This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex Barth Blazarre and Lazar O.

Everybody nailed it.

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Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars.

I'll keep saying it to deep man coverage.

When you throw.

Slants, you throw crossing routes, you throw digs, you throw stuff into the middle of the field.

So if you're not willing to throw those routes and you're only gonna throw outs and corners and verticals and stuff like that, that's into the leverage of the man coverage defender, So you're throwing it right into the defense.

I have a little bit more faith in Baker Mayfield too.

Layer throws into the middle of the field if they're open, because he's a more experience and a better quarterback than Michael Pennock.

But it's still not an offense that really lives in the middle of the field.

Not totally wrong, They're not totally wrong.

I'll take it.

Not totally wrong.

I thought that that's kind of how this game played out in a lot of ways.

Defensively.

We're going to talk about it over the next couple of hours.

Here on Patriots Catch twenty three.

Evan Lazar, Alex Barth Alex behind the Glass.

I do want to say before we really get rolling here.

I know he's in there, behind there somewhere.

Happy Belated Veterans Day to all the troops, all those who served, all those who are serving right now.

To Marine, thank you for your service.

And Happy Veterans Day.

Belated to all you guys, and especially to our veteran over there behind the glass and Marine, one of our favorites.

So Happy Veterans Day, Marine, hoorah.

I hope you're feeling a little bit more yourself today.

I know a little hungover yesterday for the Marine, which is totally fair.

But anyways, getting into football, I I'm not superstitious, Alex, but I'm a little stiti and so I'm not going to come on here today and start talking for just talking about this just off the air a little bit.

I'm not going to come on here today and start talking about Super Bowls and contenders and all this kind of stuff.

I'm not going to do that because I'm a little stitious.

All Right.

The Patriots are rolling.

They look like they're a team to be reckoned with in the AFC Drake may looks like an MVP caliber quarterback.

I'm excited.

I am in I'm drinking the kool aid.

But I'm not going to go as far to say that I'm not making any plans because I'm planning to be in Santa Clara during Super Bowl Week.

I'm not going there yet, but it's really exciting to see what they're doing.

And I think the number one thing just from a big picture, because we usually start big picture and then we'll go a little pitic sure starting big picture, the number one thing to me is just this vibe that is around this team right now.

This is the most what's the word like?

The vibe around this team right now is the best I've ever seen.

Vibes are It's the best.

I've ever seen since we started covering the team in eighteen.

So we covered the team when they were winning.

I know a lot of people think, well, they're winning, Dug right, the vibes are great.

Twenty eighteen, we covered a Super Bowl winning team and the vibes were not like this.

Twenty nineteen, they were eight nine to oh to begin that season, and the vibes are not like this.

Twenty twenty one They also won seven games in a row with Mac Jones at quarterback in his rookie year.

And the vibes are not this good.

I give a ton of credit to Mike Rabel.

I give a ton of credit to the leadership and the captains and the leadership committee on this team.

They are bought in, They are focused.

They enjoy and celebrate each other's success.

It doesn't matter if they're catching one pass or they're catching ten.

It doesn't matter if they're the one getting the sack or they're helping another guy get a sack or whatever you want to call it.

They are.

They're playing for each other right now.

And the vibes are immaculate.

And I think that that's a testament to all the things that I mentioned with Raybel and this whole thing.

And I'm not a big vibes guy, like that's not my thing usually, Nope, But listening to some of the stories that are starting to come out yesterday at the press conferences, you know, players wanting to attend meetings like meetings for football is a lot like school was as a kid.

Meetings for football are a lot like meetings.

Further, no, it's different.

It's not like more like school, because like he stands up at the front of the room and is like lecturing them on things like when they do squad meetings, like it's literally in the auditorium that we are in.

You've never been in a work meeting and it's somebody like explaining no, no, all right.

We have different meetings.

I think work meetings are more collaborative, like where like sometimes a lot of people talk.

I've been in work meetings where it's like one or two people.

This is like, this is their auditorium is literally like a college lecture hall, and they and he stands up there and he said to us yesterday and when I say he, I mean Mike Rabel.

Mike Rabel said that he wanted to cut a Thursday meeting short by twenty five minutes to give everybody twenty five more minutes of sleep before they had to be here at the facility, and the veterans and the leaders on the team said, no, thanks, we want the meeting.

He then said that Drake May said yesterday it was freezing here in Foxborough's in the thirties yesterday.

Winter is here, folks, And he said that Drake May said that Mike Rabel offered to move practice inside because it was so cold, and the players said, no, we need to get used to playing in the elements.

We want to be outside and practice outside.

Like those little types of things are what you start to hear when things are are going in a really good direction.

And it's the best vibes I've been around since I started covering this team.

It a'st that in a spreadsheet you just have just I know, I was debating whether or not just say, look going back to January when we were talking about the coach, and that's the kind that that thing does matter.

I know some people like to think it doesn't matter.

It matters.

Yes, you also need to know what you're doing on the football field and put together a game plan and make adjustments and all that.

But there's a lot of coaches that are good football minds.

It's the ones that are also leaders of men that can make a big difference.

And and that's not just Rabel, that's the entire staff and the veteran leadership on this team.

That stuff matters.

That stuff makes a difference if you ultimately want to get to the top, not towards the top, to the top and I'm not saying they're gonna get there this year, just off that.

You can't have a bunch of feel good you know, if you're not playing well either, you got to play well at all.

One thing feeds into the other.

But it's this is why me and I think a lot of other people were so staunchly in favor of them hiring Mike Rabel this offseason as both some of the other options, not just it, you know, and he's done a good job when you look at what they did with the roster construction all that.

Obviously they crushed that, but he's all somebody that can build a football team and can create a culture, because you know what happens when you start ingraining that sort of sense or responsibility and that sort of sense and team, it becomes sustainable.

And even if it's not, you know, you're gonna make roster moves year over year, but you have that core, you have that leadership that this franchise has lacked for the last four to five years.

That's going to pass that torch on and on and on, and now that becomes the level and that becomes the expectation, and you need that because it's not always going to be easy, and you need people who are and want to fight through it.

So this is why Mike Rabel is the guy.

This is I mean, he's part of the reason I shouldn't say sorry.

This is part of the reason Mike Grabel is the guy because he can establish this and I think it's important.

Might just be there here, It might it might just have that kind of juju.

And I give him.

I give him credit because that's like you're kind of laying out like that's self created.

That doesn't just come at it.

It's not easy.

Not everybody can just walk into an NFL locker room and it's the NFL.

It's not college where they're kids and they're all looking up to you.

These are you know, guys that have been professionals for a long time, make a lot of money.

It's not easy to walk into that locker room and command respect like that and set the tone like that, especially this quickly.

Because he's in alpha he is an alpha male.

Mike Rabel is an alpha male personality.

And he he can back it up like.

I mean, he's freaking huge.

Of course he can back.

Well, it's not just that he's huge, Oh no, it's part of it, it's part of it.

But I think there's an element of I don't know how much you want to get into, like leadership philosophy.

I think any good leader, right, if you're gonna lead whatever, if you're a leader at work, if you're a leader in your foot whatever, Right, a good leader doesn't ask people to do things that that he or she would not do.

And I don't think about that because like Bill Belichick never played professional football, but Bill Belichick, this is a great was a great leader.

Yeah, no, he but but I mean that at a macro like Bill Belichick's obviously not going to go in there during practice and set the edge on an outside zone.

But you know, hey, we want you guys to come in here an hour early.

We want like, we want you guys to you know, we're gonna be out in the cold, We're gonna do this, We're gonna, you know, run extra today.

He's out there running with the team.

He's in here before everybody else like that sort of thing.

Like he's not He's set in the tone from the front, not from the back.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, he absolutely is.

And you know when he talks about being selfless, I think he's done a lot of things in this that have been selfless and and he's you know that's being passed forward.

Yeah, I mean it's look, it's all of it is true.

All of the flowers that they're getting, all of the flowers that Mike Rabel is getting, are all warranted because we were covering this team over the last two to three years, and we were in some not so great locker rooms, like you know, guys that obviously we're losing, and you know things that we were not good about the culture around here.

And Mike Rabel and really, what ten months on the job, not even a full year yet on the job, has done a complete one eight on that.

Now.

I want to get into the football because that's the most important part.

But the football element of it, let's start with the quarterback.

Well, I do are we going to Tampa now?

Or is this still big picture?

I don't know, combination okay, because we I the other thing about like how you know how much longer is Mike Rabel's first year gonna last?

That sort of thing.

I know, if you want to get into that take, I don't know what you mean, like the playoff take and where they're at and are they because like, look, I said this on some shows last week.

Yeah, like if they beat Tampa, it goes from you know, oh, they're gonna make the playoffs.

That's cool.

They had this turnaround to like, no, like you gotta take them seriously now in the AFC picture, Well, oh.

You mean like in terms of like talking about the other teams in the conference and where Yeah, well no, I don't know.

I mean it's we're week ten.

Well, just to pick up on what we were talking about before, I made that sound more dramatic than I probably needed to.

But like, I think part of this too, you know, because they beat that Bucks team, that Bucks seem is the real deal.

I know they were a little banged up.

The Patriots are banged up too, Like that that Bucks team's the real deal.

And I think part of it too is if they can beat a team like Tampa, and some of the feeds into the culture thing too, because I think there's an element of seeing the results like, Okay, this is why we put all that hard work in Tampa's if you're gonna make noise in the playoffs, Tampa's the kind of team you're gonna need a beat.

And they went on the road and they did it.

And you know, I look at it now, Evan, how many teams are there in the AFC that you can definitively say any any team any time, well, that's the team, but anytime any place, they're going to beat the Patriots.

I wouldn't say that.

I I think that any team, I hear what you're getting.

At now, there's some I would like say that.

I'm not saying the Patriots are definitively better than some of these teams either, but it's you know, I maybe maybe if they really started, was.

Not ready to have this conversation.

No, I think this is the week you have it, because they beat a really good team in Tampa.

I guess I just it's we're still it's not even Thanksgiving yet, like and on top of that, I just when I look at the AFC landscape, I would say, but I only fear about this, if we're going to go here, is that Kansas City, Buffalo, and Baltimore are probably going to be your three wild card teams in this picture, which means that even if you get.

I don't know about that one of them, one of them is probably gonna get left out.

The Chargers got off to such a hard, hot start.

But the Okay, I mean, I guess you know three NFC AFC.

I think you're gonna get three, two or three unless right now the Chiefs are out.

Yeah, But like they're the Chiefs will figure it out.

Like the chief the Chiefs are are.

Not gonna But if the Chiefs, Chargers, and Denver all make it and one of them is obviously the division winner, right, that leaves one of the bills of the Ravens out.

Why you have the Colts in the South, you have the Patriots in the East, you have whoever wins the Steelers probably right, and then you have the Broncos.

So you're gonna have your three wildcard teams, right, Yeah, somebody has to win the West.

If the Chiefs and Chargers both make it, that's two wild cards.

If the Chiefs and Chargers, that's what I'm saying.

If the Chiefs are.

I'm not convinced that that's gonna happen.

You think the Chargers starting seven and three aren't gonna make it.

They might not.

They're falling apart, their injuries are all.

That would be a pretty wild slide.

They gotta basically win.

You're right, I don't know, I'm not.

This conversation is like premature to.

The point being like, I think coming away from this game, like that's the kind of team the Patriots who need to beat in the playoffs.

And sure you go from all right, they won four games the last two years and now they're going to make the playoffs.

