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

Bar and Lazarre.

Hello, everybody nailed it.

Joined us always by our Here is Evan Lazar and Alex Bars.

I think the the other element with Josh Allen, just from my standpoint, is that he's probably the hardest quarterback to defend in the in the league, because he's just so otherworldly talented physically, Like there's really not a weakness to his game from a physical talent standpoint, because of how good he is with his arm man with his legs.

I think Lamar is harder to defend.

I don't Lamar to me, and I love Lamar, you know, but Lamar is a between the numbers thrower.

If you can funnel the ball outside the numbers and make him push the ball outside the numbers, Lamar is not the same.

Well, I guess we'll find out.

I guess we want.

We got the back to back here at the two most recent NFL MVPs, right, I think I think that's right.

And some people think Lamar should have been the MVP last year.

Should have so maybe some people sitting to my right.

So yeah, there's a it'll be interesting to see how it looks against these two guys.

Now, Lamar is not fully healthy, so I think that that is an important caveat to put on it.

But we'll get to Lamar and we'll get to the Baltimore Ravens.

Sorry, we're a few minutes late.

I know none of you care, but there was some bad traffic, maybe an accident or something on our both of our commutes this morning, so i'lex meet me by a few minutes, so he would have been on time.

It was it was me that was three minutes late, So I apologize.

But we're here.

We're up and running.

All things considered, it wasn't as late as we could have probably been given the traffic in the situation, so we'll take it.

Anyway.

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

We'll certainly get to the Ravens here, probably in the second hour of the show.

We'll take your calls and emails.

With the phone lines already lighting up this morning and the emails.

And it does seem like a loss like this one elicit's a lot more response than a ten game winning streak.

For some reason, that might just be the market we are in but I want to start here with the Bills in this game on Sunday, because we texted back and forth about this Sunday morning, Sunday night into Monday morning.

It felt like about where we were in our steps of processing this loss.

And I think that where I've settled now as I kind of put a bow on this for the week and turn the page here to Baltimore is there's like a macro and microway to look at this game.

And I think after the game, I was trying to kind of live in the macro for a second and realize that if you had told me coming into the season they were going to play two games against Buffalo, they were gonna split those two games, and they were going to be super competitive in both games.

I would say that's great.

You know that that's a good step forward.

I think that there's no doubt about it, and I think the people of Bill's mafia are sort of feeling this as well.

There's no doubt about it.

The Patriots have closed the gap with the Bills, like they can now go on the same field, stand toe to toe with Buffalo and play them close and maybe even beat them.

And maybe they should have even beaten them on Sunday, right, and been two and zero against the Bills.

So I think if you came into the season with that and you were told that, you would be really really optimistic and happy about where they at.

I think it's really good thing that this show is perfect for this type of loss that we're going to talk about all this different minutia that can tributed to the loss, instead of just saying we just don't got the personnel, we don't got the horses to hang with them, right, you know, it's a Jimmy's and Joe's not nixes and nose.

This is about the margins.

Like, this game was decided by a bunch of little things that we'll certainly get to, even to the point where you know, I was getting mocked yesterday about bringing up the kickoff coverage, which was a huge part of this game massive, Right, So like, these are things that we're going to talk about today that aren't just yeah, they're a lot better than they than we are.

No.

I think that's that's the way you got to look at it.

From the one thing I'll put back push back on a little bit with that, and I agree with a good chunk of what you said.

There are some personnel things, but it's about injuries.

It's not about not having the players.

Injuries are the kind of things that didn't happen over the course of year.

We had talked a lot at the beginning of the season about how depth was going to be one of the biggest issues for this team.

Yeah, credit to the Patriots training staff.

It really didn't come up until.

I mean, this has been a very healthy team all year.

But yeah, in the areas that we are going to talk about, because I just I don't want you to give that qualifier and then I come back and say it later and it sounds contradictive.

Yeah, of the few areas we will talk about, well, you know, better personnel here, better personnel there.

I do think they have the guys, they just weren't on the field, and that that's the National Football League.

Like guys get hurt.

That happens.

And I know the Bills had guys hurt too, and the Patriots not taking advantage of that was also part of the problem in this game.

But you know, when you look at Okay, where were the Bills really bettered in the Patriots some of that and you know, credit to the Bills.

They attacked areas where the Patriots were banged up, and that's what a smart football team does.

Yeah, so I think that's all fair.

I think then there's you know, this is more maybe part of the second thing I was going to say, but you just said, then there's the micro view of it.

Yeah, analyzing this specific game in a vacuum and then analyzing the twenty twenty five New England Patriots.

Not the program Mike Rabel's trying to build in the career that Drake May is trying to have, but just what this means on Sunday, what it meant on Sunday, and what it means for this season and the rest of this season.

And I think the disappointing part about it is, well, just come out and say it.

You blew a twenty one point lead, right, So that's obviously in itself a disappointing part.

But the second part that I think is the most disheartening was that this was the first time that Josh McDaniels and Drake May didn't seem to have any answers, Like it was the first time all season where they just couldn't offensively.

They couldn't put a drive together when they needed a drive, And all year long, McDaniels has pressed all the right buttons.

Drake may has made all the plays, even going back to Week five against Buffalo in Buffalo on that game winning drive.

So you just look at all these different types of things that happened, and you're discouraged by the fact that they blewed twenty one point lead seventeen at halftime.

You're discouraged by the fact that they for the first time really all year, didn't have the answers to the test offensively, and we can break down exactly what happened there and then defensively.

There was some things that were going on under the hood that we talked about on this show, not bragging, just saying we did, and that were kind of going on under the hood during the ten game winning streak and the Chickens kind of came home to roost finally on some of these things.

And I'm talking about the red zone defense, the run defense, the lack of pressure with four you know, you have to kind of blitz in disguise and you know, draw it up to get pressure on the quarterback without Millon Williams out there.

So all these different things that contributed on the micro level to this loss are discouraging, even though I still think the arrow is pointed upward on where they're going in the macro sense of it.

But let's get into some of the micro you know, we start big and then we zoom in, you know, zooming into it.

I want to get to the good, bad stuff that gets you beat.

But did you just have any opinions on it?

Big picture, little picture?

Yeah, I'm with you.

I mean big picture, Look, they're right there.

But I think it's maybe a reminder that and we talked about a lot.

Hey, this is a young team, this is a new team.

It's a bunch of guys that haven't been together that long, even if they have experience elsewhere, and those teams typically go through growing pains, and we'd been surprised at the lack of growing pains over the course of this season, which they should have had more, and credit to them that they didn't.

This game was kind of a frank reminder of, oh, yeah, this is still a team that kind of needs to learn what to do when they get in that situation.

Now, what you hope is, because I'm somebody who's been.

You know, I can't I criticize teams all the time for blowing big leads.

I can't come in here and say it's fine, right, yeah, shouldn't blow up twenty point one point lead at home to a division opponent with the division on the line, like that is a bad loss.

However you want to spin it, you want to talk about, Okay, well, it shows they're making progress and it shows they're better in the long term.

That can be true, but it's still a bad loss.

