This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth.
Lazar, Blazarre and Lazarre. Hello, everybody, nailed it? Joined us Always buy an our bar Gas.
Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Bars.
Are you focused on this right now or are you lost in the in your your appearance on No.
Sorry, he's saying that I am have a lack of height in a bad back. Half of that is true.
The lack of height is definitely true. I didn't know about the back part. Hello. Hello, Hello, there you go. I wasn't sure if you could hear me for some reason. All right, Hello everybody, Evan Lazar, Alex Bars, Patriots Catch twenty two taking you for the next hour and twenty five, let's call it. We got open locker room at at three thirty, so we're gonna try to to do this without rushing.
Hang on, I know we're up against it. We may need to hit an alternate open though. We may need a you got you need a second? Okay, Yeah, okay, I'm just I feel it might be good this week. What I just have feeling it might be good?
What might be good?
The open.
Excuse me? I I know where this is heading, and you you know that I'm already embarrassed by this entire thing. So I'm glad that you're you're you're milking it now. I really appreciate that.
I don't think what's there to be embarrassed about.
You're in a room full of people and you're you're getting singled out. I'm not like, I don't believe it or not as somebody that like talks and puts themselves out there for a living. I really I'm very socially awkward in that sense.
Oh no, I can relate. And you heard it in the in the open from that two weeks ago. I was being singled out on ninety eight five for trying to get Bruce Springsteen tickets. Yes, but the difference is I I was called I said I had a bad back, and then I was short. You were getting complimented on your football knowledge by the quarterback of the New England Patriots that you'd like to talk about the scheme.
So the laughing.
There it is.
Maybe in an off season show we can we can talk about what my fever dream offense is for the Patriots, if I if I was running the show. But Mac had his way, I have to I have to admit it. It would be a lot like what Billy Oh is installing for the Patriots. I would say, like I think
Alabama Billiyo's offense. Uh, those two offenses together are basically where I would head if I was running an offense which is definitely not going to happen, by the way, And uh, I am a little bit flattered, a little bit flattered, but I.
Know you enjoyed that a little bit.
At the same time, I know that he's he's busting, busting my child.
Just host wise juking teams to death.
To death RPO of course, bunch of slants, bunch of underneath stuff jack monsters. Like my whole roster, my dream, entire Patriots roster would just be Deebo Samuels, right like, just a bunch of Deebo Samuels that can just run with the football. Take your low efficiency, jump outside the numbers and do those on your own time. Take your running game and do that on its own time for sure. More rule, let's do short passes, dink and dunk, and let's yack it up. That's how I would run the offense.
And I think in a lot of ways. That's how Bill O'Brien is scheming this offense up, which is why I'm excited about it. But I don't want to talk offense off the top of the show, but I do have a take about the Patriots offense. But I want to start defense for a second, which is rare for us because we normally do this the total opposite direction.
But the reason why I want to start defense, I've been thinking about this more and more as the weeks and days have have turned into now almost hours for the Patriots regular season opener on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. And this is where I'm at with this matchup, Alex, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how you feel like this is going to go. The Patriots have had all off season now to prepare for this game. They've known that they were going to play the Eagles
in since May when the schedule came out. They've known they were going to play Philadelphia and Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles since May. Now they that was after the draft, but at the same time, just stay with me here. They drafted three rookies at the top of the draft on defense that are athletic, that the second and third round picks can tackle, can chase guys down, can cover a whole lot of ground. And you have a number one corner now who can take aj Brown,
DeVante Smith and hopefully cover those guys pretty well. So they got a bunch of help from the draft on defense. They're returning a bunch of their starters and regulars from last year anyways, and they're adding this on top of it. They've had all offseason to prepare. Show me something, Bill, show me something against a mobile quarterback, show me something against one of these new agey college style option heavy offenses.
It's time to finally put to bed the concerns about this team against mobile quarterbacks and against offenses that run themselves like Ladelphia does. Show me something, have something, do something creative, do something different than what you normally do. We saw it last year justin Fields and Lamar Jackson. We've seen it in other instances in the past. I truly feel like now they have the horses to stop
an offense like this. This isn't twenty nineteen when it's you know, great great players, but high tower van Ney. You know, Juwan Bentley like guys like that. They don't have the sideline to sideline speed and the athleticism in space to keep up with these types of offenses. And that was a systemic, you know, kind of personnel switch that they had to make. You have Kyle Dugger, Adrian Phillips,
Jabriel Peppers, Jalen Mills, and Marty Mapu. Those five guys will call them safeties, call them defensive backs, linebackers, whatever you want to call them. Those guys should help in a matchup like this. Those guys should be out on the field in a matchup like this. I want to see the Patriots finally solve this problem. I have some ideas of how they might get there and can break those down. But that's my main thing about this is that you went into the offseason and you kind of
loaded up on defense. We've talked about this a lot. I'm not saying they haven't done anything to try to upgrade the offense personnel wise, but in particular defensively. We know that they feel pretty stacked on that side of the football. There you go, here's right out of the gate.
Is one of your biggest tests of the season, and I want to see something exotic and creative up their sleeve for Philadelphia and their RPO package and they're read option plays and the different type of things that they do with Jalen Hurts. You have to find an answer to this eventually.
Yeah, just on that you talk about the there's been I think a lot of talk about, oh, the Patriots can't beat a mobile quarterback. I'm not saying that's wrong, but another big issue in these are in some ways related, in some ways not as these AREPO heavy teams and according to Pro Football Reference, no team ran more RPOs last year in the Philadelphia Eagles one hundred and eighty five, more than twenty more in the next closest team, that's the Atlanta Falcons. Yea, So how many times do we
watch the Miami Dolphins? Just are that RPO slant to Jalen Wattle? Yeah, just kill the Patriots. You're gonna see a lot of similar concepts on Sunday. And Yeah, between that and the mobile quarterback, these are things they've had trouble with. It feels like they know they've had trouble with it, Like based on the way they drafted, like you alluded to, I would also.
Say based on the way they've practiced.
Ye, that's what I think.
We did see more of this, And I've talked to some of the players around the locker room this week and they have mentioned, Look, we're gonna see this almost every week now. Now not every quarterbacks Jalen hurts, Like next week they're gonna play to a totally different style quarterback. But at the same time, like you just mentioned, it's
still an RPO offense on first and second down. So whether or not the quarterback's legs are a big time factor or not, they are going to be playing teams every single week that runs some sort of RPO element. It is now a part of the NFL. It's not you can't hide from it anymore. It's gonna be every single week.
Yeah, and I would say too, the Eagles don't just run a lot, they're good at them. I was trying to solid get this number. Yeah, eight point one yards per play on RPOs. The only team that ran over one hundred RPOs that had a better numbers the Dolphins. And it's marginal difference.
And it's also a lot of it's a lot of yak, but yeah, yeah, it feels like this is something they've known they've got to be better at To go back to your opening take about the draft, I know they're hesitant to play rookies generally, especially in Week one. I and I've said this, I don't want them to have a base defense. When I say I don't mean base defense in the sense at like three four, I mean just like a you know, starting eleven these I don't
want them to have that. I want players rotating in and out because the strength of this defense is the potential to be multiple, the potential to be versatile and not throwing the same looks repeatedly. That being said, and I feel that way big picture, I want Marte Mapu on the field Sunday. I want Marte Mapu on the field a lot on Sunday because this is the guy you drafted to go sideline to sideline and spy these kinds of quarterbacks.
Let's see it. Let's see if he can do it.
Yeah, and look, I know that it's a big jump from where Marty maph is playing in college at Sacramento State at the FCS level to the NFL level, but there's so much great film of him at that level closing on quarterbacks and taking down quarterbacks that are trying to leave the pocket like that.
Yeah, he can shoot out of a.
Cannon and he can close in a hurry, and those are things that you need to be able to do to put pressure on the QB. I think that's the one thing that watching some Hurtz film over the last cooking almost week now because it had that extra time in the bye week, the one thing that you can kind of get him on is that he doesn't handle pressure quite as well as you know you would expect
for quarterbacks. The MVP runner up, I think that if you can get him pressure under pressure, and I you know, look, third and long is tough for every team, but this team's efficiency relative to the rest of the league does drop in third and long situations. Now, it's so much said been done to get them into third and eight. So but theoretically, if you can, they're they're human in that situation.
It's funny you say that I'm writing my leg keys to the game. They'll be up tomorrow ninety eight five of the Sports sub dot Com. My overarching theme of the whole thing is easier said than done, and I think that's the thing for this Patriots efense Bill said it this week. Let me pull up the exact quote here, Bill said this week, And of course my computers being weird something about where is he here. I don't think it's a big mystery about what they do. They just
do it well. They're well balanced, so you can't overplay one thing without giving up something else. Yeah, we know what they're gonna do. Bill knows what they're gonna do, Drawed, Steve know what they're gonna do. They're just so freaking good at it that sometimes it doesn't matter. By the way, should be look familiar to Patriots fans. That's how it was run here for a long time. There are like you look and we'll get into some of the specific stuff.
I think there are a lot of elements in this game, a lot of elements in the matchup. You look at and you're like, if the Patriots can do this, they're gonna have a chance. It's not a matter if they have to identify it or recognize it or will if A then B, if B then C. It's just do this, but you have to be able to do it. And that's where that again the umbrella thing for this game, especially when you're talking about the Patriots defense is easier said than done.
I feel like they should have the horses on defense now to be able to do it. They should have the personnel.
Now.
I'm not saying that they're going to shut out the Eagles, like, don't get me wrong, right, but they should have the personnel I think to hold the Eagles into the low twenties, which should give them a chance to win the game. And I really feel that strongly about that. The one thing, and I don't want to get too bogged down right off the top on this on the scheme, minution, all that kind of stuff, and then.
It wouldn't be Catch twenty ten.