That's great improvement to Like, I think the level of expectation steps up a little bit.

And it's not to say super Bowl, but like it twenty twenty one, and yeah, there were some bigger issues at play there, but twenty twenty one, we all kind of felt like, oh sick, they're in the playoffs and we knew they were gonna go up to the Buffalo and get thumped.

Maybe not that badly, right, and they were also their entire starting defense at COVID.

But like, I don't think this is that.

I think we are now a step beyond oh fun, They're gonna make the playoffs, and it's like and and then what happens?

Kind does that make sense?

Yeah?

No, I hear what you're saying.

I just a wow.

Charge schedule is stuff like that's the way.

I mean, they just still have seven games left and they're gonna win this game tomorrow night, so they're gonna be nine and two.

Yeah, but it just we'll get to those permutations and who do you want and.

We'll do that the byway.

Yeah, we'll do that when time comes really quickly.

Everybody's got it.

You know, I'm excited too.

Because you talking about Dard's take.

No, I'm just saying, like everybody is excited too, and I get it, like their super Bowl h that the super Bowl is not a crazy outland just take anymore right to say that they could go on a run here because they won seven straight games, like obviously, but like right now, you know, let's just let's just enjoy the ride.

Let's enjoy the ride once we get to January, and you know, once they are are really solidifying where they're gonna be at and we can talk about playoff matchups and who would you rather face and all that good stuff.

Well, but I do think there's an element of, like, this is what we get to do again.

We did this for twenty years.

Patriots played Thursday night Sundays off.

By the way, great great Sunday for your team not to be playing this this schedule, this is the most excited I've been about an NFL slate in a while, Like Broncos Chiefs, What which outcomes better for the Patriots?

You know there there could be some debate there you want you won't stop.

We did this, Why can't we do this.

Because it's it's week eleven.

Like the Patriots have to keep winning.

Nobody saying the Patriots don't have to.

But it's not even just about that.

It's just like I like, I don't know what's going to happen with the rest of these teams, Like I don't know.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

So you get you how if the playoffs started today, the Chiefs wouldn't be in.

Do you really think the Chiefs are going to miss the playoffs?

No, let's say this is it's it's Look, I'm just so glad we don't have to do this watching the Titans and the Jets and hoping they win for I understand to do the flip side by the way Chargers the rest of their schedule.

You might be honest on now, I know there's seven and three, just I don't need this Jaguars, I'm not actually in the playoffs.

Chargers catch Jaguars.

I'm giving you credit for being right.

Oars.

Currently the playoffs, then the bye, then the Raiders, who suck?

Eagles, Chiefs, Cowboys, Texans, Broncos.

That's tough.

Yeah, that's tough.

All right?

Can we can we talk about real football now and not talk about playoff seating in November twelfth?

Are we good?

It's going to be part of the conversation around this team now.

It's just like, you know, and it's annoying, like, can we just again we have fun looking at It's.

What I'm saying.

That's not what I'm saying.

Let's just let's just play the schedule out and let's see what happens.

Like trying to sit here and say who would you rather play in the playoffs?

That's not what I'm saying.

That's not what i'm saying.

I don't know yet.

I'm just saying because all these teams could change, like you know, any one of these teams could.

Nobody's denying that.

I'm saying, it's it's fun to watch that with the Patriots being in the mix and they're being stakes in these other games about the Patriots that don't have to evolve draft position.

Absolutely have you seen.

The schedule this week on Sunday?

It's awesome.

I know I did not look at this.

It's it's Bill's box.

Good game.

Yeah, Vikings Bears could be a good game.

Can we talk about Jacks?

Two playoff teams?

Hang on, Holme's done, rams Seahawks.

Huge game.

Doesn't matter for the Patriots, but huge game.

They're both seven to two.

That rules Broncos, Chiefs.

Gonna find out which one of those teams is for real and Line's Eagles on Sunday night.

That's a good slate.

All right, all right, I'm done.

Let's talk about Let's talk about the games that have been played or they're going to play in the near future.

All right, all right, let's do that.

Let's talk about this Bucks game a little bit.

But I want to do the good, the bad, and the stuff that gets you beat in real for real this week.

I feel like some weeks we do it kind of half hazardly.

Sometimes it kind of goes off the rails a little bit.

I'm gonna try to stick to the to the script here.

I want to start with Drake May and start with the quarterback.

I just there are three or four plays I wouldn't even call them just throws.

I would call them plays a game that Drake May makes that make your jaw drop, that are just unbelievable, high level of difficulty plays.

And it's every single week, like he does it every week.

Yeah, and it's unbelievable to watch.

It's so much fun to watch.

And I'm not trying to say, I'm not trying to make these comparisons, but I do feel like it's a different style at least in what we saw with Tom Brady.

Tom Brady was a efficient machine, like he was a consistent, efficient, smart, accurate, you know, a competitive clutch performer like that was what Brady was.

Drake May is a he is a heavyweight that stands in the middle of the ring and just throws haymakers like that's what he is.

And he might not be play to play.

You know, he's not going to be quite as consistent as Brady was.

He's going to have, you know, like early on in this game, he had a couple of sprays in the rain early on.

He's going to have some interceptions that in turnovers that you don't love, like late in this game.

But those three to four throws man like that is freaking unbelievable.

And the seventy two yard er to Kyle Williams is one of the best throws that I've seen him make, and I know that when you look at it, it's like a seventeen yard throw in the air, but it really doesn't do it justice just putting it in terms of like how far down the field it was, or the situation of the game or anything like that.

When you watch that throw from the end zone angle and you watch how he's pointed towards the middle of the field where MATC Collins is and at the last second kind of decides, all right, the safety is coming down to jump MATC.

Collins' route.

So the one on ones actually to Kyle Williams on the backside crosser and he throws with his momentum in his throwing hallway pointed at MATC.

Collins and he throws looking left.

He throws right, and like breaks like all sorts of rules of quarterback mechanics, takes a huge hit in the pocket and could not have thrown the ball better, like just an absolutely perfectly placed pass.

You know you have that one.

You know, that throw reminded me of a little bit and I've said this on a couple other shows.

Twenty sixteen Bradi of Malcolm Mitchell in San Francis a little bit like the way he kind of perfectly gets it over the defender's shoulder in a way that not only clears the defender but also perfectly sets the receiver up to run after the catch.

The angle like the angle that throws, because that Malcolm Mitchell thro alway stood out to me.

It's like the angle's weird.

You watch it, it's not entirely clear, like the first time you watch it, like, wait, what how did he get that in there?

Where's he going?

How did he run away?

And then you see it from that end zone angle and it explains a lot.

It reminded me of that throw.

Uh the obviously the bomb to Hollands, you fifty six yards in the air in terms of air distance on that throw, just an unbelievable throw.

I've said this a couple of times, Like Zion McCollum, I don't think that he had horrible coverage on the play.

I don't think there was no chance.

He thought there was no chance that ball was going over his head.

Like and if you're a cornerback in the NFL.

You know, you're he's in his pedal, like he's backpedaling, back pedaling.

He's looking up at the ball and he's like this thing is still going, like how far?

Like he runs like thirty yards back in a dead sprint with Mac Collins, and the ball just kept going.

And at some point, you know, as a corner like you're gonna end up not being able to drop fast enough.

And he basically, Drake May his ability to just outthrow the coverage is a rare trade.

Like that type of arm strength is is big rare, Like you don't see that in the league very often, that you just flat out outthrow NFL coverage like that doesn't necessarily happened very often.

The other throws, you know, obviously the fifteen yard of the Hollins, I don't think that you really draw it up to have the quarterback holding the ball above his head with two hands on it, trying to, you know, rip through a tackler that's trying to sack him in the backfield.

I think it was Vita Vea, but he did it.

He does it every single week, staring down the blitz and throwing to pob Douglas on that twenty six yard play was one of my favorite plays of the game, just because of the way it unfolded with the blitz coming right through the middle of the field.

Levante David just comes right through center and he's just staring it down and just makes a throw on time in rhythm onto our target.

Probably should have been a touchdown.

Bob Douglas got tripped up by the dropping end, which you know, I thought was you know, really could have been a touchdown.

And then the fourth down throw to Digs on the touchdown, I mean, that's a that's a hard throw to make, that's not a high percentage that Yeah, all of these things, you know, you just see consistently with Drake May every single week is incredible quarterback play.

And I understand that he has there are some and we'll get to him, like there are some things in this game that he did that was not so good, especially the interception, But they don't win these games without these big time plays that Drake May is making.

And that to me, if you want to talk about future and you want to talk about this, I think, to me, the argument right now for Drake May being the NFL as MVP is that he's doing these things on a weekly basis where you can encapsulate him putting the team on his back.

And he's doing it throwing no offense, but not throwing to Jackson Smith and Jigba or Puka Nakua or behind running behind that Colts offensive line.

He's doing this with what most people coming into this season thought was what a middling supporting cast.

Yeah, I mean, I think with Diggs, I don't think people gave gave the cast enough credit coming into the season.

I will say that, like, and I understand people are maybe worry about where Diggs was at thirty one years old coming off the torn ACL Diggs being the guy he has changes a lot.

It's not taking anything away from Drake, but Diggs being the guy he has really changes the way that.

Sure, but he's not That's not Jaya center Pukani.

Yeah, all right, fair enough.

Yeah, those guys are on a different level.

And that's not a knock on Stefan Diggs.

It's just where Diggs is in his career right now to you know where those guys are in their primes.

It's just different.

It's just different.

So Drake may just continues to just be outstanding.

I feel like, and you know I thought in this game too, and you know, this might be a little bit towards you know, the bad side of things, but Todd Bowles, I thought, showed an ultimate sign of respect for Drake May.

You know, I'm really big on like how do they defend the Patriots and how are teams defending Drake May and looking at trends in terms of coverage and pass rush and things like that.

So Drake May comes out in this game and Todd Bowles blitzes him a couple times in the first half, and he just rips him apart.

You know, twelve yards per pass attempt against the blitz huge plays, you know, when the Bucks bringing pressure and so Bowles, who is a notorious blitzer.

You know, we talked all last week about the pressure that the Bucks like to bring.

Thirty five percent blitz rate.

They were only twenty seven percent blitz rate in this game, so way below their seven season average.

And they used a lot of drop eight coverage in this game, where they're dropping out seven guys and then a quarterback spy, so they're really only rushing three pass rushers on the play.

For Todd Bowles to say, I am, You're too good for me to blitz you, and so we have to go Basically, that's like a fastball pitcher saying that I need to throw only off speed stuff to this guy.

That's what that is.

So he changed up.

He threw changeups at Drake May.

Now they were pretty successful with it, Tampa was, and that might be something that we can talk about moving forward if teams trying to copy that formula, but just to kind of spin it in a positive way.

I look at it and say, even Todd Bowles said, we can't blitz this guy.

And if Todd Bowles is saying that and Todd Bowles is kind of changing his stripes to game plan Drake May, that just tells you about kind of the ascension that he has made.

Because you only do that against the great quarterbacks.

No one's like coming into a game against Dylan Gabriel and saying like, oh, we can't blitz Dylan Gabriel, right, Like, we got to do something different.

So the fact that Todd Bowles did something different in this game is just a real testament to how far Drake May has come.

Like that tells me that he is being viewed by other coaching staffs as an elite quarterback in the league right now.

Yeah.

I mean we talk about the loot sometimes with the Patriots spending other quarterbacks, that you take a team out of their comfort zone, you force them to operate the way they don't want to operate, and that in itself is an advantage regardless of what they're doing.