And now next time they're in this situation, you know there's gonna be that question.

The Patriots have not been a good fourth quarter team for a few weeks now.

It just hasn't mattered because they've gotten off to these big leads.

Right Well, now, you know, against a better opponent that came back to bite them.

So this is gonna be something they're gonna have to figure out.

Now.

They've done a great job this year when we come in after a game and talk about, well, this is a question, this is a question, this is a question.

They've done a good job of answering them and answering them pretty quickly and answering them positively as well.

So we'll see if and when they get their redemption shot at this one.

But it's it's a tough loss, and this was a game where you want, especially once you got that big lead, keep the clock running shorten a game established ball control they get.

I don't want to be too on them for getting away from the run in the second half simply because they had to get away from everything because they only ran eighteen plays.

Yeah, and that forty six to eighteen play disparity in the second half is on all three phases.

So to say, oh, well, they lost control of the game because they didn't run the football, I don't think that's incorrect.

But I also think that that's a monumental under cell of what happened.

That wasn't like the one thing that led to all of it.

And you know, for the people want to look at it and say, hey, they got up to twenty one point lead on the Bills.

That's good, that's encouraging, Like I don't.

You can have some you know, you can kind of look at that.

You can look at that game and say there's positives.

It's interesting.

When I was on with David Andrews on Monday, he talked about the twenty eighteen season when they lost to Pittsburgh and they lost to Miami at the end of the year, and it's a different context because that team was a veteran tea in their experience blah blahlah whatever.

But people kind of pointed maybe not so much to the Miami loss, but the Pittsburgh loss as hey, you know, they needed to lose one, and it's good perspective and it'll get them reset.

And Andrew said, in the minute moment, you're a player there, you're sitting there saying, no, we don't want to whether we want to lose, we don't need to lose.

That's bad.

You're frustrated with the loss, he said.

Then they won the Super Bowl and you look back and like, okay, like you know that that that kind of helps shift the perspective.

Well, it certainly helped this team and when they lost to Pittsburgh.

Right, so you you hope it's one of those uh, you know, we could do the whole and again it's it's not exactly apples to apples, but people love to do the debate.

If the seven team had lost once during the regular season would have helped them, and you know, it's not exactly that again, but like it's just not it had to be, but like it had to be that game in that way, that's not just like a loss.

It did dawn on me multiple times because call it O seven PTSD would call whatever you want.

I never want the Patriots to be on some like ten plus game winning streak going into the playoffs.

Ever, again, I am completely done with that.

Like I've seen that, I've been there, you know, I know in two that one they rattled off like ten straight eight eleven straight won the Super Bowl.

They've had years like that in the Brady years where they where they just were a wagon and they just won all the way through the playoffs.

But in that sense, I do think that it could be a good thing to have one hiccup.

Now, you mentioned the second half offense, and I will be the first to admit I downplayed the lack of second half offense because of the reason you said, they really haven't needed it.

They haven't played a team that's been good enough to push them in the second half of games where it was necessary to empty the clip offensively.

So I'm not going into these games thinking, oh, would have been nice for Josh McDaniels to script together a drive against the Giants or the Jets, Like why would you use those plays against the Giants and the Jets?

Like if you have these plays that could maybe get you in rhythm or out of a rut or whatever the case may be.

So I downplayed it, But now I think that we have to call this a trend, like this is a thing, and I would say, you know, before I rattle off a few numbers.

It's also they had a sixty five yard touchdown run in the second half of this game.

They had a huge touchdown run in the Tampa Bay game in the second half, and then outside of that, they haven't really sustained any drives, Like they've had one play sixty five yard touchdown type drives, but they haven't really had a whole lot of sustained offensive success going into the third and fourth quarters of games.

Now, they used to be like around the Titans Browns that area of the season.

They were a great third quarter team.

They were at blowing doors in the third quarter.

But really since that Atlanta game where they lost a big lead again and had to hold on at the end against the Falcons.

Since that Atlanta game, they have not been a good second half team, and they are now the best first half offense in football.

They are number one points their number one in EPA in the first half of games, and the second half of games they're twenty second in scoring offense.

So there's clearly a trend here, there's clearly numbers that back up.

This is no longer anecdotal, and I don't think you can no longer use the excuse of, well, you know, you're up big against the Jets, what do you you know, what difference does it make?

So the second half offense is a real issue and something that they need to address now.

I don't know if he would talk about this in the press conference, but I think one thing that's interesting to me is that my understanding with Josh McDaniels has always been that he's not a big script guy.

Like he's not one of those coordinators that comes into a game and scripts the first fifteen to twenty plays, which is a lot of the time.

What you see with offenses that sput her out is that the coordinator just has a great play sheet for the first like fifteen to twenty plays, you know, two or three drives, and then once they get out of the script, defense adjusts and they don't really have anything else.

McDaniel's in the past has not been somebody that calls games that way.

Usually in the past he would call the first couple of drives was actually more about gathering information of like, if we put this personnel on the field, you know, how are they gonna match our base Like how are they going to match twelve or twenty one personnel?

Are they going to match that with nickel or are they going to match that with base defense?

If we run this formation, you know, how are they going what are they going to check to to cover this bunch or what are they going to check to to cover this motion?

And then what we you can do with that is that you use that as information for later in the game whenever, you know, when the stakes are higher.

So that's how he's done it in the past.

But it does feel like based off of the data that they are coming out like gangbusters in the first half with the really good script, and then right around halftime they fizzle out and that's it.

So I don't know if that's changed.

I don't know if having a young quarterback has changed that or whatever the case may be, but that's one theory, and I do want to talk about some of the good things.

But what are you seeing in the second half of these games, because it is kind of bizarre that they are literally the best offense in football for two quarters and then they can't put together a first down in the in the fourth quarter of games.

Yeah, I mean, it feels like there's a ramp down a little bit.

I think some of it they're playing the clock, which I'm not inherently against what we've talked about their issues in the run game.

Yeah, and so when you're trying to play the clock and you're struggling to run the ball, it'll slow you down a little bit.

So, I mean, I think that's been part of it.

It's been a little different every game, but you know, struggling to run the ball and then just trying to manage the clock as much as they are, you know, I think they're okay with with the They're just trying to keep the clock running, yea more so than push the ball, and they're just trying to get to the finish, which inherently I don't hate, but you got to be able to run the ball to do.

That, all right, let's get into the good and the bad and the stuff that gets to be There is a lot of good from this game that I want to talk about.

Yeah, the first half, well if it's in the first half for the most part, but I thought that there was some really good stuff in the first half of this game, specifically in the run game.

Obviously offensively, to me, this was probably the best game the offensive line's played all year, and the run blocking in particular was really really good.

Eighty nine yards before contact in this game is a season high.

So the running backs now on his cut back, I guess technically, you know, Travon Henderson probably wasn't touched, but you know, eighty nine yards before contact is a good number.

That's a workable number.

You know, they had almost a sixty percent rushing success rate thirty two percent pressure rate for the game.

But the first half run game, you know, just in general, one hundred and forty two rushing yards on nineteen carries.

That's seven and a half yards of carry, three touchdowns, all on the ground.