But I didn't well know we're going to talk about it. I just want to kind of, you know, set up, set the table here before we get all into it. The other thing I would just say about, uh, you know, the one big thing that I would take away from what they probably should do game plan wise, and I want to explain why this isn't as scary as it sounds. I truly believe that they should be playing man coverage
on early downs in this game. The one thing that really gives defenses a ton of trouble when they try to RPO go up against RPO teams is playing a lot of spot drop zone because just in theory, if you're a linebacker, like if you're Juwan Bentley in spot drop zone and you have the the middle hook right, you have the middle of the field zone and the short intermediate area eight yard zone, you have the middle hook and you have the B gap, you can't be
both places right. So by rpoing you in that situation where you're in zone and you have a coverage assignment and you have a run responsibility, they can put you in conflict and they can make you wrong the entire game. Like you play the B gap, we're gonna throw it by your ear, you play the pass lane, we're gonna run it down your throat, You'll never be right. You'll
be on your heels the entire game. So what a lot of college teams do, and a lot of teams that have been successful in the NFL at stopping RPOs do is they play a lot of man coverage and essentially they treat it as two separate plays. Like the seven guys in the box are playing run and the guys on the outside are playing pass. But you don't worry about the other responsibility. Right, So, Juwan Bentley, if you're the Mike linebacker in this scenario, don't worry about
aj Brown, that's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is stopping to run. And now what you take out of it is the conflict element of it, like you don't have to make these post snap reads and try to play the cat and mouse game. I think that's the problem that the Patriots run themselves into, is that they're too passive against these RPO teams. Instead of trying to dictate terms, instead of trying to be the more aggressive team, they try to sit back and just read and react to everything.
And they don't have the athletes I think in the year's past, and maybe they have those now, but I think most of all, these two teams are just too good at running the RPO element that it makes it really difficult. Now, the adjustments will come. They'll have to come, because what the Eagles will do is they might open with their RPO package, test the Patriots on that, say let's see what they got. Can they stop this? Because
we know they've had problems within the past. The Patriots show that they can stop it, well, then they're just gonna start throwing bombs away to the ISOs on the outside. Right, They're gonna isolate AJ Brown on Christian Gonzales and it's gonna be a go ball down the field, which I don't know if the Patriots really love that matchup in that situation. So that's where the adjustments will have to come in, and you'll see more off coverage or zone
coverage to protect against those things. But I think first and foremost, you have to come out and you have to play man to man. You have to be aggressive in the box, and you have to try to punch them in the mouth right off the bat and try to get them out of that sequencing. They are so dangerous when they are just running those option elements, whether it's just straight read option as a quarterback designed run or it's RPO and all the window dressing they'll motion guys.
They have different types of route combinations they attach to it, you know, screens, slant flats, curl flats, whatever the case may be, and they have a bunch of different things to throw at you in that package. If you can get them into a drop back passing game, I like your chances better because then you can start spinning the dial on Hurtz, right, you know they can try to sky and doing all those different things that they like to do. This is a game for the Patriots defense.
That's all about getting the Eagles off schedule. If they're ahead of the chains, they're gonna put up a ton of points. Yeah, But if you can get them into longer down in distances, if you can get some negative plays out there, or just some incompletes on first downs, right like, it doesn't necessarily have to be moving backwards. If you can get them off schedule, then you have a chance. And that's that's the that's the game right there.
To me is can they win on first and second down often enough that they can get into third and long where they can really start to scheme stuff up and make things look different for Jalen Hurts.
And to me again that goes to slowing down those RPOs. We can get in a coverag assignments in a second, but slowing down those RPOs. And our friend Taylor Kyles from seeing Us had a really good stat this week. Yeah, Jalen Hurts lasses. Last year, Jalen Hurts led the NFL with a one to ten point eight passer rating from the pocket that plummeted to twenty four when he scrambled. So it's this weird mix of you need to be able to knock Jalen Hearns hurts off his spot, but
you don't. You want him running, but you don't want him to run, if that makes sense. You want to create situations. You talk about the drop back passing game, he's not. I mean a lot of this are the receivers too, But like he can make players from the pocket you want. I think this is a big week where they got to make him uncomfortable, move him off his spot. He wants to set his feet, whether it's inside the pocket, whether it's outside the pocket, he wants
to set his feet. Don't let him set his feet when they go to that traditional passing game and they'll run things like RPOs to give him more chances to throw from clean pockets. But it goes back to your point. If you can keep them off schedule, some of that stuff isn't as available.
Yeah, and I think that when you say, you know, to pressure him, the worst thing that they can do in this game, in my opinion as well, is the mushrush stuff. Like, yeah, I think that's the worst thing that you can do.
You gotta get pressure with three or four.
You gotta try to come after him a little bit. And I'm not talking about like zero blitzes and stuff like. I'm not trying to say you should blitz him and that's a mistake, but you need to try to come after him a little bit with the front like Doud jude On a Neuja do their thing. Don't try to get those guys to just set the edge of the defense and keep them in the pocket. So the response to that is, all right, well, how do you contain Jalen hurts his legs. They're gonna have to.
Use a spy And exactly, that's it that you want to force him out of the pocket. But then you it's basically cat and mouse. You need jude on a nucha to force him out of the pocket. But then you need a guy like martem Up who are like Kyle Dugger who's kind of there waiting when he turns that corner that he doesn't have a lane to suddenly run for twenty yards.
Yeah, exactly, And that's where I think in this game, that's Marty mob Who's role, right and that's a it's a situational role. To me, it's when they get him into the longer down in distances where they're expecting drop back pass. That's when he's gonna be on the field. So I don't think that Marty mop Who's gonna play necessarily sixty five seventy snaps on Sunday, But he might play twenty and they might be twenty really impoortly high impact yaps. Yeah, And I think the biggest thing with
that too, with the spy element. And the Patriots usually do a pretty good job about this, but they you want to force him a certain direction. You don't want to give him free rein or like you don't want him to be able to escape anywhere he wants to go. But if you can close the arm side of the pocket so to his right and force him left or force him through the middle, it gives a guy like Mapho a leg up of oh, I know where he's gonna escape. If he's gonna run, he's gonna run this way.
What you don't want is him having a scan from you know, tackle to tackle, being like where is he? Where is he? Then you play that cat in mouse game because Hurts will love that. What you want to do is try to funnel him in a certain direction so that Marty Mapho or I think mac Wilson. If they don't think Marty Mopho is ready for it, I think it might be mac Wilson. Those guys know, Okay, I can be a step ahead because this is where
we're going. So I feel like all these elements should be there for the Patriots to execute at a pretty high level. I would like to see a lot of charging the mesh as well, which is basically different ways to make that mesh point where he holds it. For the read option. You want to accelerate the decision making there. You don't want him to just be able to sit there for two and a half seconds and read it
out and play the game with the chess match. Make him make a quick decision, crash down, send a linebacker from the second level, but make it happen quickly and that way there he's making a split second decision versus being able to string out the play and hold the football. So I said we weren't going to get into the scheme minutia, but that that was I said. I was going to set the table first, but we didn't pant. Okay.
The second thing I want to talk about was something that I actually mentioned it and I just remembered, So I'm glad I remembered off the At the end of the show last week, I said that I think this Eagles defense can can be had as well. And I know I'm hyping this up, like the Patriots have this great chance in this game. You were right that this is all easier said than done, right, So I'm not sitting here, not sitting here saying that the Patriots have
all these advantages and all these types of things. This is the epitome of easier said than done. I for the most part, am not a fan of the Fangio defense. I don't like it. I don't like it. I think that for two reasons. One, I really feel like the Fangio defense is basically just saying, we have really good players on defense and we're just gonna rush four and sit in zone and make you beat us, right, like cool, like sick. They do a lot of disguising up top.
I'll give them that. You know, it's it's too high out of the base of their defense, and then it becomes one high becomes six, like you know, quarter quarter half like they do that type of stuff, and that can be difficult, especially for teams that run a lot of route conversions and options, because is it six, is it four? Is it three? Right? You have to decipher all of that post nap. But this Eagles defense to me is they're gonna sit in zone. They played They
played zone seventy one percent of the time. Last year. They hired the associate head coach of the Seahawks to be the defensive coordinator. This year, it's gonna be a zone team. They're gonna play a ton of zone. They have some new faces in the safety room, in the
linebacker room that are gonna play big roles. The reason why I mainly don't like the Fangio defense as much as maybe other people do one they don't really scheme up the pass rush a whole lot, Like you just kind of know the four guys that are coming, and that's sort of the way that it plays out most
of the time. They do run some like creeper pressure where they'll like send a linebacker and drop a guy off the line of scrimmage, but for the most part, you aren't getting a whole lot of exotics when it comes to blitz package right, Like, it's not like a Brian Florez blitz package or something like that. The other reason this is gonna shock you, This is gonna surprise you. What's the last Fangio defense? And I can break You know, rams run Fangio. Chargers run Fangio. The Broncos, of course
when he was their head coach, ran Fangio. And you know this Eagles team runs Fangio. There's not a whole lot of teams that run the Fangio system that stop the run. They're just they just don't care. Like they play out of these two high shells. They I hope that the front four can slow up the run. The whole point of the Fangio front mechanics is that they want to slow down the ball carrier in the run game long enough for the defensive backs to rally to
the football and make stops on the ball. But they'll give you the first four yards like that's gonna be there all game long. This Eagles defense, as good as it was last year, was twenty first in DVOA against the run. They were not a great run defense. And we've seen what's happened in I would say most importantly in Charger Land, right, the Chargers can't stop the run to save their lives out of the two high shells because they don't have the defensive lineman. They hates, they
don't care the Eagles to have the defensive lineman. But you can run on this team. You might not register explosive runs.
Right.
That's how they get you is they don't. They're they're running. They're allowing you those first four or five yards, but they're not gonna give up a lot of thirty five yard runs. They're gonna give up the shorter runs, but they're not gonna give up the explosives. I would run the Ball's not for the traditional reasons of like, oh we got to kill the clock and keep Jalen Hurts
on the sideline. That is part of it. Maybe that's a secondary thing, but I I'm more concerned about putting up points than I am of keeping Jalen Hurts on the sideline. But the most part, I would run on them because I think that eventually they will adjust and they will try to spin the dial to get that extra hat in the box, and then you will get some single high structures that Mac can attack. So I
want them to run the football offensively. I think you can run the ball against this front, even though it's great, and we already know that this entire offense, and this is sort of, you know, the big picture with the Fangio thing that I was discussing, we already know that this offense is going to try to hit a lot
of short passes. Like, I don't think that this offense, even if they weren't shorthanded on the offensive line and facing the best pass rush in the league in Week one, I still don't think mac Jones is holding the ball a whole lot in this offense anyways, Like I don't think that's the way the whole thing is designed. So I like their ability to get the ball out of
Max hands in this game. I think the biggest thing for them, if you're the Patriots offense that's gonna hold them back is what we've talked about all summer long, with the offensive line against this front, and that's the easier said than done piece, right, Like can you actually block it is a whole different question. But I think schematically, from a fundamental standpoint, this defense has more holes in it than people maybe think because of where they ranked
last year in against the pass. I think they were number one pass defense in the league. They led the league in sacks. But I think at the end of the day, I don't like zone teams. I don't think it's too like. I don't think it's that grow yeah kind of like, I just don't think it's that sophisticated. Like if you have the legion to boom, then by all means like sit and cover three all games long. But these teams that play all this zone, like these Fangio teams do, their whole identity is to keep the
top on the defense and limit explosive plays. Fine, like, so Mac Jones, I don't be throwing bombs this week, Like I don't know understand why. If you're the Patriots offense, that would be a problem for you, right, Like right, I don't think that's a deterrent for you. You don't want to hold the ball anyway because you have who God only knows who at right tackle trying to block us on Reddick. So you don't want to hold the ball anyways, and you want to be a death by
a thousand paper cuts offense, So have at it. If they played too high, cover four, cover six, things like that. Run the ball and take your slants right like it's And that's where I think that this defense can be had, so that that's both sides of the ball for you. I don't know how you feel about the Eagles defense, And.