So and I think he's earned it.

I think he's absolutely earned that.

Yep.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about here still kind of big picture, is still kind of the goods here.

I kind of see the method, you know, moving over to the defense, I kind of see the method of the madness here with the defense a little bit.

I get it.

I wrote about this and after further re you watching their early down soft zones give up ten yard outs and have it to look kind of not competitive at times is frustrating, Like it looks too easy, Like you want them to get up on the receivers.

You want them to take away that space and not give up those yards underneath the coverage and all that good stuff, because it just looks like easy money.

And I do have a tiny bit of fear that a great quarterback maybe in the playoffs or something like that, Herbert and Allen, you know, a Mahomes Well, just on first and second down, they're not even gonna get to third down because they're gonna just go right through them on first and second down.

But they're starting to limit big plays.

Over the last five weeks, they're seventh in the league and you know, seventh best and big play pass rate allowed.

Yeah, they are fifth on third down, and they're really good run defense.

So when you start to add those things up, you know, when you're not giving up chunks, you're good on third down, you stop the run.

Like now, all of a sudden, you start to see a formula there of how they're keeping teams down in terms of scoring as well.

You know, top ten scoring defense too.

So is it then don't break eat?

Yeah?

Absolutely, Like there's definitely that element to it.

Is it too easy at times on early downs?

Yeah, they're twenty fifth in the league right now in pass EPA on early downs.

It's not great, but they're starting to kind of have that formula and it's sort of like first and second down, we're gonna you know, we're gonna back off, we're gonna protect the house.

Third down, let's party like, that's when we're gonna draw up pressure.

That's when we're gonna play man coverage.

We're gonna put Gonzo on their best receiver and we're gonna play man to man and we're gonna we're gonna come after you.

So they've done a nice job, and I think Vrabel and Zach Korrer have done a nice job of like sticking to their guns on that and not getting super aggressive on first and second down and being impatient with it.

So that's that's hard to do, like when you're giving up, you know, little plays here and there on first and second down all game long.

To kind of stick to your formula and not all of a sudden start to get aggressive and get beat over the time is hard to do.

But they're doing it right now.

So I hear it like a lot of the frustrations with the defense because I think I'm sure you get it and your mentions every game too.

Whereas the man coverage, why are they playing so far off the line of scrimmage?

I think that there is starting to be on both on film and in terms of the numbers, they're starting to You're starting to see it come to fruition.

What exactly the vision of the style of defenses that they're playing.

Yeah.

The interesting factor to me in that is, and you mentioned like against a better quarterback, is a better quarterback going to take advantage.

Baker's a pretty good quarterback.

And they kept that offense right relatively in check.

I mean that last drive they're just trying to make sure guys are tackling bounds in the clocks running right.

We'll get to that last drive.

I thought, well, they played they played Josh Allen differently.

They played Josh Allen like like you just described third down.

They kind of played that way the entire game.

So maybe there is another game plan in there that we just haven't a see because they've played Dylan Gabriel and they you know, they've played some of these lesser quarterbacks that they can go the other way if they need to, but they're just not doing it when they don't need to do it.

Yeah, And I you know, I again, I just think that there's a clear formula nowt They got to be better in certain areas, and we'll get to that.

But I just think you can see a method here to the madness of what some of these coverages that they're playing on early downs, but there are they're playing about seventy five percent zone coverage on first and second down.

They're giving up a lot of yards on first and second down.

But then you look up in the fourth quarter and the point has seventeen points, right, And if you do that consistently week in and week out, where you know, like I said, limit big plays, good on third down, stop the run.

And then you put that and combine that with having Drake frickin' May on the other side, you're gonna win a lot of football games.

Like that's gonna be a formula that's gonna lead to a lot of wins.

The other goods here Travon Henderson and Kyle Williams just basically breaking their GPS trackers and their pads was cool to see.

So, you know, fifty five yard touchdown, twenty two miles an hour on that play for Travon Henderson, twenty one point seven to eight for Kyle Williams on his touchdown, Another twenty one plus miles per hour play by Henderson on the sixty nine yard touchdown that the three fastest times in the NFL by a ball carrier this week all New England Patriots.

Can't really remember the last time I could know it seem as real speed.

I can't really remember the last time I said that two rookie skill players had games like this as New England Patriots.

So seeing both those guys break out in the same game was pretty cool to watch.

Yeah, And I think it's an encapsulation of what they are.

Like, I don't think Kyle Williams is not a guy who's gonna have six seven catches in a game and be a volume guy and you're going a pump the ball him, Like that's not his role.

He's gonna be a guy that one to three catches a game.

But is it three catches for thirty yards or is it three catches for ninety yards?

Like that's where you're looking at him to make an impact.

He only made one catch, but he made a massive impact.

Terrell Jennings the same thing.

We've talked a lot about this Dreel Jennings is not a volume player.

Now, he kind of had to be in this game because of injuries.

And some people have pointed to the game as a whole and like, okay, well, outside of those two runs, it's really three runs.

He almost broke that other one.

But you know, outside of those three runs, he didn't do much and there was one stretch there.

I think between the two long runs he had five carries for zero total yards.

But that's not He's not supposed to be a bell cow.

That's supposed to be Ramondrae, Stevensoner Terrell Jennings because those guys are going to do better picking up some of those dirty, you know, hidden yards, and then when those guys body below the defense enough, then Trevon Henderson comes in and breaks one or two big runs.

So it's not just both guys succeeded.

You saw them succeed in the rape mostly in the role again, Hendersons was a little different kause the injuries, but you saw them succeed basically in the role that I think expect him to be in this year.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

You know, Henderson or excuse me, like Henderson had the two big runs, but Williams basically that was his only target in the game.

Only catching the game was the seventy two yard touchdown, and that's exactly what you're looking at for him.

I thought the combination of him and Matt Collins replacing Kyshawn Boody couldn't vast for any more than that that, you know, Matt Collins had six for one oh six and GeV one for seventy two.

Great production out of both those guys.

I it was a great day for the Patriots personnel department, you know, their draft class last year.

And I want to get a little bit to Craig Woodson too, but Campbell and Wilson both starting on the offensive line, both skill players on Day two, have big games.

Craig Woodson has a big game.

Andy Borgalis just continues to be automatic.

Yeah, Elijah Ponder on Tristan Wharf's first career sack.

A good day for the front office.

Obviously, speed was a big part of what they wanted to add this offseason, and back came to fruition in a big game in a big spot on the road.

So I'm sure all those guys are feeling pretty good about all that as well.

And speaking of the front office, another one that stands out that we have to talk about, especially on this show like this is right up our alley is Kiris Tonga.

Mister two way, well really three way and a special teams, three way, three phase, just star role player at this point, I don't even know if I want to put role player on it.

He's just been dynamite, dynamite defensive tackle.

Honestly, one of the better.

We were talking about this yesterday in the locker room with Taylor Kyle's and the gang, Like is he one of the better converted defensive players to offensive players that are in terms of full backs or lead blockers.

He's one of the better ones that I have seen do it.

You know, I have to go back a little wit.

You know.

We talked to Landon Roberts, to Richard Seymour.

Mike Rabel obviously was more of a tight end than like a full back, but of course Mike Rabel at times, Dan Cleco, I know, we argued about Dan.

Yeah, I don't know why you think Dan Klecko was like naturally a fullback.

It's very weird.

I don't think he was naturally a fullback.

I just don't think he was like a full time player on defense that turned the offense.

That's what Kiris Tongka is doing.

Kyris Tonga has a full time role on defense and is then moonlighting on offense.

I think Dan Klecko was kind of a guy that bounced back and forth and didn't.

Dan Cleco played defensive line and linebacker at Temple.

Yeah, he was a came here and started playing fullback.

I get that, but he didn't have a he it doesn't matter.

This is something.

The point is is that Kiris Tonga.

Now, the short yardage running wasn't great.

Yeah Edelman the other way, yeahs to shortyarded running in this game wasn't exactly great.

But they did have the fourth down conversion early on in the game with him on the field, and of course he goes you know, all boys, I me ends on him on the sixty ninety.

The block he makes on the second one, Yeah, you mentioned bowling pins like that's that's such an instinctive play where he steals this guy off at the edge, but does so kind of giving up his balance and he knows he's going down, and what does he do.

He kind of spreads himself out and makes himself long and he ends up taking out like three more defenders with him as he's following.

That's like a highly instinctive kind of play for a guy that has not had a ton of experience in that position kind of knew exactly what to do.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it's pretty incredible how naturally instinctive and how quick he is to process as a blocker for a guy that hasn't done it a ton.

You know, there's a lot of times where when the offensive line's blocking in short yardage, usually it's not like a read and react situation in terms of the front.

They usually take gaps right.

So like when you see sometimes you know, especially the tackles, they'll kind of dive forward into a gap and sometimes it looks like they're blocking in and it looks kind of ugly, But in reality, that's just the way that the play is designed because it's gonna be a bang, bang car crash, so you're not gonna have time to get push by like sitting back in your set and then like reading where the defensive lineman's going like you would on a normal play.

So they just shoot gaps, right, They just cover gaps.

They just block a gap, And so as a full back or as a lead blocker, your job is then to process or read like who do I have to make?

Right?

So if Will Campbell takes the outside gap, but the defensive lineman ends up shooting the inside gap.

Then I just got to take that guy.

I gotta take first color Like this play might be designed for me to get to the second level, but I have to help the offensive line there.

And his ability to kind of like replace the blocks on the offensive line is not something that you It is not something that comes naturally like that's that's a hard skill.

It's like a hard read.

And the fact the fact that he's able to do that so seamlessly is like a huge testament to him.

So he's been great in this role.

He's been great on defense as well.

So what a find Kiris Tonga is there?

So another another win for this personnel department.

Just a fantastic signing.

The other fantastic signing that I thought, uh, you know, just continues to be on a heater in this game.

Will too.

Actually, uh, Milton Williams and calevon Chase on and you know I talked about Milon Williams or talked about earlier, the vibes and the buying and all that kind of stuff.

When your highest paid defensive player, which is Milton Williams at the moment, when your highest paid defensive player is Fuld tilt through the whistle on every single play when he is a sidelined, a sideline player, when he is a red hot motor guy.

It like sets a tone for the rest of the defense.

The fact that Milton Williams plays like this every single week, it just shows everybody else around him, like I've got to do the same.

Like if he's doing it and he's making thirty million dollars a year, then what's my excuse not to do it?

And I talked to him about this after the game and he said that that mentality, that motor, that full tilt to the whistle, that is a non negotiable for this defense.

And he was frank about it and said, if you're not doing it, we're taking your butt off the field and we're gonna find somebody that will like that is that's the way we're playing.

And he encapsulates that completely every single week.

He fills up the stap sheet, pressures, run stuffs, hustle plays.

He is an awesome player to watch.

And then Chase on two six quarterback pressures in this game led the team.

I thought he was really good in this game as well, relentless to on that sack.

Both those guys just continue to be on heaters.

They've both been great for basically all season at this point.

Yeah, it's it's they've made a massive difference.

And yeah, all right.

A couple more defensive things and we'll move over to the bats.

I want to give some kudos to this safety tandem.

I feel like there was a lot of concerns about Craig Woodson and Jalen Hawkins being the Patriots starting safeties.

Been really good.

Greig Woodson, I think has been really starting to come into his own.

I had him with like four you know, impactful splash plays in this game.

A great pass breakup, you know, coming from the split safety zone and breaking up that pass to and on third down.

That was a huge play in this game.