This was a really really good half for the offensive line, a really really good half for the run game.

Finally, this has been a run game that has really struggled.

Now the Bills run defense has really struggled, But the Patriots played the Giants a few weeks ago with a historically bad run defense and didn't really run the ball particularly well against the Giants.

Same thing with the Bengals.

So this has been a weakness on weakness thing for like a month now, where they faced week run defenses with a week rush offense.

This was the first time that they exposed a week run defense and hopefully that is a sign of things to come, because December football January football, like it would be a nice thing to have if they could run the ball here a little bit.

Yeah, and that's what made it so exciting.

Not only were they beating the Bills, they were you know, doing so in ways where they hadn't been able to succeed in recent weeks, so it felt even more encouraging.

Yeah.

I thought the blocking in particular, they gave the backs room and a lot of people are going to talk about the game Travan Anderson had, and he had a great game.

Modern Stevenson was really good too, agreed, in the first half, and obviously they kind of went away from him as they went away for the run game again.

They only had eighteen plays in the second half.

But I thought you saw a great example of where Trayvon Henderson was great was those big plays outside of those two carries, and I don't want to erase them.

I mean they're massive plays in the game.

Outside of those two carries.

I think he averaged like three yards of carry, yeah, where Stevenson averaged what was it, like five something yards of carry but didn't ever run longer than thirteen yards.

So we've talked about their need for that intermediate run game, just the kind of sustaining Not every run is going to be the home run.

So when you're not hitting those or you're still managing to get four or five six yards on the ground, that's frankly what the Bills did in the second half that gave the Patriots so much trouble.

And Ramandre Stevenson still looks like the better back in that regard.

So I said going in, I wanted to see more of a healthy split of the two backs.

I thought it'd set up well in the first half, and then obviously they weren't able to keep it going in the second half.

This was the vision, you know, this was the vision of Vermandre kind of being the singles hitter, grind out the tough yards, run between the tackles.

Trevon Henderson is your home run hitter.

This was what they envisioned when they drafted him.

This is a you know, I thought also probably one of their best plans, like in terms of game planning in the run game as well.

The tackle power plays with Morgan Moses pulling instead of Mike on Wnhu pulling really worked.

I think that's something that they might have found works a little bit better.

You know, Moses just a little bit more nimble, a little bit more athletic in space than Mike on WNU.

Who's better in a phone booth, you know, So keep Mike on when who you know, base blocking on the line of scrimmage, let him turn guys out.

Let Moses be the one that polls.

That really seemed to work out a lot they I know, everybody hates the draws, but they did get some draws going in this game too, some inside draws that were successful.

You know.

Obviously, the toss plays you know, ended up working, you know, kind of the damn kind of broke on those as well.

But the power plays, you know, pulling the guards or pulling Morgan Moses.

You know, Jared Wilson pulls out in front of Trayvon Henderson on his first long touchdown run.

That thing could not have been blocked better.

That was a that is teach tape of how to block one back power.

I mean, that was just perfect execution.

Egos untouched to the house for fifty plus yards.

That was all on the blocking.

I thought Garrett Bradberry was outstanding in this game, had multiple standout run blocks.

Watching this game back so really encouraging stuff.

And then of course, you know we have to talk about the Drake runs and you know, getting that going in the red zone was something that I think we all sort of felt like was in their back pocket and something that they could pull out in a big game.

They decided to pull it out this week, and I obviously, you know, two runs, two touchdowns couldn't go much better than it did.

And I really liked the way that they had a couple of different wrinkles and a couple of different designs on them as well.

You know, the first ones like a peer zone read and the second one was a quarterback draw.

I thought that that second one probably was an RP where he's kind of reading the linebacker.

Is he going to drop out into coverage or is he going to join the rush.

If he joins the rush, you throw it.

If he drops out, you run it.

But both of them worked.

The second one worked really well.

The first one they got some good blocks on the perimeter there by Booty and Hunter Henry to help him get in.

But that that was exactly what the doctor ordered.

It seemed like in the red zone.

And now you put that on film and now teams have to prepare for his legs down there, and you can have different things that branch off of those two kind of core plays of your run game down there in the red zone.

So that was extremely encouraging that they finally got some red zone success with the Drake runs.

Yeah, a lot of people talked about it going into the bay, right, what's one of the wrinkles you want to see fix the red zone and maybe get Drake's legs involved, And they did it, even that second run.

I know this has been said, but in case anybody missed it, like you see the linemen start to get up to the next level, so it looked like he scrambled, but that's a designed Yeah, like that's a delayed quarterback run.

If he throws, that be a legal man downfield.

So they put that wrinkle in, and you're right, even if they don't go back to it a ton, it's now something teams are gonna have to think about and be prepared for.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

It was well designed.

It was well done by Drake.

Now, I didn't think that Drake May did a whole lot of heavy lifting in the first half of this game.

But he was still nine to eleven with one hundred and eight yards passing, So it wasn't It was a pretty good statistical half for Drake May in the first half at least, you know, one hundred percent tile epa per drop back.

I mean, he was he was dealing.

He was dealing in the offense was humming in the first half.

Now, like I said, it wasn't a ton of heavy lifting.

I you know, the runs were more the highlights.

You know, the seventeen yard scramble in particular was just a great run by him.

But we're gonna probably say some not so flattering things about Drake May here in a few minutes.

And the first half I thought was was really good from him, and he was doing his thing.

He was doing the MVP thing.

You know, you're running, you're you're throwing, you're running in touchdown.

That that was the type of half that he, you know, has.

It makes you think that this guy can beat Josh Allen right toe.

So that was the offense.

Defensively, I tried to come up with some good things to put for the defense.

I had a tougher time, frankly than the offense.

I did not think the defense played particularly well at in this game from start to finish.

The opening drive is Buffalo has two wide open receivers that they stub their own toe Like Brandon comes is wide open and he bobbles the ball and falls out of bounds.

Dalton Kincaid's wide open on third down and Josh Allen airmails it.

Like So was that good defense or was that bad offense?

They did have some good rushes in the first half.

I thought, you know, pass rushes.

They had one nice blitz on third down.

I think it was the second drive of the game for Buffalo.

Yeah, was that the one they sent Marcus Jones?

Yeah, where they got some free runners and they really it was a good blitz.

Good call, and then Harold Landry had sack.

Was a nice rush by him and Barmore on the stunt over the right hand side there.

So I put first half pass rush.

I thought that it was solid.

Better.

Now do you maybe you like to see them hold that blitz in their back pocket for the fourth quarter?

Like, I guess you could make that argument, but I'm not going to be two nimpicky.

There were a couple of good rushes in there.

I thought in the first half that that got them off the field in some big spots.

Yeah, No, I have a problem with them using it there because you want to you want to get ahead, and they this is what's crazy.

I mean about this whole game.

We can talk, you know, we'll talk more about this show was on a lot of what the Bills did, a lot of what happened in that game, and Mike Rabel kind of said this after the game.

There were no surprises.

The Bills did not.

There were a couple of small wrinkles here and there.

But Mike Vrabel talked during the week about, hey, we got to play sixteen minutes as a team that knows how to come back.