Yeah, it's kind of the same. Just to put some numbers behind what you said. Everybody thinks of the Eagles as this elite pass rush and I'm not saying they're not. But they blitzed. Their blitz rate last year was twenty two point one percent. It's eighteenth in the league. So they weren't. They were blitzing less than average. It's not like it's not like the Jets who don't blitz, right,
it's significantly less than average. And if we do some quick math on the air, Evan, and this is the kind of math I believe is a plic If you're not blitzing, how many players you're rushing four? And how many players will the Patriots have to block those rushers five at least? So you have an extra guy. You have an extra guy. Now this is where the easier said than done thing comes in. You talk about this a lot. It's kind of a saying with Offenselime py right,
you can cover up one spot and be okay. It's when you have to cover up multiple spots. And that, to me is what the question is for the Patriots offense in this game. They're probably gonna have to cover up right tackle. I think we feel that even if Calvin anders like, we don't know what Calvin Anderson is. I don't want to throw him under the bus right away and say, oh, he you know, he needs to be compensated for, but he really doesn't played. He was on NFI all summer. Kind of shape is he and
he hasn't been with this group. So if he's the guy you're covering up, fine, what does that mean for cold Strange because last year, so last year, there were three different spots over the course of the season they had to cover up at times his left guard, at times, it was center, at times it was right tackle. Yeah, and there were times where it was only one And
that's when the offensive line looked. They were eleventh last year in pressure rate allowed, So they weren't as bad as it Maybe they were as bad as it seemed, but that's kind of a league thing. They weren't that much below the norm. Where it got ugly was right when David Andrews went out and now you have to help at center, but you were also helping it left guard, and now you're putting your left guard on an island.
And as we saw, he struggled with that. Aul Strange struggled that or when it became a mess at right tackle and now you're shading coverage that way. Can Cole Strange of this? Can Cole Strange hole And I'm not saying he Kenry can't. We don't know. He didn't practice all summer. We have no idea what his year two jump is.
He's gonna have Jalen Carter lined up over him, He's gonna have Fletcher Cox lined up over right. These are big boys coming.
He needs to He needs to win those one on one essentially for the Patriots offense to really be able to move the ball. Cole Strange is gonna have to win one on one against Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Fletcher Cox. You add to it some of what you said. They can build in some mechanics that naturally slow down the rush. Don't like guys pin their ears back RPO play actions screens things like that that are a big part of
Bill O'Brien's offense naturally, so that should help. And then there's also that element of all right, so it's what was it four verse five? How often do you want to go four verse six and you bring in Pharaoh Brown or you leave a running back into block, or you even go, you know, Tyrone Wheat leavedarian low tackle eligible. But that's what that's what it comes down to to me. Can the Patriots five be better than the Eagles four? Is that one player advantage enough to make a difference
because the Eagles aren't gonna blitz a lot. They're not, and honestly, this is a game where to me, they'll probably blitz less. That's an average for seventeen games of twenty two point one percent. I would think in a matchup like this, and if there is gonna be a change they've talked about, they don't want to make a big change with the defensive coordinator. If there is gonna be a change, I would think you blitz less comings
than that Seattle system. So you should have that five on four a significant amount of the time on Sunday. You just need to win five on four goes back to the to that concept. It's easier said, like I can say sit here and say, yeah, five guys should be able to block four guys. Well, when those four guys are the Eagles defensive front, it's a little different.
Yeah. Well, I think you make a great point about to sigh and what he's going to bring over here. So Seattle, I believe, was the least blitzing team in the NFL.
Second second least. The Jets were at fourteen point nine percent jet. I know their numbers are a little different than I'm a loyal PFR guy.
Yeah, so that's fine. Seattle doesn't blitz a lot and they're both significantly low. But what what's astounding about how many sacks the Eagles piled up last year is that they were a middle of the road blitz team. They were dead last in the league in stunts, right like tackle end stuns or pick plays and things like that, dead last. And they were also near the bottom of the league and simulated or creeper pressure. So they just
rushed for like that, That's just what they did. They just had four coming at you every single game, and they accumulated d Sachs by just rushing four guys right where you thought that they were going to be, and they still were able to get to the quarterback seventy times, which is incredible. That's incredible in itself. But this is one thing that I think gets a little bit flies under the radar because they were not local in Philadelphia.
This is one of those things that, like we would talk about about the Patriots because we know the Patriots so well, but we started talking about the other thirty two, especially teams in the NFC, it might get lost in the weeds. Eagles fans hated Jonathan Gannon. They hated Jonathan Gannon not because of like the hard knock style stuff that we've seen from the Cardinals release a little bit of. They hated Jonathan Gannon because of how vanilla he was
in the pass rush. They never blitzed, they never ran any simulated pressure, they never ran any sort of exotic pressure looks up front ever, and Eagles fans it drove him nuts. They thought it was a deterrent to their team that they weren't doing this. Now zone teams don't.
It's a lot because they want to keep the seven guys in coverage right because you're covering grass everywhere, and if you start to take spa distribution, yeah, if you start taking guys out of coverage, then you're trying to cover space with six guys instead of seven, and you,
guys get the idea. The one thing that the Seattle did a little bit more than Philadelphia did, and I think the side will probably bring with him to Philadelphia are creeper pressures, which is when you rush somebody from the back seven, so a linebacker or a safety or somebody from the back seven level, but you drop a
player off from the line of scrimmage. So we see the Patriots do this all the time with Matthew Judon last year at times like that Raider game where Juwan Bentley is gonna blitz up the middle and Judon's gonna drop off the edge and replace him in the coverage. So you still keep your numbers in both the rush and the coverage the same, but the pressure is coming from a different direction than what you're expecting pre snap. So I think that there's gonna be some of that.
All that is post snap diagnosis. Right, you have a lot of the time, like they'll say, all right, the left guard and the left tackle, you have two of the three guys over here. If two guys come, then you got to block both of them.
Right.
If three guys come, the third guys on the quarterback or sometimes it's three over four, and we're gonna have the center open to that direction and then you guys have three. If fourth guy comes, then Mac is hot. Mack's got to get the ball out at that point. So those are the types of things that they will have to work through, I think a little bit more than what the Eagles did last year, but in general, it's what builds it. Their structure is their structure. They're not choosing.
There's no you know, oh well, they'll disguise this, and we have to be ready if they show this look. It could be three or four things. And but this is where again it goes back to we've talked about this a lot. What is Bill of Brian's offense predicated on, Get to the line, identify what you're seeing, check to the play that matches the identification, and go. And if you do that correctly, odds are you're gonna have a successful place. It not gonna be a touchdown every time,
but you'll move the ball. There's no the Eagles aren't disguising it. It's they're just again. It's that thing, especially on the defensive front with four on five and they're still they got seventy sacks because they are just better. It's not scheme, it's not disguised, it's not there. You gotta be better than them, period.
Yeah, that's what it is. They do disguise a little bit on the back end, but it's it's safety rotation, right like they always start in a two high shell. Every Fangio defense starts in that too high shell. They played most of their coverage snaps last year and cover three, so they'll start too high, and then they'll rotate the buzz defender into the box to play the crossers coming from the passing strength, and then they'll have the one high shell. But for the most part you're talking about
just like post snap safety rotations. You're not talking about the Patriots. They they are diabolical defensively with their disguising, so they'll drop. I think what a great example is one of my favorite examples was Kyle Duggar's pick six against Miami last year. They showed Cover zero pre snap,
it was Tampa two. After this snag right, they rotated the entire Kyle Duggar rotated from the line of scrimmage into the deep Tampa two hole and was formed to cover two defense from what looked like zero.
The Eagles don't do that game you see anything.
That they They rotate their safeties, but they don't disguise on that kind of level. But at the end of the day, as we keep saying, easier said than done, because the Eagles have a lot of a lot.
Of dogs, just go block Fletcher Cox one on one.
When I say a lot of dogs, yes, they have a lot of Georgia bulldogs, but they also have they also have a lot of dogs like they just also have a lot of really good players, and that can be problematic. All right, let's open up the phone lines that we can discuss this matchup with you guys. There's a couple more scheme things or you know, game plan things that we want to get into, as well as some matchups and things like that. But let's see what the people have to say, Alex, let's start with Sean
and Vancouver. Sean, thanks for staying on hold. What's up, hey, Evan?
Now that's your Patriots offensive coordinator. I have some plays that I want to run by you. When the Patriots are first goal, I'd like to bring in a jumbo package, try and rump the middle of it doesn't work, have the same personnel, and go play action pass role option.
Right, what do you think?
Okay, well, I appreciate the call, and yeah, if you want to send plays into me, because I guess that's the thing, And thanks Sean for the call. Evanlacraft se dot com. There you go, send them in, send me in the drawings, right, go draw them up and show me what you got. You mentioned six offensive lineman at one point. I actually really like that in this game for a couple of reasons. One reason is, as I mentioned, they play out of that too high shell. They can
be run on. I don't think that they're gonna change what they do just because you bring a sixth offensive lineman in the game. So I think you could really open up in this game. First drive six offensive lineman and run it pretty effectively. I think the other thing is is that when you go six offensive line, you think about it is short yardage or a game plan wrinkle, right, Like those are the two different things that you think of.
They can dial up play action off of that, and if Philly is gonna play zone, then they only need three routes, right, Like, they don't need to put five guys in the route if Philly's playing zone, because you can just overload it to one side of the field. So if you're playing cover three and you have the flat defender and you have the Cover three the deep third, if you run three receivers into that zone, it's two gas two.