It is third and three there and scoring territory and he separates the you know, along with Gonzo, they kind of converge on it and gets the ball out.

Had another pass breakup in the flat, and then that play that Jalen Hawkins made on the fourth down where Baker somehow got the ball out.

I think it's to Rashad White that was like a miracle, you know, in the grass kind of flipped by Baker.

Mayfe and Jalen Hawkins is playing post safety in the middle of the field.

He comes from like fifteen twenty yards off the ball and makes that tackle.

When it looked like the play was over, and I mean he starts hustling.

His other guys are kind of celebrating yeah, or buck Skis are like, like the body language of players on both sides was the play was over.

Yeah.

So if they if they don't have that play, like, if he's not there, then obviously like there's nobody else there, so like that might be a touchdown if Jalen Hawkins doesn't come up and make that tackle.

So for all there's concerns about depth.

You know, if either one of these guys gets hurt, then they're in a bad spot at safety.

But the concerns coming in about those two guys being your starting safeties.

I don't have a ton of concerns anymore about those two players.

I think they've been both really solid.

No, and it's it's another spot where they moved on from veterans somewhat controversially.

Obviously Peppers before the season and then Duger a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know, I know Hawkins.

The first game of the year was like weird where he had some big plays, but he also made some big mistakes.

And you're just kind of everywhere good and bad.

But how many times have we sat here, Evan and been like, man, they could have used Broll Peppers today, and they could have used Kyle Dougerty, Like, we really haven't done that.

Now Again, if guys start getting hurt, we may have that conversation regards to depth.

But those guys have stepped in and and made the plays they need to make.

Yeah, absolutely, really quickly in the chat, I'm not on my phone.

This is my rundown is on the is on my phone, Okay, okay, I am tied to tech sometimes.

Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, I want to show that's a brave move to point your phone towards the camera.

I mean, it's just it's a Google doc.

What's gonna they never know what?

Notification?

What I'm married?

Man, What do you think is going to happen?

I don't know.

People are weird with this stuff.

Anyways, last one, last one on the goods, and then I do want to talk about some of this other stuff.

Uh.

I split this up into two different ones.

Well, he's on the goods and he's on the bat Yeah, Gonzo in man coverage, good yesh, he's on the goods.

Two for five in man coverage in terms of you know, catches to target's only twelve yards allowed.

He allowed one catch for eleven yards to Mecca Buca and man coverage.

Now to be fully transparent, his defensive pass interference was man coverage.

I love the call, but it is what it is.

I think that he's still one of the best lockdown man cover corners in the league.

We can talk about some of the zone stuff and how the teams are getting their best receivers away from Gonzo and how the Patriots need to improve in that regard, but when he goes Mono Imano against their best receiver, whether it was Drake London last week or Jerry Judy the week before, now Agbuca a couple third down coverage, you know stops or forest in completions as well.

I thought that in man coverage, Gonzo really good.

I feel like Christian and I don't know if you want to use this to jump to the bad I don't know if it's Gonzalez goes as the defense goes or the defense goes as Gonzales goes.

However you want to structure that doesn't feel like he gets beat once?

Whatever the concept?

Right, he gets beat once early in the game, Gonzales sucks, don't better, and then he's just like lights out the rest of it.

And obviously you'd rather not get beat the first play of the game or the first time he gets you know, tested.

But is that just me that feels that way that like I think.

To what it is and you know, let's just segue to the bads here.

Yeah, So when I talk about the bads in these games, I want to be clear.

I am always looking at like, how could they lose in the playoffs?

Right Like at this point, it's like, what is going to trip this team up?

What's going to cost his team a you know, a true run in the playoffs.

And I do think there are some areas as good as they are playing that are starting to bubble up underneath the surface that they need to get corrected.

And one of them, and it's not just Christian Zalz He's not the only one.

But I understand, and I said earlier, I understand the method of the badness in terms of the off coverage stuff.

That still doesn't mean that you need to give like the first like twelve yards for free.

Like you can still be a little bit tighter on some of these off coverage zone you know, off man type of reps where at this point, whether it's a hitch, whether it's a slant, whether it's a comeback, whether it's a you know, out whatever, like they're just give They're handing teams ten yard outs, Like if you want to go down the field on the Patriots on first down, just throwing like seven ten yard outs.

It's there, man, like they are giving it to you.

And at some point some team with some good quarterback is going to sit there and say, yeah, we'll be patient, like we'll just take I'll take this check down, I'll take this hitch, I'll take this out, I'll take this you know o route over the ball in between two zones, like I'll take this all day long if you're gonna give this to me.

So they have to I think be a little bit more competitive in those situations, and that I think is also you know, part of the thing with Gonzo, like he gave up I said, you know, two catches for twelve yards in man to man.

He gave up three catches for forty nine yards in zone coverage, right, So the zone stuff is a little bit murky.

They're twenty fifth and early down pass EPA because of their zone coverage and the yards they're giving up in their zone coverages.

So this is something that isn't going to get them beat against some of these lesser quarterbacks or Baker Mayfield without his two best receivers.

It's not going to get them beat against Michael Pennix.

It's not going to get them beat against Dylan Gabriel, cam Ward Spencer Rattler.

Will it get them beat against Justin Herbert.

We'll get them beat against Josh Allen, will get them beat against Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes.

You know, I don't know if I'm putting Bo Nix or Daniel Jones in that conversation, but we'll get them beat against those great quarterbacks that might So I think some of the things you're kind of getting at are similar to the things that I have concerns about.

They've got to be a little bit better in their early down zones, and they got to be a little bit tighter.

I think sometimes on the outside.

I get that they don't want to give up any big plays over their head, but that doesn't mean that you just give them the first fifteen yards.

Well, and that's also where I go back to, like, what are the chances that they play it differently against those quarterbacks?

Like they didn't play this at least not that regularly.

They didn't play this way against Buffalo.

Yeah, and maybe it's just the way they're going to play against certain quarterbacks.

Sure, other couple of things that just are kind of starting to get on my radar.

It's all most of this in this part of the list's kind of defense.

To be honest.

Run defense last week basically the worst run defense performance the year across the board, and this was I know, you know, maybe I'm under selling Tucker the running back for the Bucks a little bit.

I think he's like I liked him coming down in the draft and they got good depth.

I know he's their third string running back.

I don't think he'd be the third string everywhere.

He's a good playing runs really hard.

So this was their worst run defense performance by EPA success rate, yards per carry explosive runs.

Like all across the board, they gave up a fifty seven percent success rate on the ground, which is astronomically high for them in my opinion.

If that is Bijon Robinson or if that is Breise Hall tomorrow night, you know, Thursday night, those eighteen yard runs that Tucker was breaking off might become fifty yard runs against these great backs.

So their run defense has been awesome all year.

This could easily just be a one week blip in the radar here, but I think it kind of goes hand in hand with this next one.

I have not seen the Christian Barmore that I'm used to seeing over the last couple of weeks, So I don't know if that is bumps and bruises catching up to him.

I know he has this back thing.

I don't know if it's that.

I don't know if it's long season, late bye like they might just need some of these guys, whether it's you know, bar More, Landry Splane like these, some of these veteran players might just need the bye week in a bad way because they're just not especially Landry and Barmore.

It's been two weeks for Barmore, it's really been since that ankle injury in New Orleans with Landry where I've seen those guys play to their potential and play to their ceiling.

Yeah, and they've talked about Vrabel's talk out and need to manage some of those veteran guys.

So it's where the late bye week comes in.

They're gonna have the mini bye this week, you know, and then what is it two weeks?

It's it's this week Cincinnati and then the Giants and then the bye, right, yes, so, and even that Giants game will be a longer week because that's Monday night.

So they got some rest coming up, and it's it's well earned.

So just something that's a little bit on there on my radar.

You know, Barmore and Landry.

In this game, Barmore hasn't logged in.

I know he was in and out of this game because of the injury, but he hasn't logged the quarterback pressure in two weeks and that's just not normal.

Christian Barmore.

Like, I'm watching his film right now, and I'm like, this guy looks he looks compromised, like he looks like something is but like health wise is bothering?

If just they're still doubling them?

Sometimes they are, and I kind of chock that up to it last week, but now it's two weeks in a row that he's looked this way, so it's starting to be on my radar.

Last thing on the bags and then we'll get to the stuff that gets you beat.

Only really one or two things there.

But.

It's driving me the coverage bus in the red zone or driving me nuts.

It's every week.

It's like three or four weeks in a row at this point.

You know, fan in on his touchdown against Atlanta, it wasn't a touchdown, but they left Beijon Robinson wide open in the flat that led to a touchdown.

And then this week of course Agbuca's first touchdown or only touchdown, but the first touchdown on the opening drive just wide open coverage bust.

It's every single week they are busting a coverage in the high red zone, you know that area between the fifteen and twenty five yard line, every single week.

So this has got to get cleaned up, like they've got to figure it out.

It looks to me, you know, watching back this play from Sunday, in terms of the Igbuka touchdown, it looks like quarters uh and in quarters, like you're going to match verticals and quarters.

So I think that Marcus Jones needed to carry Igbuka on that route, Like, I think.

That's what I think he kind of slipped a little bit, right, Well.

What happened was is, you know, so Gonzo is getting run off on that side of the field by the outside receiver and it's a little like delayed wheel.

It's a nice route, it's a delayed wheel by Buco where he kind of just like lulls you to sleep and then he releases up the field.

And I look at that one and say, you know, I think Marcus Jones should have carried a Buka on that play, whether or not, you know, I don't know if it was a muddied read or or you know, maybe he thought that Abuka was sitting because he did kind of sit to start.

Maybe he slipped a little bit.

I don't know what the case was.

But this is every single week now that they're busting coverages in the red zone every single week.

Uh, and it's it's got to stop.

Like it's that's something that's absolutely got to be corrected so that those couple of things, like I don't think that giving up an opening drive touchdown is a thing that gets you beat because you have three and a half quarters, let's call it to make up for it.

So because they recover.

I'm not sure that that's on that level, but the red zone stuff is on that level of the busted coverage.

A couple just quick things on the stuff that gets you beat.

Don't think we need to blabor this point.

The Drake may interception.

Obviously, it's a interceptions.

It happen.

It just can't.

Yeah, you know, trying to do too much, trying to be a hero, had him in structure.

I felt like watching it on tape, I thought he had maccollins open within the play design.

It was a little bluff screen, you know, fake the screen to Diggs, send maccollins, you know, vertically up the seam.

I think if he just throws that high to the back of the end zone, it's a touchdown to mac collins.

Doesn't throw it, doesn't like it.

Winfield was kind of in the in the picture in the middle of the field as the as the single high safety.

Didn't like it, pulled it down.

What I was a little bit you know, small see concerned about.

He said after the game he'd throw it again, and I get his mentality, Like I get what he's saying in terms of the good you know, he wants to be aggressive.

Yeah, he wants to be a playmaker, and I want him to do that too, But it just depends on the situation of the game.

Like in that situation, the Bucks were on the ropes.

If you throw that ball into the tenth row and kick a field goal, it's an eight point game with like five minutes ago, or you know, with the wave, Rabel is like he might have just gone it go on fourth down.

So you just don't need it, Like it didn't need you didn't need to try to force it in there.

It is, the throw didn't need to happen.

So that's on the stuff that gets you beat.

And you know that is something that could have easily gotten them beat.

Now the defense, to their credit, they stepped up right, but you can't have those types of picks from the quarterback.

One other thing from this game we didn't mention.

I don't know which category you want to put it in.

I'd put it in the good clock management.