They're not out of any game despite deaf sit.

We'll get to the kick return.

Jeremy Springer talked about the kick returning unit things like that, like they knew they had to get the momentum as quickly as possible.

So I don't mind using that play early because, yeah, you get up twenty one nothing, you should win the game, right, And that's probably the thought process is let's not keep it in our back pocket for when the Bills have all this momentum and are steaming downhill, let's prevent them from getting there.

And they did that, so in that sense it's encouraging.

They just needed more just that one play.

So some major breaking news in the AFC East.

That I was gonna read this.

I didn't usually get annoyed when I pop in with breaking different things.

This is pretty major.

Do you want to read or do you want me to read it?

I will now.

I don't know if we're thinking the same thing.

The Dolphins are are benching to.

A oh no, all right, Wow, I had a different thing.

They are benching to.

The Dolphins made another move to, well, they benched to it.

Okay, they also cut Matthew Judon.

Okay, Well, benching to is a bigger deal than that.

Well, Matthew Judon's washed.

Sorry no, I love Matthew Judon from what he did for the Patriots for a couple of years there, but that's that's not a no anyways.

Has he been like a good secial teams player for maybe you can tell me that.

I don't know.

So Tua's cut, benched, not cut, Sorry, yeah, benched.

Queen Yours is going to start the rest of the way.

So there's a short term implication of this, which is the Patriots play the Dolphins in Week eighteen and probably are gonna need to win that game to win the AFCs, so they'll they'll be up against Queen Yours it sounds like, but this is a massive, massive move for the Dolphins because I don't know how you come back from this with Tua, Like do you go back to Tua for twenty twenty six?

I think that's hard to do.

He's not hurt.

You're benching him because of performance, So I think that that's hard to do.

Now they might have a new head coach as well.

But so this could be the end of the two eight era in Miami, is what I'm trying to So I.

Talked about this yesterday on felgrin MAZ, do you let Mike McDaniel pick a new quarterback?

Because if you do that, and I know there's been this whole run of first round picks who or first overall picks, who's coaches got fired whatever, But like, you don't want to be that team right now.

So and this isn't really a class to be.

And this is not a class.

No, so if but if if you're if you're going with a new quarterback, to me, that means in part that you're committing to Mike McDaniel for two more years.

You also want a victory lap on Mike McDaniel.

He should have been fired a long time ago.

I mean, I think my my stance is pretty clear on that.

Is a new GM going to want new GM is not going to want to inherit a quarterback, especially not a quarterback like Toua with this contract, who plays this way.

Is he gonna want to inherit that coach?

So that's what it comes down to me.

I would move on from both.

I don't think that's surprising anybody, but I.

Think that's where we're headed.

But you also, it's bold as an organization to allow Mike McDaniel to make this decision, because if you're too, like this could burn a bridge with two that there's no coming back from if you want to have to as a part of your future at all.

And I know they don't know who's gonna be running a team, but you understand what I'm getting at, Like you if you know Mike McDaniel's a lamb duck head coach and he's gonna get fired at the end of the year, Like, do you let that coach bench your franchise quarterback?

Like that's that's a big move to allow guy that's going to be fired in three weeks.

So unless you know, are you moving on from both of them?

Yeah, fair enough, But I just it's an interesting move obviously in the short term that Miami game.

Look, the Dolphins have played spoiler before.

We all remember twenty nineteen.

Yeah, this isn't like the upstart Dolphins with Brian Flores trying to prove the owner wrong.

Though.

This is a little different.

Yeah, this is sky is following the franchise.

Fifty six million dollars quarterback is benched and now they're going to have to come up here in week eighteen.

It's probably gonna be freezing and play a game against the Patriots who are probably gonna need it to win the division.

So some things breaking the Patriots way there in Miami.

Uh, let's get back to real quick.

Where yours wasn't bo Nix your comp for him, like a year ago, a year and a half ago.

Oh No, I don't think he's as talented as both.

Okay, no, I think he's got.

A well, I think I might have been a lesser Bonnix was your comp.

Yeah, I don't think he's got a great arm.

So I'm not a big Queen Ears guy.

I think that once you saw him a little bit in the college football playoff and and the struggles that he had pushing the ball down the field.

Uh, in terms of arm strength, you know, he's he's maybe a little bit more talented than like a mac Jones, but it's not much that arm isn't isn't great.

But we'll see, Uh, we'll see with Quen yours that that's a that's an interesting move.

I think that.

I do think.

I will say I do think it's less damning that they make it now when they're eliminated from the playoffs, because this could also be and whether this is true or not, you know, you sell it to too is well we're out.

You know, I think he's been playing through something, right, he's banged up.

I mean, he was awful, I know, but you can you can sell this as I think he's.

Really like even though they've won some games, like he's been.

Bad, right, And no I'm not.

There is also some stuff and I don't necessarily care about this at all, but you know, I don't know how much it rubbed the teammates a great way.

And I'm not down there.

But when he said the thing about the meetings or whatever.

And he's like smiling and like having a great time as they're getting blown out by the Steelers, I just think that it was over.

I think the whole thing.

I think so too.

But I do think it's if they were still in playoff contention and they did this, it's a lot more damning and and it's still damning, but like, you know, okay, like like the commanders are doing Jadan Daniels, Hey, we're gonna sit you down.

We're out of playoffs.

We don't want to get hurt.

Sure, YadA YadA, YadA, like and I don't think that's what this is.

I think this is a benching.

But they can at least kind of sell it like that.

Where is if you bention when you're still alive for the playoffs, there's no right, there's no two ways around what that is.

Fair point.

I just think that it's an interesting thing to do with Mike McDaniel on such thin ice that you're allowing a coach that's job security is not great to bench a guy that you owe fifty six millions.

You already know that what's happening to that.

Coach, But if you're going to fire him, allowing him to make a decision like that is bold.

Well, unless you know you're moving on from both.

Right, So maybe, but that's the only way that this is kind of makes.

Sense or or it's yeah, like if they're so you're saying, like, what if they want to stick it out with two of them move on for McDaniels, correct, Well, then it becomes well, no, he benched you, so he fired him, and now we'll get you a new coach that'll fix it.

I don't know.

It's a mess.

It's a mess.

It's a mess situation.

Let's get back to the Patriots.

We can talk a little bit more about the Dolphins A mess, and I'll come on, we can talk a little I thought you were going to go into the battle it's but but it's not.

It wasn't a mess.

It was a little extreme, a little extreme.

It's a extreme.

So I put some things in the bads that you maybe you might think are stuff that gets you beat.

But I thought, for the most part this was just bad, not stuff that gets you beat.

Let's start on.

Let's start with the offense.

I just thought, for the first time really all year, in the second half of this game, I thought separation and just like receivers, seeing coverage and understanding things.

And I heard you talking a little bit about Digs yesterday with Badard, and I agree with his analysis that it seemed like everybody was confused about what the Bills were doing in the second half, not just Drake May.

And that was a little bit weird to me, because like, you have Digs, you have Hunter Henry, you have Mac Collock.

These are veteran guys.