It goes back to that thing because it's like, you're right with man, You've got to match the concepts because you're trying to manipulate defenders, manipulate space. You're not doing that against zone because the defenders are going to do what they're going to do. Yeah, and it goes back to the thing where you kind of know where they're gonna cover, where they're gonna not. You know where you're gonna be able to run guys to and get them open.
But you gotta be able to do it. Yeah, easier said than.
Kansas City used a lot of flood concepts, so though what they what I really liked about Kansas City's plan in the Super Bowl is that they use a lot of motion to cover the flat right, So they would motion like Kadarius Tony or Sky Moore across the formation and he would run a flat route and that would
hold the flat defender. Then the other side of the formation that would run a vertical and then they would just run like a flag pattern and fill it in with Travis Kelcey and they're just they're just overloading the zone on that side of the field, and then it's just a simple high low read for Patrick Mahomes. If the defender backs down off the flat and covers Kelsey on the flag route, then you just throw the flat and you just take their yards underneath.
The defence and they'll and if they give that to you take it all day. And then we get down on the red zone, you're on the football.
That's a profit. So uh, that's a that's a good point. Six offensive line the goal line, six offensive line. I don't I like that as well, especially because they're not going to have a full back. It doesn't seem like so I like them going six offensive line short yardage. One nitpick on Sean's call. Don't love rolling the pocket on the goal line. Don't like it because it shrinks the space that you have.
To work I do think you need to roll. You need to roll a little bit in this game. You need to reset the pocket because again it don't do it a lot, and not saying like designed bootlegs for mac Jones, but when you move the pocket every once in a while to another one of those things that upsets the timing of the pass rush. But you can do that between the twenties.
I just don't love of shrinking the field because the shrink in the red zone, the field is already so condensed. Yeah, so then when you start shrinking it now, all of a sudden, you're really only dealing with like a four x four buds. I'm with you, that's my philosophy. Unless you have a quarterback that's a threat to run it in and you can just turn the turn the rollout into a natural boot leg and score. Like you don't need to be rolling out in the red zone. But again I do hope they do some.
Rollouts at some point two or three couple, but just give them one early so that the guys on on that side of the line. It gives the defensive ends something to think about. Hey, I can't get up field too quick because if they roll it out behind me, I'm out of the play.
See. I like on the goal line. They ran a lot of this in training camp, which I really like. They have you know, two it's two by two, right, so they have two receivers over here and two receivers to his right, and they're usually in some sort of stack, and it's two different route concepts of what they're running. And then he just sign of looks at the structure of the defense and then decides which side of.
The field to read which covery, you know, based on the coverage? Am I going with with concept? Air concept? Am I going left and right?
All right? John's in Louisiana. What's up?
John?
Hey? Hey, heaven offense the coordinator?
Oh my god. Maybe we'll see.
But I want to go into the that you were talking about. A lot of people aren't talking about that. They loved Javon Hargrave. That's not gonna be an easier place you get a rookie, But I mean, like Javon R. And you're losing the guys. Who's the chunky. I think we would be able to pass on them.
Oh, I think we lost them.
I think that was the call. I'll say that they lost. They lost Hargrave, who did have eleven sacks last year. Yeah, they have two other guys returning to go to eleven Hassan Reddick at sixteen. They also had a Jalen Carter, who a lot of people thought was the most talented player in the draft.
Yeah, Jalen Carter worries me and this guy'll.
They'll be fine without Javon Hargrave. You want to He's a good player. But Carter Johnson maybe a little bit of a tougher replacement. We got talking about this, they're not if you can get it blocked, you're gonna get guys open.
Yeah, you just.
Gotta gotta get a blocked said done.
Gardner Johnson is is an interesting replacement. So they'd signed Terrell Edmunds from the Steelers. Yeah, who's kind of like a Kyle Duggar like safety nickel type of player. And then they also have Avonte Maddox who can be more of like a natural slot corner. And so those are their two guys who replace Chauncey Gardner Johnson. But Johncey
Gardner Johnson is a really underrated player. He can play safety and he can play nickel, and he's physical, So he can hold up against the run as well, playing closer to the line of scrimmage. That's a really key role in the Fangio defense because you're playing out of those lighter boxes and you're playing out a lighter personnel. You need to have a nickel that's willing to stick his hat in there in the run game. And Chauncey Gardner Johnson was able to do that. So Terrell Edmonds
is a bigger, thicker guy. Like like I said, he's kind of like a Kyle Duggart type, so I think he should be able to do that as well. But then it has a trickle down effect on their safety group. Blaken Ship, right, is there are other safety Yeah, he's not the kicker. No, he's a guy that didn't play a ton last year. He's kind of like a rookie that they liked last year and had a promising first season. But they're putting a lot more on his plate this year than what he had last year. So it's gonna
be interesting to see how that squares away. Patty is an agua on Patty. What's going on?
What's going on?
Jen?
Hey, I don't know.
I said this on Rooks Show. Yesterday, Ivan, you had already left. But I just have a good feeling about this week. Not good enough that I think that they're gonna win, but I think it's gonna be a lot closer than people think. And I'm gonna give you two guys that I think might have some surprising contributions. One
of them is Mike the Sickie. I think he mean, I think it was you said I'm you earlier this week that you know, probably the biggest weakness of the Philadelphia defense in the middle of the field, their safeties. So I wouldn't be surprised, you know. Phil O'Brian's not a more hate to take pot shots, but he's no Matt Patrician when it comes to offense, you know, so I think he'll he'll know how to exploit that. And the other guy who I think might have a sneaky
good game is Kayshaun Boody. I think, especially if DeVante Parker is limited and he doesn't if he ends up in active, I think one of those rookies you're gonna see have a big game. And I don't think it's gonna be top because I think, you know, I think Booty's more you know, plays more of that X role, not that he's in the mold of an X receiver, but I think he's He's more in line to replace DeVante Parker than Pop is. And that's all I got, guys, let's freaking go.
Yeah, thanks for the call, Patty. I love that. I love that ending there, so quickly, let's start with Kasiki and the tight ends I want. I did want to talk about this. I definitely think the middle of the field can be had against his Eagles pass defense. Neither of the Patriots tight ends or Travis Kelcey. We know that Kelsey had a good super Bowl against them, and even though no one's Travis Kelcey and no one's gonna do it as high of a level as Travis Kelcey,
Hunter Henry and Mi Kasiki aren't slatches. They're not talking about bad tight ends, so they might, you know, if Kelsey's out of ten, like, they might be executing it at a seven. But a seven is still pretty good, so I think that that can be an advantage for them.
I like to get a SICKI shout because I think if you're going to run some of these zone beaters, you do want somebody that is a little bit faster, that can get into the voids a little bit quicker, so they don't close, you know, they don't react to it and close it. So I think that Kasiki could have a pretty big role in this game. Kelsey ran you know, he ran the double move on the touchdown in the Super Bowl. I don't know if the Patriots tight ends are going to run a double move.
I don't know if they're gonna The defensive line gives them enough time to run double.
Yeah' fair too. I don't know if anybody's going to run double moves as well as the Chiefs and Travis kelcey. But Kelsey ran a lot of like post corners and different types of things like dad crossing routes and then the post corner off of it to play with their zones. And I do think that Kasicki and Henry can do that as well. Yeah, not at a Travis kelce level, but at a lesser extent that's still productive.
Yeah, it's still at a high level. Absolutely.
All right, let's talk a little bit about the offensive line. I buried the offensive line forty minutes into the show.
I did a whole thing on them.
What are you talking about Well.
I didn't.
I didn't want to. Like, I feel like we've ragged on the offensive line enough, all right, So here's my thing with the offensive line. I expect the offensive line to be about as fully healthy as you can imagine at this point. I think that they are going to walk on the field on the first offensive play of the game with from left to right, Trent Brown, Cole Strange, David Andrews, Mike on Wentu, and Calvin Anderson.
He makes if it's not Calvin Anderson, it's a guy who's played at most thirty three NFL snaps unless they're going to elevate James Ferris right down.
So I think it will be Calvin Anderson as well. Here's the catch. The obviously Calvin Anderson again, Son Reddick or Josh wat is a mismatch. Yeah, itself like that. That's that's one catch to this. The other catch is that I don't think all those guys are gonna go wide or wire on Sunday. And it's supposed to be hot. It's supposed to be humid on Sunday as well.
I think it's supposed to rain, isn't it.
Yeah, maybe in the morning I think if that's I'm worried about, like the rain happening and then the humidity hitting.
Right like after the rain, I'm seeing rain like all day okay, but still very humid. So it's gonna be like it's gonna be like they're opening Miami again.
Yeah, it's gonna be hot and it's gonna be humid. And my guess is that they're not gonna have all five guys go wire to wire.
And on top of that, they usually don't in Week one. It's the whole extension of the preseason game. They keep guys, they like to rotate and get different looks early on.
So last year they played seven linemen in Week one in Miami. I believe Brown. I think it was Brown Andrews on when who played wired to wire. So those three guys played the whole game strange in the right tackle, who is Isaiah Win at the time, Isaiah Win? I gave way a little bit to to Ynika just and then I think strange.
Maybe it was Farens.
Yeah, they got in for strange. So I think that you're gonna.
See did Isaiah Win kick inside? No? I think it was okay, it would have been fair because they didn't play any They only played for interior alignment last year was on when who Andrew's strange inference that was that no other interior linement plays.
So they're gonna play a little bit. I think they're gonna play seven or eight guys, I think in this game, and it might be different. And what I mean by that is I think Mafi is gonna be the backup guard. He might he might swing both ways though no pun intended pun, you know what I mean? Yeah, he might play left and right. So Cole Strange needs a blow, he goes into left on when who needs a blow? He goes in that when who goes to right tackle?
I don't think so, not yet, not yet. I think that that's a break class situation with who write tack.
Think against this Eagles front, you could see that it's possible.
But I how I get to eight is I think Mafi's gonna play a little bit at guard for stringing on one. I think someone else is gonna play right tackle. I don't know who yet, but I think it's I'm gonna Darian Low maybe gets in there at right tackle. I think Tyrone Wheatley gets in as the sixth offensive line, So I think that that's how you get to eight.
But don't expect I I Alex, you're one hundred percent right that they usually don't go the distance week one anyways, especially with a banged up group like this that hasn't practiced a whole lot this summer, I would expect a pretty significant rotation on the offensive line. I think you're gonna see a lot of bodies up there. Yeah, I'd agree with that, But do you feel how do you like? I guess where is your your your panic meter with the offensive line at this point? Because we both give me.