I know it's not your favorite thing to talk about, necessarily, So I'm interested in two things that the clock managed.

Ye, there was one more thing that I wanted to bring up quickly about the stuff get gets.

Hid some and they recovered, but they had some bad penalties.

Yeah, the penalties don't bother me as much.

A yeah, I know they don't.

I don't know what it was.

It was probably the red zone coverage bus because it's annoying the crap out of me.

Uh what margaus Jones muffing the punt?

Yeah, that wasn't great either.

What what did you think of the clock management?

Because we kind of talked about this on PE yesterday.

I loved the end of the half id awesome.

I thought that was awesome.

Evan old school BELLICHICKI in masterstroke type stuff.

Seven sixteen.

They took seven sixteen off the clock.

That is, you know, I love my shortened game philosophy, right, that is shortening the freaking game.

And they get going and I look at the clock and this tray has been going for a wow much times.

I'm like, four minutes left.

This isn't gonna be last drout of the quarter.

There's no way they've already been going.

And they keep going and to make Tampa burn the timeouts down there in the red zone, and you know, whatever you want to make of that first down play.

Drake may said he was trying to get in.

I don't know, but he was, you know, I don't think the goal was to leave it for fourth down and literally leave the clock at zero.

And if you look Trayvon Henders, I think it was the third down play.

Travondon probably scores if Will Campbell doesn't get held.

Yeah, but he gets held.

He's an old somebody gets helt.

Yeah.

But even if they score on second down.

Huge difference giving the ball back to Baker Mayfield with one forty six left versus like a minute left.

Yeah, it's a massive difference, especially with no timeout.

So so it's one forty four left in the half when Drake may did the sneak, not sneak like.

Yeah, So now take getting the ball back with under a minute, right, So that takes forty seconds off the playing clock.

Uh So then at what they snapped the ball to Henderson play on second down with one oh three left.

Yeah, so it's gonna be left by the time Henderson gets in and then the kickoff like that's gonna take another ten seconds off, right, So.

You're looking at the difference of giving Baker the ball back.

Well, let's call it one forty yeah, one thirty five.

Maybe, uh, let's call it one thirty because by after the kick the KICKO, yeah, let's call it one thirty U versus like maybe forty five seconds.

Huge difference, huge difference, agreed, huge difference.

Not that I was surprised that.

So you're my clock management expert on this show, Paul is the clock management expert on PU I was surprised.

You should learn how this works.

Yeah, I know you think the clock is irrelevant.

I should learn how this.

Is your this is your thing.

I don't need to because you and Paul.

I want to say that next time you get annoyed at me for not using analytics.

Okay, sure, I thought it was another kind of master stroke.

I mean I really did.

Running seven minutes off the clock is just like, forget how obviously managing it at the end of half is great and they need to catch by digs to ultimately get it in.

But like, just on top of that, a seven minute drive, Yeah, that's a beast.

That's one of their most impressive drives of the year.

Fourteen play seventy eight yards seven to sixteen off the clock.

That that's something that's like a college football kind of thing.

You don't really take eight minutes off the clock in the NFL on a drive.

That's pretty rare.

And then at the end of the second half, obviously Trevion Henderson, they could have run it out.

You know, there would have been a handful of seconds left.

Uh, he kicked the field goal.

You know, things can go right.

The fact they go up two scores to me, you go up two scores with under two minutes ago, you should feel good about it.

And then so.

There's one forty three, just like you snap the ball at one forty three, Yeah, then there's a touchback, so no time comes off.

So it'd be one thirty one that Baker snapped the ball on the bucks next final drive.

So so with one thirty one, let's call it one thirty one.

If the Patriot, if he.

Goes down, if he's gonna go down at one thirty one, they're gonna call time out there.

So now it's first and ten, they can run it out.

I think they can't run it out, but he would have to have like done that thing where you like, yeah, pedal like four yards and then kneel it like you couldn't.

They couldn't just straight kneel on it.

They would have had to kind of like.

If the touchdown puts them up eight or less, you go down.

Yeah, if the touchdown puts them up eight or less, you go down, you know, making it a two score game.

And I do we talked about the Top show.

I do think there's that element of trey Van Henderson getting to have that moment and what that's going to mean for him going forward.

I didn't have a huge problem with it, And part of what makes me feel better about it is Henderson knew to look and like knew that there was maybe it was a decision there and he's fast not which is great.

Well, but the thing is, I think once it's not taking anything away.

Once he rounds the corner, the Bucks are letting him score.

I wonder what would have happened if he started jogging at like the twenty yeah, and if he could take another ten seconds off the clock because the Bucks are going to let him go in.

But yeah, yeah, it's a goal.

It's basically goalie defense, rightw You know, I would have liked to see them be a little more competitive on that drive after.

So that was the other thing a hot night.

Through butter and then a plus played by Stephan Diggs to recover that on sidekick and he took a shot.

Yeah, and that's a thirty one year old All Pro made his money guy going out there taking that shot for the team.

Good for him, man, good for him.

And that's part of what makes this team special.

Okay.

So I'm glad that we brought up this sequence because it made me think of the last thing that I had on this stuff.

Because he beat I forgot to write it down the Bucks last drive.

Hated it.

I absolutely hated it from a Patriots defense perspective, Like, you cannot give up a touchdown drive in less than a minute in that spot, you can't do it.

You gotta lock down a little more.

You have to at least make them earn it a little bit more than that.

So they go thirteen yard like kind of check down to Rashad White.

Then the twenty one yard or to Buka that really got them going again.

Gonzo gives him like the first like twenty twenty five yards.

I like he was in full prevent defense mode on that play.

Gives up the twenty one yarder.

I think was it that one.

There was one.

There was one on that drive where they let a guy get out of bounds and it's like, if you're gonna leak, give that up, you have to tackle them in bounce.

If Sterling, Yeah, the Sterling Shepherd, one of either Tess or Sterling Shepherd is like an eleven yard or than a nine yarder.

And then they give up the eleven yard touchdown to Sterling Shepherd.

So they they were able to make it into a one score game again in fifty eight seconds the Patriots the first snap I just mentioned, Baker Mayfield snapped the ball with one thirty one left in the game, and they still would have not only did they score to make it a one score game, they still would have had like.

A couple of plays for the on side kick.

At least thirty seconds yeah, to run offense, like if they recovered the on side kick, because they would have needed another touchdown.

It was twenty eight, twenty three, five point game.

But Baker Drake may snapped the ball on his kneel down with thirty two seconds left, so they would have had the ball at the fifty with thirty two seconds left, needing a touchdown.

That's plenty of time in the league.

Nowadays, to score a touchdown, you have to be better than that.

That was not at You got to keep guys in bounds or play a little more aggressive there.

All right, that I've gotten it all out of my system, We're going to take a quick break.

We're going to talk Jets.

We're going to talk a little bit more.

I'm sure about this Bucks game.

But we're also gonna take all your lovely calls and emails, so we'll see you guys after the break.

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All right, let's go to the phones.

Uh Todd is in Gardner?

What's up, Todd?

Hey, guys, I've got a quick request.

I've been thinking about all the rookies we've got and as I pu, I was happy to see them get mentioned in you know, after further review with you, because that just means they're contributing.

So I just like to give us a grade where you think they are for mid term.

I know you might not have time, stakes do want to get the Jets.

My other quick comment is, don't freaking overlook the Jets because we're tired.

It's a short week.

We're really entered.

I'm a little worried after that.

Hey, have a good show and keep picking on bars.

Don't let them get away with stuff.

Evan Okay, yeah, yeah, don't get what am I getting away with?

Yeah, I'm gonna keep picking on what what am I getting away with?

I don't know.

We we pick on each other equally I'm getting away with It's like two brothers bickering at each other.

Just is what it is.

Uh, don't see one of the Jets.

I agree with that.

Yeah, we'll get a little bit more of a Jets preview here in a second.

The rookie class, so I think that they grade out pretty highly in my mind right now now.

I don't think that it's always been perfect, Like these guys have had some.

Rookie growin here to expectations.

Yeah, you know, I think Campbell has been exactly what I thought set in and forget it at left tackle.

I mean, has it been perfect?

Absolutely not.

You know, I think there are things in this game too with him that on terms of stunts and things like that, that needs to improve, But it certainly hasn't held them back at all.

Like starting left Yeah, their top ten scoring offense, top ten passing offense, top ten explosive play rate offense.

Like if they had terrible left tackle play and terrible left guard play too.

To put it with Jared Wilson, I do not think that they would be up there in pretty much every passing category.

It took Travon Henderson a little bit to get going, Yeah, getting going now, So I think that that's been a positive trend.

Kyle Williams the same thing behind a lot of veteran players, so that that's part of it too with him.

And I'll say what I said at the beginning of the show, Craig Woodson, I think has been fantastic.

I really do.

I'm really excited about him.

I think he flies to the football.

I think he plays with great play, speed and physicality.

He's an effort and finished kind of guy.

He can play multiple roles.

He had a great coverage rep in this game where they motioned from like a three by one into two by two and they motioned a receiver from left to right and he was the post safety.

Jalen Hawkins was down in the box when they motioned, they flipped Jalen Hawkins went back.

Craig Woodson came down and stand played over the slot.

They then ran like kind of the same exact concept they ran on ag Buka's touchdown, a sort of like a post wheel type of concept and they're trying to hit a big play down the field and Craig Woodson carried the wheel and was just there like he was just in the right spot.

Like he don't get a box score stat because of that because he didn't get targeted or anything like that, but just like a real heads up, like good coverage rep by Craig Woodson.

I thought that it wasn't just the on ball production.

He was really good away from the ball too.

Down the field and coverage really excited about him, like he's a kind of kudos to them.

I was wrong about him, Like I thought they overdrafted him and they didn't.

I think they they nailed that pick.

So what would I rate the whole rookie class.

Well, you forget I mean, Joshua Farmer's giving them some good snaps.

Yeah, obviously the specialists.

Borgalis and I haven't even talked about Borgallis has bounced back after rough first couple of weeks.

Ashby's been excellent.

Marcus Bryant is not allowed a single pressure, one hundred percent pass block win rate.

Hasn't played well.

No, he has one passblock snap because they put him in a couple of those games that will blowouts.

But no, I mean they I mean that's tongue cheek.

But even though some of those step guys have been good.

Yeah, I do think we will see Braden Swinton before the year's over.

I do.

I don't know that we'll see him a lot, but I do think we're gonna seem at some point before the year's over.

I think so far, I maybe i'd give it like a solid B plus, A minus, somewhere in that range.

Yeah, I was gonna say B plus, Like it hasn't been an absolute home run, but they've gotten contributors.

They've gotten two starters, it looks like on the offensive line.

Yeah, maybe Jared Wilson's a center next year long term, but yeah, it's hard.

So something it's gonna come down to, like where does Jared Wilson end up long term?

Right?

You know, are they gonna have to Are they planning on Trevia on Henderson being a bellcow or is it going to be him and reminder Stevenson or him in another back Like we'll see with that in the big picture.

But yeah, i'd say b plus.

Yeah.

So the other thing, you know, just quickly on Craig Woodson too, because I'm just excited about Craig Woodson.

He made a play in this game too that he was kind of targeted on where he was the post safety in the middle of the field, and they ran again like sort of like a wheel post on to the right of Baker's mayfield right, and he stayed glued to the post so that he could help Gonzo on the post, which is where he was supposed to be.

And then Baker worked from the front side of the concept to the backside of the concept, and on the back side of the concept he had like a seam route that should have been a huge play.

