Patriots Catch twenty two. We'll join Evan Lazar and Alex Bart every Thursday as they take a deep dive into the ex of the o's trends and latest New England Patriots roster moves.
And I'm usually into the numbers. Okay, we do this. I'm into the tangible numbers.
There's there's tame here. Just give me.
There's the advantage fact you haven't know how to work it. I'm surprised an old man over here. I thought maybe I'd have to show you, like a pictorial or something.
How am I old man? Search for Patriots Catch twenty two? Anywhere you get your podcast.
I'm Patriots Playbook where Legends are barn John Roop brings the heat, rain or storm from Brady's Throast to New Stars. Razin the playbook Soap and it's so Maya's Morazin into the.
Playbook Patriots Playbook.
Here's your host, John Rook, legend voice of the Patriots.
First. No, it's it's bye week, which means, of course there's no game to talk about. But that doesn't mean we don't have playbook. That doesn't mean that we're not doing stuff in here today. And we are doing stuff in here today we walk you here into the program. I am John Rook that that version's growing on me. Marine, It's grown on me a little bit. Did I have a little I don't know. I don't. I'm not really good with my country in western uh stars. But does
that have a little Jason Aldean to it? I don't know. Do you know, Evan? I like Johnny Cash. I guess Johnny Cash got at it. It's got a little twang.
But I'm just like, I'm not a country guy either. I just bought my Kendrick Lamar tickets earlier.
Did you really? Oh?
Yeah, as soon as they went on sale. Didn't even ask the missus. I texted her. I was like, I bought tickets tickets, didn't even ask. That wasn't this is a non negotiable.
Not well, at least you recognize that. Yeah, and so you earn an a for recognition in that regard.
Yeah, there's a few artists that if they come here, it's not negotiable on the list.
Well, I was that way with the Rolling Stones this summer.
That's fair.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean far be from me to want to watch you know, three eighty year Olds get up on stage in rock. But they were dynamic.
Yeah, no, I've heard them. I've never been to one of their concerts, but we are lucky that we sometimes get to hear the sound.
Yeah yeah.
And I was like, wow, these guys they still.
Rockill got it, Yeah, they still so. I was really thrilled with that. I thought that was actually money will spend, especially since their quote unquote farewell tour and anybody that says it's a farewell tour I'm doing. I did Electric Live Orchestra ELO at the TD Garden in the fall back in September. It was magnificent. Yeah, magnificent. Of course. You know, now we're you know, definitely aging myself here because they were big when I was in high school
back in the seventies. And but jeff Lynn, you know, traveling Willbury, you know, for those of you might be a little later generation. He was a part of that group, you know, when the nineties, but everybody started, you know, passing away. But he was fabulous, absolutely fair. I mean, first of all, they didn'tven look like he he am
gray hair. I don't know if he I couldn't tell from where I was sitting if it was hair dye or he just takes care of himself well, you know, which is sort of an anomaly I think for most rock stars, unless, of course, you're Keith Richards, who clearly has a deal with the devil one or the other. Right.
Yeah, my father is a really big Beg's fan, like massive, and so we went and saw Barry Gibb still performs.
Oh wow, now I would have done that. I would have totally done that.
Yeah, so my whole family went for his birthday because he's just the biggest Beg's fan on the planet, and Barry Gibb brought the house down. I believe it too.
Well, I'm not gonna lie. I think that's cool. Yeah, it is cool. It's totally cool. Besides, when the Beg's were spot were popular in the seventies, Oh man, chicks dug the Beg's, So if you know, wanted to date then other things, you had to be on the dance floor with a VJs. Am I lying to anybody here?
No, I'm I. You know, I can't be my father's son and say I'm not a Beg's fan. So okay, I know a lot of their songs just from being in the car with him, you know, as a kid. So absolutely a great concert.
Yeah, I think that's fabulous.
Yeah.
So anytime I get a chance to hear a group from that era seventies, eighties and even a little bit into the nineties, I gotta go. I mean I have to go. I have to admit that, you know, I know we're completely starting off, you know, the tangent here. But at the same time, it's bye week, Okay, so give us a break here for just a second. Then we'll talk into all stuff that.
It's football.
Yeah, I know it's football. It's still football season probably now. See, now I've had a senior moment. I forgot what the hell I was gonna say something about concerts, something about concerts. What was I gonna say about concerts? Can you read my mind? Going back to Kendrick Lamar, Tell me what I'm thinking right now?
Marine, Okay, you're thinking you want eminem here in twenty twenty six.
No, there's people in this building, Marine, I won't name names, but every once in a while he comes in this studio and does a Madden sim with you. Every once in a while that thinks that Drake won. They're rappief between him and Kendrick Lamar, which is just that's a spicy hot take. What that's an incorrect take?
Well, we work with idiots.
I didn't call him that.
All right, Okay, we'll move on. Hey, Patriots fans, you want to see Toyota's best offers, including those not seen on TV. Go to buy a Toyota dot Com is Toytot's official website for deals from the official vehicle of the New England Patriots, Toyota. Let's go places. Where are we gonna go today? Well, besides Evan of course being here. Russell Baxter will join us at the top of the or at the second half of the hour. Number two. Karen Grigian, who longtime Patriots writer and columnista now with
Masslive dot com. She'll join us in about an hour. We're also gonna hear from Matt Saint Jean. He's one of the hosts of the Pats Nation podcast on CLNS, also a writer for Pat's Pulpit, so you've probably seen his work. I know Matt, good young kid. He's a Providence College graduate, so how bad can he be? Right? You know? But he is really up on his football.
I think he's very engaging I enjoy his work, and we thought we'd also take a little bit of time here during the bye week to hear from some of the others that cover the team besides what we would call mainstream media, because I think there's a lot of good takes out there. And one of the things that I want to really ask everybody today, all right, is I want you to come up with three things at this juncture, because I know we're all disappointed. You can't
not be a fan and not be disappointed. At three and ten, I thought this team was better than you know, four and thirteen a year ago. Looks like they're going to be really hard pressed to even reach four and thirteen, much less beat it. I thought this was a five or a six win team this year looks like I'm gonna miss that mark by just a little bit. So
in light of not meeting even our lower end expectations. Okay, I want you, and I'll ask you about it in a second, but I want really uh listeners today to identify one good thing they're like, Okay, one good thing you like about the way this team is headed, uh, A player, a coach, whatever it might be. One good thing I want you to identify one bad thing. We're gonna go. Uh you know old Western movies here, one good,
one bad, and one ugly. Okay, so I need a good'n, I need a bad un and I need an uly. Exactly what was the movie? What was the movie where the cheerleaders did the the chant, uh you g l y, you ain't gotten a la by your ugly. Your mama say you ugly? Bring it on? Yeah?
Was it?
Bring it on? Yeah? Is that what it was? Yeah?
If I didn't get that, you know, I would have said it a second later. Yeah, you can't.
We used to do that chant in high school, in college.
The chance that the cheer has been around forever. But when I was watching the game all right, you know, this past weekend, and and calling the game this past weekend, and sitting there just you know, cringing because I knew, I knew when when the Colts were halfway through that nineteen play drive, I just said, I looked over at at uh Miss Robin, who spots for me in the booth, and I looked over at Coop, who was the audio two in the booth who comes in and sits with
us for about the last you know, half of the last quarter before postgame gets started, and I look at both of them. I said, they're going to Scoore or aren't they touchdown? Right? Two points? Right? Yeah, they're going to school right. They both said, uh huh uh huh. We felt it coming, Yeah, we felt it coming. You just knew it was gonna happen because you had no confidence and no faith that this team would be able to find a way. And that really is why this team
is three and ten. I still think there's some talent here, Okay, not enough, and I think we can all agree on that. We've been talking about that all season long. There's some talent here, but that talent is not able to break through. And there are probably a couple of significant reasons why the talent that's here is not able to get through. And frankly, it starts with coaching, and it starts with mentoring, and it starts with attention to detail, it starts with discipline.
It's all that stuff that coaches are largely responsible for. Now. I don't put a lot of the blame at the coach's feet because I think, first of all, this is professional football. We should be past the teaching stage and the basic concepts of what to do and what not to do should have already be taught. And if they're not taught and they're not getting through like Vederian low holding and jumping off sides. And I mean, guys, if
you can't figure it out, there's the unemployment line. We're gonna pull somebody else in here.
Now.
Invariably that'll likely happen to the off season for a lot of these guys. But my issue is is that it shouldn't be happening. Now. Why am I getting a call from Utah? Are you looking at me? Well? Now, now, we played somebody from Utah last night at the amp, right, Oh, I hope I didn't, like, you know, insult anybody. Did you hear what the Providence students were doing last night? Did you hear those cheers? Did you hear those chants? No? I didn't. I didn't either because I had a headset song.
It didn't here. But they were not being kind to Mormons, I know. No, I mean, I'm just you know, I'm just like, first of all, consider the landscape. You're in a sold out building. Uh, you got a you know, an eight thirty start. So fans and students have had a chance to get okay, you know, lots of tall boys being sold right, so you know, hey, some people just aren't as mature as others. It's what I can tell you. I wasn't as mature when I was twenty
as I am now. I wouldn't say I'm very mature at all anyway right now, to be honest with you, because I like to have fun. I just know when to have it. I would say that was largely inappropriate, and Providence Analytic director had to come out and go out on Twitter today or x and basically apologize for the entire student body. It's not a direct reflection of everybody that's in that building, but you know, hey, it's just hey, you learn to go and do and hopefully
you're held responsible for your actions. I would hold the players responsible for their actions, and if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, then somebody else has got to. I realize you can't make wholesale changes with the fifty three man roster. So the first thing that I you know that I would, you know, like to propose for future years, especially if you know we're going to an eighteenth game, especially if you know expansion, which
has been talked about as well in the NFL. In getting beyond where we are now, you got to increase roster sizes, heavan, you just have to. I think that would be a way at very least to keep healthy bodies around on the roster and be able to have some versatility for that roster. When guys do screw up or they do, you know, there's at least somebody holding their feet to the fire and say, well, if I don't do this the right way, somebody else is going to take my job.
Yeah.
Does that make any sense?
It does, I think right now. You know, just on that point, the positions that the Patriots are currently short at, especially on the offense side of the ball. I wouldn't say so much on defense, but offensive tackle in general. Around the league, the play is down and there aren't there is not a surplus of tackles laying around. And it stands the reason that there aren't a whole lot of guys that are six six, three hundred and thirty pound that can move like ballerinas like that, just that
those types of people just don't grow on trees. So there's not a lot of tackles. You know, I'll give you an example, on a good team like Kansas City right now, can't block anybody on the edge right like, they have huge tackle problems. And they're the Kansas City Chiefs the two times is defending Super Bowl champions. So it's not just the Patriots. There are teams with good offensive lines that are are good teams Detroit, Philadelphia, you know,
teams like that. But for the most part right now, expanding rosters or pulling Caleb Jones off the practice squad or whatever the case may be, Like, these options are just not any better. I know, it feels like it can't be any worse, and you might as well, but they're not any better, you know. Vaderian Lowe, we we've disagreed a little bit on Vederian low I feel like all season and Miami was a debacle for him. You know, obviously with all the penalties pre snap penalties and things
like that. I thought he was better in this game, you know, the in terms of that, right, no false starts for him this game, the holding. You know, Drake may left the pocket and the tackles have to learn now that Drake is going to move around back there, and so when he leaves the pocket, you can't go grabbing people because he's leaving the pocket. So that's what that hold was.
Uh.
You used to see this all the time with the Seahawks with Russell Wilson back in the day. They would get flagged a lot on the offensive line because Wilson's running around back there and they don't know where he is, you know there they don't have eyes in the back of their head, so they don't they don't know where he is. But I thought from a block to block basis,
Vederian Lowe was okay in this game. I thought really the offensive line as a whole was okay in this game, outside of Lady Robinson, who's a rookie and you know, is in that developmental phases or rookie.
Did you think though that maybe uh, releasing Michael Jordan, as they've done now from the practice squad as well, after signing him back at first day, he's starting, then he's demoted, then he's resigned with the practice squad, then he's cut out, Right, Wasn't that kind of like the on the baby out with the bath water. I mean, you know, I realized they really like Leydon Robinson, even though Robinson was one of, if not the lowest rated
offensive lineman in the NFL last week by PFF. And I'm like, okay, so why did they get rid of a guy who started all these games when they could have kept him on at least for insurance for the last four weeks. Didn't make any sense to me.
