a curl on the right side of the formation and
he looked explos off line of scrimmage. I think he ran the stem hard, he had a good snapdown, a good trigger step, came out of it in three steps. I think there were some things to feel good about in this game for Kashan Booty, and I think he could be a guy and listen before I go, I just want to let you guys know it's not too late to get on the Kaishan Boody bandwag Okay, I want to personally invite you guys to the Kaishan Boody Bank Club. We call ourselves the Booty Clap Bandit. The
door is open the winner circle. Guys, all right, thank.
You, Thanks, good call, Mason, good call. A lot of really good points about Kashan Booty. I agree with you wholeheartedly about the last route. Could have ran it faster, could have ran it better. Yeah, I'm sure he feels the same way. I'm not breaking any news to him. Uh what he said about him playing out a position agree one percent.
Some we targed it they didn't have a second true x.
Yeah. And I wrote this in after further review that I actually don't hold anything against Kaishan Booty on Sunday for that exact reason.
Even though at the beginning of the show you said he was bad.
I didn't say it was bad. I just said, like, you can't really give kaish On Boody like a pass. That's fair.
I No, it's fair.
I just like I mean, the film was the film, Like, you know, I agree with the caller that it wasn't hopeless, but I just felt like I wrote it in after further review that I hold nothing against Kaishan Boody because to me, we've talked about this a lot with him, even before they drafted him. He's a Z slot like, he's an inside player that had to be forced to play on the outside because DeVante Parker's hurt Juju is whatever and Tykwon Thwarton's on IR so they had no
other X receiver besides Kaishan Boody. They obviously weren't going to play Pop Douglas at the X, so it made all the sense in the world that it was Booty. We all thought it would be Booty coming into the game, and it was. And I agree with the caller one hundred and ten percent that that's not on him that he doesn't know how to to tap the sideline when he's probably done it like six times in his life in a game, So I don't blame him at all
for it. I didn't necessarily see the explosiveness. Maybe I have to go back and watch some of his routes that the caller talked about and I think that some of the route running was a little bit sloppy. So that's where I come from with Booty. I don't mind do you.
Think this route running in the second half specifically, I.
Thought there was one route in particular where he tried to run an out and up and I thought that maybe he had a chance to get open on it because he was single covered and he just didn't really sell it all that well and just kind of rolled into the defender and it was kind of pretty ugly.
That was late in the game. I actually thought looking back on it, and I'm sure it was a locked route, so I don't think he had like the eruption to like, if he had just hit like a three step slant, I think it would have been more effective than what he ended up doing.
Okay, I'm just saying because I the first half, a lot of guys are slipping around with the rain. When I looked at the route running stuff like I did this with Douglas too, I was just I really only looked at the second half.
Yeah, so I felt like some of his routes were not crisp and not really he doesn't to me, he doesn't have a ton of suddenness in his break or at the top of the route unless he's running he is I can trying to be more positive. He is a great slant route runner. Yeah, he runs great slants, but when he gets down the field eight twelve yard breaks, there's just not a whole lot of sell or wiggle
to those types of routes. But if you're asking him to run a slant like we saw it in Green Bay, he runs great slants, So maybe that's something to build off of. And I think it's comfortability too, Like you can tell that he's so comfortable running a three or five step slant that it just looks explosive when he does it because he's he runs that route like it's
the back of his hand. I wasn't like overly like, oh my god, take him off the field with Kisehan Boody, But I just I feel like there's I don't know, I don't necessarily know if I see the twitch or the explosiveness to be a real dynamic receiver in the league. Can he be like a fourth or fifth receiver for his rookie contract. Absolutely, I think that we're at that point.
And in the sixth round. Fine, Yeah, it's not like they took him top fifty.
All right, Jeff is in Maine. What's up, Jeff?
Hey, what's going on?
Guys?
Hey?
So I had a couple of things. One, Alex, I got a college football player for you, Okay, Tristan keenan Umane kind of like the true freshman. I don't I doubt, I mean from knowing means football team historically, I doubt he's an NFL talent. But he's kind of like a
faster Rex Burkhead. He's fun to watch, okay. And so the thing for the Pats, And I know you guys wanted to transition to defense against personnel like Miami, and I know that this show has always been a proponent of playing Marte Mapu at the second level, and I have two He played well at safety the first game, I thought, But I think with this game, and I'm curious what you guys think, it makes more sense to me to keep him at the second level because I
think if your linebackers are and obviously their past game is incredible, but I think if your linebackers are to buy and Bentley, Raheem Moster and Devin and Shane are just gonna absolutely run away from them, and I think that would be a problem. And so I think that you know what, the true secondary players handle the receivers and you know, move him to the second level to try to stop those running backs from absolutely eating you alive.