Both I mean this I I gave I said that whole thing before, right about five players verse four players, and I can cole Strange basically hold up one on one against some of those guys. I don't feel great about that. I think Trent Brown, David Andrews, mikeel Winner, you know what you're gonna get from those three guys, and those three guys should be pretty good. Everybody else, the other two spots, the backups that are going to rotate in cold Strange, you kind of have an idea.
Everybody else here is a total unknown to me, because we literally didn't see any of them. Calvin the Anderson was not even cold strange, he didn't He took part in thirty minutes of a padded practice, didn't get into team drills and a padded practice, So we really don't know what his two year two jump looks like. Calvin Anderson was on NFI till practice is closed to the media, so we have no idea what he looks like. Vederian Lowe and Tyrone Wheatley just got here. You have rookies.
It's a lot of unknowns. Yeah, that's you have two unknowns in the starting lineup and then pretty much unless they elevate Farens, which I don't think they're gonna do, not this week. All guys that really even played.
Yeah, I I feel better about the offensive line than I did ten days ago.
And I think, all right, sorry, let me let me so. You said for the game in the season, So that was for the game for the season. So last year. I'll do PFF this time, not PFR, because they have the PFF number in my head. I go back and forth it whichever one better suits my argument. Right, that's the sports this. He's honest about it. Marine they were eleventh in the league last year in pressure rate allowed
according to PFF, which you said, it's pretty good. It's all right, well, but like there's an offensive line shortage in the league. We've talked about this, so I don't know.
This is why I don't like pressure rate, not to like go into the whole thing about it. But there's screens there.
Okay, But here's my point, Like, they weren't the worst offensive line in the league.
No, they weren't.
I don't see whether you think they were the eleventh best if I think that's high. But yeah, I would say they were in the top twenty.
Okay, maybe twenty.
Maybe twenty. But like they weren't atrocious compared.
To They weren't.
They weren't a complete But here's my point, they may not be better. I don't see how they get penny injury. I don't see how they get worse because four of your five starters are the same. In that fifth spot right tackles, it's the same thing. It's just different names. You're still doing a rotation at right tackle. Last year it was Isaiah Winn, Yadnika, just Connor McDermott. Who am I missing? Yodney yeah, all four of those guys. Well,
Connor McDermott still here, but he's on IR. You're just replacing those guys with Calvin Anderson, Vederian Lowe, Tyrone, Wheatley and City. So yeah, that's it's the same. So it's the same thing. So I don't see how they get much worse. I don't think they're gonna be better, but I also don't think they're gonna be worse. I think it's gonna be the same thing. And when they were healthy last year, they made it work. It wasn't great,
but they made it work. If they can stay healthy, I think long term they have the ability to make it work. But there are some things they're gonna need to do to sort out, to build chemistry before they get up to that point, and having to face this defensive line in week one it doesn't exactly make that easy.
Yeah, So I don't think that they're worse. I agree with you. I think Cole Strange in year two will be better. I think Mike on One and David Andrews are still good. And Trent's Trent. Like, Trent's not an elite left tackle. I don't even know if he's a Pro Bowl left tackle at this point. Maybe he was in twenty eighteen. I think that was really the only time he's touched that. But he's typically a serviceable left tackle.
I this is not the show for it, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about this next offseason. They are looking for a left tackle next offseason. I wholeheartedly believe that. I know we're talking last year. I I know we have and I know we're talking a lot about right tackle. Right tackle is a lower floor position for them right now, but long term, Thanks for your service, Trent Brown, but it's time to move on and find something more stable.
Mac Jones establishes himself as the guy, Yeah, they're I think it. Outside of Kyle Duggar, I think they're pretty good in terms of penning for agents. Yeah, you know they can afford to lose Josh Hues, it wouldn't be great, But same with Mike Gounwin, who just the way they've drafted the last couple of years. If mac Jones establishes himself as the guy, you got to get him a blind side protector and a number one target. Yeah that's one and two.
Keep saying that, right, and you know you can you can go clip me saying that probably in twenty twenty one. Yeah, right, Regardless, I like their long term outlook along in the offensive line. And I know that sounds a little bit contradictory some of the things I've said about the group in the past,
but my whole thing was twofold one. I wanted to see the projected starting five actually healthy and out there and playing together before I panicked, right, like, we haven't seen That's fair, and forget about right tackle for a second. But we haven't seen Brown, Strange andrews On. We haven't seen that group.
We haven't seen I mean, they didn't have both starting guards for a I don't think there was one open padded practice where they'd both starting guards.
Now I know there wasn't, no, because my I want it was. It was on pup the whole time.
No, I'm saying, like, either, what like every padded practice we saw this summer they had backups at both guard spots. You're saying outside of that that ten minutes before got hurt in the first one, which was basically stretched like the first competitive Revy til he got hurt, we saw him stretch. Yeah, doesn't tell you a lot about your twol.
So that's why I've I've that's my my holding out hope about the group, right is that Okay, we really haven't seen the group, like we're panicking.
You know what this is. It's the same logic I used for my two kicker. Take until you have a reason to disbelieve it, you can't. You can't disbelieve it.
Fine, but we were panicking in the preseason, myself included about city. So and you know these guys that, right, aren't it are a really big time factor.
But I think but I maybe I was alone in this. My panic in that was we're not that far away from these guys playing.
That's fair, that's fair. We don't have to worry about that, hopefully this week, but we're not that far away long term. The other reason why I'm not as concerned about their law term outlook is I think that Bill O'Brien and I the jury for me is still out. On Adrian Clem. I feel the same way that I feel in some respects about the quarterback as I do about Adrian Klem. I think Mac Jones can play, Okay, I think Adrian
Clem can coach the offensive line, but do. I can I sit here and know for definitively for a fact that Adrian Klem is a good offensive line coach and Mac Jones is a franchise quarterback. No, I can't. I can't say that. Right is very sadly, But I think Adrian Clem will have that group ready to go and we'll be okay offensive line. And I this is a scarnekism that I stole from him. So this is not
like some words of wisdom from me. Yeah, Scarnekie always talks about how that's the one group on the field where it's all about all five guys being on a string. You can punch above your weight if you have all five guys on a string on the offensive page. Yeah, if you're picking up blitzes together, and you're sliding together, and you're conboying or double teaming blocks together, you can do it with lesser talent.
This is these seeing it through the same eyes concept.
Yes, you can do it with lesser talent. You can. So if right tackles an issue, but Calvin Anderson and Mike on Winnu and David Andrews on the right side of things, they got it buttoned up, then it will be a lot cleaner than just Calvin Anderson being an
anchor to the whole group. So that's the difference between this year and last year to me is they have pre snap ability now to change protections and get the protections in the right order, and that's going to be mostly ninety percent of that's going to be on the quarterback and the other ten percent will be on Andrews.
And they have a lot better fundamental understanding of just the fundamentals, the basic principles of the offense, and that I think will hopefully make this group better than the sum of its parts, right like.
It, Well, it doesn't feel like that's what their plan was. Yeah, they're investing. We were waiting for them to invest in a tackle and instaid. They invested in the coach to elevate the players they had.
Yeah, it's such a big difference when it comes to protection calls. Most of the Patriots' protection calls that aren't play action or seventies protections, they call them and they have different you know, they'll call different numbers in the seventies and that's a different type of protection and that
ability to come to the line of scrimmage. David Andrews will call out the front right, He'll say four down, three down, something like that, and then to be able to adapt pre snap to what exactly the defense is showing you to get it blocked properly. They weren't doing stuff like that last year. They were coming to the line of scrimmage and snapping the ball and whatever happened happened right like that was the approach. Unfortunately last year. This is gonna be a little bit different, and I
think that's gonna help them a lot. So I'm not concerned about like the long term outlook. With that being said, this game on Sunday does have the potent. The look kind of rough, yes, and we have to grow with the growing paints. You know, it's gonna be it could be tough. This is the best pass rush in the NFL by a country mile.
This is so I looked this up earlier. Not only did the best pass rush in the NFL, it's seventy sacks last year, It's tied for third most by a team in NFL history. Yeah, do you know how many times a team has had more than sixty sacks in a season since two thousand No? Three? The two thousand Saints, Yeah, which is kind of random.
Yeah, that's very rare.
The two thousand and six Chargers, who it's like the Chaine Merriman those teams were filthy, and then the Eagles last year. That's so there's a bunch of teams in there in like the in the eighties and nineties that had like sixty something sacks, but since two thousand only two teams and neither of those teams reached the seventies. It's sixty and sixty six for the Saints and Chargers. Yeah, Eagles got to seventy. This isn't just the best pass rush in the league. This is the best pass rush
the NFL is seen in probably two decades. Yeah, definitely in built. Let's put this way, this is the best pass rush Bill Belichick has ever faced. It had uh as the head coach of the Patriots of the I.
Almost very dramatic.
Well, no, because I remember he was to coaching the I don't know if you ever faced the Giants when he was the head coach of the Browns, but if you faced the.
Tale, that's so don't put anybody in Lawrence.
That's what. But that's why I caught myself this is the best pass rush, and it's that Bill Belichick has ever faced as the head coach of the Patriots.
I like that. I like that is a very good rush. As much as I picked on them for being vanilla in their pass rush, they can be because that's the thing right now they have.
The Patriot I mean, they did it more on They did it the times on defense, the twenty fourteen defenses like this, but they did this on offense. You know when you had Brady Moss, Welk or those teams were even like the Edelman Gronk teams. Yeah, you pretty much knew what they were gonna do. It wasn't really a secret. Uh the drive against the Chiefs, everybody knew what those third down play calls were. Everybody. Yeah, they're they're either going up to see them to Gronk or they're they're
hitting Edelman on the end. Yeah, we knew it. They knew it, The Chiefs knew it, the fans knew it. And what did they do They went up the field doing it. Why because they were just better.
Okay, we're gonna execute, putting in it by the end.
No no, no, But but just as as a cop, yeah, I know, I kind of got off throws. But that's sort of what the Eagles defense is. We know they're gonna put four guys hands in the dirt. Yeah, arebody else gonna drop back in the coverage're gonna but four guys hands in the dirt, and they're not gonna run around and twist, and they're gonna come right at you. We know it, they know it. But can you be better than them? Can you stop them from doing it? Because most people can't.