Yeah, you know, these are veteran receivers.

It just didn't seem like they really It's like they went and it came out in the second half, and they kind of like completely lost a feel for the game, like they just didn't really know what was going on from like reading out coverages, seeing the rotations, all that kind of stuff, and just going back to the first half.

I come back to that play in the two minute drill right before halftime where the Bills rotting to cover three, Hunter Henry just sits right down in the middle of the zones and they hit like an eighteen yard play.

And then in the second half, they couldn't do that at all, you know, they couldn't find the soft spots, they couldn't separate versus man to man coverage.

I think we've known for a while now that this receiving gore is average, maybe you know, like middling in the NFL, being elevated by a good scheme and a great quarterback.

But this was the first time all year where that really came to roost, where it just didn't feel like the guys were really getting open for Drake May on tape and we'll talk about Drake May.

Don't get me wrong.

It wasn't just all on the receivers, but it was a little bit odd, like I don't I want to call it concerning because it hasn't happened yet until this point.

It was more just strange that they were all seem so kind of flummixed by what the Bills were doing and all they you know, they were doing a good job of disguising it and dressing it up and spitting post snap and all that good stuff.

But they were just playing cover two.

It wasn't like it was like some exotic coverage that they've never seen before.

Uh.

But I did think that there was a lot uh in the second half of covered snaps, like just where guys were just stuck to coverage and couldn't get it separation.

And even when there were a few opportunities, it wasn't like guys were open like it we're talking about, you know, the third down throw to Hunter Henry that I'm sure Drake may would want to have back.

He's open, but it's not like it's you know, wide open like we've seen some times this year.

The whole thing goes back to I hate to keep going back to this, but it's a story the game for me.

You run eighteen plays in the second half, they never gotten a rhythm, and we've seen what this offense can do when they get in Rythm.

We saw it in the first half.

Yeah, and that impacts everybody so and that impacts are out running.

I think that impacts the connection between the quarterback and the receivers, all of it.

And I do wonder too if some of it was you know, they've got no more man, which the Patriots weren't expecting, and that kind of threw some things off as well.

Yeah, I mean the last play of the game for the Patriots, that fourth downplay that gave me some serious like flashbacks to what this offense has looked like the last few years, like from like twenty two to twenty four, where it wasn't good, where you just have guys bottled up, terrible spacing, like nobody open and it just looks like a kind of a jumbled mess and you're just like, what is going on here?

And they played manton man coverage.

They dropped the ends out into like little like robber zones.

It was, but it wasn't like something that Digs and Hunter Henry have never seen before that they should have been totally stuck like glue to the coverage.

It was.

It was odd.

Now, I didn't put it in the stuff that gets you beat because it hasn't happened routinely yet, you know, I want to give them a couple of some grace here and say, all right, if this happens again, let's say on Sunday night against the Ravens, then maybe we have more of a bigger picture concern here.

Right now, it's just bad.

It's not stuff that gets you beat.

To me, the other category are things in this category the run defense.

This is just this is starting to get under my skin a little bit out, yeah, because the one thing that I think is a non negotiable for Mike Rabel and this football team.

You cannot let the you know, posing run run running back right up the gut, like you can't let them just run it right down your throat like that.

That is something that needs to be unacceptable as a defense, right like especially you know the A gaps, Like you can't just run like James Cook run right through the A gap every single time untouched.

That that was concerning this run defense.

Since Milton Williams has gone out, has gone in the tank.

We've all put the stats up at this point, but they're bottom five in the league and EPA and rushing success rates without Milton Williams, after being top ten run defense from pretty much the entire first nine weeks ten weeks of the season.

I think this kind of started in Tampa.

You know, Tampa had some cracks there in the run defense with Milton Williams out there, and then Milton Williams gets hurt against the Jets and then it's really gone into the Crappers since then.

So the couple of different things about the run defense.

You know, in this game, James Cook eighty two for fifteen attempts on inside runs, just right down your throat, eighty two rushing yards fifteen attempts.

That can't happen.

You know, at some point you have to put your big boys in the A gaps and say run outside like you got you know, like you got to run it someplace else because you're not coming in here now.

Roberts Blaine should have been right there, right like that.

That right, that's an underrated loss too.

Like obviously Milton Williams a big part of it.

I think, don't leave out them not having Roberts Blaine.

But the fits and we'll get to this and the stuff that gets you beat.

So I'll put that on the back burner.

But just in general, this run defense post Milton Williams injury has kind of fallen apart a little bit here, a little bit.

Yeah, and you know, I do think getting him back will help.

Now they're not going to have him back for this game against the Ravens, who run the ball really well.

So that's you know, and you hope they have Roberts Blaine back.

We'll see if he's out of practice today, first practice of the week.

But are there some you know, people keep saying, is it a schematic thing?

Is it just as simple as personnel.

I do think there's you know, some schematic tweaks, but it's I don't think it's a coincidence that the run defense fell off when they lost Milton Williams and then and not only that, like they've they haven't had Kiros Tonga for parts of this stretch.

They haven't had Roberts Blaine for parts of the stretch.

They have Jelani to fe for parts of the stresses.

Player, this is.

The spine of your defense.

Listen, and this is where I, as I said kind of when we open the show, I don't think that there's no personnel concerns from this game.

But it's not like past years.

It was just like, well the roster sucks.

Yeah, they we knew it going into the season.

Like they did a great job of overhauling the top twenty two, you know, the starters on both sides of the ball.

They did a great job upgrading those spots.

The depth still isn't quite where it needed to be.

And you know, Tonga looked like maybe an answer there his first game back from an injury.

I didn't think he had one of his better games.

I don't know what was going on with him.

I just I figure he's probably still hurt.

I don't because I didn't look at it like he was physically getting moved.

He kept on trying to like backdoor their zone runs, so like they were you know when you run zone, like the brokers are going to reach on the line of scrimmage, flowing you know, horizontally to the line of scrimmage.

And he just kept on like trying to swim and shoot gaps into the backfield on the back door, you know, the backside A or the backside B gap, and like nobody was replacing him in the gap, right, So he was swimming and he was jumping in, trying to jump into the backfield, and there was no fill from the second level or something or anywhere really to try to replace him, And so all James Cook was doing was aiming that run outside and then just cutting it back right through the middle because Tongo was just vacating the middle of the field.

Like I didn't feel like it was like that Tongo was getting like manhandled in there.

I felt like there was like what we're like, what are we fitting here?

Like what's what's the call and what's what's the plan of how we're trying to fit the run here?

And I'll admit, like you can't it's really hard to watch film and without knowing what the call is defensively to tell you like what exactly the fit was like and what who's where everybody was supposed to go?

But all I can tell you is that there was nobody in the a gap right right and that is obviously not how you draw it up.

So they were like loading the front a little bit to the play side of the form and trying they were trying to force the cutbacks, like they wanted him to cut back, but there was just nobody there for him.

You know when he did cut back, there just wasn't anybody there, So it was more and we'll get to this, like I said, but this was more to me.

This was more like you know, details like this was like not necessarily that I thought that they were just getting blown off the ball.