Craig Woodson started on the post, stayed in the middle of the field, flipped his hips and like ran to the seam and squeezed the seam.

It was like a great play.

I was like, wow, now a great throw would have beaten him.

Still, yeah, but it was one of those situations where he was enough in the area that it made it a harder play to make for the offense.

And that to me was like, that was Devin mccordy esque, right, Like, that's like what you want from a single high safety is you know, stay on the front side of the concept, take away the initial read when he comes back backside, can you go from one hatch to the other and recover to the backside And he did a great job of that on that play.

I just thought this was I thought it has been a while now, like a couple weeks in a row where I feel like Craig Woodson's really starting to come into his own.

Let's get back to the phones.

Patty is an agua?

What's up?

Patty?

Hey?

What's going on?

Guys?

Eight?

What's up?

Not too much?

So there's three things that I wanted to see happening in this game that I think the Patriots have been lacking all two of them definitely.

The first one is I want to see some turnovers because if you look at like it's more specifically some picks, because our guys haven't got a lot of picks this year so far.

I think Splaine leads leads the team with two so far.

And this is a good game to do it because you know the Jets that they try to throw the ball, they're going to try, you know, they need to turn it over.

Talk about the middle eights.

One thing I haven't seen the last two games is when the second half, that's number two and number three is keep feeding the rookies.

You know, Booty's going to be back eventually, but while he's sidelined, you know, keep feeding Kyle Williams, rom Andre is going to be back eventually.

Keep feeding, keep feeding, trade down.

I want to see those guys not necessarily like with good stats at the end of the year, but like by the end of the year saying we got two really good friggin players in the second third round of the draft this year.

That's all I got.

I'll talk to you guys, or Alex, I'll talk to you on Thursday if you do the pregame show later.

Thanks Patt.

I appreciate the call.

So on the second half stuff.

Yeah, we got a caller in yesterday that on PU that had all the numbers of like their score.

First time third quarter points since the Bills game.

Yeah, so it's been a while in the third quarter.

The fourth quarter is scoring differential, I know, is not great.

I kind of give them a pass on that because there's so many blowouts.

Yeah, and so it's like against Carolina, against Tennessee, against Cleveland, they put that game away, So like if they needed to keep scoring in those games, I think they were able would have been able to keep scoring.

Now last week and they only scored three points in the second half against Atlanta, and then this past week they kind of let the Bucks hang around a little bit in this game.

Those are fair criticisms, and I think that their offense has not necessarily sustained through four quarters every single week, and you'd probably like to see more of like a complete sustainable offensive performance.

And it's kind of why they flame out like in the high twenties every week, Like it's like, you know, twenty four to twenty eight points a game because they're not necessarily scoring a ton in the fourth quarter.

So fair points on that one with Pat for Patty don is in Philly?

What's up Don?

Hey guys, how are we doing?

Not bad?

So I have two questions here the kind of build like some of the questions build off each other.

But first of all, would you rather JFN or Gonzo?

And I know Evan mentioned this a while back, and I don't want to speak for him because this isn't exactly what he said.

But do you want to PRECFAE by saying I love Gonzo.

I think he's a great player.

I think he's one of the best, you know, lockdown corners in the league.

But if he's not a brable guy and they don't want to pay him, you know, top market money, would you ever consider trading him like the Jets did with Sauce if it guaranteed, you know, a playmaker in a first or maybe two first And then secondly, how many wins do you think we need to win the AFC East and secure the number one seed?

So you could do that separately, like how many wins do we just need to get the you know, to win the AFC East?

And how many do you think we need to secure the one seat and have home field advantage in the buy take it offer?

Thanks?

For the call.

Don So Jaysn versus Gonzo is the twenty twenty two draft revisited.

They could have drafted either one of those guys in twenty two.

I think jays N was still on the board at that point.

I don't know.

It's hard to sit here and say that I'm upset that they took Gonzo.

Like, obviously, Jayson's a fantastic players, probably a top five receiver in football.

Gonzo's probably a top five corner in football.

Like, I'd probably give the edges a little bit to j s N because he's a receiver versus a corner.

But like, I'm not mad that they took No, I'm not.

And you go back and you look at what their wide receiver development was at that time.

Does he become that player if he's here?

So no, I yeah, Kim Gonzales, Yeah that's fair.

What was the other thing that, Oh, you're.

Gonna hate this.

How many wins to an AFC East and how many wins?

Well, so here's the.

Oh, before we get to that, he did to ask if we would trade Gonzo if they are not gonna extend him.

So this is yeah, I mean, this is sauce, like Micah Parson's just had this happen to you, right, Uh yeah, I mean obviously if yeah, if you're if you're really far apart in contract negotiations and you get an offer of two first round picks and a player or something crazy for Christian Gonzales, then yeah you obviously.

Yeah, you can't a guy like that walk, But I'd rather pay him cigarette good player and not they shouldn't be in the business and moving on from football per se.

Yeah, all right, how many wins?

So how many wins would take to win the AFCs.

Let's do that first.

So Buffalo plays a tough and probably angry Tampa team this week.

If they lose that.

I did see that it is kind of a sneaky hard game for the Bills, but.

The Bucks have always given them trouble.

Yeah, you know, they go to six and four, that's now essentially a three and a half game lead for the Patriots, to two and a half game lead, but they have the one in hand.

They had to head right swides two and a half, it would be two in the lost column and then you have the tiebreakers.

So that's like kind of like they have.

So if if you know, if Patriots take care of business against the Jets and Buffalo loses.

So Buffalo's next four games the end of their schedule is brutal Tampa.

Yeah, Houston has a great defense.

Yeah, Davis Mills, what's up game?

I'm sure CJ.

Strove will be back?

Yeahs Burg yep not.

And that's in Pittsburgh, I think, right in Pittsburgh.

And then the Bengals, whose defense is wretched, but they're gonna Burrow back.

They're probably gonna have Burrow back.

I think they have to have them back by then.

I think that's that's the Seyboda window.

And even if they don't have Burrow, Joe Flacko's that's right.

Joe Flack was hanging forty on.

So that's four tough games, and then you go come here to play the Pad.

And then after that, I think, is the Eagles, right.

The Eagles in week seventeen?

Yeah, the Browns and the Jets sandwiched in between whatever.

But like, you know, how many wins is it gonna take if even if they lose that game to Buffalo and it gets split.

I think if they win twelve games, they win the division.

I was gonna say, I was gonna say, does eleven wins get it done?

I think twelve twelve death well does definitely, Because to get to twelve, they how many games they've left?

Nine?

Oh, no, I'm doing math.

Nine have seven games, they have seven games left.

They played ten.

This is the easiest math pot.

I forgot because about right, So they have seven games left.

So to get to twelve wins, they'd have to go six and one.

What they have seven games left, they have seven games left.

They only need to win four more games to get twelve wins.

Buffalo, Oh, buff Buffalo would have to go give me that stretch a sorry, yeah, give I'm not that bad at that.

Give that stretch again.

I'm not that bad Bucks, Texans, Steelers, Bengals, Patriots, Brown's, Eagles, Jets.

Can they go six and one in that?

I mean they could, Like the Bills are really good teams.

Yeah, but like that's not an easy It's not gonna be easy, So it's not twelve I think definitely gets it to you.

If they beat the Bills.

Yeah, if the Patriots beat the Bills, here, eleven gets it done.

I think so, I'm not you probably need another game somewhere.

Earlier in the show.

I I I told you I'm not stitious.

I'm just a little stitious.

So I didn't want to talk about all this, all right, I didn't want to talk about it.

But he can get mad at me.

I'm sorry.

I just don't you know, well, if they lose to the Jets and Victors.

Okay, uh.

I did allow myself to think a little bit, Yeah, the Bills and fifteen.

That game's that Probably that game's for the division.

If the Bills kind of don't recover here, yeah, and they lose a couple more times before they play, they could that could be a hat and T shirt game that literally even if.

The Bills are good like that could maybe not literally hat and T shirt game, but.

Let me ask it could more or less can like decide the division?

Yes, but I think Pending made multiple major upsets, which can always happen.

It's the NFL's National Football League.

Can the Bills win the division without beating the Patriots here?

No?

But I think that really like if you look at it, especially the way the Patriots schedule lines up here.

You know, Jets, Bangels, Giants where I gets twice the Bengals are hard I think harder maybe.

Bengal is a sneaky trap game.

You gotta go there, and Joe Flack has just playing their offense is good.

You can't play that off coverage against that that team.

So Jets, Bengals, Giants.

Yeah, let's just say the good times keep rolling here for the Patriots if they're uh, you know, eleven and two going out coming off the bye, going into that Buffalo game here at Gillette, like, a are the Bills?

Are they?

Is it?

Now?

If they have a three game lead out of that with the tiebreakers, it's over.

That is right?

That could literally be ahead and t shirt game.

Yeah right and all Buffalo loss.

That's happened, right, Yeah, it's not inconceivable.

So I look at the rest of the Patriots schedule.

I know you didn't want to get ahead of ourselves, but here we are.

Yep.

I did it to myself.

It's fine.

They have the Bills, yep, they have the Ravens, and again I think at the Bengals is a sneaky tough game.

They should win it, but it's a sneaky tough game if they If they win one of those, you can't get swept.

You can't get swept in those three because everything else is easy.

You got the Giants, you get the Jets twice, you got the Dolphins, and I think that's it, right, And ask anybody you can't get swept in those three.

If you win one, all right, you're probably gonna be okay.

If they can just take two of those three, they're golden.

Yeah, they are in great shape.

They just got to win two of those three against the Bills, the Ravens, and the Bengals.

I think that the Ravens game is probably the toughest of those three.

I don't know if you'd agree with that or not.

If you're a Patriots fan and there's not a part of you, no matter who they're putting on the field that's nervous going into Baltimore, you're kidding yourself.

So I but yeah, Lamar, this is assuming Lamar plays, obviously, But I on this game left, I guess is what I'm asking.

For the Bills, No, for the Patriots, Buffalo, Baltimore and Buffalo, which.

I'm asking what is the toughest.

So I think it's Baltimore.

I think it's sneaky Baltimore because I think Buffalo is gonna make the playoffs.

I think they know it.

Baltimore might need to keep winning, right, like they might need to really and it's there.

Yeah you haven't.

You know, they're a little more familiar with Josh Allen.

When's the last time they played the Ravens be in a minute, probably that was it the game that Mac Jones busted his ankle and DeVante Parker like one hundred and eighty yards.

Okay, so, uh, the I told you I wasn't gonna do playoff permutations and seeding and matchups.

I will do division like.

That's that's where you're okay.

No, I mean that's very relevant.

And winning the division.

I think you know Mike Rabel when he took the job in January, yeah said checkpoint number one, take advantage of bad football.

I think they're well beyond taking advantage of bad football.

Yes, checkpoint number two, win the division host home playoff games.

I put those two together because if you win the division, you're gonna hont you automatically host a home playoff game.

So win the division, host a home playoff game.

That checkpoint is right.

I'll give you one more sneaky important thing in this too.

Yep, that loss to Miami is massive because of the division record.

Yeah right, that's the second tiebreaker if the Bills come in here and win the head division record.

Right, the Bills are now two and two in the division.

Patriots are two and Oh they still have a bunch of division games left.

But yeah, no, that is right there, and I will also I will also allow for the Umber one seat, which I think is also right there for the taking.

You know, it's gonna be a three years there.

I mean, there's a lot more going on there.

But I think this year, like I said, by the way, the Patriots, Colts and Broncos and it feels like we're in high school again.