So I think that the biggest thing is is that they obviously want to get Leyden Robinson reps and get him experienced.
But to cut a guy, what if Laydon Robinson gets hurt this week?
Well well, I also think that they they feel like Cold Strange is nearing a return as well. And so when you have Robinson Strange in city, so you're now talking about three guards that you've drafted recently, relatively high on all three of those guys, You're at this point in the season at three and ten, like, just play one of the kids, you know, and see what happens there.
I asked Alex van Pelt last week, I want to say, you know, what, is there is there one thing with the pass protection that you point at that's that's like
the biggest issue right now. Everybody loses blocks and things like that, But is there a common thread to any of the issues, and the thing that he mentioned was picking up stunts, you know, postline movement like stunts, picks that that type of stuff, And I would say that Michael Jordan was probably the biggest issue on a lot of those and so that it made sense that he was the one to go after getting that comment from Van Pelt that they feel like that's their biggest issue
right now is picking up you know, those moving parts on the defensive line. And the guy that seemed to stand out as the biggest issue with that is no longer on the team. So maybe that was part of the reason for it as well, just from an actual film perspective of like why Michael Jordan was benched and eventually let go.
You know, we've been told that, you know, Cole Strange is working his way back, but with very little time left to go, is he going.
To expect him to be activated here before his window is up? I mean, Girod Mayo keeps saying that he's going to play this year. The question that I have is where is he going to play? Because you're not moving on WHENU that that's for certain at this point.
They want to get Laden Robinson all this experience, so really the spot is center, and I said earlier in the week that I didn't feel like Ben Brown deserves to get benched, and I still believe that, but I would also I also believe that throwing Cole Strange into an NFL game at center without any real experience playing but the position isn't very fair. Yeah, snapping line calls, like all the different things that go into being a center.
I don't necessarily know if that's fair to Cole to then go ahead and throw him into an NFL regular season game, you know, coming off the bye week or whatever, without really ever playing the position in a game at any level college or the NFL. I talked to him about this a couple of weeks ago, and he said that the really the only center experience that he has, other than people telling him that he looks like a center,
it was at a Senior Bowl. Yeah, in a practice, you know, practicing in the Senior Bowl down in Mobile, because the NFL teams wanted to see what he looked like playing center. If you gave him OTAs a training camp a preseason to ramp up to playing center, that's a different story than giving him three weeks of practice and then asking him to go play center in a regular season game.
Okay, well, all right, so good explanation at any rate. I just you know, it seems to me that you know, you you want as much depth as you can get, but at the same time, at the expense of another position where they feel like they need the help. Okay, that's fine, But now the time is at three and ten officially eliminated from whatever. And even though realistically we know there wouldn't anything to be paying for anyway, but
this is when the younger guy should be playing. This is when we should find out, Okay, who's worth keeping, who's worth reupping, if they're if they've got a deal up, who's worth you know, uh, you know, bringing back or you know, not trading, or maybe we have somebody with you know that's worth a couple of trade hits on down the line. I mean, this is when you have to do your real evaluation. In other words, twenty twenty
five is beginning now. If it hadn't begun already, it is now during this bye week, twenty twenty five is already here. The process of identifying who and where it begins now, and then when you get into the off season obviously it'll continue and build up until you get to the point of drafting in April and you know, mini camps and camps and things like that next May
and June. So with an eye toward the future like this, that's why I'm asking the question, give me one good thing, one bad thing, and one ugly thing that you know needs to You can have a bad thing and hope that it can change or feel like he can change with more work or more time, But an ugly thing is gonna mean no hope. Yeah, okay, born ugly. Sorry kid, you ain't gonna make it. You're gonna be an unugly adult. And you know, we got a pork chop for your neck,
you know, so the dog will play with you. That's ugly. Okay, do you want me to give you mine?
Now?
Go all right?
So I would say, you know, just to put them both together in the good category, so it's not all just Drake. Drake, Drake, right, Drake's obviously a good thing. Like we we can all see it. We can all see the talent with Drake. A lot of upside there right now.
It's kind of low hanging fruit though, you know.
Yeah, like Drake, right, now, to me, is already playing winning football at the quarterback position, and the stats bear that out. You know, he's a winning player right now for the Patriots on Sunday in this game against the Colts. He was a winning player started earlier in the year in that game. So he's on his way. You're right, it's not a complete finished product, but but he's well on his way sure to being a franchise quarterback in
this league. I would also put him together with Christian Gonzales. I think the one thing that one beacon of hope that I have for this roster right now, no coaching excluded, just from the roster perspective, is that you have pillars on both side to the football to build around. You have Drake Mayet quarterback on the offense. You have Christian
Gonzales at cornerback on the defense. So now everything else can kind of be built around the fact that you already have these two blue chip guys to be the guy on those sides of the football. So that's good. That's a step one For a lot of teams. You don't get to that step right. A lot of regimes never get there. So it's good that they hit on those in back to back first rounds that they have those two guys now. So with Gonzales, it's get another
outside corner on the opposite side. To your point about the last four weeks, maybe that's Alex Austin. You know, maybe he plays really good football.
We've seen, we've seen improvement in play without a doubt.
Yeah, he played well down the stretch last year, played well. I thought on Sunday, Let's see if it happens for four straight weeks against good teams. You know, Buffalo Chargers Arizona is a fringe playoff team. So he's gonna have some tests. He's gonna have, he's gonna be tested. So let's see what it looks like for Alex Austin. Maybe that's him. You know, obviously you need pass rush, you
know that. I'll get to that in the second. But the general point is is that you have some some pillars, some building blocks in those two guys that are at premium positions, that are young rookie contract players and guys that you just drafted in the first round the last two years. And that's the name of the game, like, that's the way out. The way out is to draft well.
The way out is to draft well. And we can argue about the rounds two through seven last year, and I'm not arguing like it's not been good, so there's no argument there for me. But first round the last two years, they nailed both picks. They got great players with both picks.
They just need they need depth. They just they just need depth with the within the draft because of all the multiple examples of coming up short where that's concerned. All Right, so we know what the good is. Did you identify bad?
So I would say the bad thing to me to just to piggyback off that, you know, the draft outside of Drake May last year wasn't good enough.
And I don't roster building.
Yeah, Like I don't necessarily think that those guys you know you said ugly is like this has got to change, right, Like something major has got to change.
That can improve over time.
Ugly shot right, So I'm trying to, you know, on that side of the street. I I definitely feel like I'm willing to give Elliott wolf in this personnel department another.
Draft interesting but.
At least is short, right, like this is this is it? You got one more draft?
Basic?
Yeah, And I will say that you know, as somebody that that studies the draft religiously and is big into the draft for a while. Now, what one of the hardest things to do in the draft is it's easy to draft first round picks, especially at the top of the first round. I'm not trying to give them zero credit for Drake okay, like some people are saying. But at the same time, you and I John could have picked Drake May And I think Elliot Wolf would admit that. You know, he's He's.
Said to me, would Daniels That's just me.
Yeah, he said to me in the past in the interview last year. I think at the combine was like, that's not what separates good talent evaluators. Is not the first round with good talent evaluators or days two and three? Can you find players on days two and three in the draft? Because everybody can find players in the first.
Round, of course.
So when I look at the draft last year, and then I would also say, when I look at the draft in twenty three, Kean White's a good player? Is he great? I don't know, good player though?
Right?
NFL Playalid?
Yeah, an NFL caliber player, You're right, but he hasn't quite turned out to be the world beater that we thought he would be.
Not quite, but I would say that he is an NFL caliber starter. You know, he's a starting NFL player in this league. So I'll give you the first two rounds in twenty three, but everything else, you know, I guess you. You know, to Mario Douglas in the sixth round was a nice pick, okay, but you had a
lot of other misses in there. You know, just looking at the fourth round a couple of years ago, you know they picked Chad Ryland is not even on the team, yep, right, Like I mean it just Jake Andrews has not played a real meaningful snap for this Patriots team, either been hurt or he's been down on the depth chart. He's a fourth round pick a couple of years ago in twenty three, jay Von Baker and Jalen Polk disaster, I'm sorry, just disaster rookie season like that, that's what it is.
The two of those guys have twelve combined catches. I don't know what else to call it. Like it just it has not been good. So they have to find a way to improve the Days two and three drafting because they're gonna have another top five pick, top eight pick, whatever it's gonna end up being in the draft this year. And my expectation is that that will be a good football player. It's pretty hard to miss that high up in the draft, so I would expect that to be
a pretty good player. But what do you do with the rest of your draft picks? Is how you get out of this? You know, I'll look at the Commanders quickly Brandon Coleman as their starting left tackle. He was drafted in the third round last year, rookie third rounder. Okay, Mike Sanstra, local kid went to Everett High, Michigan, another day two draft pick. Right, like, those are the guys that are contributing around Jayden Daniels right now in Washington.
That's how you get out of this is by drafting well, so they got to figure that out right now. It's been bad. It hasn't been ugly yet, but it's been.
Bad, all right, so bad. I think I would concur with a lot of what you had to say. But what about ugly? What needs changing yesterday?
I would say to again make it both sides of the ball, to spread around the blame pie here a little bit trench play, trench play, and I feel like you're the same way as me.
Well, yeah, the games are one in the one and lost on the line. On the lines.
Just I know everybody wants to talk about the receivers. No, I know everybody wants to talk about the quarterbacks. Nope, football is won in the trenches. The Patriots right now, offensively, according to win rate ESPN Metric, they are thirty second in pass blocking and they are thirty first in run blocking, so they have statistically the worst offensive line in the NFL, and I think all of us can just see that by the eye test. Defensively, the Patriots are twenty seventh
in pressure rate on defense. They don't get after the quarterback, especially when they only use a four men rush, where they're thirty first in the league in pressure rate when they only send four guys. So they just don't get pressure on the quarterback. And as we saw on Sunday, when they play a team that can run the ball and lean on you, they don't stop to run either.
So as much as I love Drake and as much as I love Gonzo, if Gonzales has to cover for four seconds every single time, because nobody's getting to the quarterback. And if Drake May is running for his life all day.
Long, he's gonna get hurt.
So we don't have a football team. Yeah, so something absolutely needs to change on both sides of the football. In the trenches. They have to improve the roster in those areas first and foremost. Then you can get your fancy receiver. Then you can get your you know, your Teed McMillan, your Travis Hunter, your t Higgins. I'm not saying you can't do it all at once, but you have to put real resources into pass rush and into pass blocking.
Okay, that's it. Well I'm gonna go. I'll give you my good, bad, and ugly and let's sort of compare and contrast here because I'm not gonna go for the low hanging fruit on Drake May because I think we all realize he is the future of this franchise. But in terms of you know, position and players that I think have done better maybe than expected, I got to go with the tight ends. I think both. First of all,
Hunter Henry is tough. Yeah, well he did. He get his nogg and knots times a couple of times this past week. And then what I've seen of Washington Hooper, I like, I think I think he's really improved over the course of this season, So I would give that a definite uppick uptick. I think that'll make you know, Claire, uh, you know, Clasi Claire very happy that we were talking about tight ends today. But I think that's a good and I'd like to see that maintained, if not eventually improved.