Thanks guys, Yeah, that's an interesting point, Thanks Jeff, And I did want to transition here to the Dolphins for the last half hour of the show and preview the Dolphins a little bit. This is a this is the conundrum for the Patriots with the Dolphins and the Patriots defense. In my opinion, you have to put a ton of help on Tyreek Hill. So if you're gonna help a ton to Tyreek Hill, and I I say help because I don't love calling it a double team, Like I
don't think it's like necessarily a double team. But at the very very least, the post safety has to be dedicated to number ten, right, Like the post safety has to have eyes on number ten at all times. That's just the bottom line, because it's not fair to Jonathan Jones to leave him out there on an island against Hill all the time. So here's the conundrum, right for
the Patriots in this game. And I'm curious about your take on this, because we had a lot of people, Alex that called into the show last week, and I know a lot of people on my Twitter I'm sure your twitter feed as well that were not confident in leaving Christian Gonzales one on one with AJ Brown in Sunday's game. Yeah, and they did for the most part, and he held up pretty well. So different type of receiver with Jalen Waddle. Yeah, And that's the question, are
you confident in Gonzales? I would think, or maybe it's Marcus Jones if you want the speed on speed matchup, but either one taking Wattle, it's never truly on an island but without the real resource, right yeah? Or are you emptying the box? And if most of it was a d MP yesterday, I don't know if he's gonna play in this game. A shame's a fast running back, like the caller said, explosive guy ran like a four
three eight or something like that. Really speed guy. Are you either empty the box and whatever they get to the backs of the backfield, the run game, all that kind of stuff you live with or you live with being one on one on Wattley.
I let him run the ball, me too. I let him beat your running the ball. And look, I maybe I'm I'm being too optimistic here. And Evan, I know you think Sunday's performance should go down as one of the worst in Patriots history. But I liked what I saw. I liked what I saw from the defensive line. And I'm not saying you're going to shut them down without additional players in the box against the run. But is their offensive line that great?
I don't, especially not.
Out there right, So give me you know, Keon White, Christian Barmore really good game, probably better run game than pass game.
Christian Barmer had a sneaky good game. It wasn't a game you like.
It was a classic Christian Barmore game. Because people always complain that he doesn't have enough stats, but he's always like the jude On sack early is a perfect example.
He's right there.
He created that even though he didn't get stat Give me Christian Barmore, give me key On White, give me uh Tetrick Wise would a good game minus the penalties, which were big. It doesn't, but right Juwan Bentley, give me those guys up front, those four I think they do enough. If you're going to give them the run and basically put those four guys sort of on an island against the run and put the resources in the secondary. Again, you're not gonna shut him down. It's not like you're
going to run for like three yards to carry. But I think that keeps it very manageable.
Yeah, so they're gonna they're gonna play a lot of zone in this game. I guarantee it. They're gonna play a lot of soft zone and they're gonna try to keep the top on the defense. Yeah. Cover two quarters like, they'll mix that in Cover three, they're gonna play a ton of zone. Uh when they go to man or basically man. There's two coverages that I think that that exist that I think would be good in this matchup.
One is what they used last year, which is one cross It's one robber, but the robber is looking for the crosser from the passing string, and when he picks up the crosser, the man coverage defender on the receiver drops off and becomes the new robber. He replaces him in the middle of the field in the coverage. So that takes away things like a crosser with a dig from the outside, because now that defender that falls off is gonna fall off into the dig window, so you
can take away both things. So they did that a lot because this Miami team, just like when they played Kansas City with Tyreek Hill, they know that they're gonna run crossing routes. It's either're gonna be Hill or waddle, but somebody is running across or I guarantee it, so they're gonna They could do that. They could play one cross and they could cut off the crossing route and then have the post safety over the top to help
the Tyreek. Uh. The other thing that they could do is play a Saban coverage, which is called cover seven. Cover seven is too high safety and each safety is bracketing a different guy, so they can actually double team both players.
Right.
The problem with cover seven is that you'll give up two hundred yards on the ground if you.
Play what runs against like Kiffen and Yeah in those.
Saban loves it. He runs it a lot more in college because of obvious differences.
He runs it against the teams Yeah.
And they So basically you will have a cone bracket is what they call it, an inside out bracket on both Wattle and Hill. You can call that on like third and long because you know they're not gonna run it. But if you call that on first down and then they're gonna run for two hundred yards, does it matter if they run for two hundred yards. I'm not necessarily sold it matters.
So it as long as the game's close, it doesn't matter if you let them if they get a multi score lead, of course, right. But no, I if the ball's not in Tira Killing Jalen Waddle's hands and the other you can't get beat on the RPOs. That's the other thing on these coverages you're describing. Go to that. If the ball's not in those guys' hands, let them run the ball up and down the field. The other thing I've noticed about to him this is I'm debuting this take here, so I don't know, feel free to
push back. I don't want to put this. Do you remember, I don't know when you stopped playing two K, but they put a thing in where like players are like different badges, so it was like not overalls. Okay, do you remember the microwave badge? So it was like certain players if you kept shooting with them, they'd get better. But if you only took a shot with them. Every once in a while they'd actually play worse. Two was kind of a microwave faster. I like that a little
bit like this when he how many pass take? How many passes did he throw last week? I don't know the exact number it was, It was a lot. Yeah, I want to actually find the exact number. And I think that's part of the reason. Yeah, through forty five passes last year. I think that's part of the reason he played so well is because he can get in that rhythm where it's drop back pass, drop back pass, drop back pass. If you're forcing them to run the ball, not just call runs, but also hand the ball off
on those RPOs. He's not a guy that throws great when he's cold. If it's the fifth, sixth, seventh play of a drive and he's thrown a pass for the first time, this is a very good take. I don't have any numbers to back this up, unfortunately, it's just something I've noticed. But this is that you've noticed that, so you've noticed that from him too.