It just felt like they were kind of beating themselves a lot in the run game.

So I want to put that on the back burner because we'll get to it.

The last thing I had on the back bry just to finish that thought like that that the run game.

To me, I do think the issues are more personnel than schematic.

Again, it's not to say that they're in some things they can do better, like you just highlighted, but yeah, Spallain or mill Williams and Robert explaining like don't forget that part of it too.

Getting those guys back should be a big help.

It's just you know, they're not getting mill Williams back for this game.

He's still not eligible to come off.

I are for at least another week and then we'll see about Splain.

Right, And I think that two things can be true at the same time, Like they're not going to be a dominant run defense.

Without all their guys health.

But it doesn't got to be it doesn't have to be bottom of the league, right either.

Yeah, it shouldn't be this bad, but it's I think there is an element, there's like a reverse ewing theory element here where like, it doesn't need to be this bad, but because mill Williams was such an important player, as they try to reinvent it, because they have to kind of reinvent it without them, you go through growing pains of trial and error and experimenting with different things.

You know.

I think if they had time, eventually they would water would find its level and they'd figure it out.

But at that point, you'd rather just get in the Lewis back sooner at that point than go through all that.

Okay, last thing in the bads and then we got to get to the stuff they get to be, which is probably gonna be a few minutes of breakdown here.

But just the four man pass rush, yeah, they just they don't get home with four against good offensive lines like Buffalo twenty one percent pressure rate on their four man rushes, which you know they use about almost sixty percent of the time as most teams do, so they need a lot more from Chase On and Landry.

Then they got in this game, you know, they know a lot more.

Now, was there an element of you know, rush lane integrity and not getting past Josh Allen and having to kind of contain him in the pocket from the edges.

I think that's absolutely fair to say that there was some element of that.

But at the end of the day, you can't just let him sit there and throw the ball right.

You have to get some pressure on him, and you have to be able to get some pressure without blitzing too on occasion, and they just didn't have it in this game.

You know, Landry had the sack in the first half, that was his only pressure in the entire game, and then Chason had one hurry in this game and that was it.

They had two pressures combined out of their starting edge guys.

Like, that's just not going to cut it.

And with Christian Barmore in the inside getting double teams and triple teams all the time, like, there's where's it going to come from?

You know, it's just not going to come from anywhere at that point.

So they just need more from both those guys.

And I don't know if that means with Landry into particular.

I don't know if that means rotating him a little bit more with Ponder Jenning is to try to keep them fresh.

I don't know what the response or the answer is there, but they just need more four man pass rush.

They can't blitz all the time, so you have to find a way to get some pressure with four.

It's funny I before the game, I was kind of getting started.

We we've obviously it's been great.

We haven't really done draft talk this year because we haven't had to, but I'm still gonna have up tomorrow my like players to watch in the college football playoff thing for Patriots fans.

Yeah, And I put the list together a Thursday Friday last week whenever it was and I was like, there's a lot of edge rushers on here.

My two edge rusher had out.

I think it's on the n I saw that game and I put I added another edge rusher to the list.

I was between an edge rusher and wide receiver from one team, and I was like, Nope, we're gonna add more edge rushers to this.

Like it's a great edge class.

We're gonna talk.

There's a lot of names we're gonna get familiar with people already probably familiar with some cash as Hall, Dave Bailey, Romelo Height.

Like, we're gonna get ready for a lot of edge rusher.

Talk to Spring by the way, you'll have your time to talk about your edge.

Well, I'm gonna add this real quick.

I texted you this morning, but I'm just gonna put it out there now.

The top edge guy in the class who the Patriots probably have a shot at Rumbain.

Yeah, there are questions about his arm length, about his arm light.

Here we go, so we get to do that whole thing.

Well, they're not going to be picking that well unless.

Is falls because of his arms, and then we do have to be a pretty big fall.

But yeah, they to me, and I know we're going to probably talk a little bit about receivers and playmakers on offense, which is absolutely in neat as well.

I think they could still use that top guys too, But I think edge rusher right now is the number one night.

And oddly enough, because again, as I was going through this, I'm like, all right, which guy do I take from each team?

There's a lot of teams with a really good receiver and a really good edge rusher.

We're going to be talking about a total of like ten schools.

Yeah, this whole.

Spring, because all the players that that are fits are on the same teams.

All right, let's go over to the stuff togainst you beat and you'll have your special teams minute here in a second.

Well, I'm just glad it's in this category.

So the first thing that I have here, let's stick on the defense, because we were talking by the defense, and we'll get back to the offense.

So in the Patriots meeting room, they have a sign that has the team identity and these are basically just like non negotiables for Mike Rable.

Number one is effort in finish.

Yeah right, That's that's like kind of his mantra.

That's his thing.

That's one of his sayings.

Effort and finish is number one.

Do you remember against Tampa Bay Tony Romo said that the Patriots were DTF and everybody made a big deal about it on the broadcast because of what the other meeting of DTF is.

Well, they have their own meeting of DTF.

And my guess is that this is either just football lingo across the league that you hear a lot, or Mike Rabel said it to Tony Romo in a production meeting, But the Patriots version of DTF is details, technique, fundamentals, right, those three things.

And I just thought defensively in this game they were not DTF at all.

Like their pass rush was kind of a jumbled mess.

Their run fits were kind of a jumbled mess.

I thought coverage at times they were busting coverages at different times in this game.

Uh, maybe a little bit more.

You know.

The one the plays that stood out to me that really bugged me the third and seven backed up they have Buffalo backed up.

It's third and seven from the Buffalo twelve.

They I don't know what they were doing up front.

They like had guys running into each other upfront, Like we talk about that a lot with like routes spacing on offense.

This was that equivalent but on defense where they'd literally have dudes running into each other in the pass rush and picking each other.

And in the back end, Uh, they someone didn't carry or someone didn't pass off or something in zone and h Dalton Kincaid is just wide open in the middle of the field.

The coordination of the defense in this game was poor.

They did not tackle.

Well, they had ten miss tackles in this game as well, But overall, I you know, we were talking just about this with the personnel versus the scheme.

If you play a good offense like Buffalo and you're not sharp on the details and the techniques and the fundamentals, you were going to give up thirty five points.

Like That's just the way that this goes in this league.

When you play a good quarterback, you can't make mistakes like that.

You just can't.

And that's exactly what Mike Rabel said on Monday.

So this is just one of those things where, yeah, you were shorthanded defensively, you don't have Splin, you don't have Milton Williams.

But if you were a DTF, I think that you don't give up five straight touchdown drives and lose the game.

Right, Yeah?

No, I mean they got sloppy, and we talked last week about how the Bills were sloppy, and you know, the Patriots, you know, you didn't count on them playing a clean game.

I don't think the Bills played a perfectly clean game either, but the Patriots were the sloppier team.

Yeah, yep, absolutely, So then the other things you know, going to the offense.

I do think that it's fair to second guess the second half play calling, but not necessarily just because they didn't run the ball enough.

I think that's part of it.

But you know, they're getting all these too high state safety structures from Buffalo.

Eighty six percent of the time, the Bill has played two high safeties in the second half, and we all talk about it when you know they're playing well.