As far as bad is concerned, I can't disagree I with your choices over the the you know, the the personnel selections, and I think I'm gonna sort of mirror it, but I'm also gonna say I'm gonna move the trench play as you talked about the line of scrimmage is how I had termed it, line of scrimmage. On both
sides of the ball, that's been bad. Yeah, I don't really think you can see a lot of good out of anything from you know, you've seen blips, and you've seen you know flips, and you've seen moments of brilliance, and you've seen moments of absolute utter ineptitude, you know, and moments of absolute you know, brain cramp when the offense gets a rare big play and it's called back because of holding number seventy one. We'll get them into business,
you know, doing one of those things. Right. But so I gotta put the offensive line in defensive line, both in the bad as far as ugly. I to me, I'm not gonna call necessarily for anybody to be fired, yeah, because I don't think it's gonna happen this year. I think that, you know, there probably will be some kick of the tires. I think that there will be calls made around the league. You know, hey, would you or
you know, could you consider or this or that? And you know, if some things come available, you know, after Black Monday comes in the NFL, you know, when all the coaches are gone, I'm sure we're gonna have seven, eight, maybe even nine head coaching jobs open in the NFL at some point before you know, the twenty twenty four season is completed, once we get to the playoff round, right, I just think something has to happen upstairs. And I don't think the coaching staff can come back as it
is presently constituted. I don't think the scouting staff can come back as presently constituted. There needs to be a change. Now. I'm not calling for Elliott Wolf to be fired. I'm not even calling for DeMarcus Covening to be fired because again, as far as the coaches are concerned, look, I think they need to be given a couple of years to see if you know, where we stand and can they
improve upon it. That goes for Gerard too, And I know that people here locally are going absolutely ape bleep over Gerard and how the Patriots should think about letting him go after a year. I disagree. I totally disagree. I think that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Now for whatever reason, you know, mister Craft ended up hiring him. Well, that's up to mister Craft and and and up to Jonathan and and up to Gerard and
those that were involved there. The proof is going to come in the pudding by this time next year, okay. And if this team struggles with four or five six wins next year, uh, he's gone. He has to be gone because this is a business. And Gerard even understands that because he's been in the media and he understands that before you know, after he you know, left the team, then he got back into coaching, and so that's gonna
take care of itself. But let's see now, if personnel can do their job, strike it rich three or four draft picks, do even better within free agency to fill these gaps and give this team a not only some bonafide go to talent all around the field, but also a little bit of depth. You gotta have a modicum of depth here to be able to survive seventeen weeks. You know, the Patriots had their bye week here in week fourteen. Yeah, Gemini, Christmas man, that's late. That's almost
that's almost unfair. But I heard this week from some of the players, you know, when they practiced earlier this week Monday. I guess it was that it sort of said, you know, hey, all things being able, it's great to have the week off, but I almost wish we just went ahead and played through, which tells me they got a mentality of a it's onto the next. This one
ain't working out, it's we're onto the next. And I'm kind of that way too, to be honest with you, I'm like, all right, look, that's why I mentioned off the top of the program today. Look twenty twenty five begins. Now, this is it bye week. You've got you know, you know, four weeks left in the regular season, you got to play Buffalo twice, which I also think is insane not to play Buffalo before you get to the end of
the year and everything's already been decided. Now, maybe that's the fault of the you know, other teams in the AFC East more than it is the Buffalo Bills. I would tell you that I think the Patriots have a chance to win at least one of those games, because I don't think Buffalo is gonna play everybody at the end of the year. They've already clenched everything that they're
gonna need to clinch. So it's quite possible the Patriots to be playing the Buffalo b team, you know, and they might actually get some kind of a you know, representative appearance, have not a win out of the deal.
That would not be good for the draft pick.
John, No, it would not be. But I'm just saying the guys that are on this team and in this organization now, they don't care about that they're fighting for the jobs that I just talked about because they know that Hey, okay, maybe I get a pass now, but I know that my performance is under the microp the microscope, all right, so I got to play. I need player, I need to kick somebody's ass. I need to do
something in order to make an impression on people. And so is that looking at the overall good of the organization. Of course not. It's very much a me, me I I I think. And even though we know the old adage there's no I in team, I would tell you, well, there ain't no me or we either.
Yeah. I would never advocate.
Actually there is me. I wouldn't there is me in team? Right, yeah, yes, but not we.
I would never advocate for tanking or.
All right, all right, alright.
I would never advocate for tanking on any level, especially the player level. I would never expect any of those guys to go out there and dog it and lose games. But uh, you know, I'm glad you brought up the coaching because I probably should have included that in the draft and in the personnel side of things, because it's
kind of all one. Leadership is like sort of one thing to me with this team right now, And I do think you know, from a coaching perspective, obviously you hope that Girod takes the game management experiences that have k not gone his way this year and learns from them and makes it. You know, he's not an error repeater, sure, so that they get better at the end the halves,
so that they get better at closing out games. And you mentioned earlier that you know, that's the league in terms of one score games and in close games and finishing these games. I saw a stat earlier this week that three hundred and seven of three hundred and eighty one games this year have been decided by one score, which is eighty percent of the games in the NFL.
So you got to find a way to get over the hump. We can't even get this team can't get over the hump to be competitive because we know they're gonna come up short in the end. Right, you got to find a way to go beyond that and then a little bit more in order to win those close games.
Right, So these close games, that's the league, like these coin flip games. As I like the column where there's one score games that get come down to the wire. The teams that win those games go to the playoffs, and the teams that don't there where the Patriots are right are pick in the top ten.
And you know, Evan, it's been great that the Patriots actually been somewhat competitive all the one school games that they've actually been.
Involved seven of them.
Yeah, so okay, but they didn't win any of those.
Well they're they're two and five in those seven to one score games.
Doesn't seem like they want any well, I mean.
That's not winning very many.
Like, I'm not to your point like that left that to the other side. You got a team that's in the hunt for a playoffs spot.
Right, right, And so this this not that any I'm this might be a straw man, but like this notion that there's a lot of blowouts in the NFL, there
really isn't. No, there really isn't. And uh And so what you get at, you know, all of this is that a lot of these coaching decisions that people like us in the media you go over with a fine two comb Monday morning quarterback every single week, all these coaching decisions when you were in a twenty five to twenty four game are ascerbated, like these are important decisions within the course of the game. And and trust me, no one, no one hates talking game management more than me.
I hate it. I cannot stand sitting here talking about time out usage and end of half and how you manage the clock and what plays you called on a dry following when intercept, I hate it. I don't have any time for it. But that being said, when you get down to a game like you did against the Colts, that decided the game. Yeah, and that's on the coaching, right, you know, it's to coaching.
Has to be. Yeah, it has to be. I mean, you're sure it's on the players for execution, but hey, the players are only doing what the coaches ask them to do.
Right, I mean, you know, just to go back to the to the end of the game on Sunday, you get that interception from Christian Gonzales. They call two straight runs on the next follow the following drive. The first down run is not the biggest issue.
How long was that thirty second?
Yeah, the first the first down run is not the issue, though the second and long run is the issue. Now there's a chance, and I don't I'm not in his head said or in his head, But Jake Drake might have checked into the second run. But it was a check situation where they were canning.
Right.
They had two plays called passing a run and based off the defense, he was supposed to decide if we were going to run it or pass it, right, And all I'm saying is is that in that moment, they might need to be a little bit more pedal to the medal next time. And that's what you hope that
the Mayo. Yeah, but even if you're not, like if I have to imagine that, if like you know, Buffalo was in this similar situation, then in that spot to close out the game, they're putting the ball in Josh Allen's hands and they're expecting Josh Allen to go out there and win them a ball game. And especially when you look at the fact that really all you needed was like twenty yards to kick a field goal, you know,
to put that game out of reach. So these are the things that you know, like I said earlier, you hope that Gerard Mayo downloads this information, is it, and then the next time that situation comes up, they handle the situation differently, right, And if they don't, if we aren't seeing that, then that's when you start to ask questions.
Matt Saint Gene covers the Patriots, hosts the Pat's Nation Pod on COLNS Media, and also is a writer for Patriots pulpit, Pat's pulpit, if you will. He's at Matt sat dream on X. We asked him to join us in the program here today to kind of give us some of his perspective. Hey, Matt, how's it going, Bud?
It's going very well. How are you guys doing good?
Excellent? So I just I'm sure you've heard at least a little bit of the conversation here and just kind of curious overall, what's your take on where this team stands after thirteen weeks going into the bye week, and is this sort of the beginning of the end or the start of a new beginning? I guess might be the two comparisons here.
Well, I agree with your assertion that this is kind of the start of twenty twenty five. Start now, I think that's going to start on the offensive line, where hopefully Cole Strange and Caden Wallace can get out there.
And your last four.
Games here, I think they're all going to be very tough. You've got a road game against the team that's trying to get into the playoffs in Arizona, two games against the Bills, who they're fighting for the number one seed right now. If they win out, Kansas City loses one game there posting playoffs in the AFC, So I don't think they're going to be resting anyone. I think they're
going pedal to the medal. And you got a Charger scheme coming to Foxborough that has been tough and physical and very well coached all season long, that's won a lot of games. I think winning is going to be tough in the final four games. But you want to see some competition, and you want to see some guys start to take some acclaim to jobs for next year.
Sure, of course. All right, So I'm I'm going to ask you the same question that Evan and I have been talking about here for a little bit, and give me a good, give me a bad, and give me an ugly for this team, at least at this stage of the game. Good something you want to keep around, obviously, Bad something that you still want to keep around even though it has been very disappointing. Ugly you need to ditch.
I mean, I think very easily. The good on this team is Drake may I think he has been excellent in basically all the things you've asked him to do. From the standards of a rookie quarterback, very excited to see what he can be. I mean, like he's he seems like the real deal. I think maybe the bad I think in some ways had been you know, parts of the secondary and you know, I think the death options in the secondary. But from what we saw from
Alex Austen this week, I felt a lot better. And I think Kyle Duggar is kind of a player in the spotlight. The guy who was supposed to be, you know, a captain, a foundational player for your defense, has not played his best football this year, and as you go forward into the future, he's somebody who you want to make sure he is playing his best football and can be utilized properly. And then the ugly has been a lot of the play in the trenches. But I'm going
to go specifically defensive tackle. They've been pushed around too much there this year, and I think you look at this this draft with where they're going to be picking this year, and they might have a chance to really upgrade that defensive tackle spot going into next year.
Well you thought on those particular choices that he made, I actually find the defensive line choice intriguing. I mean because two three, weeks ago and maybe even some still now. To me, the top eight has still got to be an offensive tackle for this team. But that doesn't mean you can't go out and find yourself a defensive tackle. And will free agency be the better route for either offense or defensive tackle or will it be through the draft?
Yeah, I think the draft is stronger on defense in my opinion, just from you know, especially in the early part of the first round, from what I have seen so far in my study of the draft, I am coming around to addressing the defense in the draft. I would prefer to do it in free agency, just because I feel like there's more movement in the veteran market usually on defense. Like if you have a stud receiver, you're retaining him, you're trading him, You're not usually letting
him get to free agency. You know, Calvin Ridley is the best receiver in free agency last year. You know, maybe you get lucky and like T Higgins is you know, the occasional guy that will slip through the cracks like that, But even he isn't a high end number one receiver
in this league. So I look at defense and think that you probably are are more likely, you know, Matt mentioned a depth at corner, like, there are some corners in free agency this year, you know, ta various war DJ Reed, you know guys at Carlton Davis like guys that play a good football in this league at corner. So maybe you can go out and pay a corner. You know, Gonzo's on his rookie contract, he's here, he's
locked in. Go give a corner some money, you know, to have a tandem there with those two, I think that's more possible. But if you look at the talent in the draft, it's hard to deny that the talent is probably more on the defensive side of the ball.
Okay, let me pose something to both of you as well here, because it's a subject we've touched on, but we kind of dancing around it. And maybe it's because we're all stunned because of it. Jalen Polk's lack of production this year, I mean, I find shocking. I thought he would be potentially, you know, one of the finds of the draft this last year, but for some reason
or another, he has not responded to anything. In fact, I saw today a couple of reports where he's one of the lowest rated receivers in the entire NFL in terms of, you know, number of touches, in terms of what he's done with those touches. I mean, he's just
he's at the bottom of the heap. And I'm like, you know, I was hesitant because again he's a rookie, but I almost threw him in the ugly category, and like, okay, look, the Patriots have had a unfortunately and inglorious history over the last copy you know, decade or almost two now of finding real stinkers at wide receiver for lack of a better phrase, and it looked like they found another one. I'm not quite ready to go bust material yet. Talk me out of that.
Yeah, Matt, you can go first.
Matt, what do you think about Jalen?
I loved him coming out because he had great hands in college. And I think the thinking was, you know, he's not the most refined route runner, but his hands are good enough. You can put him on the field and if he isn't open, you could still throw him the ball because you think that he has a chance to make the catch anyway, we just haven't seen that materialize. You know, I think he's got a chance because receivers
do take time to develop. It's a highly technical role, so you know, in an offseason you can make a jump. And if his hands issues this year have been just you know, adjusting to the NFL and kind of getting the yips, that can correct at any second. But you really can't go into next year expecting anything from him, just given the production he's been. I think one of the worst receivers in the NFL by your per route run. And you know, you hope that he can get better.