It anecdotally it sounds great. Also, I'm sorry they're showing Brady on this TV right now. Oh yeah, And my favorite part of this entire thing is just watch Stacy the whole time, just panicking that the second half is about to start and they need to get off Brady off the field, and CBS is just like refusing to get him off the field. I will get he was just on the screen and I we both love Stacey. It's hilarious to watch him just like be like, we gotta go, we gotta go, you gotta go. We'll get
to Brady in a second. I do want to end the show with our takes on on the on the Brady stuff. Uh, it's a really anecdotally. I feel like you're right. So I don't even I don't have any numbers either.
I don't know what the numbers would be to back that up, because his is him throwing a lot of passes. Doesn't like, Yeah, it could be it was intermittent early and now they're behind so they have no choice but to throw. But like, I feel like he needs to get in a rhythm. And when he gets in a rhythm, and it makes sense with all those kind of short crossing patterns, yeah, it's all very repeatable.
He throws that. So they want him and this is the challenge and what what made that game so good against the Chargers was that he wants to throw the inbreakers to the middle of the field right, so a lot like Mac Jones in that sense, crossing routes, dig rats, slant routes like that's too a, that's that's his bread and butter. What made this game unique against the Chargers, and I know that I've kind of gushed about to it today, but he was really freaking good in this game.
What made him really good in this game was the fact that he was able to come off the crossers and off the slants and hit the second and third read in the progression just as well as he normally hits the slants right like he he made a throw. I know, Ben Solak like broke it down on Twitter where they take away the incut and he comes off the incut and hits a wheel to Tyreek kill on the second reads.
Well, the other thing about is he's this has been my long standing take onto it. You know this he essentially had to relearn how to throw a football because he hit injury. I feel like he's kind of gotten there.
I feel like he threw the ball with as much zip on it as I've ever seen him throw.
Well, that's what I'm saying, Like he people don't realize he had to rebuild his mechanics from the ground up, like in the NFL. That is a massive task. Yeah, he was really good in this game, and I feel like he's kind of gotten there.
So that's the thing with two. But the reason why I love your take so much is because that's the type of thing that Bill will notice if Bill notices to Bill's great at noticing one, Like where's your heat map? Like, where's like the hot areas of the field that you love throwing to, like a like a batter in baseball? Right, where do I pitch to you? So with Tua, he's
gonna take away the middle of the field. We can guarantee that he's gonna take away the middle of the field, and he's gonna take away Tyreek Hill, and he's gonna he's gonna be he's gonna force you to play left handed from that perspective, and or should say right handed. I guess he's going to force two to play right handed in that respect. He's not gonna let him throw the slants. He's not gonna let him throw the crosses. He's not gonna let him throw to number ten, Like that's gonna
be the game plan. So that take you just had is like something that Bill would notice too, in the sense that, well, if we if we don't let him throw the ball early and we like it, make him handed off or we take I would like, well, I almost wonder if they take the ball now, you know what I mean, like if we keep them cold.
It's not even that it's like because it's not so much like going to the bench and all that. I guess maybe it is.
I don't know.
I just feel like.
If he's probably ways to keep them cold.
He's probably not alone in this. But it's more like if they go run run now it's third and eight, Yeah, I feel like that versus like if he threw the first two right, that kind of thing, right, And I wonder if you just you basically don't it's it's their offense. I know people are gonna hate this take because it's all complex and you know, cutting edge whatever. It's a
little repetitive from the quarterback position. Like you said, it's just it's slant incut, slant in cut, and it's three step back foot throw, three step back Mechanically mentally there's a lot going on, but for the quarterback in that offense, it's very mechanically repetitive. I think when you so, maybe this is more about the offense than it is two. Yeah, I guess I kind of talked through this take here.
I think that if you let him get into that rhythm, he's gonna start feeling it and it just sort of becomes.
Well, second, interesting to see what they do, because I think that there's like a bunch of different ways you could obviously go about it. But like if the Patriots empty the box and ask them to run the ball, that would be one sign. If the Patriots come after him early, I think that's another sign of like, let's rattle him, let's get him off his game early by pressuring them. That's another sign that that maybe they feel
the same way. And I also wonder about like mcdaniels's McDaniels McDaniels uh script, Like does he does he throw early? Like they're a pretty aggressive throwing team. They Yeah, so that you know Daniel does want to run? Yeah, you know those stats that are like you know, over expected, like how often they throw the ball and downs and distances over expected. He pulls his eyes.