Drake May is the best deep ball thrower in the NFL.

So the Bills said, you're not thrown deep.

If you're gonna beat us, it's gonna be by taking profits.

It's gonna be by driving the ball.

You're gonna have to go on ten twelve play drives.

They kind of just said enough is enough on the big plays.

Now most of the big players are on the ground in this game.

But regardless, they said, we're not giving up, you know, one play sixty five yard touchdown drives anymore.

We're gonna make you march it in the fourth quarter.

We're gonna play two high safeties, we're gonna play man to man underneath it, and you're gonna have to find ways to beat us.

And it was just disappointing that Josh McDaniels did not have any sort of beater ready, right, Like, you have to there's got to be something that you can do against two man to get somebody open, you know, and I know it's it's a difficult coverage because the guys are sitting inside levery and this team and this offense wants to throw the ball breaking into the middle of the field.

And that's exactly what Buffalo took away in this game.

They took away the deep ball, and they took away the middle of the field, which is where the Patriots live as an offense.

So they're trying to make you play left handed, and they deserve credit for doing that.

But at the same time, your offensive coordinator needs to at some point like you have to have something right.

And I also would say we talked about this going into the game, that this is what Buffalo was going to do.

Now, it took them a half to figure it out, but I knew going into the game they were going to play cover two.

I knew it because that's what they did in the first half in Week five that gave the Patriots trouble.

In Week five second half, they come out, they start blitzing and doing all this ridiculous stuff, and Drake May tore them apart.

That's what the first half looked like this time, and the second half looked like the first half in Week five.

So I do I hold Josh m McDaniels accountable because he's really good at his job and he's the veteran OC, and I think that they should have been able to find a way to scheme some stuff open in the passing game, even if it was just to get Drake May into a rhythm and then maybe he makes some plays.

But once you're asking him, you know, I'm not trying to absolve him.

We're gonna get the Drake.

But once you ask him in the fourth quarter, you know, there's two thirty left and you have to drive the field.

Like he's already out of whack at that point, right, and so like at some point you have to get him some easy completions.

You had to get him a rhythm and then maybe he could have pulled out that two minute drive to win the football game.

So I think both of them kind of sharing it equally.

You know, he didn't play well.

McDaniels didn't call it particularly well.

And they lost.

What's the opposite of complimentary, not like complimentary, like.

Like complimentary football, Yeah, I mean non complimentary.

I don't try I'm trying to think if there's an exact, incomparable or contrasting.

Okay, so it was contrasting football because I mean there's some truth to it all you say, to everything you said.

But again, it's also it's hard to get into that rhythm and develop when you can't stay on the field and when the defense can't get you the ball back and this and that.

So yeah, it's a little bit on everybody.

I just when I look at the play calling, get eighteen plays to work with.

Yeah, there's only so much you can do in eighteen plays.

It's just the reality of it, right, which.

Is why it's important to establish get a few.

First downs, establish some Drake said that after the game when he was asked what went wrong in the second half, So we couldn't get the first first down?

Yeah, right, So that's a big thing to me.

I think that that first first down is a big emphasis for Josh McDaniels as well, in terms of drive starters and things like that.

That's always big with him, Like we got to get the first first down in the drive and get the drive moving, and they weren't able to do that in this game.

Then there's the whole conversation about Drake May in the second half of this game.

He was not good.

I mean, there's really just no other way to put it.

You know, five minus plays for me in this second half.

I only had him with one plus play.

He had the turnover worthy play on the spray to Henry that hit Jordan Poyer right in the face.

It should have been an interesting He was not good.

I didn't think that he was very decisive or saw the field well.

He wasn't, you know.

Vrabel said this on Monday and kind of back it up.

He wasn't.

His first reads were covered a lot in the first half and the second half, excuse me, his first reads and the progressions were covered a lot, and he wasn't progressing quickly enough off the first read like if it's covered, move on right like that was what Rabel's message kind of was, and he didn't do that very well in this half of football.

You know, the throw to Hunter Henry on third down.

I know a lot of people are going to call it a drop.

I didn't think it was a good ball.

You know, it's behind him and makes Hunter Henry make like a twisting kind of catch attempt at it.

If that's out in front of Hunter Henry where it should be, it's a first down, you know.

So they just didn't play well.

And I don't need to drag him for it.

We don't need to kill him for it.

But if you're being objective, it was not a good half of football for him, and you know, you expect better and he can definitely play better, you know, you see that.

So putting these two together of you know, the lack of answers that they had schematically for what Buffalo is doing and Drake may struggling in this game, I just wonder, you know, if they see this again and whether we can kind of get into whether it's a blueprint not a blueprint whatever.

You know, if they see this from Baltimore, if they see this in the playoffs, you know, what do they kind of go to to have better answers the second time around?

I think will be important.

Yeah, And I mean some of it's just the accuracy, right, like the sprays came back, and you know, when you don't have answers, you start getting sped up, and that's where some of those those accuracy issues come from.

But they've seen it now, right for all to talk about, Okay, this is the blue Is this the blueprint for Drake May And we've said a lot this year, Okay, that might be the blueprint.

And he comes out the next week in shreds and so we'll see expect the Ravens to do a lot of what the Bills did.

But you've seen it now, right, So now they can start trying to put together some answers.

They have a whole week to start putting together some answers.

It was very weird to see him struggle so much with two high safeties because he's shredded two high safeties all season long, and this game he just didn't see it well, just wasn't seeing the field well, wasn't seeing the rotations and stuff like that well.

And then throw it particularly well either.

So not a great half of the quarterback.

All right, last thing here and then we can stop being so doom and gloom about this.

The kickoff coverage, man, I mean fifty eight forty five and then thirty eight plus the fifteen yard penalty makesed that a fifty three yard net return as well change the game, Ray Davis, and the kickoff return changed the entire game.

You know, they get two big kickoff returns in a row that sets up two short fields, two touchdown drives for Buffalo to get back in the football game.

This was one of those times.

And this is often the case with special teams, kind of like offensive line.

Usually only talk about it if it's really good or really bad.

This is one of the times we're talking about it because it was really bad.

Yeah, and again you go back to the big gear, you go back to Thursday and Jeremy Springer talked about how they were going to be a threat.

And after I think the third return and the offense, the Patriot's still somewhat in control the game at this point.

But after the third return, I turned to Matt Dollf I said, this is exactly what happened when the Bills played the Buccaneers a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, was the Buccaneers had control that game early on, but the Bills broke a couple of not like highlight tape returns, But they're getting right around midfield and now the offense has a short field and they're able to start getting in a rhythm.

And you know I've said this, some people said, well, you know, this first couple of kick returns, the Patriots are still in control the game.

But the Bills offense started getting their legs under them.

And then when they had to drive longer down the field later on, they'd already kind of been able to figure out some things that work when they'd worked on those shorter fields.

So you just can't have it.

Goes back to what we talked about turning the trade ubline about the Patriots acquirming and kick return.

Now, I Thinkyle Wims been good in that role, should have had a big return, got wiped out by a penalty.