Okay, So I got some other personnel questions for you, because we've we've we've talked to scheme through. I like that part of our of what we've done here. We we we've covered our bases there. Let's talk about some of the guys that are gonna play in some of the combinations we might see elsewhere besides the offensive line. Start in the backfield. This is interesting to all the fantasy people out there, So you canot.
You're gonna say it's interesting, interesting to you, please.
And we're gonna we can talk about this, uh, you know, for all the fantasy people out there. Ormandra, steven Zeke Elliott, do you, first of all, do you believe Ormandre that he actually has no idea how they're gonna rotate them on Sunday.
Mmmm, live omission.
Okay, fair enough. I I think that's a half truth. Can we see that? That's God, that's the term I was looking for.
Thank you?
Yeah, half truth.
Anyways, he doesn't he doesn't know who's getting the first snap, but he knows who's going out for what package and whatever.
So how do you see them using Remondre and Zeke?
I would so some of this is like how far along a Zeke in the playbook? Yeah, if let's just assume for sex Zeke's fully caught up and he's good to go in the full playbooks available. I would love to see them go back to what they did before time on Gmer got hurt last year and split it by drive instead of by situations.
So you don't care if who's on the path field on a passing play, run play. You just want them to go drive by drive.
Yeah, I'd like that better. I think there's less tells. I think it the backs they have. It makes the most of their skill sets. You have two well rounded backs, like I want Ramondre on the field in both situations. I want Zeke on the field and both situations. That's it.
Now.
I'm not saying I go one for one. I'm probably going like for every two Remandre drives Zeke or something like that. The other wrinkle in this and I don't know if you want to get in this later, but I kind of need to bring it up now for this take. If we're gonna do who are we thinking for practice squad elevations? Zappi is gonna be one. I can't imagine Mac Crowl's ready. Okay, so Zapi's one. I'm looking at Time Montgomery, yep.
And I'm surprised Time Montgomery's not on the fifty three men round.
I'm a little bit too. And some of what we talked about earlier in terms of all right, this quick pass stuff, the screens, where can you beat the Eagles in coverage? Their linebackers are not great coverage linebackers you're gonna have if you're gonna have an ability to throw the ball to the running back in this game. Like I said, the other two guys can do it. Ramondres he can do it that like two minute drill where
you really gotta get going. Time Montgomery is still the best receiving back on the roster agree when he's healthy. So I to me, it's like two here's how I would do it by drive two Remandree drives for every Zeke drive. Okay, but when you get into the two minute give me time Montgomery okay.
So I I'm similar, I maybe would just break it. I personally, I still feel like Zeke is here to be Damien Harris, like what they envision the split between her Madre and Damien Harris being before Damien Harris got banged. I don't know.
You don't think that they're gonna take advantage of what he doesn't pass pro. You don't think that's especially we just talked about all that on the offensive line. You don't Dan Harris didn't do any of that.
I do to respect, but maybe not in the same way that other people do. Where I think he's gonna be playing on third down. I think what they're gonna do with Zeke and pass pro is we can run play action and then Zeken blitz scan after we run the fake and pick guys up late, okay, and try to keep Mac clean that way. And I also think that if they get certain personnel on the field, it might be a situation where they're in run personnel, but they actually throw out a run personnel and then Zeke
becomes either a block or a receiver. To that respect, I still feel like third down is going to come down to Remandre or Thy Montgomery. I just feel like Remandre is too in tune with the quarterback to take him off the field on third down.
Well, we don't know. We don't know where Zeke's at with Mac.
We don't, but I know that him and Ramandre have a great report. Okay, that's fair, and that's where I worry about anybody but Remandre being on third down because at the end of the day, if it's third and three, it's third and four and he needs that. James White, Yeah, I still think that he feels the most comfortable with
it being Remandre. That might not necessarily mean that I think Montgomery is a quicker, better route runner than Remandre is, but in terms of chemistry and continuity, I think Mac likes throwing the ball to Ramandre Stevens.
I just I don't want to see Remonder playing seventy percent of the Stamps again.
I don't think I will, really. I don't think the way that they're going to cut into his workload is going to be on first and second down. I think with Zeke and him will trade off first and second down carries and then Remandre will play on third. Now I also agree that I feel like Time Montgomery will be elevated from the practice squad and play a role
in this game. The one other thing that I thought of, you know, just from a game plan standpoint, everybody always throws tempo out there like it's this cure all, like let's run, hurry up, and it's gonna fix all of our problems and every I actually do think that there is some advantage of it in this game simply because the Eagles, Uh, they run what they run out of
certain personnel packages. So if you have certain groupings on the field for them defensively, you're kind of gonna know what defensive structure they're going to be in.
And if you get a look that you know you can be, you can force them essentially to.
Stay in that look. So that's where I think Time Montgomery's role could play into this game is if they do want to hit a drive where they hit the NASCAR package as Josh McDaniels used to call it, and and run some hurry up time Montgomery. He can play flexed out and he can play out of the backfield. Yeah, and it gives them a kind of a Swiss army knife, Like I love you What position is he is? He running back? Is your receiver.
I don't know if this is the game to do it, just because of the Eagles front and what it is. But yeah, I'm not opposed to some two running back sets this year, as long as I don't think you need remondering Sea that's another thing in time, But like, yeah, where where you have Montgomery? Montgomery? But like he's you know, he's a receiver. You know he's gonna go line up in the spot. You know he's gonna go run arount. But the other team doesn't know that when you're in
the huddle. So I wouldn't be opposed seeing them do some of that. I just in this game, I feel like the Eagles are they can handle something like that. But yeah, when you get to a team like the Jets. I think when you get to a team like the Raiders, if Montgomery is still healthy by then, seeing some of that stuff would be would would make I know you hate twenty one.
I do mainly twenty. The main reason why, and and you know everybody that is listening probably has hurt it as Pony most of the time. The two running backs. There's two things that don't typically statistically bear out the way people think.
Here comes offensive coordinator revels.
Are hurry up is one. Everybody thinks that you run hurry up and it solves all your problems, right like you just run tempo, no huddle, Oh, don't worry about it. This is gonna fix everything. It seldom does the US thought. The other thing that is hasn't been statistically productive is pony. Like they even going back to Brady with like Rex Burkehead and James White, they would do it a little bit. Statistically, it doesn't yield results, Like it's not an efficient package.
Is Bill O'Brien different? And can he get more out of it than somebody else could? Like we'll see.
Like maybe that's why I also think Time Montgomery's a unique player in this because it's not he's not really a running back.
What I love about Time Montgomery is that we know O'Brien loves empty. Yes, you know we're gonna see some empty And what they can do is they can go they can be run personnel, or they could be empty and they can blur the lines.
That's kind of what I met.
So if they get them like a nickel and they like the grouping that they have out there to pass the ball, they can go five wide empty against their base nickel front. Then they can run the ghetto under center and run the ball on the next play right like and they can go back and forth like that, which can be really helpful.
Well, I'm just saying I think you can pound that because Ramondre can line up. I mean he's not the receiver Time Montgomery is, but he can line up outside the formation. And if you come out with Remandre and Time Montgomery, you can you could come out. You know. The one I've really talked to, and this is me getting a little ahead of myself and getting a little excited, is twenty two with Time Montgomery Mi Kasiki, Because do
you have two tight ends, two running backs? Is it really eleven with Mike Kasiki playing wide receiver and Time Montgomery playing receiver? Like, Yeah, you can come out if you have Mike Kasiki and Time Montgomery in the huddle, you can come out and goal line, you can come out in five wide.
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping they're gonna be able to do because so much of what I want to talk about their receivers Depson who he think is going to play there, they don't have We know this, and we don't have to beat a dead horse, but they don't have an aj Brown or DeVante's But they don't even have one of those guys. And Eagles have too, right, Like,
they don't have one of those guys. But what O'Brien's really effective at doing is using personnel and formations to dictate, you know, to find openings and create openings and defenses. And so there's a big advantage I think to their twelve personnel package quote unquote with Hunter, Henry and Kasiki and Ormandre. That can be empty or that can be under centered traditional twelve right, and you just don't know the difference until you see it, and that I think
can be effective. Talking about the receivers, we know Devonte Parker's dealing with the knee injuries on the injury report yesterday. With that, so we know officially that it's a knee that's been hurting him. But let's just for argument's sake, because we don't. We don't know. You can't have a crystal ball and know if DeVante Parker is going to be one hundred percent, is going to play whatever, What do you expect to see the most used receivers to be I think is the best way to put it.
And then there's that whole thing about ju Jusney too.
Right, Yeah, I'm not worried about ju Jusney.
I don't know about I'll just say this, it's Kendrick Borne time. He was the best receiver this summer. He's healthy. He you talk about the chemistry with Mac. It's nothing against Juju or Parker, but he's been here the longest. We know him and Mac get along. Well, give me Kendrick Borne in this game. Give me a full dose of kenrin.
You had to guess, if you had to guess when we get the snap counts on Monday morning, who is one, two, three out of the receiver.
I think just if park let me. I need to see the injury report today, but I do think there's clearly something going on with Parker. They're gonna be president. I think Juju is still number one because that's just they paid him, and he's the slot guy. But like, I think he's gonna be in the high nineties. Yeah, I think a percentage in terms of percentage, right, sad percentage.
I think Bourne could end up high eighties. Loan nineties you have me too, and then Parker probably comes in somewhere around seventy sixty seventy how much of the rookies Tomorrio Douglas probably guy that gets a handful of snaps called ten f teen snaps, maybe a specific package like he'll all be in the same formation. Kaishan Boody to me, is still the somebody's got to get hurt for him
to get on the field significantly. He'll play on special teams and maybe he gets a snap or two here or there, but it's nothing against him as a player. We've talked about this to Mario. Douglas gives them something they don't otherwise have in speed. I as good as Kaishon Boody looks like potential wise, he doesn't give them anything they don't have between Juju and Bourn, and his game is still got to grow a little bit to catch those guys.
Yeah, So I just.
Don't see where he plays.
I think it's gonna be Juju and Bourn will be your clear cut one and two. Yeah, mainly because Parker's hurt. But I think when Parker gets back in there, it might be Juju Parker Born.
So I will say this to the callers point with Kayshan Boody playing, if Parker does get hurt like he can't play, I do think those snaps go to Kaishaan Booty before to Mario Douglas. I think Tomrio Douglas's role is what it is. It's not gonna change. They're not gonna like it's all right, this is your package, this is your route tree, whereas Kaishan Bouti is the guy
if you lose one of those top three. Now the callers said Kaishan Booty at the X, I actually think it's Kendrick Born at the X, Kaishan Booty at the Z. If DeVante Parker can't go, or maybe they mix and match, um, maybe they rotate it. But that's how I would do it. But that to me is how if Parker's injury is worse than we think, that's how Kaishan Budi gets on the field.