Uh, stupid.
They're they're always like near the top of the league and the so so it's like Buffalo Kansas City like teams.
Well and especially like if they don't have most are even more reason for them to keep it in here.
All right, let's get back to the calls. It's Forward in Georgia. What's up Forward?
Hey, alex Evan, how are you guys doing. I love the podcast first time callers following in.
Heaven.
You know what, keep on bringing those truth bombs. Man, you just say what do you see? Because that's what I like. So don't let the beast get you down.
We'll do Mike.
Here's the take. So your podcast is fabulous. That's you know, the micro This is kind of a macro take. We've had great continuity on defense a few the past few years, and we've had pretty good continuity on offense disregarding the offensive coordinator. Once of the players have been together, what do you guys think about this team being kind of like a basketball player where they need to see a shot and go in.
You get over the hump. Yeah, if they could just win one game like they played last Sunday, just win one of those games leveling up.
Well, that's a really good take that be.
Thanks for the call for it. Appreciate you listening as well. Yeah, it's like, you know, the floodgates opening, Yeah, right, like you hit one and then all of a sudden, you hit a million. I get them.
That was literally, I mean I'm sitting up on the because I'm like formulating the stuff this game goes on. That was gonna be my take if they won, was they finally saw one go in and now let's like they've done it, they know they can do it. I think that would have been massive, And I think there is something to that. The problem is, is it by the time that happens is going to be too little,
too late. Yeah, you know, if they win that first such game in week ten, right and they're four and six, right, like Nicole, all right, but it's gonna matter if they do it this week. Yeah, I think that there's absolutely something to that.
I think that's the other part of Yeah, I'm glad you kind of put it that way, because I think that's another part about my frustration overall with the team is their first month of the schedule now just got easier because of what happened in New York, right, But their first month of the schedule is tough. Yeah, it's
super hard. So I knew coming into this first month that if they were gonna have a season, they were gonna have to come out hot, like they were gonna have to come out and at least stay afloat and tread water in the first month of the year. Now they're already go in one, and you just worry, like, all right, maybe the Jets game now obviously looks a lot easier, and I'm not ready to just hand them a wa against the Jets, I'm not, but I think that that's a game they should be favored in now.
But like one in three to me, with like three competitive games and I said, no moral victories, but like three competitive games against Miami, the Cowboys, and the Eagles obviously already happened. Then I suppose that that's like at least staying that's treading water, but really, like to tread truly tread water, you gotta go to and two you got one.
Yes, So I know people hate this staty. This is like the ultimate negative. Gonna give the ultimate negative take now, because anytime an NFL team loses its first game, you hear that to two thing right, and its fans roll their eyes. So last year, the Bengals actually made the playoffs after going oh and two. They were the first team to do it since twenty eighteen. The other there were five other teams that went oh and two. Their
average wins for the season was just over six. If you throw in the Colts and Texans who started one and one, that win average drops below six games. So that I feel like that takes off and framed wrong. It's not to say if you start oh and too you can't make the playoffs. You can. But like the Bengals weren't an O and two team. We knew who they were. It's not if you start oh and two you can't make the playoffs. It's an zero and two start is indicative of a team that's not good enough.
And that's where the concern comes in. It's not it doesn't mean it's it's locked in. But we're talking about again team like Cincinnati last year, who had been to the Super Bowl. We knew who they were. I don't think too many people were applying that zero to two thing to them because we knew they could dig out of it. Yeah, if this team starts oh and two, it might just be a sign that that's the team they are.
Yeah, yeah, especially against good teams right like, because they're not playing cupcakes except maybe Zach Welson and the Jets. A couple more things and then we have a couple one more call than I do want to rap with
the Brady stuff. I do want to talk a little bit more about the defense on Sunday and just are kind of spin it for We talked a lot about how they match up against Miami, which was good and all that, but a Christian Zales and his debut, I'm just going to kind of go rapid fire through a couple guys, the plan and all that kind of stuff. I wrote about that and after further review and our film review a weekly piece, if you want to go and look at how exactly they did it from like
a schematics perspective. But I thought, really what this game made me most excited about defensively was they had Unlike offense, they actually have individual players that I think are move the needle for them defensively. Christian Gonzalez, I know, he gave up seven catches in this game to a J Brown but they were all short of the shorter variety. He didn't give up a single deep ball and give up a single run after catch play.
Like none of that kind of and he came up and tackled.
I thought he played fantastic in this game.
I did for what it was like if he's playing that way in three years, Yeah, for his first career game. Yeah, with what I think the plan was probably don't get beat deep if they make if they throw it underneath, just step up, make that and against the receiver like a J. Brown take that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I thought Christian Zalez was very good in this game. I was excited about it. I don't think he was their best rookie though.