He's not a bust yet, but you can't plan around that improvement happening.
And if you can't plan on improvement happening, what's the point in you know, keeping them around.
Yeah, well it was the second round pick, so I don't think they're going to give up on them, and I'm not advocating for them to do that quite yet. I always give guys a chance, you know, to pull out of it, and I think a lot of what's happened with him has to be noted is confidence related. You know, once you start to have struggles like that, it gets in your head, and I think he has
struggled at times with that confidence out there. But with that being said, I wasn't the hugest fan of his in the draft, mainly just you know, a flavor thing with receivers. For me, yeah, you know, I'm a big separation guy at that position. I think that's the skill that translates best from college to the NFL as guys that can really separate at the top of the route or run by people, and when you have a guy that is predicated on when in traffic, winning contested catches.
Those types of things are one very role specific, like you have to scheme those guys into your offense and find ways to put them in those positions. But I would also say too that the level of physicality from the college game to the pros is a big jump. And so when you're dealing with a guy that's going to be in crowds a lot and a guy that's going to have coverage on him a lot and has to box out or finish through contact or high point
a ball or whatever the case may be. When you get that jump up in physicality, that skill doesn't always translate for every guy from college to the pros. So my concerns with Polk were speed, dynamic route running ability, separation ability, whatever you want to call it, and I was a little worried that he was going to have to be super reliant on the ability to finish through contact on contested targets, and that skill does not always translate.
It does for some guys for a lot, and so that that would be my number one thing when you look at you know, what can the Patriots do to change the way they evaluate receivers moving forward? I think that's a major major thing. It's not drafting another Taekwon Thorton just because he's fast, right, It's not. I'm not saying just draft fast guys. That's not what it is. It's watching these guys on film and the guys that can get open at the top of the route and
can create separation consistently. Those guys, more times than not, are the ones that translate to the league.
I'm getting also some mixed signals as well on what maybe the biggest need for this team is right now, because I think we see some good in both sides of the ball, and I'm talking about on the ovisive line and in the defensive line. But even though I think we're all in agreement here, the trench area for this franchise has to change. That's that's a that's a part of the ugly that we're talking about here today, you know, with the subject matter. But what comes first
tackle or defensive tackle? Nose card? I mean, what's more important guarding Drake, defending Drake, or you know, collapsing a pocket and stopping a run.
Yeah, I definitely think, you know, pass rusher in general is what I would call it. Like I don't, I don't necessarily look at it as needing to be defensive tackle, because I do think you're gonna get bar More back at a fuller capacity next year, which should really help the interior you know, edge rusher, I think is a concern because everyone Jays is a really great run defender, but he's not a great pass rusher, so he's a
situational player. Ideally, Keon White is not somebody that you know is a great stand up pass rusher, but he's a really good interior pass rusher. So he's kind of the one of these tweeters you know that has to play a role specific to the down and distance and things like that. So finding a guy on the edge, in my opinion, that can be a three down edge defender that all situation type of pass rusher which are
hard to find. Like those guys are premium players. So we're talking about paying one in free agency at the top of the market or drafting one high in the draft. I understand that, but it's a really good edge class. It's probably the best edge out of all the positions. I would say edge is probably the best besides maybe running back. Running back is loaded. There's running backs all throughout this draft, but pass rushers, edge rushers really really good.
I'll give you two names that I like. First round. You gotta watch abdul Cotter if you haven't already from Penn State. That guy is a problem. He's going to be a top ten pick. He's excellent. Had a huge game last week against Maryland, killed Ohio State, killed Minnesota. Who has a draft eligible guard or tackle? Excuse me, that's gonna go high. He's a very very unique talent. I really like Jack Sawyer too from Ohio State. He's
a very good pass rusher. To one of these guys that we've heard for a couple of years now is going to be a very good NFL player, but he just hasn't been eligible yet. So I look at those two guys maybe a first round, second round for you as two guys that can play all three downs on the edge. That way there, you know, third down you have an Abdual Carter off the edge, you have Kean White and Christian Barmore up the middle, and now all of a sudden you've got a third down pass rush.
You know, that's that's the hope, at least if you draft guys like that.
Matt, what do you think offense or defense? Where would you lean in terms of most important as far as a need?
Well, in some.
Ways I kind of feel like that's not the right way to look at it. We have to look at it as what comes FIRSUS free agency. You have to see who the players are that are available. I think that's going to kind of dictate where you go from there. We talked about, you know, not always being able to find offensive lineman in free agency. That may not be the case this year. Cam Robinson, a left tackle who's been you know, but an average left tackle in the NFL,
i'd say, might be available. You might get Ronnie Stanley available at left tackle. You might get Morgan Moses available at right tackle. You might get Tray Smith available who can play guard. I think the trend are one of your biggest areas of weakness, that something you might be able to address quickly in free agency. If you know these guys do hit the market, you have the money
to do it. I do think that defense is in some ways the higher priority, though we've seen Drake May as a rookie with a poor supporting cast, already be pretty productive as a quarterback. I feel like, you know, if you can get that offensive line from thirty first or thirty second in the NFL, lots of twentieth there, Drake May can shine there. This defense clearly needs, you know, a lot of talent. I like the names that Evans threw out. I'm also going to throw two more out
there for you in the draft. MIKEL Williams from Georgia. He is not polished as a pass rusher yet, but he's long, he's strong, quite defensive end. He can kick inside for you, really really talented players still figuring things out. And then Nick s Gorton, He's an edge from Texas A and m you played it Purdue to one of the youngest players in the draft. He's pretty mobile for
a guy his size, and you know Abdel Carter. I like, I don't know if he's gonna fit what this front office is looking for, if they want someone with a little bit more size in that position to scort and maybe their kind of player.
Okay, yeah, Michael Williams a good shout. You know, he's probably the other top ten projected edge rusher in this class, or fringe top ten. If that, I would assume that Carter's pass rush ability is going to put him over the top in terms of being the top edge in this class. But Williams a really good player, and he's a little bit longer and like stouter on the edge too.
Okay, all right, this at least gives us a basis. I did say, Hey, this is the start of the new season, right, so we should at least begin to take an eye. We're going to go a.
Little draft talk. If you have me on you know that.
I always know that, and I know that I know we'll get that at you to catch twenty two stuff too. But I mean we're getting ready here. We're on the verge of you know, the college football Playoff, the first twelve team playoff we have have ever had in history, which I'm really looking forward to. I have to admit I'm a total old school about college football, and I love the bowl games and I love the bowl game system. I think there's something to the tradition that makes it special.
But at the same time, I'm actually kind of excited about combining that tradition of the bowl games with a little bit of March madness for football, you know, with the way that it's going, and I'm intrigued by it, and I think these are names that we should all be watching during the cfped where we see how these guys stand out against the big time competition.
Yeah, it's I really like it for draft purposes. I'm not a big college football guy, like in terms of rooting interest, but in terms of yes, I know, I know. That's why I said it laughing because I knew the horns were coming. I knew that no horns down horns up here. Yeah, but I was. I like it a lot because it shows you what these players do in the brightest stages, you know, like the big lights are on. It's not everything, you know, it's not everything Like Michael
Pennick's in the semi final last year has an unbelievable performance. Yeah, he did in the semi final, he was amazing and Jalen bulk Wot's too for that matter. That's what that's why I'm so disappointed he trashed my guys last year in the semi final. Yes, totally so both sides right, But with Penix, you know, does he does? Is penis a top ten pick without that semi final game? Probably not?
Probably not?
So like those are the big games that you watch now. You know, Abdul Carter at Penn State, he'll play in one of these games, might maybe multiple of these games. You know, they that's how you go and you look at these guys in those big stages.
Yeah, Matt, thank.
You for Yeah, go ahead, that's the games.
Yeah, left tackle Josh Connery at UH at Oregon. He is someone that may slip into the first round.
Yeah, you're left tacks Well, Kelvin Banks. I know he got banged up a little bit against A and M last week, but I mean he's certainly a name, uh that's worth watching. Uh. I know Cam Williams isn't we've talked about from LSU and he won't be in the playoffs. But at the same time, that's a guy I know that he actually declin playered physically for the draft this week. Yeah, so Williams is going to be a candidate for you know,
one of the tackles lots as well. Kelvin Banks seems to have size, agility, He's got good footwork and good foot speed for a big guy. I still think he's a little unpolished, if that's if that's a phrase. And and of course he's uh, this is just his third year of college football and he's gonna come out maybe a year early. He's a guy that most definitely could
benefit from a fourth year. But the problem is is that, you know, if he's ready, now, get him into a pro system and let him adapt to the pro system, which is the way most of the thinking goes with players who were any good, right, Yeah, you.
Know Will Campbell, you know at LSU two in early declare and both both those guys.
Will Campbell, That's who I meant. Why did I say cam Williams, I met Will Campbell? Yeah, I know, I just flip flopped the name, right, Yeah.
So yeah, well Will Campbell, you know, is an early declared guy too. And they've they've had good luck, you know, with Gonzo and Drake May like both or early declared guys as well. So usually when you're you're that good, that talent comes out right away and you don't have to stay in college football for four or five years to show that you're that good. So Banks I like a little bit. You know, we're gonna talk about these
guys a lot on Catch twenty two tomorrow. This is our first like draft preview show of the of the year is going to be tomorrow on the bye week.
Wait, what weren't we just talking a couple of weeks ago about you know, no draft talk until the season's over, but the seasons.
Yeah, so we're going to the bye week and I you know, since I'm not you know, thinking about another opponent on Sunday, I did some draft research this week, and you know, can't Banks? I? I like, I think that you can obviously see that he can move the line of scrimmage. A powerful kid, you know, big body, big,
big play, strained type of guy. You can see that generate the movement in the in the in the run game, and uh footwork and stuff like that to angle blocks and get a you know, they'll write leverage and all that fancy you know, detailed stuff is all there for him. The one thing that I had a little bit of concern with on his tape was, you know, getting out
to speed rushers and things like that. It's it's it's right on the line, right, some of those you talk about getting guys to ten yards, right, that's usually the landmark. Like he's usually like right at ten you know, when he's trying to deal with those speed guys coming off the edge. Campbell has a little bit of a different, you know, sort of weakness. But I think Campbell's outstanding. You know, his his body control a.
Little bit more compact really, I mean he's not quite quite then. He has shorter arms.
He's still six six, three thirty, so I wouldn't call him compact, but he's got shorter arms, which is you know what I was going to get to, which is sort of the concern with him. But in terms of movement skill, body control, balance, anchor, you know, power, just stout you're not going to go through him. That he's got it all. He's excellent. I think he's going to be a really good NFL offensive lineman, whether it's inside or outside. But you talk about the length issues, and
that is a concern. You know, longer, longer armed pass rushers can get into his body, get into his chest plate and then push him, you know, and that that does not bode well for him playing outside at tackle in the NFL. But I do like your boy a little bit. They're at Texas, you know, I think that
he's going to be a good player. Neither one of them is really Joelt like, They're not really in that category, but certainly they would have been in the mix with you know, Fashanu and Tulsa Fugawa and like that next wave of tackles last year after Joelt.
All right, man, before I let you go, who do you like in the SEC title game this week?
Oh boy, you know what, give me give me Texas. I'm not going to pitch against the host.
Or host either. Right, you're a good man, hey man, Thank you for the time today. Body, appreciate you.
Thanks for having me on that good chat.
You got you got it. That's Matt Saint Jane, who covers the Patriots for CLNS Media, does one of their podcasts there on c ln S it's the Appatch Nation Pod, and also writes for Pats Pulpits.
Two places that I used to work at as.
Well, I was just gonna say, you know, Evan worked his way into this realm, and its right. And if the network come and take you away like they took Mike Reese away once upon a time, it to be a guy like Matt Saint Jean coming in here and sitting in where Evan is, you never know, You just never know. It seems to be a proving ground for guys coming in.