I agree with you that I think Tomorrow Douglas they have a very specific role in mind for him. My guess is it's gonna be mostly third down and maybe some gadget style plays out of RPO.
I'll say say, mostly third down. I love him as a drive starter, r pod drive star. Well, it can be RPOs.
It can be because I'm running the show now, so oh.
I RPOs some of that orbit motion stuff they did with market Shillings last year. I don't know. I like him as a drive call it a gut instinct. I don't really have a full take behind it, but I like him as a drive star to get the ball in his hands right away. And you know, eagles come out, they think they know what they're looking at, they get in their set and then all of a sudden, boom, here's this and then you have that in the back of your head.
So last thing on the receivers, then I I want to talk about the CB matchups as well, and then we have one more call to get to here so we can do this.
And then Brady, Oh yeah, I'm Brady.
We can do it. We got fifteen minutes to full this out.
Let's go.
So first thing, last receiver take here, because I think we're in lockstep on the guys that are on the fifty three men roster. This also depends on how they feel about Matt Corral, But if Parker is limited or out.
I think with a thyroc pits take no.
Okay, I think there's a chance that Jalen Rager is elevated from the practice squad and plays.
Hmm.
I think there's a chance.
I'll tell you why, because he's got to play against his forward team. O Adam Schefter, I'm not Schefter was all hyped about that.
I'm not going to revenge game.
Okay.
What I'm going with is based off of last year's film, and I know they have a new defensive coordinator and some new faces and YadA YadA YadA. Motion against the Eagles defense works. They have trouble with most.
Which is weird because that's normally something that's tougher for man teams than zone teams.
They have all sorts of kinds of problems with motion. And we know in the Super Bowl they'd scored wide open touchdowns and everybody went googo gaga over Andy Reid because he discovered return motion, which was Steve car Sarkesian's discovery at Alabama. But that's besides the.
Point, Well, know that that ties in because that's Steve Sarkisian at Alabama with Mac Challenge. Yeah, if we're gonna see Alabama, Mac, you're gonna see some of that.
So the one thing, well, other than like you know, clearing out coverage that Jalen Rager can just like run in a straight line really fast and clear out the coverage.
Yeah.
The one thing that I think that he can be effective at on an NFL field is motion, like whether it's jet motion you mentioned orbit which is like end around style motion, or throwing him screens or handing the ball off to him off of motion. He's effective at that and I think that they can get the Eagles on it. So I think that there's a world where that's Pop Douglas and they just give that opportunity to Pop Douglas. But in the preseason, Pop Douglas hurt himself on a screen, right, so.
He wasn't on the injury report. I hope they don't bury Pop douglast for Jalen Rager for everything we went through this summer, that would be disappointed.
I don't think they will, but I think that there's a chance that the Chiefs use Kadarius Tony and Sky Moore. I think that there's a chance that the Patriots might try to hit them with a ton of motion and have both Pop Douglas and Jalen Rager in their back pocket in case they need Reager to do it too. Yeah, and so I think it's possible that if Parker is elimited or out and they feel okay about Matt Corrall being the quarter backup quarterback, that Jalen Rager and Time Montgomery.
Spin this another way. What if they feel they don't need Time Montgomery, then it could then that too. I almost feel like that's more realistic because he they used him as much as a receiver as it is a running back. And I wonder if they'd flip that and say, all right, this is going to be because he's not going to run out of the backfield Rager. But it's like the same sort of skill set a little bit. Yep, So I elevating Rager and Montgomery to me would be a little weird.
Okay, So maybe it's Mong it's Rager and Zappy at that point, yeah, or somebody else your thing.
I mean, it could be your way to I just I don't.
Think they're going to test the Eagles with motion, and I think that that's like the one thing I saw Rayyer do at a decent level from last year. All let's take this call and then we'll wrap it all. Right, Mark is in Connecticut. What's up, Mark Evan? What's going on? Guys?
Hey, hey, Mike Evans.
What is your thoughts on bringing in Mike Evans?
Because I think he's.
Better than d Hop and he obviously wants out of Tampa.
It's a fair question. And thanks for the call, Mark, Uh, I do it?
I do it. I wouldn't give him an extension.
Yeah, see that. I don't know.
I take him as a rental for the year and say what, we're going to throw you one hundred and fifty passes and you're gonna get your value up and you'll go cash in free agency. I'd give up. I I'd give up a like Top one hundred picking up myke. I wouldn't give up a first So I give up a top one hundred picking up Mike Evans.
Right now, Mike Evans I is no longer at the peak of his powers.
No, but he's still really good.
He's good. But my concern with him at this point. He's a far more durable DeVante Parker at this point to me, and that the durability is a factor. Like, don't get me. I'm not belittling or downplaying the fact that Mike Evans being able to be out there for seventeen games makes a big difference than Devonte Parker being in and out of the lineup. But from a skill set perspective, both of those guys don't separate a ton anymore. Both of those guys don't run by people a ton anymore.
Mike Evans still pretty hard to tackle. It's more running through guys than running by guys.
I'm talking about as a road runner, Like he's not. He's not a separator. He never really was, but now it's got as he's agent's obviously he can still play.
He can still dictate card.
I'm not gonna be contradictory because, like I said that, I wanted DeAndre Hopkins so badly, and it's it's they're both in similar spots in there.
Ever, better Evans better than Hopkins at this point?
I think Evans might. He's more durable, for sure.
I think he's better. It goes back to your thing about the Tuesday morning meeting. Is Mike Evans the guy that's gonna draw. How would you give up?
Because I think that it's going to take less than people think. If he does end up on the trade.
Block we had, can I do it for a third round pick?
I think you would win the bidding war for a third round pick. I think that's the highest was going to be. So he's a because if his years accrued in the league, the best compick they can get for him is a fifth That's just the way the formula one. So the best convict that they can get for him is a fifth round compick. So if he he's a free agent at the end of the year. So if he just leaves in free agency next year, the Bucks are only getting a fit. So a fourth might get
it done. And I know that that sounds crazy because of his resume and his pedigree in the league, But look at the other trades for veteran receivers at that time in their careers. DeAndre Hopkins got nothing, Amari Cooper got what like a fifth I think it was.
He went for a lot. He went for too much.
Was that the thing with him to Cleveland?
I thought they gave up like a second and a fifth.
Oh did they really? I thought it was.
But I'll part of it was the new contract. I would trade for Mike Evans under the understanding that he's not getting a new contract all right. Oh no, you're right. It was a fifth and a sixth swap. I don't know who I'm thinking.
Yeah, so it's not much right now for the veteran receiver.
Maybe I'm overpaying with a third, I still do it.
You need to beat a fifth, right, because they're gonna get a fifth just from letting him walk.
You need to beat a fifth. So everybody's gonna offer a fourth. So you offer a third. Yeah, maybe, and you get like a sixth back or something and there you go.
Yeah, that's that's where I would do it.
I would do it. I would absolutely do it. But I but I would not if he would he hold out, because I wouldn't do it. If he's expecting an extension, right, I'm not giving it, but for this year to maximize mac Jones, to take some of the attention away from these other wide receivers. Yes, but if if he's like, all right, well, if you're in a trade for me, I need an extension, or I'm not gonna suit up. All right, cool, hanging up the phone. I'm done.
We're done here, Okay, cornerback matchups. Yes, I'm gonna say this, And I don't know how you feel about it. I haven't even talked to you about this.
I have a weird take on this too, so this will be interesting.
I'm throwing Christians.
Oh, I have the exact opposite take.
I'm throwing them to the wolves.
I don't take is you?
This bothers me and it goes back to the fangio thing and we don't have enough time for me to rant about this. But it goes back to the like you drafted the guy in the first round, you really really like the guy. He's shown all the the the checked all the boxes to this point in his rookie campaign, he's ready to go. What are you hiding him for?
Like?
What are you protecting him from?
So, I honestly, just aside from that, I don't think you need to. I don't think you need to throw him to the to the I almost said to the bills. They'll throw them to the bills. That's gonna happen.
I think they need to. Why two reasons.
You're you're talking about him on an island with AJ Brown, you're talking about him covering or him on an island, because I wouldn't meet him on an island.
I would I would not say on an island. I think that that's putting a little bit too much of like it's oversimplified. But I here's why I don't think you can scheme around on this game plan, being like we need to protect Christian zone.
Okay, No, and I don't think you need to do that either. But here's there's one very obvious matchup here when you're putting it together. Jonathan Jones on Davanta Smith. Ye, that to me is so the whole thing their philosophy we're gonna put Do you think they truly view gonzalz is like their number one corner? Do you think there's some flexibility in that at this point?
I think that they view it as body type. The body type, Okay, so perfect. So Jonathan Jones on DeVante Smith. That's the guy you're leaving alone. That's the guy you're saying you take him out now. I'm going Christian goan Zalz on AJ Brown with help Marcus Jones in the slot because the Eagle slot receivers suck. Honestly, it's gonna be mostly Davante Smith, and we've already established as Jonathan Jones. If it's DeVante Smith in the slot, then it's Jack
Jones on the other corner. If Davante Smith's on the boundary, then it's again Jonathan Jones on the slot. And you're you know, you're mixing Jack Jones in with Christian Zalz throw different looks and then Jalen Mills on Dallas god Okay, so I agree with Jamn Mills on Dallas Goddard. Yeah, I think we're in similar places. I think the Eagles are gonna play a ton of twelve in this game, and I think that the Patriots should match it with three or four safeties on the field.
Yeah, then you don't. Then you take Marcus Jones out as the st Yeah.
I think they're gonna play big nickel and big dime and play two corners a lot of this game that I think that your corners are Christianzalez and Jonathan Jones, Jonathan Jones and DeVante Smith. I like that.
And that's the island.
Yep.
He's not getting help.
Yeah, but So here's the thing. You can't. You can't double bolls. I've heard this before, right, because they'll run the ball right down your throat and they'll run for two fifty for you that because you have you're gonna have two safeties deep and you're there's nothing gonna be in the middle of the field and they're gonna torch you like that. You have to get the extra hat in the box. You have to find a way to
have seven guys in the box. You just do. So what you do, in my my mind is you put Christian Gonzales on AJ Brown and then you find a way to help him in the respect that you're gonna have a help defender take away something from AJ Brown. So what a lot of good teams do is they take away that first window throw. So they're gonna have the corner play off of AJ Brown, but they're not gonna give up the quick slant of the quick curl because they're gonna have a defender in that passing link.