Okay, I was going to get to maybe who I think you think were you going in order the draft? Yes, yeah, with Christian Gonzales. Just and then we'll move on to the next one. Christian Goannzalez. What I liked so much about his game was the tackling. Yeah, yeah, that was a concern coming in with his physicality. I he didn't really want to go there after the game, but I
think that you could tell that he wants. He knows that that was the knock was that he wasn't a physical guy and he couldn't tackle very well that Georgia game, right, like yeah, all that kind of stuff that was the knock and this game. Aj Brown is one of the best yack receivers in the league.
And physically, I mean specimen yeah, Yeah, He's not a guy who's gonna run around, he's gonna run through it.
Yeah, and he was able to tackle m I think that maybe other than the fourth down pass breakup, which was great, he made a tackle on aj Brown coming across the field on third down where aj Brown had like a step on him coming across and he was able to close and make the tackle well short of the sticks.
Yeah.
That play there, I was like, that's a play that if you asked a scout coming into the draft and you said AJ Brown is going to have a step on Christian Gonzalez coming across the field on like third and nine at like third at like six yards of depth, is it going to be a first down? Every scout would say yes, yeah, every scout. And he made the tackle, and I think that's a really good sign of a play that he probably was told he can't make by
a lot of the scouts. And people like us, and that he did make in the game, and that was the most encouraging thing to me from that game. I knew he could cover the deep ball. I knew he would stay a decent you know, tightness, closeness to the receivers, all that kind of stuff. But being able to come up and make that tackle was huge. So you thought the best rookie in this game was Keon White, Yeah, I.
Mean he was awesome. He was You look at what he's doing to Lane Johnson. He is bull rushing Lane Johnson. Yeah, it's he looks like he's been in the league five years. Yeah, there's no rookie element. And he was a huge part of their rush plan against Jalen Hurts. He executed his plan at a high level. You know, he's he was a problem. He was a problem in the Eagles back.
Bed four pressures in twenty three snaps, which is an insane run outstand.
I I'm way too excited for what he's going to be cut and that's in his first game. He's gonna get better. Yeah, I'm way too excited for what he can be. I they have a real guy here.
They need to play him as much as possible. And I don't mean to like say like, oh, let's throw the rookie into seventy snaps a game, Like if they don't feel like he's ready, I feel like he's ready, then you play him in the situation he looks ready. Yeah, I think what what stands out about him?
Look right here is we're watching this and they have the game on it. Right.
So he won four times in the past rush. Two of them were with power just speed to power bowl rush one on each tackle. Uh. Then he won with an inside out move which I've seen him use in practice and it's filthy. Uh just you know, a jude On, It's a Judon move. He put fakes outside, comes back.
Real quick pause. What do you think of that move that Miles Garrett pulled where he does like the basketball came across.
I know he's he's he's a Miles Garrett's an alien like Miles Garrett does not move like other people do. So, yeah, he won with that. Then he won with speed around the corner to speed rip around the corner. He he made it look easy like he really did. He may look easy and not only did I I really not only is he just relentless, but the recovery talent to like plant his foot in the ground and then go chase Jalen Hurts. After Jalen Hurts, you know, leaves the pocket. That's rare.
Like look, I know you just said nobody moves like Miles Garrett and I'm not comparing him to Miles Garrett, but like this isn't He doesn't move like you expect a sixty five, two hundred and ninety pound got to move.
It's the change of direction for that really stands out. Like the play that he bowl rushes mylotta. Yeah, and then he's able to kind of recover and change directions to then get Hurts up into the sideline. That's something that their defensive line has been missing. Like Judean and ouj and bar More can get downhill better than like a lot of guys, but they then they lose contained right, Like they don't recover as quickly as he.
So let me ask you this. You talk about getting him on the field more, and how do you do that?
Yeah?
Can he makes some of this work as an interior rusher?
Yeah? I would hope so, because that would be the next step. I I think that with his hand in the dirt. He crossed his face so quickly that he's going to be really a problem with guards.
Doesn't even need to be hand in the dirty. You could stand them up right, Yeah, we know they do that. My point being like, do you think they can get to the point And I know that they like to put more guys back in these obvious passing situations, But where you have a pass rush group of Jude on and on the edge in Barmore and Keon White in the middle, do you think that's something they can functionally build because if they do, yeah, I mean, it'd be pretty fun.
Yeah.
I do wonder if, like you know, you've used like the Trey Flowers like type of role comparison. I do wonder at one point do they put Keon White at the nose in that five rush package, you know, five zero rush package that they use in that way that they had like four guys standing up around Trey Flowers and it was just Trey Flowers of his hand in the well.
But couldn't you do that with bar more You could and then have wipey one of the guys that's standing up.
You could, Yeah, yeah, any of that would be great.
I think all of that would be I just if you can find a guy to get the find a way to get those four guys on the field in a pass rush situation, I mean, you can really do. So.