Yes, as Fred like has to called clinics because you know, Selon s Is doesn't really roll off the tongue, which I tried to tell them multiple times, love you all, I mean it. I'm I'm just messing. But yes, look I Matt is a good example of it too. And my boy Taylor Kyle's another example. You know, a lot of the traditional people told me to like go to work from some small town paper covering high school football.
And I'm not like looking down at the people that did it that way either, But I took you know, the the internet path, the blogger path, if you want to call it that, and we all got to the same destination.
Can be done. It can be done. It just depends on your own perseverance and your own ability connect. Really, I teach this to my college kids all the time. You know, it's really about you know, not who you know, but who knows you. Yeah right, yeah, you know. I think that's a big thing. Like nowadays, you can be a brand, Like you can build yourself a brand even without the platform of patriots dot com or whatever. You know, I had it.
I started on Twitter in two thousand, I don't know, eleven twelve something like that, and you know that's a platform. Like just just do the job, like just write podcast, tweet, like, do it all. And as you go, you know, people will start to recognize you and start to oh, yeah, I know that guy.
That'll be consistent with whatever it is that you do.
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean that was That's what it was. Taylor is another great example. He's doing a great job, and you know that's he did the same sort of thing that I did. Just you know, keep putting your head down and keep working at it. I think unfortunately nowadays, the old school journalism way of going to cover some small town high school paper thing like those jobs don't exist anymore, you know, so it's it's.
You have to dig really to find him. To be honest with you, Yeah, you know. The story that I tell is a former student that I had when I was at Emerson a little over a decade ago and he was a year out of graduating. He called me up and he basically said, I'm having a hard time getting a job, you know. And he was an okay student, Yeah, you know, good looking kid. He wanted to be a sports anchor. You know, I wanted to be an ESPN
guy that kind of stuff. And so, you know, we went out to lunch one day and he wanted to pick my brain. I said, well, what do you really enjoy doing? And he says, I enjoyed reporting. You know, I liked it on the desk, but I was reporting. I said, so basically, you're telling me you want to tell stories. Yeah, and he said, yeah, I want to tell stories. I said, I told him exactly. I said, go find a small place that will lull you tell stories.
So he ended up finding a weekly newspaper which obviously has a website in central Pennsylvania in and around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and ended up starting a podcast and an online interview with the high school football coaches every week. Grew their readership, you know, over the course of six to eight months, ended up getting his first TV job from that job in the smallest market in America and Alpena, Michigan, which is the Upper Peninsula, right, that's where you know it's winter,
you know, ten months out of the year basically. And then he took that and Alpina, Michigan, came back home to work as a freelancer for a station in Providence. Decided he didn't like the freelancer out because it didn't pay all the bills, so he took a full time job in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which, by the way, is a sneaky good sports market.
Yeah.
Tulsa's because they cover everything college as you would imagine between Goldman, Arkansas because it's right there in eastern Oklahoma. But they also cover a lot of pro sports in the area as well. And then he went from Tulsa to Dallas. Yeah, and he's now the weekend anchor at KATFW, the Fox Affilitate in Dallas. So he's gone from market two hundred and seventy five whatever el Pina, Michigan is to market five.
That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible.
But he started because he found a small place to tell stories.
Yeah, I said that that would be my one piece of advice to anybody that wanted to listen is just just start. Just just find a place to put your writing, to put your podcasts that you don't even need like a podcast host anymore. Like he just posted right post.
Didn't put it up there and get you know, friends and family to jump in on it. And frankly, I know that a lot of people who listen here that do Patriots later podcasts because Marine and I have actually had some of them on Yeah, and we'll probably do
that again in the off season. We'll do a couple of shows in our off season programming here, which we do monthly rather than weekly, but we invite some of the these podcasts hosts from Patriots podcasts that have caught our attention and that we know people will listen to to kind of come in here and we all exchange thoughts and ideas, because you know, covering a football team isn't just restricted to people like you and me and
even the mainstream media. Everybody's got a thought, everybody's got an opinion. It's how you package that thought and how you package that opinion that will attract potential readers or listeners that really counts, and if you do it in an attractive, interesting way that people will go, ah, you know what, that's not bad. I'm going to listen to that, or I'm going to read that again. Now you're cooking. Now you're on the right track. It can be done.
And that's why I like, you know, hearing from all kinds of people. You know, we ask people all the time to call this show, and we get our regulars to call in, which is fabulous. I'd like to hear more indifferent opinions, regardless of whether you agree or disagree, because it causes me and people like yourself, people like Fred and Paul anybody else that around here deuce. It causes us to stop and think and to see another
side and another point of view. Sometimes we do get so close to the forest we can't see the trees all the time, and so it's always good to get a fresh perspective. And this is why I also like to do things like we've done today, which is asked people about you know, good, bad, and ugly, because it gives us perspective. Is where people are coming from. I'm not totally surprised for the answers thus far, and I'm hoping we get a chance to ask a few you
know listeners about it as well today. But at the same time, perspective is really everything here because I think it helps us really attack what we need to attack in terms of figuring out what's right and what's wrong with the football team in the franchise.
Yeah. Absolutely, well said, thank you buddy anytime, appreciate time.
Karen the only, the one and only Evan Lazar and he did say hi to Karen. We're gonna get right to her. Hey, this reminder, bud Light is easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Bud Light the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots, and don't forget, Bridgestone is the official tire of the New England Patriots. I'm proud to partner with Sullivan Tire, New England's headquarters for quality Bridgestone tires. Visit Sullivantire dot com to find a location near you.
Eight five five Pats five hundred. That's the TPX toll free hotline eight five five Pats five hundred. You can also find us, you know via email if you'd like to send a note, don't have time to pick up the phone and call podcasts plural podcasts at Patriots dot com, or you can hit me up on x at JR Broadcaster, because I usually have that up looking at everybody else's feed. But if you hit my feed as well, I'm happy
to answer a question that way. All right, So what Evan just did as he said hello to our friend Karen Krigian, who has covered the Patriots as a columnist and as a writer to beat writer for a number of years, several decades. In fact, I don't want to date you, Karen, in terms of how old you are or anything else like that. That's not my point here. My point here is that you're an experienced journalist and she's a good friend of the show, and we appreciate
her taking some time today. Karen Grigan joined us.
Hi, Karen road John, how are you?
Everything's good? Yeah, you know, as good as it can be for a three and ten football team.
Right well, And for the record, I am old, but.
That's okay, No, no, no, I.
Think I equate that with Wyse.
You know.
Well, let's see, I've learned how to do that too, because I think I have you beat in that department. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it. And yeah, I try to think of wisdom. Yeah, I try to think of wisdom. You know. That's that's the that's the main
thing I kind of, you know, rely upon. And so I want you to use a little of your wisdom in this regard because one of the questions that I'm asking today has to do with kind of taking a you know, that beginning look ahead with the bye week now being so late this year and only four weeks left of the regular season, to me, this really is this is the start of twenty twenty five for the Patriots,
for this team, this franchise. And you know, Jerrod Mayo I think has even sort of, you know, alluded to that as well when you met with the media earlier today, earlier this week as well, and postgame anter the Colts game this past week. And I think we all know that, you know, because you're now mathematically eliminated, guys are gonna start playing for their next deals or guys are going to try to impress upon coaches or decision makers whoever may be in those spots with an eye toward next year.
You know, you're gonna be kept around, We're gonna move you around, You're gonna make you expendable. You know, what's it gonna be. They've already done that with an offensive lineman and Michael Jordan, and who could be next? We also have the decision makers, you know, whether it's a coach or somebody in player personnel that could also be moving around, because we just don't know, and you shouldn't know rightfully, so you shouldn't have, you know, absolutes down
when your team is three and ten. So I'm gonna ask you for something good about this team that you've seen this year. I'm gonna ask you for something bad that you've seen about this team this year. And I'm gonna ask you for something ugly, And by ugly that means it's just not fixable. You've got to change it. So you want to which one do you want to start with? You want to start with good?
Sure, go, well, the good is obvious.
Yes, well, we that we know. But I'm kind of curious to know whether or not you I'm kind of curious whether or not to know if you have something that might be hidden that you've seen, that you've noticed that you think is Hey, that's pretty good.
From from Drake.
Drake.
The sure it's necessarily hidden, but a couple of things. I mean, I think we've seen growth over the course of his eight starts. I think we're seeing I want to say, advanced skills, but skills that you know, lead to him being a better, a really good quarterback. You know, his ability to throw and lead throw guys open. Not everyone can do that, but he can or throw it
to a spot where only receivers can get it. I had a conversation with Austin Hooper recently about a ball that Drake threw to him, and he was just raving. I mean, it was like there were three defenders around and there was Austin and Drake, with Austin telling me the story. Although I did see it, he just marveled at how Drake put it in a spot where only
he could get it. And you know, he's telling me he's played with a ton of quarterbacks, he's a veteran tight end, and he hasn't seen that ability a lot where the quarterback just instinctually puts it in a place in a crowd where his guy, only his guy, can get it. So you know, those things, those you know, they might not be obvious to the eye, but you know, subtle things like that. You know, I love, I wouldn't advocate quarterbacks throwing across the body, but boy does he do it really well.
Yeah, I mean I have to admit that that reminds me of you know, some real you know, gun slinger quarterbacks type of that I've seen, you know, in the past, who sling it that way, And yeah, that's you know, it's it's.
I mean, we have mag Jones attempt that and it was gross, didn't go well, no, I mean didn't go well.
But but he does it. It just amazes me how accurate he is doing it. And you know, I I think, you know, another thing, subtle thing, John instincts that he has instincts knowing when to run, when to roll out and throw.
You know.
Again, it might not seem like a big deal, but it is. This kid's twenty two years old, and he just seems to have a natural feel for the game. I think he's done a really good job seeing the defense, reading the defenses, not hesitating. Again, these are kind of these intangible qualities that might not be obvious off the screen, but they're obvious when you watch plays back, when you go over the tape. As all of us beat writers do, and you gain even more of an appreciation for how good he is.
You know, I have to admit that his ability to sort of you know, as my coaches used to call it, you know, hey, rook, how come you can't just penny years back and let it go? You know? And because I was always too afraid of making a mistake, that's what kept me from being really good. I think that and talent, you know, usually has something to do with it. But he is willing to do that, and I like that attitude. So he's not afraid to make a mistake,
and I'm actually impressed by that. I'm you know, okay, yeah I messed up here, but I know where I messed up. I'm going to try not to make that mistake again. And I think we've seen that sort of improvement from him this year, which is most encouraging, which is really why everybody should be, you know, happy with what they've seen this far. You can't be happy with the overall product, but man, get this guy some dudes to get the ball to and you might have something here in the next year or two.
Oh well, that's the whole thing.
John.
It's almost like you want to fast forward the narrative, you know, and it's like god like, you can't wait to see him when he actually has a team around him, you know.
Yeah, yeah, but again along the subtle lines, what he's able to do.
With nobody around him.
Yeah, honest to.
Goodness, you know how he can.
You know, I'm not.
Gonna I'm not gonna put him into the same category as some of the earliite quarterback but make people around him better.
You know.
I think he's made the offensive line uh not seen quite as god awful because of his ability to move.
Yep.
I think he's helped some receiverslong and his ability to you know, put the ball in good spots for them since they can't gain separation. His accuracy is help these guys who really don't create separation. The only issue here is he hasn't been able to produce wins.
No, he does need some help where that's concerned. I do like his His is zeroing in on the Patriots tight ends in particular, which is one of those underlying good things that I thought of, because I think the performance by the tight ends, all things being equal, they've helped with blocking. They've got shown us that they have pretty good hands you know, Austin Hooper I think has been a fine so I give him credit where that's concerned. So I would kind of put that in the good
category as well. What about bad? What about bad? And by bad, I mean, okay, right now, it's not good, but it's worth saving, it's worth keeping around, it's hopeful of improvement. What do you think, Well, I.
Have to look to the defense, okay, and it's kind of all encompassing, with the exception of maybe Christian Gonzalez, who's another BLUs.
God.