This is great.

I will tell melcome back to twenty twelve.

I probably I might eat my words on this eventually in January, if the Patriots play the Colts or Broncos, I don't care where that game is.

I'm taking the Patriots.

I don't care.

I have I don't care PTSD going to Denver and it's really I don't care if.

It's an Indie or Denver.

I actually if it's in Indy, I really like the Patriots because it's a dome and Drake May is gonna throw for three hundred faking yards in that dome.

I would take the Patriots.

I do not trust the jon.

From I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

Yep, and here we are seventy five eighty five minutes later.

The Patriots are going to blow doors against the Colts on the road in the I don't.

Trust that Colts team at all.

I watched them in Germany.

I know it's granted, it's a international game.

Those are always tough.

They pulled it out.

I get that.

Uh, you know how I feel about teams that are built with their run first.

You know that I don't trust those.

Uh kind of well, I just think the Broncos offense just kind of stinks.

I I think I think the Colts are more real than the Broncos.

The Colts, to me, there's something there, and you may not love the way they're building.

I got what you're saying about the dome.

They're saying that Jones will turn back into a pumpkin.

So you you said earlier you don't think the Chargers could get it.

It's even at seven and three.

You wonder if the Chargers would get in.

I worry about that Chargers team.

I do their offensive line is decimated, like Joe Halt and Rashaun Slater are now.

They are either out for the season or Joe Alt is dealing with an high ankle.

I think it is like that's never good.

Uh, but I I just the Colts specifically.

I would love for the Patriots to play the Colts because I think that's a great I'm not saying just because I think the Patriots would win, Like, I actually just think that's a great football game.

Would Jonathan Taylor against defense this run defense, Drake May against lou Anaumo, Like that's a great matchup, you know, Josh versus lou two, Like that's a great football game on paper.

I just really think just like Minnesota last year with Sam Darnold, just like the Vikings a couple of years ago.

I think it's twenty two right where they had like that flash in the pan season.

I just look at the Giants the Daniel Jones breakout, Like I.

Just look at this cold team and I'm like, I think that they'll have the exact same season that the Vikings had last year.

Great regular season, fun story wants it's time to play the big dogs in the playoffs.

Daniel Jones turns.

Back into who's the best AFC?

Right now?

Yeah, I work for them.

I don't know, I'll like that's it like they're ain't and two.

I mean like they have their tie for the best.

And I'll tell you this now, I don't think that they're based off of their resid may.

Yeah, they're the best.

Who's been the best team in the AFC through ten weeks?

Right?

That's different than what I'm asking is the best.

I'm not asking you he's gonna come out of the AFC.

Who's been the best team in the AFC through ten weeks?

You have power rank the AFC right now, Patrick Patrisone, I'll tell you this.

I can't believe I'm saying this.

Yeah, the Chiefs are a little bit of a sleeping giant at team maybe many And they go into Denver this week and we just talked about that Broncos seam being fraudulent, but like Denver's a tough places to play, It's a divisional game they go in.

That's what it worries me about not getting the number one seed is that you could be the second overall seed in the comment and you have to play Kansas City and have to play Patrick Mahomes and wild card wak if they go in and blow doors against Denver, that's such a message to the league.

That's such a message to the league that like, hey, don't have to sit out of the Kansas City is in there two thousand, right now, they're in there, twenty eighteen Patriots era, right now they are.

You're saying it's almost over.

No, maybe, but I am also saying, well, it's almost over for you know, it's almost over for Kelsey, It's almost over for Chris Jones.

Like they're how much long is Andy Reagan?

They're gonna have to turn over some of this roster around Mahomes even more than they already have.

But Kansas City in December and January, they'll turn it on.

They'll they'll get into the playoffs and then anything can happen.

Right now because of that, Trevor laur November twelfth, Yeah, I got to climb back in the rest of the season is not ending today.

Who's the best team in the NFC.

That's a tougher one.

I I have a take it might be a little crazy and maybe I'm caught up in the moment.

Yeah, probably is it Seattle they're playing like the best team rules.

They're playing like they're kind of the NFC version of the Patriots right where I think that the NFC version of the Colts.

But no, just what they're doing with the deep ball, Like I know we're talking about Stafford, and I think Stafford and Drake may Or the two m VP favorites, right, Yeah, Darnald might need to be in that conversation.

Yeah, I think Darnald's in the COMMO.

I think it's might need to be more than Stafford May Darnold, Jonathan Taylor, like Philly's lingering.

There's something about that team that feels a little off to me that like isn't the same as the last couple of years.

Detroit's been better after a slow start.

You know.

I like Tampa if they can get healthy.

I guess the Rams are good, but I don't know.

There's something about they're not just winning.

They're like they've won some really intense close games.

They've blown some teams out.

They're winning every which way again subject to change.

I I I do like the Seattle team though, Okay, let's talk a little bit.

And I said that we're doing this instead of draft order, right, you wanted this at the beginning of the show.

I gave it to you, all right, So there you go.

Everybody can give me on Sunday.

With all these great games you have the great Cup Montreal Aloette, I.

Haven't actually more relevant than that.

I'll get to here in a second.

Let's talk a little bit of Jets up.

Than that.

This one is down near the bottom of relevancy.

I'm not gonna lie, but let's let's talk a little bit of Jets before we run out of time.

So basically, this is one of those games, you know, just big picture, it's a sneaky, don't get beat by the schedule game, right you've played this will be your eleventh game in a row without a buye.

It's a short week.

You played on the road in a steamy, hot, rainy game down in Tampa.

That was a tough game, physical game against a good team.

Coming back on a short week, the Jets have a it's kind of like the interim head coach bump.

Like you trading saw us getting Quinn Williams.

Everybody just assumes that they're gonna fall apart.

They probably will eventually, but like for a short term bump.

Sometimes that the power friendship comes together, and like who knows, like where those guys, good locker room guys, were they bad?

Quinn Williams seemed really unhappy in New York for a while, Like you just don't know what exactly was going on behind the scenes that led to those trades.

So for one, let's call it two to three weeks, I think you can get a little bit of a bump, well in a row, one, two in a row.

So there's that whole angle.

Like if you want to go like superficial power of friendship, you know, non tangible things, I would say that that's you know, where we're at in terms of the way is that the Jets can actually beat you, like between the lines on Thursday Night.

I think there's a couple of things that stand out to me.

Their run game.

Their run game offensively is very explosive.

It's not it's weird, like they're not very consistent.

It's kind of like last week for the Patriots, where it's like two big runs often skew all their numbers.

But Brees Hall is an explosive back.

I think he's third in the league right now an explosive run rate.

They are as a team third in the league and an explosive run rate.

I think he has the third most explosive runs.

It's only like behind like Taylor and one other guy.

So he's a big play threat out of the backfield.

We obviously know what Justin Fields can do with the design quarterback run that element of it.

On a short week.

It's a physical team up front with the Jets.

They can hit big plays in the run game.

They can run it thirty three times and kind of control clock like they did against Cleveland.

And then you also it's hard on a short week to prepare for a non traditional run team like this is not a team that's just gonna put the quarterback under center and turn around and hand the ball off.

That's easy.

Like you know what's coming at you.

This is option.

It's like he's gonna be in the gun.

He's gonna have you read option plays.

It's gonna be you know, tackle trap, it's gonna be zone read, it's gonna be RPO, it's gonna be Justin Fields is trying to run all over this field tomorrow night.

And back in twenty twenty two when Chicago came here with Justin Fields, we saw that it can be effective if you let it happen.

So this is one of those games that's a little bit of a culture game from a short week perspective.

But on the field, I think the biggest thing that stands out to me about the Jets, other than the special teams, which we'll get to in a second, is can they come into this game and just justin fields goes twenty twenty two Chicago Bears and just runs all over the place.

Yeah, well, if you look at I mean, he had some receivers in that Bears game that you had to, you know, keep on you to be honest about.

Yeah, with Garrett Wilson out their team leader, I forget which way it is, but the next closest guys to Garrett Wilson among wide receivers, I think it's Tyler Johnson has the next most catches with eleven.

Yeah, and Josh Reynolds has the next most yards of one hundred and eighty.

I might have gotten that backwards, but eight in the box kind of game, right, And they did.

They did get ad Mitchell, who we both liked in the draft.

They didn't get him at the trade deadline, so that's a factor.

But yeah, we saw teams us to the Patriots in the early two thousands.

You put one corner out there, you put one corner out there, you put one safety deep, and then you dare him to run into the loaded box, or you dare him to try to take a shot with the with the black wide receiver Talwn they had.

Now, Mason Taylor hasn't been bad, and we know they're struggle against tight ends.

That's the guy worry about the pass game.

You got to keep him on as he's a rookie, you got to keep him on us.

But I think you just load the box.

If Justin Field's throwing the ball twenty twenty five times in this game, you're in good position for the Patriots.

Yeah.

So he only threw dropped back sixteen times, only threw it eleven, he scrambled five times, or maybe there's a throwaway in there or something like that.

But that's the way they beat you.

They beat you with thirty five runs, you know, twenty five by Brisall five to ten by Justin Fields, and it's just everybody's just running all over the place.

That's the formula for the Jets.

The other part of that formula for the Jets is obviously what they do on special teams.

I think Mike Rabel called their return unit's sensational.

Yes, yea, it is the word that he used.

They had two special teams return touchdowns last week against the Browns, one kickoff one punt return touchdown.

They're the number one team in the league in DVOA on special teams, the best special teams unit in football.

So that's again and part of it, right, if you run ball well, you get a big return or two, you flip the field a little bit, and now all of a sudden, you have a ballgame on your hands.

That's another angle of it.

You're the special teams guys.

So I'm sure you know plenty about the Jets special teams.

Yeah, I mean, it's they have a couple of different ways.

They can beat you with their fast that's the big thing.

They're fast.

You really don't You're not going to chase him down.

If they get through the initial line, you're not gonna be able to run them down.

So you got you got to be solid, you got to build that wall.

Yeah, a good, really good special teams unit.

Defensively, I wanted to talk a little bit about this from this Bucks game, and now we can kind of segue it into this Jets game.

So Jets play a lot of man coverage.

That's Aaron Glenn.

He's an aggressive defensive coordinator, defensive mind.

Now they play the sixth highest rate of man coverage in the league.

They played the highest rate of pressman coverage in the NFL, and that has not changed with or without Sas Gardner.

You know, they've played two games now because he didn't play the Bengals game.

He had a concussion sauce, so it's two games in a row now.

They're still playing a ton of man to man.

There are man to man defense.

The Bucks ran a lot of drop eight coverage against Drake May you know, three man rush, quarterback spy coverage behind it, man to man.

Usually it gave the Patriots some problems.

They only had one successful play against it, and it was the circus play to Matt Collins was the only successful play the Patriots made against Drop eight.

So does not usually Glenn's m O.

He's usually a man blitz guy.

He's gonna, you know, bring five guys blitz the quarterback.

You could do it that way too.

You know, it's always about gaps.

So Yeah, there's six gaps on the line of scrimage.

If you put five rushers in five of the six gaps in theory, then you can keep him in the pocket.

So you could do it that way playing man coverage behind it, or they could man up and then put a spy on Drake May And I think we're gonna see I'm interested to watch this game.

Is this sort of the blueprint that everybody goes after is, let's we can't blitz them because too good against the blitz.

So instead of blitzing him, we're actually just not gonna rush him.

We're gonna just rush three guys.

We're gonna drop aight into coverage.