It's one of the better fronts in the league. Yeah, I've been saying that all along about the Patriots defensive front. They have one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL. I don't think you know, Niners, Cowboys, Eagles like those teams might have them beat. But other than that, I'd probably take their front over everybody else. It's top five in my opinion. All Right, So he talked about ke Why we talked about Marty Mapu earlier in the show. I do want to give Jawan Bentley his flowers, really
really good Juwan Bentley game. He's he's just a good football player. He's just so good at taking on blocks and condensing space in the running game. I really feel like his development as a player and how fast he plays now compared to how he early on in his career. Like he could always hit, he could always come downhill, but sometimes he looked like his feet were in cement right, Like he looked like his feet were stuck he's such a more explosive, like just flexible player then he then
he used to be. I really give him a lot of credit. He's he's gotten so much better over the course of his career. I played a great game in this one. Uh is there anybody else? Si Jabriel Peppers.
Pepper, Yeah, yeah, he's going to be a player this year. Miles Bryant. I thought playing a good game, which again it's that thing I've been talking about. Don't well. So it didn't start well because they'd a manning up Quez Watkins, which he can't do well.
It was zone but yeah, okay, but.
Like, let him play a deeper zone, come up diagnose like I meant that tackle and aj Brown.
He should be able to play the flat like it was. Okay, it was our p but you get what.
You get what I'm saying, like, just let him let him diagnose rather than chase. When you let him do that, he actually does make plays.
All right, let's take the call from Patty. Who's Who's had some good emails this week, Patty, some some interesting emails. How you doing, Patty?
What's going on? Guys? Not much so I haven't listen. I wasn't really coming after you the other day when I emailed in, my whole point was, like the last few years, I know, the end result was they didn't get it done, and against good teams they haven't gotten
it done. But I think just comparing the last year what I saw them do, Like, I think if this was last year and they were down sixteen to nothing, I would have just I would have been pulling my hair out that they're gonna end up getting beat forty five to nothing or forty five to ten.
In this game.
But you know, I did see some improvement. I thought, even though like Mac got the ball out quick, the fact that they started those two rookies, and those two rookies also went up against those monsters on the defensive line they played, I think everybody played a pretty good game as far as like the offensive line.
Okay, I got to push back on that a little bit, Patty, like their rookies in their first screw starts, I'm not going to kill them, but keep going, keep going. I don't want to.
And Mac, you're right. Mac has to play sixteen minutes, has to play six minute game, can't play thirty minutes. He can't play fifteen minutes and expect to win, but you know that that's done and over week one is done. I don't have a good feeling about this game. When I looked at the injury report, I'm just like, come on, man, like that we're already having offensive line lows now, our starting left tackle, our starting center, and the rookie that
they had what was so playing right guard. He's that they're not going to play.
I could see.
I could see a scenario, honestly where they just there's too many turnovers and kind of like how they began the game last week, where it's just they turned the ball over a couple of times, Miami gets a few quick scores and it's over because they can't block it. And and I don't think Miami's defense is great by any stretch of the imagination. I think Christian Wilkins is a beast.
But.
Forget about it. You're can't block them, You're not gonna freaking win, You're not gonna move the ball. I think the Dolphins are one in this game. And I hate to say, because they're my NFL Yankees, I hate them. They're they're my least favorite sports team, even more so than the Yankees, even more so than the Lakers. That's all I got.
Thanks mate, thanks for the call. I didn't mean. I don't want to trash the rookies because it's their first career start. They're they're thrown into a tough situation. But to categorize Mafi and so is playing well in that game is not really telling the truths.
They played better than expectations. It doesn't mean they played well. That's kind of how I put it. I actually I texted you the number yard sday was it they ran for? I think it was one point three yards per carry between guards? Like, that's not they gave it done.
The two of them gave up twelve pressures between the two of them.
Yeah, twelve twelve pressures one point three yards per carry. Look, they didn't get mac Jones killed, and I think that's kind of what the expectation was enough. So they played better than that, and that's kind of the story of a lot of things with the team's better than expectations. But it doesn't mean it was good.
Okay, so uh good, good way to end it. On the offensive line and then the Brady stuff offensive line, What are we looking at on Sunday for this offensive line? Assuming that the injuries hold.
I understand there all five like, like what are we talking about?
We can talk about, but I understand where Patty's coming from, where everybody's coming from, that they look at the injuries
of the offensive line and it's it's concerning. And I picked the Dolphins in the game, but overall, in terms of like the competitiveness of the game and keeping it close, I actually am not overly concerned with the offensive line because I really was impressed by how O'Brien and mack was were able to manage it on Sunday, and I don't think that this Dolphins front is as good as the one they just went up there.
So I think that's a really good way to put it, because what scares me about this offensive line they can As we were watching the game, Kendrick Bourne takes off. He's so good that hidden plan last year.
He won't let that go and I appreciate it.
Kv's my guy. I've said this for you. I will find a spot for Kendrick Born on my team any day. Guy like on and off the field, just what he thinks. Okay, it's not so much that I'm worried about Mac Jones being under pressure because he handled pressure well last week, and like you just said, the big thing, they'll scheme around it. Yeah, it's that fourth and three that you hated, right, Yeah,
why did that fourth and three happen? Because on third and three they tried to I don't know if it was technically half back dive, but like they went between the guards with the Zegiel Elliot, he got stonewalled. Yeah, that is my biggest concern with the offensive line. When you need a yard to three yards, can the offensive line and lie you to get that conventionally? Are you going to be weird? Are you gonna have to do something?