The play of the defensive line has been startlingly poor, getting blown off the line of scrimmage, not being able to stop running games, not being able to stop quarterbacks you know, you know, the linebacker play, the confusion in the in the secondary and backfield, I mean, and opposing teams have picked up on the fact that you get down in the red zone, stick a play in there, no huddle, and the Patriots are lost trying to figure
out who to cover, what to do. Motion is another killer has been another thing that they haven't been able to figure out or get again get their their ducks in a row. And I don't know if again they obviously they've lost some good players. John Bentley was kind of the quarterback back there. The linebacker Kyle Duger, I believe he has been playing on one leg with a bad ankle. They didn't have Jabrill Peppers until recently. They didn't have
Christian Barmore until recently. But I think perhaps we were spoiled when coach Belichick was here of his ability to kind of hide his weak spots yep, or still be able to confuse quarterbacks. You know, we just haven't seen that type of mystique, that type of you know, doing things with the defense that confuses quarterbacks because the way it looks, the defense is the one that's confused, ye, not the offense.
It does. So let me ask you then the tough question here, should there be Will there be changes in the coaching staff on that side of the foot?
Well?
I think I really think Girod has to sit back and take an honest look at the coaching staff on both sides of the ball. And you know, I don't know if that means firing people, but perhaps it means bringing in co coach type of people that can help straighten out and fix some of the difficulties. Of course, talent will help talent helps any coach, but it's just the problems we've been seeing John fundamental where to line up?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know how that happens. I just I mean it's inexplicable for this time of year for guys not to know how to line up in order to be legal, or guys to know that you can't jump the signal or you know it just I do. It's a head scratcher that I've never seen before in covering this team for nearly forty years as I have, I've never seen this of a team this late in the season. So it can't be anything but coaching or how they're being instructed how to do things.
Right right, And again it's mystifying to me, you know, just again the dumb things that they do, and it just.
Oh yeah, and it just ruins everything, which leads me then into the real winner here, the ugly what needs to be changed, what has no hope of improvement, what should be thrown out, you know with you know Tomorrow's trash, that kind of thing.
I mean, it goes right to the offensive line. Yeah, I mean they've ignored they've ignored left tackle, and it's stunning that they did so, bringing in having a rookie quarterback. And again I think Viderian Law has done as well as he humanly possibly can with his ability. But and but you know, whether they were or drafting tackles, they drafted people to play the right right tackle and expected them to move to the left.
Right.
They signed in free agency a predominant right tackle, expecting him to play left. I mean, are you willing to take that kind of chance that whoever can make that change without really knowing? I mean that to me is that's ugly. That's an ugly assessment or an ugly way
to go about your offensive line. It's just and it again, it's trumbling, it's you know where you know that doesn't seem to be high on the right, which is offensive line is the that's that's where the offensive that's where the offense stems from.
Of course it is. And why wouldn't you want to protect your best asset? I just that one blows me away, and it just tells me. I mean, the only thing I'm left really together is that they tried to do it on the cheap and they failed.
Well, well, if they continue to do it that way, shame on them.
Yeah. Yeah, they can't afford to and they.
And they deserve all the criticism that's coming their way.
Yeah. Along the whole lines of ugly, the performance of rookie second round draft pick Jalen Polk has almost been inexplicable. He's not the same player that I saw, you know in the you know, national semifinals and finals last year. He not even closed. He was explosive, he had great hands, good speed, I mean, and we've seen nothing of that. And so I'm going to ask you a very simple question. Why.
Yeah, well something Well, let's even go back to training camp. John, he looked like that player. Sure, at least he started out. You know, it looked like you know, watching him in training camp. But again you have to put training camp into context. These aren't padded. Practice is basically people running free and you know, with little you know defense, let's say,
you know, with little opposition. But he again, he stood out in kind of the early going in training camp, and he seemed to have a chemistry with Drake May and that kind of has all disappeared in It's funny I talked to him yesterday, so I wrote something about him today. A series of drops, uh, bad penalties, lining up in the wrong place. I mean, it's like it's like when he gets on the field during games, he loses his mind, which is weird.
So why are we going back to football? One oh one? That's what That's what I don't understand. What's causing him to do?
You know, perhaps again perhaps uh you know you look at the coaching staff, the wide receivers coach or again something is missing, you know with Jalen Polk and to a degree to Von Baker because they put him out there and then they have to take him out because he's in the wrong place or he doesn't do the right thing. And it's like, is anyone teaching these guys?
Well, if they're teaching them and they're failing, then they're not really holding them accountable, now, were they.
Well that opens up a whole nother can of worms there, because when you I'll just go back to our friend Viderian Lowe, when you commit when you false start three times in the same game and don't get benched, and he didn't. But here's well, here's the other issue. Well, who the heck are they going to put in there?
Well, that's the problem. You know, we've been talking about We talk about a little of that almost every week, and they're just not there's just not enough. That's the ultimate failure of this roster in the way it was constructed.
The coach can't even bench players because there's such a huge drop off. And again, when you're talking about left tackle or even right tackle and you're in the in the franchise you're trying to protect, are you going to bench the guy to send a message and thanks getting the franchise hurt.
Yeah, no, you can't do that, can't.
So again, So in some ways I think Gerrod Mao's hands have been tied by the roster that he's competing with.
Yeah, somewhat. We'll find out if that changes soon enough. Hey, I appreciate you spending a little time with us, Karen. As always, it's it's good to talk to you. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and good lord, Christmas is three weeks from today. I'm stunned by that.
I know it to get As always, John, thanks for having me on.
I enjoy our chat, so do I, And believe it or not, Karen, there's a lot of people who listen that also enjoy it. So I appreciate your making time for us.
Thank you anytime. I have a great holiday. If I don't see you or talk to you before, then.
Same to you. Hopefully we'll run into each other at the stadium here very very shortly, with a couple of games left to play. The One and only Karen Greggian from masslive dot com at Griggy and g U R E g I A n on X is where you can find her. Her stuff is always good. It's always spot on. The One thing that I've always loved about Karen.
This isn't necessarily mutual admiration society here, but one thing I always love reading about Karen is that she reads and she writes about the stuff that I think about. She's spot on, and that comes from covering the team for thirty plus years as she has. And so that's where experience really pays off, because she knows what you expect. She knows what I expect. She knows what she expects, she knows how to go to it, and she's been around and the players know her. I mean, heck, she
was one of TV twelve's favorites. You know. For those that don't know, you know, he would always you know, kind of like you know, in front of the White House press scops, I always call on you know one reporter first because you know him best, and think that's what Tom Brady did when he was here. He'd always call on Karen first anyway, because he respected and her ability to recognize, her ability to write, and her ability to be fair. That's what I like most about Karen.
So you gotta make sure that she's a follow if you're if you're following along, and that's why we love having her on the show every now and then. Okay, so I got to hit the TPX hotline here pretty quickly because Patty and Aguam has been hanging on like for flipping ever. Patty, you're still there.
I'm still here, John, hold on one, all right.
No, it's good. Hey. I kept you on hole, so you can keep me on hold for a second or two. Anyway. It doesn't make for great radio, Patty, but it's all right.
Hey. As I was listening to Peu earlier today, I guess I don't make for great radio for some callers, So that's all right. I don't mind. I don't mind being the bad guy.
If I have to be.
Well, but see, I like bad guys. I like foils. I like you know, people who come in to sort of stir the drink or shake the tree, or however you want to term it. Because you know, even if I don't even if I don't agree with it, I like to hear other opinions because it gets me to stop and think and consider the other side and hopefully making a better educated opinion in my own right. Does that make sense?
Makes sense?
Yeah?
He kind of serves it up to me, you know, because wait to you hear the three answers I have to the question today?
All right, baby, go what's good?
My good?
Aside from the obvious Ndalas and May, I wanted to stand out and be a little different. So I'm taking Alex van Pelp because if you look at the difference between Drake May when he first got here, you know, in rookie camp and minie camp and training camp to where he is now. Yes, May had a lot to do with it, but I think as far as his development goes, you got to give your you got to take your hats off to Alex van Pelp for what
he's done with the kid. And we're starting to finally see a little bit more creativity within the offense too.
Well, you know that that's a fresh take. I'm going to give you credit for that one. And let's also go back to you know, even though didn't win the game this past weekend, it was their most balanced offensive effort of the year. They outgained the Colts. They had over four hundred yards at total offense.
Yeah, I know, it's I mean, it's just last week was one of those games where I just when it happened, John, when the Colts scored, I'm like, they're going for two years and I'm watching the game with my friend next Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, how how could you not go for it right here? When your playoff lives are on the line, you're playing a team with three wins at their house, you go for the win. But yeah, I mean they outgained them almost two to one, won the turnover battle,
and still lost. And I was left there like, what the hell, man, oh boy, we got to do to pull out a win?
You know? Yeah, yeah, I don't think this team is capable of that. That's the problem. It's just a prise.
I think they're still very you know, for as much crap as the coordinators, the coaches, Elliott Wolf. Everyone takes this is I've said this on a previous call to John, this is a rookie year for everybody minus the Craft, you know, everyone else in a big position this year is it's the rookie year. So I wish people would be more patient and cut them some slack.
All right, so you hit how about the bad?
Yeah, my bad? And I'm only putting a one year label on this bad because if we're at the bye week next year, I might I might be saying this guy is ugly. I'm going to go jail and polk because I think there is something there. I think there's a reason why, you know, wide receiver coach. Notwithstanding, I think I think the organization likes them. I think eventually, like you know, I listened to Evan a lot. I listened to Alex a lot, listen to p I listened to Patriots Doc Amla.
You know that.
But when Mao made the comment about him kind of like being in his own head, I'm paraphrasing there. You know, Evan came on the air and said, you know, the one thing we were worried about with him getting open, he's doing He's just not catching the ball, and I mean I think it's I think it's sort of stacked against him over the last few weeks, and I think he just needs to settle it down. I'm hoping this
by a week does does him some good. And I said it a few weeks ago to I don't care which one of these rookie wide receivers it is, Baker or Polk. I just want to see one of these guys be a player. Doesn't matter who, doesn't matter, how, it just doesn't matter. I want to see it happen.
Yeah, no, I agree, so many needs to all right, ugly what what is? What is the proverbial lugly baby that needs to pork chopper hanging around its neck so the dog will play with it?
All right?
I went back and forth on this, and I know this is probably going to be very unpopular with some people. I was gonna throw out de Marcus Covington, but again, like he's in his first year, let's give the guy another year. As bad as the defense has been, I'm gonna go Kyle Dugger. And I think if you look at since you know, the last couple of years, the last two years, especially even with Bill Belichick as head coach.
You know, I think he's he's pretty good playing at the line of scrimmage, but as far as like the second, you know, second and third levels coverage, covering tight ends, you know, covering the deep middle of the field, he's he hasn't been good and I don't think he's been He hasn't been worth the money that they gave him, and I think it's it might be time to move
on from him. As much as I mean, I like the guy, I thought he was, you know, he was emerging a couple of years ago, but even before they paid him, like I just thought, like, well, he didn't he really didn't look that good last year, you know, he didn't look good. I thought down the end of the stretch at twenty twenty two as well. But many had that big pick in Arizona, the Pick six, or maybe it was Raiders game. I can't remember one.
Of those games.
But ever since then, he's he's fallen off, and I don't know, maybe another team can get something out of him, Maybe we can get something out of him as far as draft capital. And like I said, I like the guy. It's nothing personal, but I mean, we at this point, we got to kind of be what we can cut out for dead weight, you.
Know, yeah, well that is going to come with a team. You know, it's going to be three and ten, or is three and ten and could be you know, three and fourteen. We don't know. I mean, we don't know what will happen over the last four weeks, but it's certainly not going to be I don't think it'll be
better than what we saw last year. And like I said at the top of the show today, Patty, I'm like, I really thought this was a five or a six win team this year and maybe with a break or two, you know, they might be in playoff contention to about this time early to mid December before they ultimately succumbed, because I didn't think they'd have enough depth overall. Certainly they don't have the depth. The problem is they don't have the starters, So that's part of the issue overall.
But we were wrong, and they just they don't have the depth that you know, they've got to create depth. They've got to bring in starters, they've got to bring in more NFL ready more NFL capable performers surrounding you know, hopefully the offensive anchor and the defensive anchor that they have, you know, and that's really where we stand. So to me,
I'm kind of I tend to agree with you. I mean, look, DeMarcus Covington has had a rough ride over the last few weeks as the defensive coordinator because we've seen regression here, and I do think there's an issue here. But at the same time, because it's the first year for everybody in terms of the head coach, the OC, the DC, I'm certainly I'm kind of more in your camp, Patty.