Right.
So now all Christian Gonzalez has to worry about his verticals and like skinny posts, right, like the deeper.
Slants or our routes.
Right, But all he's only worrying about things that are breaking out like eight yards, right, He's not worrying about all the quick stuff underneath because you have the defender there. So he's gonna be on AJ Brown over the top one on one, but he's gonna have a head start.
So yeah. So and this is where the whole thing is interesting with Devin McCarty. In the past, it would be AJ Brown or Christian Zauce on AJ Brown with Devin McCarty as that over the top help safety. That guy's not there anymore. So instead now you're helping on the short stuff and you're having Gonzales takeaway with yeh. So once they get down the field, Gonzale AJ Brown, if he's not the best jump ball receiver in the league, he's up there.
Yeah.
But Christian Zalz you drafted him to be competitive at the catch point.
Yeah, he's there. Be body type. He's six foot one, six foot two. He runs like the wind. You can't hide him from AJ Brown in this game, right, he this is what he's here for.
So the way, so the way you gave your initial take was like you're gonna have christians as on a J Brown on one side and then you're just that's gonna be it right for that matchup.
That's what you had me. No, I mean, that's you wouldn't do that. I don't think any regard like even like even though people think about like ty Law, Derell Reeves Gilmore as being on islands, they were never truly.
On island respect sometimes not sometimes they were, I think.
Was they always had post safety help, Okay, oh yeah, they Devin mccordy, Yeah, yeah, at least so that that's that's That's the thing about Christian Zauces. I've seen a lot of he can't cover a J. Brown. He has to cover a J. Brown.
That's that's the matchup. That's you drafted him to cover this guy.
Yeah, and if he if he has a bad game against a J. Brown, that's one of the best receivers in the league. You tip your cap, you'd say he's a rookie in his first start and he got torched by one of the top five receivers in the NFL.
And it is what it is. But if you go into this game plan thinking that we have to double AJ Brown at all costs, you are going to give up so much everywhere else that you just can't do it, like they have too many things to cover, So that that's the CV matchups really quickly, your thoughts on Brady coming back? Like, what do you I think the best thing you know we can reminisce about Brady any day of the week. What are you most looking forward to about the Brady festivities?
When the opening notes of public service announcement hit.
I think that's happening. Yeah, I actually don't know, so okay, And I really don't know they have.
To play it when he walks out. I don't know. Maybe it's pre game, maybe it's halftime, Like, I don't know when they do that. It might be halftime and he's not gonna run down the sideline or anything. But like, no, those opening notes, when that hits, and just the energy in the building, that's going to be unbelievable. Here's my weird hot take on the Brady thing. Yeah, don't give him everything. Make sure there's reasons to have him coming.
Back, don't. I wouldn't worry about that.
Because like there's Jersey retirement, there's Pats Hall of Fame, there's I know some people, I'm not gonna make you give anything away, but some people have talked about there maybe being like the Patriots arning some sort of ring of honor or something like with him, which would make sense. They're probably gonna name the statue or naming something after him my like tinfoil hot take conspiracy theory, the Tom Brady Lighthouse. It's I highly doubt that's gonna happen, but
that would be cool. But space, space it out, don't do it all. We don't need it all at once.
Keep them coming back, don't worry about that. Okay, cool, Okay, the second my Brady thing.
I'm also the one other thing. Sorry, when these things happen, whether it's like after the super Bowl and they bring out the trophies or when different guys get in the pass hall, the other guys who come back, just seeing them back is cool too. And you know who's who's good. There's certain guys you just kind of figure are going to be here, but like who's good? Is Gronk gonna be here? That would be interesting. You know, guys like I'm sure Edelman will be here, I'm sure like James
White will be here. How many guys from those earlier teams will be back? Or he's obviously going to be coaching, but like, will you see guys like I'm trying to think of offensive guys. Kevin Falk will probably be here. I would think Ben Watson, Ben what I could see Ben Watson coming back? Dan Gram see that Dan Graham would be cool to see.
Matt Light might be here.
Now, Like could we get Antoine Smith back here? Would Corey Dillon come for that?
Has Antoine Smith been back for anything?
He was back? I think when they did the anniversary of the two thousand and one team, remember that they had like every there were only like four or five guys that were here for that, like they were obscured, like Matt Stevens was here. T Brusk I would assume Bruski and let I don't, well McGuinness, I don't know what his situation is, Bruskie. If he'll be in Connecticut right because they he does.
I don't know if he does. If he's on the air on Sunday. I think Rodney is.
Right, Rodney's on Sunday night. Yeah, Well, actually Rodney probably won't be here because it'll Sunday Night football.
And I don't think Devon will be here because of that too.
Well no, actually maybe for pregame, they take care copter, so they'll get it. That's Teddy Teddy. I think he could they get off the air at one in Bristol. Yeah, he could get here for halftime for a four o'clock game.
Alex Is putting Teddy in the car with the police escort, Like, I think he could do it. All right, So I'm gonna.
Oh, how about it. You think like Charlie Weis will be here.
Maybe that would be serious XM like he does radio, so all.
These guys have media stuff.
Yeah.
Uh, who's like the most obscure player that will be here? Give me a name.
Matt Chatham.
No, that doesn't he works, He's working the game. That doesn't count this message. I'm gonna Mike Cloud, Okay, that that is, I mean, standout Mike.
There could be some random receivers that played with him that caught passes from him, you know, like a like a Mike right or like a Tim Right yeah, Tim right, yeah, Tim right, Big.
Big Matt Mulligan, Matt Lanle, No, Matt Langle has Big Matt line.
I'm gonna this might be like this is a little bit more of like your your station take. But I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna be playing body Language Doctor a little bit on Sunday with him and Bill No, just him in general. Is he doing this out of obligation or because he really wants to be.
Well, that goes back to my point of like make sure there's reasons, because I is he just like all right, I'm coming back once, get it all out, Let's get it all out of the way, Let's do all of it.
That's that's happening, especially because we've already said it's gonna be at halftime, so you have eight minutes at halftime, so you can't do all of that in eight minutes. My one little body Language Doctor thing is that I do really want to know is he into it? Like is he really really into it? Because to your point, like public service and like he should run onto the field like you know, like I'm like you know what I mean, Like that should be a pump the crowd up,
the crowd up. Yeah, And like is he is he rooting for the Patriots? Is he into it? Is he? Like does he look like he wants? And I'm not gonna hold it against him if he doesn't, but I will admit as a as a Patriots fan, my fandom in me, it does still kind of hurt that the way it ended, right, And I'm not saying that it's all his fault, and I completely understand both sides of
it and understand his side wholeheartedly. But at the same time, like I didn't become a Bucks fan, right, Like, we're still Patriots fans here and the Patriots are still the Patriots to us. And is he gonna recognize in his post playing career as a Patriot through and through? Or is this gonna be like Tom Brady and then it's gonna be Patriots, Bucks Brady TB twelve, like you know what I mean? Like and that that is interesting to me. It's not the most important thing. And I'm glad he's
coming back, and it's nothing like that. I'm just wondering how much does he really want to be here. I know that he is really tight still and has a ton of respect for mister Kraft, as we all do. And I know that it's a possibility that he's coming back because mister Krav asked him to and he did it because of that. And if that's all it is,
then that's gonna be attle disappointing. Yeah, it is, and I think for a lot of Patriots fans, myself included, to close the book on Brady and to like feel good about Brady again one hundred percent, we need to like stop acting like he ever played for the Bucks. So I remember, well, at the same time, they should call him a seven time super Bowl champion, don't you
know take that away from him. I mean the respect goes both ways, right, Yeah, I don't think you completely ignore the butt, but you make it about the Patriots. But like, don't feel like he won six super Bowls to call him a seven times super Bowl champion, that's what he is. They're gonna say six with the.
Patris They're gonna say that, but I'm saying, I don't.
Its like inside information. I just feel like that.
But also like, don't if they don't mention the seventh one at all, I think that would he could be rightly annoyed by that. I'll say this. There was a picture Mac Jones rookie year that was it is taken on the sideline before a game. It was probably the game. Whoever it was that got inducted that year got inducted in the Patriots Hall of Fame. Was that Seymour twenty one or was no? Seymour was last year?
It might have been Seymour.
I don't know whoever it was. Whoever it was, Drew Bludsoe was here, Vince, I think it was Vince. I think you're right, which makes it weirder Thandrew Bledsen is here. But the point being like there's a picture of Mac Jones, Drew Bledsoe and Robert Craft on the sideline before the game, and it was like, by the way, Drew Drew, I'm hoping we'll be here on Sunday. I think I think I need a picture of Mac Jones, Tom Brady, Drew
Bledsoe and Robert Craft. Okay, I remember like seeing that picture and being like there's something missing here.
I know, I know, you know, but don't leave Steve Grogan hanging like that. All right, let's no no, But it's.
It's no, no, no, because the whole thing.
Is the succession.
Right as long as crafted Craft is on the team for so many years, and they've really only had three quarterbacks. Yeah, if Grogey wants to be in the picture, can be in the picture. But ideas like Robert Kraft has owned this thing first.
How could you do that to Steve Grogan?
Robert Craft has owned this thing for so long and to have that little turnover quarterback, and obviously Brady's big part of it. I mean drew out like ninety six to one, like seven years, a long time in the RFL. Yeah, right, So who's.
The second best Patriot quarterback of all time?
Now? What are you doing to Steve Growin? No, you're right, but no, it's it's true Brady bledsoe mac Craft. I need that picture, Okay, I need that because when they took it in twenty twenty one, and obviously Brady's still playing, was gonna be there, but it was like it was like, this is almost the perfect picture. Almost.
I was gonna hang that up in his bed. I gotta go find that picture now over his bed. It's gonna be a shrine. All right, We gotta we gotta go. They've already opened locker rooms. So we're behind the eight ball here, but we'll be back next Thursday, same time, same place to break down this Eagles game preview the Miami Dolphins and a throwback week next week against the Miami Dolphins. So we have Brady and then we have throwback week back Back, kicking off the season with that.
That's almost the end of URT because our first show here was a throwback. Oh that was like week five.
But yeah, there you go, all right, So see you guys next week.
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