That's what scares me more than anything else right now with the offensive line.
The part of the reason why they dropped back fifty eight times is because it was sixteen to nothing out of the gate. But they also couldn't run the ball.
So that, by the way, in a way credit to O'Brien, because last year they would not have made that adjustment.
Yeah, and I think you know, the thing that I like so much about O'Brien's offense is that, you know, his quick game and his green game really operates as an extension of.
The run, even though the other thing you said before, you point out he's not afraid if something's working to keep going back to it. Yeah, At the same time, and this is probably kind of the same take from a different angle. If something's not working, even if it's something he likes, he'll understand it's not working and move on. And they moved on from the run game last week.
You can't do that every week. At a certain point, you're gonna have a third one where you just need a pound at home and the offensive line needs to allow needs to allow you to do that.
So for the group, Yeah, let's go over the configurations.
So Trent Brown and City so aren't playing like there's just no way a week after concussion. I think you move Calvin Anderson to left tackle first and foremost. But what are the other offense Andrew Stuber? I think Andrew Steuber is the only other tackle, right, All right, well, you're moving Calvin Anderson to left tackle.
I thought Calvin Anderson initially on my initial watch, I thought Calvin Anderson was fine. I watched the offensive line alone again and he also at a rough game. Yeah, keep going.
I I think some of it too, Like guys are they brought down by like they are all kind of we talk about guys elevating each other.
A lot of it too with him, in all fairness is like you didn't have training companies out there for plays on the week one in the conditioning. You know, a lot of his his bad bad reps came in the second half.
Which makes sense. Yeah, so all right, so you have Callan Anderson left tackle. Let's let's let's do one. We're outside of Andrews. None of the guys on the injury report play, so you're you're still missing Cole Strange and Mike Winning again. I think you're going Callan Anderson, ye, Antonio Maffi, David Andrews. It's probably James Ferrence a right guard is a practice squad elevation over Jake Andrews.
Right, I would think so. And then.
In your Varian Lowe Darian low at right tackle unless he's not ready, in which case they probably recall Andrew stupid. I think there's a chance to get two offensive line recalls for this game anyway. Yeah, if honestly, it's probably a one for one if either of those guards return. Whoever returns, Mafi's in the other spot. Yep, right over Farence.
Yep. Mafi was.
Like, no, you didn't think so. Maybe it's just by comparison.
Jaileen Carter, just it's Carter, but that's that's every week. This week it's Christian.
That's all right, all right, it's fair point, it's fair point. Well, then do you think there's a chance to try Farence and just be like, these rookies aren't ready, we're going.
I think believe to give him the reps and give him the opportunity. The way that I look at Stranger on Uh is that I think that if that was a post Thanksgiving game, I'm not ready to say a playoffs because let's fra it, you know, post Thanksgiving game.
I think the week seventeen against the Bills last year winning in Okay, they play I I thought it was very interesting when Bill was asked about them on Wednesday, he said, you know, where are they gonna play? Sad they'll eventually. It's a really.
Weird because I think one Bill with Bill, it's always gamesman ship, right, he doesn't want to tell the Dolphins anything but yeah.
But usually he just says they're out there practicing, you know. With Andrew, I think the other.
Way to look at it is is that that's a situation where it's bigger than a week two game against Miami and these decisions to make about the long term longevity of the player. But I think that my gut, and this is not any inside information, my gut is is that one of Stranger on when he will be out there.
I feel like Strange is probably closer than when.
Yeah, I think if they're close and they can, it's ninety five percent healthy that one of those guys will play because they have to at this point, like they're desperate for bodies, let alone just the talent level being different. So I think one of those guys is going to play on Sunday. So I agree with your line. If nobody else plays, I think that you're probably in my mind looking at Calvin Anderson, Cold Strange, David andrews Antonio, Maffivederien Low from left to right. I think that on
Winny Will they'll continue to hold on winning out. But I think Strangel will play on Sunday, just gut, not no inside info on that, but I just I think he will and really quickly. Also on the on the offensive line, I gave David Andrews the gold Star at the beginning of the show. But Trent Brown was also really good in that game on Sunday too, which makes
the concussion even more of a bummer. He lost late on that Josh Sweat sack, but other than that, he was he was pretty good in that game, like old Trent Brown, you know, one on one pass pro on the backside and played really welled up, really well. So hopefully that has a one week concussion and he's back long term and it's it's nothing major to worry about, all right, really quickly, we got three minutes before we got a wrap on the Brady stuff. What what what? Just what was your take? Closure?