I really think that yeah, they probably should get another year to be entirely fair, but the one that the owner really has to go down upon and that we really need to come through otherwise he needs to, you know, rethink his employment status is Elliott Wolf. I mean, yeah, you got to bring in the personnel for these coaches to coach up. I just don't know that it's fair one hundred percent. And we know it's not a fair business. Okay, it's professional sports. It's not a fair business. It's not
gonna be. It's a what have you done for me now? Business. It is all about you know, the Benjamins. It's about nothing else other than that you gotta make money. This is a professional business, but you got to give you know, it's kind of like Bill Parcells once said, right, if they're gonna want you to coach the players, they got to let you shop for some of the groceries. And I totally agree with that assessment. So when you bring in the groceries, don't go buy rotten eggs, don't don't
don't buy it quickly. Yeah, don't buy stale bread. Don't do any of that stuff real quickly.
Before I get off, you can get some other people on. I mean, he got the biggest chip, the artist piece to get. You know, we have the quarterback. Now it's up to him, you know what, Like I want to see them build up the defense. But while he is on his rookie contract, you have to do him justice. Sure, you start building the offense around here so we can compete, because it's not it's not your father's NFL. It's not my father's NFL. Games are one on offense more often
than not nowadays. You got to build it up. That's all I got.
Johnny.
You're a good man, Patty, Thank you, buddy, Appreciate you all. Right, Before we get to mister Baxter here, Aldred. What's happening brother.
Hey, mister legend, how you doing today?
All good today? How about you?
Uh, let's tired, but it's worth.
Wait do we do? We have a tough hall, tough haul.
Today, a long ones.
Oh where were you coming from? Where are you headed? All right? Now?
Coming from Columbia going back to Charlotte. Right now it's traffic time. And the other day we've got a little snow, the flurries.
Oh you know how long a drive is that? How long are driving from from Columbia to Charlotte? How longer drive is that?
A good day is an hour? Almost two hours? Okay, bad day two and a half three?
Traffic on the traffic are we? Hey? When are we putting together Eldridge Rules of the road. We have to do that, you know, all right, that's that's for marine. That's for marine. That marine's got to get together on that. We want to put together Aldridge Rules of the Road and that way we you know, have some little reminders for people who are sitting in traffic listening to the pod or you know, whatever they're doing. Marine, We we definitely have to get to Eldridge Rules of the Road.
At some point, right, like you don't have enough to do. I understand that, but I'm just saying it's on my list. I will get to you, Eldred. See it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen, all right, So Eldred, give me good, bad and ugly about this team because I know you've got some definitive choices here.
Yeah. Good, I'm I'm going with everybody else. Drake may you know, he's do a little bit better. It's getting better what I thought he would do. Ye I had him, I didn't. I wouldn't want to drive him, but I got to give it. Give Hi his problems.
Yeah, well you told me you're gonna go buy his jersey. You bought his jersey, right.
I already got it.
Yeah, you showed. Remember you sent me a picture? Yeah, you sent me a picture?
Did you show?
Did ye? Okay?
Man of my word?
You know?
Yes? Sir?
All right? Bad? What's bad?
What's bad? Well, it's it's you go a lot of ways with that. I want to go the line and I want to go defense. That's time. I'm gonna go with both. What's ugly, it's the talent level on that team with Ian Wolf. That's what's damn right ugly.
You would have said, you would have said that for GM Bill Belichick too though, right.
I think they're the same people, you know.
It wasn't the version of yeah, he'll probably take that as a contown. Right.
He shouldn't the way where he drafts. He shouldn't. That's why I feel ain't got a job. You ain't got no, you ain't got no, you ain't got no groceries in in uh in the cabinets, you know. And then uh, I'm like everybody else. You gonna have all this cap space, you have cap money, you know, cap money you have, you have this top of the draft whatever. He won't get it right. I don't think he. I think he.
I think he drafts like Bill, or he learned from Bill, and I think he drafts the same way, you know, because you got the same guys and coaching wise, you know, ugly on defense office I thought was ugly at first, but it's getting better, you know. And then I'm like Marcus Covenant, I can't understand you, even in high school when I was coaching in high school. If a guy go in most motion, if you go a man and you want to double him the far stats on the
other side, double the guy that goes with him. That's that's elementary. That's elementary. The other the other states to cover up the deep end. That's elementary. It's a side, you know. And then if you're dropping, you just drop back in the zone or whatever. But you just don't have nobody confused or whatever. But they pro they get paid, so they should. They should know that rule too, because they had to start from high school to leave him and to learn the same thing. I just can. It's
just a talent level. And another thing I'm mad about is, Okay, you got some guys on the scout team. I hear some people right about him or whatever, you know, and like, you got a six y three wide receiver right there already. You know you got speed. He might be whatever, but right now you three and ten. Why not try everybody? You got some some some corners with some speed and
some size. Why not try to see what you got instead of just looking at practice squad and said, well, they just run the scout team and that's that, you know. Why not give them a shot somewhere else because you're hurting the secondary. Who knows you might have a second guy right there might have a receiver right there, Jalen Polk. I gave it from from Jump Street because I said, I want a d Mitchell, I.
Know, although although I mean, I don't think ad Mitchell had the best game of this last week either for the Colts.
Right, No, he hasn't little little what you call. Matter of fact, my brother in law he's a Colt saying he told me that, Hey, I tell you what if I was them, I trade you a d Mitchell for Robinson to guard. I said, no, I ain't giving you the guard I give you. I'll give you somebody else for him. I won't give you the guard Lennon Robinson.
Rob Yeah, that's one of the reasons.
Pretty good.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why they want to play him, because they want to see more of him. They want him to get on the job training, kind of like what they did with with Drake earlier this year when they decided to move him into the lineup. It's on the job training, and there's no better way to learn than on the job.
Yep. And what else is ugly you only got only hit on one draft pick, which I know that's the major one, but that ain't the only one. At least you got leash hit three out of how many people getting eleven? Least hit three. You ain't hit but one.
I know, I know, you gotta you gotta, you gotta have a three hundred batting average minimum, right minimum? Minimum?
Yeah, minimum, you know. And right now he got zero with me. He got zero from another year, and he got zero for this year, you know. And then uh defense, like you said, you got some free age of corners. You know, that can help help out a gun zone on that side over there. But it's a linebacker crew and the front line, you decent line differ. I'm like, kind of trade. I'll pay somebody for that back to do that and then keep trying to draft whatever. But like I said, the other thing is the GM and
the talent level. And you saw this when Bill was there and you got your chances to do something different, you did the same thing your predecessor did.
Correct.
I think that's dumb.
Yeah, I listen. It's hard to argue that. It's hard to argue that you're willing to get them another shot next year. You're willing to give the coaching staff another shot.
I get a coaching Shaft coaching staff another shot. But like I told you a while ago, mister Kraft, let me draft for you one year. I guarantee you let me draft rest of the time. You ain't gotta pay me.
Well, we're gonna, we're gonna go to GM. We're gonna we're gonna give you a chance to make that draft Eldred. All right, you're gonna we're gonna work on that for April and May next year, and we're gonna let you, uh, you know conduct you know, Eldridge draft, and we're gonna see how it compares to what the Patriots do and go from that point. All right, So start boning up
on these guys. I want you to find me some you know, third, fourth and fifth round gems, right, guys, guys that are lumps of klo, Guys that are lumps of coal right now that you can mold into diamonds.
All right, don't do that, okay, But I like you. I like moving at the top of the draft to get some of those guys they're around those special team guys. Yeah, totally, yes, yes, But okay, you have a good one, mister Landa.
I was good talking to always good to talk to you, Eldred, Love you all right, Eldred once again from North Carolina, just fresh off the road. And now it's what week fourteen in the NFL.
It's a real woman could stop you from drinking, a real big woman.
It's time to go around the NFL with football guru Russell Baxter.
Now on.
The name is Flounder.
On Patriots playbook hung And this reminder, Massachusetts is made for everyone. For the leaf peepers, corn maze strollers, for gando lovers, pumpkin pickers, and anyone else you could think of. Come to where there's something for everyone this fall and winter, Massa Choosets, where everything is made possible. Plan your trip at visit MA dot com. Good afternoon, mister Baxter. How are you sir?
Hello there, sir. Are you recovered from Thanksgiving?
Or yeah, yeah, listen. I don't have any complaints. I mean, I had it good last week. I was in eighty degrees in sunshine every day, just you knowall wasn't so great. But at the same time, I had no problems with my office every day, so that part was really good. That part was really good, and of course the day itself was nice to be with friends and family, and that part worked out, and I hope that you had a similar day yourself.
Very much. My standard line for twenty three years if you had the turkey and me bet the over and you won. No, it was relaxing.
We saw.
Some entertaining football for the most part.
We did, didn't we.
You know, I think the Lions, I think we're headed for dinner. And then realized that the Bears weren't finished yet. Although the Bears found a way to finish themselves.
They did, they did.
Now they have an interim head coach. Hey, the Cowboys Giants game was competitive. The disappointment was was the Thursday night game of Green Bay in Miami. Miami just they were kind of a no show. I mean, and I know a lot gets made about the weather and different things like that and so on, but you know, they they for a team that had won three games in a row, they were very very flat, especially with what they have on the line, you know, with the AFC
playoff picture and so on. So but you know, I know the Bills were happy because then they beat San Francisco and they won the East fifth year in a row. So that's a you know, you know, you're having a good year in Buffalo when you know you have won ten games and the rest of your division is one eleven.
Yeah, no fooling right. I got a couple of specific things I wanted to ask you today. First one starts with the Lions, as you mentioned them. Of course winning you know, on Thanksgiving Day, because they're usually tough on that day. But now they're going to turn around and they got the early game this week and playing Thursday against the Packers. Are the Lions the best team in Pro football? If they are, why and if they are not, why not?
Well, I'm ten in a row. They have the highest scoring they're the highest scoring team in the league. John, But they've also given up the second fewest points in the league, which is that's I wouldn't say that's common, okay. I mean we see a lot of high scoring teams definitely give up their share of points, but only the Chargers are given up more points per game than the Lions.
I think the Lions defense got a little banged up the other day, and I think that was part of the reason the Bears were able to they got This is not an overpowering defense, but I'd give them credit losing Aiden Hutchinson, you know, in the middle of the season, and they've still found ways to be just more solid. Aaron Glenn deserves a lot of credit. But this is a team that runs the ball, stops the run, they
have a court, I mean. And the thing you have to think about, John, is the resiliency that you know that Sunday night game at Houston when Jared Goff threw the ball to everybody but you and me, and they still came back and won that game on the road. So this is a team that's like supreme. Think about this, okay, And I'm just going to go back to last season. In the regular season, Okay, the Detroit Lions are twenty three and six in their last twenty nine games.
That's amazing.
I mean, yeah, if you've include the playoffs, they're actually twenty five and seven.
Yep.
Okay.
Now, for those of us who've been who watched the Lions, obviously you have a team that hasn't won a championship since nineteen fifty seven, the only team in the NFC has never been to the Super Bowl. These are pretty remarkable numbers. And listen, they had some good teams in the nineties when they got to the NFC title game
in ninety one, that was kind of Barry Sanders. It was actually if you remember that year, that was Wayne and a very emotional moment at the sober Dome with Mike Gutley yep, as you remember, and a lot of people talked about that and so on. And you know, I had some teams in the mid nineties with Scott Visualist the quarterback, exciting teams, but never what we're seeing now this dominance at times and again as we are
finding out and this is not a shock. You know, while teams and I've went right off the top of my head, I want to say, there's been fourteen rematches so far this year. As far as teams playing each other in the Vision, I think, sweet, it's sweets ten to four.
Wow.
Okay, kidding, but that's not a shock. Usually happened. But that doesn't mean that these games aren't close. And we have seen this all year with these divisional games that are nail bikers. Okay, even think about Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Okay, Pittsburgh scored their most points of the season and gave up their most points in the season and still managed to win the game, but it's a six point game. Jacksonville has been dreadful this year and they've taken the
Texans to the wire twice. Jackson the Texans swept Colts this year. The Colts took them to the wire twice. About the Dallas Giants games were closed, so we haven't necessarily seen, you know, but what about Baltimore and Cincinnati? A forty one thirty eight and what a thirty five thirty four?