One of them will probably be a spy, and we're just gonna make him sit there in the pocket and consistently make throws.

I would have to venture to say that the Jets are gonna watch that Bucks tape and if they're worth their salt, defensively, that's what they're gonna try to do in this game.

Yeah, and you'd like to counter that with the run, but they're so banged up at running back.

How's that gonna work?

Yeah, maybe there's some more screens, some more quick hitter stuff.

In this game, RPOs get guys going behind the line of scrimmage.

The biggest thing with drop eight, I would say combination of you know, obviously you can run the ball, but usually teams only play it on like obvious passing situations.

Well they had was last week or the Falcons game that they had the third and nine that they ran for the first down.

Yeah, you could do that.

Last week is toss play to Henders.

It almost broke that one too.

You could do that theory.

I just liken't think they're afraid to do that.

The spy in general, you know, against the Browns, they spied him a little bit.

He threw a pick to the spy.

Yeah, Carson Sweschinger.

Was spying him and he threw the ball right to him.

Last week, I thought the Bucks had some successful downs of like three man rush plus spy on Drake May So I think that's gonna be it.

Now, what how do you counter that other than you know, the run game.

Well, you got to remember that if they're dropping guys off the line of scrimmage into coverage, you have like outside linebacker defensive end types that are now covering in space.

So last week.

You know, the Bucks were dropping Anthony Nelson their defensive end.

If you see ninety eight in coverage, like that's a guy.

Yeah, the guy's wearing a number in the nineties and he's dropping in coverage, it's probably a good idea to throw the ball at him.

So like that's forget Trey Flowers man in upon Bell on third down.

Yeah, So like short zones, you know, picking apart the short zones and things like that can be helpful.

You mentioned the running backs.

I want to talk a little bit about that, and and tight end as well.

With Austin Hooper's concussion, who do you think plays?

What do you think they do?

They're obviously gonna have Henderson, They'll probably have de Ernest Johnson up from the practice squad, So then it's just a matter of can either Remondre or Terrell Jennings.

Go in right, So if you can have one of those guys go, you need three backs, especially against this team, you need three backs.

So if one of those guys can go, then you have Steven Center.

And they were both limited yesterday.

Trayvon Henderson's a full participant, they're both limited, so they feel more fifty to fifty yep.

You know, then I think maybe CJ.

Dupree, and we've talked about him being a blocking tight end and he gives you something else on the line of scrimmage.

Now, maybe there's also just some more of Jack west Over playing traditional tight end, especially if Tom is going to take his job as full back.

Where it gets complicated is if both Jennings and Steven center out.

Right, they might have to ride with two running backs for a game.

Do you do that?

Do you call to running backs off the practice squad and ride with one tight end?

Right?

Do they maybe make a move at the back of the roster for this game where they signed somebody off the practice squad.

They could sign Deeranis Johnson because he's going to be out of elevations, so if they wanted to, they could cut a player that hasn't been active.

I don't know, Eric Gregory kden Rawll is something like that, who is probably going to make it back to the practice squad once they clear waivers.

So you could do that and then like sign Deeranis Johnson to the fifty three man roster, and then you have you basically have created three practice squad elevations by doing that.

That's if both those running backs can't go, Jennings and Stevenson can't go, then it gets a little more complicated.

Yeah, so running back, I think that that's possible.

Tight end I think is interesting.

C.

J.

Dupree has been here since training camp.

He's been here all season.

Is an undrafted rookie signing.

It's been here since May.

So in theory, you would think that he has the edge in terms of maybe getting elevated.

They do have another practice squad tight any him.

No, they can't elevate.

It's he's the international guy.

Okay, so they'd have to sign him to the roster.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, so they can only out elevate dupre Uh.

He could be elevated.

They could go six o line in this game, like they could use Vederian low Er Marcus Bryan as an eligible tackle.

Well, they could do both, like you might.

You know, you might need dupre up just have the depth.

I don't mind having Dupree up because he's a good blocker.

And if the one thing that you're going to miss the most from Austin Hooper, it's his inline blocking, and that's what Duprees also.

Is that's his m O.

I've seen some people bring up, you know, do you go essentially four wide receiver and use Mac Collins as a tight end, which.

But if but if Booty doesn't, so I guess Kyle Williams would play right on the other.

But I think you can do that in some situations.

I think we maybe see a little more four wide receiver.

Yeah, but.

Also or you know, three wide receiver that's missing.

Is Matt Collins a better blocker than Hunter Henry?

So I meant it like four wide receivers probably a bad way to put it.

You meant through eleven personnel where it's kind of twelve personnel.

Yeah, or if like somebody asks, like what if Henry gets hurt?

What do you do?

But like there's all you don't want to take Mac Collins out of his normal responsibilities too much because he's been good in those.

So I do think you need you just need another body at the position.

And Duprez pretty much the only guy that can do that.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have a lot of emails about you know, kind of resting guys and maybe you know, given some opportunities, some guys that haven't been active, you know, or Brandon Swinson.

I know a lot of people want to see him.

I still think and you know, again, this is maybe my little stitious side coming out.

Yeah, Like I don't like, let's not get cute, all right, Like this is a game that they should easily win.

Is a bad Jets team, they should roll.

Like I'm not saying play guys that are hurt obviously, right, but if guys are healthy, then like they should play.

No, this is not Week eighteen.

You've already locked up a prece.

Agreed, so that that's where all those things are at.

A couple of emails here before we wrap it up, we got five more minutes.

This is an email from Okay Anakin on Tato Wine.

Nice joke.

I like it is Carlton Davis the most disappointing free agent pickup this season.

I want to make a judgment call, but it seems like he's getting burned week after week, especially in the end zone.

So I actually thought Carlton Davis was pretty good in this game.

The touchdown that he gave up was on an extended man coverage rep where Baker Mayfield like five or six seconds, you know, and extends the play outside the pocket that has two weeks in a row come up.

You know, he gave up a twenty five yarder to Drake London on an extended man coverage rep so you could get on Carlton Davis.

A lot of people getting on Carlton Davis.

I come back to the same thing I said the other I think it was last week with Carlton Davis.

It all depends on what your expectations were of Carlton Davis coming in.

If you thought that they were getting too number one corners, then maybe it's our fault.

Maybe we hyped up Carlton Davis a little bit too much.

Maybe it's your fault for thinking that I'll take some of the responsibility.

Maybe it was us, Maybe we hyped it up a little bit too much.

He is a really good number two corner, which is what he's being asked to do here.

Number two corners should not be expected to go out there and shut down their assignment.

Everything, especially when you're opposite a guy like Gonzalez.

I think people are annoyed with the volume and how much he's being targeted.

It's because Gonzalez is on the other side.

Yeah, and teams don't want to throw him.

So, you know, I think he's been fine.

He's definitely been a little underwhelming compared to what I expected about that he's been a bad player.

No, I feel pretty okay about where he's He's been fine, Like there's been some ups and downs, but I'm not, you know, totally mad about it.

This is a question from Caid.

He asked, are you concerned about the fact that we have the Patriots have a negative DVOA despite being eaten too.

So the DVOA, you know, obvious see Aaron Shatz's stat now, you know on FT and fantasy.

It's just like a catch all efficiency metric, kind of like your team's like war essentially like in baseball DVA.

I like the stat.

I've always liked the stat.

I particularly like the stat because it's schedule adjusted, so it's opponent adjusted based off of who you've played.

The Patriots, I think, are in overall team DVA are like seventeenth right now or something like that, so the middle of the pack.

They aren't great.

This to me is probably a product of DVA.

I think they had a cupcake schedule, so a lot of their impressive wins, like you know, Carolina Tennessee Cleveland.

They're not going to get huge bumps out of those games.

Their schedules not just easy, Like it's so much in terms of strength to schedule in terms of opponent's record, and I'm sure DVA takes an account more than that.

Yeah, it's like pretty far down compared to the next closest team.

That like just be a case of an analytic being broken.

I think, No, I'm not worried about the Patriots.

I did not know it was negative until right now.

Yeah, and I figured the only reason why I'm not worried about it, and I'm not worried about any of these things.

Yeah, I was right seventeenth.

Uh is Drake May?

Like what's Drake May's DV.

If this was twenty twenty one and it was Mac Jones with a good defense and propping it up and he's kind of just a system quarterback, I would say this is probably a little bit of a paper tiger.

The fact that you have an MVP quarterback pulling the trigger makes you feel a lot better about where they are.

I think it doesn't really do it, Like that's more of a team efficiency metric.

They have defense.

You know, what's the passing devo good like tenth or something.

I would say, that's yeah, So d y A R is like yards.

We're doing replacement now great asking.

That's that's a difference stat All right, here's the last one I wanted to get to.

This is what I said, Uh, more relevant than the great who do you got?

More?

So?

Uh?

This is from my former college roommate.

Okay, he asks, what is your score prediction for the Cordica Jug this Saturday this week?

So both Alex and I are proud in the college alums and the cord Could Jug is Ithaca's big rivalry game.

It's Ithaca versus Cornell.

Called it Cortland, I said, Cornell Courtland, Ithaca versus Courtland, the Cordica Jug.

It called that game in fifteen, very like historically big game in the D three college football landscape.

I'm also need them kid.

I grew up in need h Them, So Needham Wellesley and Itha Cortland is like those are two of the bigger, like small rivals.

They called Cordica the biggest little game in the nation.

That's that's the nickname for the rivalry.

So who do you have?

Don't look it up?

Don't look at like where they're at you this is.

I was trying to find which year I I called the game.

If you want to see still to this day of the wildest ending I've ever seen a football game.

Look up twenty fourteen quarterca ending.

You know I know that is, to this day the wildest ending I've ever seen.

Shutout of any longo on the call, I'm gonna go, ah, you're thinking about thinking about it.

Yeah, I'm thinking whether or not I want to pick Courtland.

I think pick Ireland.

I'm going I see all right, I'm gonna take Courtland.

I'm going to take the hometown team.

I will never forget fourteen.

We don't have a ton of time here, but twenty fourteen really quickly.

H the opponent was lining up to kick a so.

On the Olympics.

I was next your points.

I was right now.

Now we only have like ten second it Thick.

Is up by three.

They kicked the ball off with about a minute a half to go.

No, no, I'm talking about just the one play.

Well, no Courtland comes down the field.

They're setting up to kick the game time field goal, seventeen seconds left, no timeouts.

Holder doesn't come on the field.

Backup holder runs on botches the snap, peels away from two defenders, hits the third string right tackle on the back one of the end zone for the game winning touchdown.

Game.

Yeah, and you seen me in the replay right there.

Like a muffed extra point or a muff field goal situation turns into a game winning touchdown.

They also, I think it was twenty fifteen, my graduation year, they gave up like a hail Mary bomb to lose the game.

No, that was the year before the crazy one.

Those twenty thirteen.

Okay, it was one of the years I was in college.

They've had.

They had some big game.

They were they were three years in a row, the three years that I called the game, and then one year they lost on like a ridiculous safety.

All Right, we got to wrap it up.

Patriots Unfiltered will be live in ten minutes.

Rob Gronkowski, we didn't get time to talk about this.

I'm sure we'll talk about it on PU signing a one day contract right around twelve to fifteen.

To or a three favorite Gronk play, one headed catch against Denver touchdown super Bowl forty nine.

There you go, So Gronk twelve to fifteen Patriots Unfiltered at noon.

I'm sure we'll carry the Gronk Presser live.

That should be a fun one and we'll see you guys.

Then.

Hey, this is Alex.

Thanks for tuning into the show.

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