Closure? It really it really was the thing. When he he left, I remember it was like, you'll get Peyton Manning And when's the last time Peyton Manning did anything remotely related to the Indianapolis Colts. And it's like that sucks because he's such a huge part of that franchise and Brady's even bigger here. It's like I don't want
to lose him forever. I get he had to go somewhere else to play, but it's like, is he just gonna be a buck now and when he said, you know, Patriot for life and to see him in the old Jersey and actually do the rundown and all that and he's gonna come back again, and just it was it's like, all right, he's coming back, Like he's still here, He's still a part of this. I get we have to share him with Tampa. That's fine.
I don't know.
If we do well, that would be even better. No, But like he did, he won a title there. He there's an extent to that.
I don't I don't know if in Brady's so I said at the end of the show, So what.
We know his time in Tampa was purely transactional.
Yeah, and I think that's how he views it.
But but there's all like when they post like you always see now, like the graphic of the seven Super Bowls and there's like the Bucks logo on it, that's what I mean, Like there'll always be that Tampa part of it, but like he's he's still the Patriot for life. I I is. It was it really like I texted like two or three friends, like all of them after that, and I was like that was closure, and they were
all like, that's exactly what it is. Yeah, it was closure on Like rober Kraft said, we never properly got to say goodbye. Yeah, and I think to do that and to hear him say what he said, it felt good.
Yeah. I said that. I was I was gonna be body language doctor Brady, and he passed with flying color.
Pat body language, and like it wasn't There was no cell job, he wasn't wearing TV twelve stuff. It didn't feel like Hollywood, even like this is a stupid little observation that I had. His hair was like it looked like he just played a game. Like he looked up on the no like himself, him standing up you know because like him standing on the podium, like it gave me a little deja vu to like seeing him pictures
of him on the podium after Super Bowls. It wasn't like because I was thinking, like, is he gonna be up there in a suit and he's gonna have the five thousand dollars haircut, and you know he's gonna talk about oh TV twelve now, Oh he went up there in a jersey just looking like some guy and talked about how much he loved it here. That was I didn't think he would do that. I thought we would get Corporate Tom. There was not one ounce of Corporate Tom involved in that. It was awesome.
He uh he let himself, let the let the curtain down a little bit. Yeah, he did. He did. And I said, you know, I was gonna see like, was this like you said Corporate Tom, was this I gotta do this for mister Kraft because you know, twenty years of paying me, like I kind of have to do this, Like all right, I'll go No, this wasn't anything like that. And I genuinely think that, based off of his reaction and how he carried himself throughout the entire day, that
he identifies as a Patriot. I think he appreciates the Bucks years, and he appreciates the Bucks for letting him continue his career in the NFL post Patriots. But I don't think that in his mind he has really anything to do with the Bucks, if that makes sense, you know, Like, I don't think that he really views himself as.
A break right and uh, I mean like I think he'd go back if they had like a thing. But all right, Patriots Bucks Week one, they're both playing at the same time. He gets invited to both he's coming back, He's coming here. I would think, so well, that was the thing. I was like, is that what he's gonna do?
I mean, you know that when he goes into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame game will be Patriots Bucks of course obviously, right yeah, and that'll be fun.
Oh I I that, you know, I don't like usually travel with the team, but like, I've never been in the PROFILEB Hall of Fame. I want to go. I can't think of when I was growing up. But you say I'll go and Drew Bledsoe gets in. I'm starting to think that's not gonna happen. So I'll go in Tom Brady, I'm saying when I was like ten, I used to say that that's great.
Uh yeah, so it was great. I thought the him coming out on the lighthouse first and like that sort of being reveal was cool. Uh the rundown was cool, Like I you know, that's not usually my thing. You know, I hate fun.
I thought, would he like zipping the jacket like that? It was the old jersey? Yeah yeah, and that wasn't just an old jersey, that was a game warn jersey.
Everything. That really the big the thing that got me got me. Yeah, was just like seeing him in Patriots gear again. Yeah, like that was like like you said, like he could have worn a TV twelve stuff he couldn't like, but he was wearing the Elvis.
He was in Patriots gear. Uh, he was a Patriots but it wasn't. But it's even deeper than that. It wasn't like they went and got a jersey from the pro Shop and it was like the new dream. No that and I'll take you you look at the way the jersey's cutting. Yeah, that was a game warn jersey.
Well it was great. All of it was great, and I'm glad it happened. And I'm really looking forward to uh six twelve twenty four, Alex and I I'm sure we'll be there. Oh yeah, and you might have to bring the tissues. You might have to. I got a little emotional, right, I did bring the tissues. It's gonna be a great time.
Uh.
That ticket is gonna be a hot ticket though. That's gonna be a tough one to get, So don't don't don't come side in the DMS asking for tickets.
That Zach Bryan back to back like two weeks.
Oh my god, Yeah, everybody's gonna be at Zach Bryan. That's for sure, all right. Anyways, that does it here? That was a full two hours, no commercials, no breaks, no nothing, just two hours straight of Patriots talk. We put morell to sleep. I love it. We'll be back next week for another show here on Patriots Catch twenty two. Watch us on YouTube, review us on Apple podcasts wherever you get your pods. Thanks for listening. To see you next week.
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