I thought it was pretty entertaining.
Well yeah, yeah, exactly, so you're seeing click again, Baltimore swept, Dallas swept, but Houston swept twice and so on. But it doesn't mean that these games aren't competitive. And here's a funny thing. I just thought about Houston with their two suites, and a couple of weeks ago they got beat at home by the Titans, who won three games.
So the difference between games during the regular season between teams that don't play each other on a regular basis per se and these divisional matchups, I mean, it's very, very, very evident, which is why it's so smart that the final week of the season features sixteen games, and all sixteen or within the division.
Yeah. Interesting. The other couple of games I don't wanted to kind of glance at I have to do with, you know, contenders certainly to whatever supremacy you know, the Lions end up with. And you and I have talked about this before, but I mean I kind of tend to want to root for the teams that haven't had that opportunity to get to that big game or win the big game, and along those lines, while I'm going to kind of pull if I'm going to be a fan from it, and I'm going to kind of pull
for what the Lions are doing. In the AFC, well, you've got potential for history again with the Kansas City Chiefs, and you've got the potential for history with the Buffalo Bills, maybe getting back to the ball and maybe actually winning
one for the first time in five attempts. They appear to me to be the cream of the crop and the AFC, with all due respect to the Steelers and maybe another, but the Bills will go on the road to the Rams this week, and the Chiefs are at home against the Chargers what may be the sneaky best game of the entire weekend on Sunday night.
Well, I mean, listen even though they survived a wild Sunday night game against the Bengals. As I was pointing out, food for Thought will be out tomorrow. Think about we're twelve games into the season for just about every team, six six teams that have played thirteen, the Chargers still haven't given up two hundred points.
Wow.
They're the only team in the league that can claim that pretty good d okay, And that's a big turnaround for that team, you know. And I didn't go back to the AFL, but I was looking today and I noted that since the merger nineteen seventy, the Chargers have never led the league and viewers point allowed.
Wow, how about that?
As we know with the Dan Fouts teams and the Philip Rivers, and you know the big year of by La Damian Tomlinson in two thousand six, they've led the league in scoring okay, quite a few times. But as far as points allowed, that's a different story for this franchise. And their defense really really gets after you. And in the way Kansas City has played offense this year. And I know the game's in Arrowhead and right off the top of my head, I think the Chiefs have beaten
him six times in a row. Okay, But there's something about the Chiefs. I think people keep waiting for them to stub their toes and it's the other team that stubbed their toes, is it?
They kind of like people kept waiting for Tom Brady and the papers to fall off a cliff.
Absolutely, absolutely, And that's why. You know, that's why when you hear about former players talk about the Patriots and they talk about the different things. Bill belichicked it. He left no stone unturned, okay, in terms of preparation, and that's one of the Patriots. When these weird things happened and they were put in situations, they were not surprised. Okay, the defense and Malcolm Butler was not surprised when Russell
Wilson dropped back to pass. Okay, let's I know. People want to blame Russell Wilson and they want to blame Pete Carroll. And you certainly could considering the way marsh Hunt Lynch likes to run through people. Okay, but you can't say that New England was surprised by that decision. Patriots got beaten Super Bowl. Sure, the Giants did the twice. The Eagles obviously, you know, but preparation is why, and
that's why Tom Brady was as good. The thing I'd admire the most about Tom Brady was the fact that he understood and at least and this is from afar, he understood that he was it was not all about him. Okay, he was part of the team. Now, I'm not saying that Bill Belichick didn't drill the dis into his head. I'm sure he certainly did. Okay, but we saw that many instances where Brady didn't have to play well and they won. And yet Brady throws her five hundred and
five yards in the Super Bowl against the Eagles and loses. Okay. Now, there was the critical fumbled lake in the game, but that didn't take away from the fact that the Eagles moved the ball will against them in Super Bowl fifty two. So that was the thing I always admired about. Plus even the year they didn't win the Super Bowl, I still think this is one of the three greatest clutch plays in the history of the NFL, and I've been
watching for fifty years. When he converts that fourth down at Denver with Rob Gronkowski in the AFC title game, that was Yeah, that's like standing ovation.
No, sure, yeah, absolutely, standing ovation. Absolutely.
I don't know if I answered your last two.
Questions, but no, no, that's fine. Listen, you know, sitting here and listen to you go on about that at all. I just the bottom line is is that you know, the Chiefs continue to defy whatever our expectations are. They get another challenge against the Charges this week, I just wonder, and the Bills will get tested going out on the road. I think to play the Rams this week. But I'm just I for some reason another I still have that little bit of doubt in my head in the back
of my head about Buffalo. And maybe it's because of the I don't know, the apparent recklessness of a guy like you know, you know their quarterback, or or you know, some of the questionable play calling of their coach or whatever it may be. They're just a doubt. And maybe it's because these guys are going for you just feel like if they get into the big opportunity, they're going to blow it again. I don't know. It might not
be anything more complicated than that. Well, but I'm rooting for that game to where either Detroit or Buffalo has to finally win it.
Well, I will say this, Josh Allen has been a lot less recknand yeah, yeah, okay, is ball security and so on. I don't think there's any question he's having his best cheer. The trepidation for me with Buffalo might be their defense. Okay, and that's not the saying their defense isn't playing very well. It is, but I think it's a defense that also can you can move the ball against?
Sure they do.
They're a team that certainly relies on takeaways. There are I'm just looking at the tide perspective in the league with twenty four takeaways. But by the way, John, just in case you don't get your wish and I agree with I agree with you because I think a lot of people would like to see the Lions and the Bills, just from what you read around on social media and
you know, other shows and different things like that. There is a fascination with two franchises that have never won a Super Bowl facing each other, and of course one franchise has never been there. Do you know who the Bills?
I believe they would play? Uh, well, hold on, can I cheat?
Of course you can?
Well, I think let's see on the I know that They've got the Patriots twice in their last three games. So so after they played the Rams, Uh, where are they hold it? Where is it? I had it here a second ago. Oh they got the Lions. Duh, right, yeah you did, you did? They got the Lions. So we get the we get what what I hope and what I know a lot of people hope is the
Super Bowl preview? Right, and they're playing at Detroit. So hey, listen, uh if the Patriots, I mean, look, I realized the Patriots, you know, the way that the schedule popped out, they got to play him twice in the last three weeks. But you know, Buffalo has already clenched everything. So I'm wondering, you know, A, are they going to be focused on Detroit and b that last game of the year. Shoot, there won't be anything to play for. I would imagine to see the team.
They haven't clinched everything. They do not have home field. Okay, you don't know if the Kansas City. Kansas City has the better record than they do.
That's true, which is why I don't know that the Bills are going to get home field like that.
Well I don't know either. And by the way, to remind people the Bills had home field against the Chief last year in the divisional playoffs. Couldn't get it, couldn't get it done, and so but just off the top of my head, and I'm trying to remember what year it was, there was Thanksgiving, I think two years ago when the Bills and Lions played, and the Lions were starting to feel you could see them coming, okay, and they and I think Buffalo wound up eating them, either
late and overtime or something like that. And I assume I also recalled that Buffalo has had to play other teams at Ford Field because the snow condition.
Near that was.
By the way, I never I never get tired of snow games. I don't. I mean, and even even when we have to play them, I just think it's it's so great and so fun to watch on television.
Well it's it's it's it's what people grew up on. Okay, this is not baseball, and that's not a knock on baseball. Okay, the elements play what let me ask you this, what the hell would the ice boal be without any ice?
I know exactly it wouldn't be without a frozen field. And by the way, you mentioned baseball. If we get golden at bat, I'm out. I'm out. I'm not watching that garbage.
I'm not watching Look at Chris Berman just dropped popped in my head. And when you think that, you know the oh, it's not frozen anymore.
Uh, the the tundra yield the frozen.
But I mean, you know, we've seen the great snow Game. I remember Lashawn McCoy a couple of years ago running through the Lions and Buccaneers, Packers, and you know watching you know, team games almost getting canceled because of that. And it's not because they're afraid that the players playing and there they want the fans to be able. You think the Bills fans are anxious to see the forty nine ers. What was it twenty bucks an hour and
the Neil Shovel. By the way, for those who are not aware of how bad San Francisco has been the last couple of weeks, seventy three to twenty.
Wow, I would never have guessed that.
Certainly, yea with many three to twenty Packers. And you know what's really ironic, John, The last time the forty nine Ers went to the Super Bowl before last year was in twenty nineteen when they lost to the Chiefs the first time. The year afterwards, they didn't make the playoffs.
Boy, so they've been up and down like a thermometer.
Yeah, well, listen, it's not like the rest of the NFC West has given them a chance.
That's true.
The division is monkey. But yeah, you know, the Niners are one in three in the division. Last year they were five and one.
Wow. And now at the other end of the spectrum again, Russell, thank you, my man. I appreciate you as always. Talk to you next week.
I'd say, so, okay, and next next, Now, in some ways I'm looking forward to the last four weeks for this reason then, as well as many others.
Yeah, no more buys, No more buys. Number one and number two, hey, for the Patriots is to start a twenty twenty five here already. So here we go. The evaluation process. If it hasn't already begun, it certainly has by now.
We have seen more than one instances, even in this free agency era, that teams that play late one year can carry that over to the following year, depending on coaching changes, in personnel incidents like that. And so that's why you know, no tank you. Yep, I'll just leave it at that.
No, thank you. Let's see who wants to play. Thank you, sir, talk to you soon week. Yes, sir, you got it. The one and only at Backs Football Guru on x Hey attention, Pat's Nation. The most nail binding action film of the season, Carry On, Starting tarn Edgerton, Sophia Carson, and Jason Bateman touched down on Netflix December the thirteenth, just in time for the holidays. Only liquids allowed, blood,
sweat and tears. Catch carry On December thirteenth, only on Netflix, and of course, our program brought to you by bud Light, Easy to Drake, Easy to Enjoy, bud Light, the official beer sponsor of the New England Patriots. Two quick emails to share. Our friend Klasy Claire says her good Drake may is obvious, but also the tight end duo, which I mentioned earlier in the show The Bad. Some of the coaching and coaching decisions pretty obvious. There ugly drops
by the wide receivers. Yeah, I totally understand that. And our friend Aiden in California, right, John Man. All the negativity in this town sucks, says Ripe Patino right. I believe people are not seeing the forest through the trees. We knew this team had no talent. We're in the midst of a rebuild. I believe this was a year to see who the players they are only going to build with, but go to Warwick next year. I have faith that this team will do right and sign and
draft players for next offseason. We're seeing the disparity and talent. Now we get address the needs and coaching staff to be able to put the players in the best position. And now that I'm done with my little rant, I'm visiting Boston next week. Any recommendations of dinner places or
breakfast places in Boston be greatly appreciated. Well, look, dude, if you don't go to the North End and get some of the best Italian on the planet, certainly outside of Federal Hill in Providence, then you are sadly misdirected. And I'll just start with a Seaport's also a really nice area to go to in Boston. But you know, I listen me, I do the Italian thing. I've to admit I was in the Bahamas this last week because we talked about That's why we missed the show last week,
I found a Carmines at Atlantis. They have a Carmines restaurant, Italian restaurant, you know where they serve it old family style. Check it out. Yes, I went. I know, I know, I'm in the Bahamas. What I'm gonna do. I'm eating Italian food, right. It was. It was good, it was spectacular. Same thing. I mean, come on, yeah, I mean, you can't mess up a good chicken or a good veal parm. You can't. That's a staple of life up here.
So hungry, I'm literally looking my let's thinking about vill parp.
I know, I know, uh, I'm totally with you on that one. Hey. Thanks to of course, you know, Evan Lazar and Karen Grigian and Matt Saint Jean for joining us here on the program today. Thanks for taking the time here to be with us and listen to our stuff here for today. Thanks to the Marine for putting all together as he always does. So the bye week we get by this week. Next week we'll be back.
We'll actually have a game to talk about with the Patriots, you know, we'll start their last four week stretch here playing the Arizona Cardinals. We'll come back same Patch time, same patch channel next Wednesday. For more right here in Patriots Playbook. See you then.
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