I do want to add one more that reminds me to the things that get you beat.

But yeah, I knew.

I say, yeah, you can't have it.

You just can't have it.

Can't be giving over their first five drives.

So this is through the opening kickoff of the second half, the Bill's average starting field position was the Patriots forty two yard line when you take out the one that came off a punt, So the first four kickoffs for the Patriots, the Bill's average starting field position was the forty nine yard line.

Yeah, you can't win that way.

You can make a good offense, you cannot win only giving a team half the field.

Yeah, so it was a huge part of the game.

Vrabel really stressed it Sunday and Monday, saying we can't leave out the field position that day.

You know, we were putting the defense in some tough spots, especially against you know, the raigning MVP.

Those are some tough spots to be in.

That's not to absolve the defense, but all of this goes hand in hand.

And you know, when we'd unpack this loss, this was all three phases in the second half of this game that came apart.

You know, like, this isn't just Drake May.

I've seen a lot of that that this loss is on Drake May.

I think that's bullshit.

Honestly, I think that that's frankly bs.

And a big reason why is because of all the things that we've just talked about about the other two phases of the game, Like the defense gave of five straight touchdown drives, the kickoff coverage was not good, Like you can't just take those things out and say, well, you know, the quarterback should just save everybody all the time, like that's not fair to hit.

It was again, it was everything.

It was.

It was offense, defense, special teams.

It was a lotdown in all three phases.

So you really have to put into all of it.

I thought, you know, just we got a break, but the kickoff coverage just really quickly they got schemed up in the kickoff coverage.

Now I'm not a kickoff coverage savant.

I don't know enough about it to tell you.

I don't know if they got schemed up because the Bills saw something in the Patriots kickoff coverage and how they cover kicks, or if the Bills just have these kind of neat little wrinkles in their scheme and and the Patriots just weren't totally prepared for it.

Either way, it's not good.

But if it's something that the Bill saw on tape that they could expose with the Patriots, I'd say that's probably worse because now you're gonna go up against Baltimore and John Hart, a former special teams coordinator, He's going to see the same things on the film, right, He's gonna be able to design it up.

So the first big kickoff return they had, they basically ran power.

They had pulled a guy from the other side of the field in front, like as a lead blocker, and created a crease.

The second one, they put an offensive lineman at in the middle of the field, which is not usually you don't see offensive linemen on the field on kickoff return.

So you see an offensive lineman there in the middle of the field, you know, he just opens a hole for Davis.

A third one was kind of more just like straight kickoff, like normal kickoff return.

But it was really just all three times they kind of got schemed up, and I think that was a little bit worrisome as well.

So can't have it, Like you said, you can't special teams is just like offensive line to me, you can't have wild swings either way.

Right, You just want the special teams to not get you beat.

It doesn't necessarily need to win you the game, but it can't get you beat either.

In this game, it was definitely part of the things that got you beat.

All right, let's take a hang on.

Okay, I want to add one more thing though, go ahead.

It's seven penalties, yes, five month third or fourth down two on kickoffs.

I'm not rolling my eyes because I disagree that it wasn't a factor in this game because it was.

I'm rolling my eyes because those penalties were so borderline penalties.

I think the more egregious was the non calls compared to the calls.

The call on Carlton Davis is bad.

So here's the thing with Carlon Davis went to make I've seen that called before and and it's a TICKI tak call.

I would rather they not call it.

I've seen it called.

The bigger issue and this goes back to something I've talked about all year.

There's poorly officiated games and there's unfairly officiated games.

Different things.

So a a all unfairly officiated game are poorly officiated.

A game could be poorly officiated without being unfairly officiated.

I said, because I know the Bills fans are all hot and bothered on this, I said Week five was a poorly officiated game.

It didn't impact the outcome, neither did it here.

But there's a certain operational level I think it's fair to expect from officials in the National Football League.

As Carlton Davis said, it should not take you ten seconds to get the flag out right.

It's like in baseball, when an umpire.

Does you know it when you see it, it's either it's either a penalty or it's not a penalty.

And if you have to sit there and think about it, then it's probably not a penalty.

You shouldn't right, if you have to reconsider it, don't call it.

That's just that should be the instruction point.

It was not as delayed, but it was kind of like in New Orleans.

Finished his celebration in New Orleans.

Yeah, when they scored that touchdown and then they like had the extra point team on the field and they called it.

They called a penalty for a pass interference, like out of nowhere.

Look, the reason why I didn't have it is because I feel like it was a bit a poorly officiated game.

And so I have a tough time sitting here today and saying you got you know, you were sloppy and he had too many penalties called on you, because I just didn't really think the game was very well.

Efficient to the two penalties on the kickoff were there?

Definitely, the face mask on score yeah.

The faalse start and hold were there, yep, And those are very costly penalties.

Yeah, yeah, but the hold on The kickoff too by Mapu is tough because all he's got to do is let go, like right, Like all you gotta do is as you know, so Kyle Williams reversus field, which is tough.

Right.

You don't know your back is to him, so you don't know that he's reversing field.

But all you got to do when you feel the guy trying to go outside of you is just is just let go and then it's not holding.

The two that I questioned the most were the Marcus Jones went, I don't know what the hell happened there between the catch non catch and whether or not it was a penalty like that.

That thing was a mess.

Yeah, and the non call on the ball the hole Hollins with Tray White, which happened to be similar plays, right, because you know, my thing with the officials like be consistent.

I had as much of an issue with the Hollands one as I did with the Davis one.

So the Hollins ones, it's a it's a heave, it's an arm punt.

So here's my issue with the Hollands one.

You know, people might look at that and say, well it wasn't catchable.

They have not really cared this year.

Really going back to last year.

It wasn't that it wasn't catchable, It just what was the one to what was the Mark Jones one?

I couldn't explain.

There was an arm punt, So this was that wasn't an arm punk?

Yeah it was, No, it wasn't.

There was.

There was a fourth down play and like they.

Don't do the Josh Allen thing, that was as much an arm point.

No, not even close.

Yes, what do you mean?

They took the safety out of the middle of the field and it was the read of where he's supposed to go with the ball.

It's fourth and three and he hums went down the field to a covered player.

I that was not an arm punt.

Those two you either call both of those or you call neither of those, and I'd be.

Throwing either a fifty plus yard bomb down the right side.

Well, it was a little more of an arm punt than the other.

But that was that was the catch.

Was not an arm that that was that was an effort.

Let's see what happens he from Josh Allen.

That was.

Let's not act like that was some unbelievable other worldly play.

It's not what that was.

I didn't say that.

I just said that that was that was the play.

It's fourth down.

There's nothing here.

I'm gonna throw this up in hunting.

I don't think that that was nothing there.

There was nothing there, no here.

Jones is right there.

I'm trying to explain to you what happened.

Okay, the safety's in the middle of the field.

It was Jalen Hawkins.

They run mesh right, the wheel comes out of the backfield from the running back.

Jalen Hawkins takes the running back out of the backfield, so it's basically cover zero.

Okay, there's nobody in the part of the field, so he's one on one down the field with Shakiir and Marcus Jones.

That's the only place there was to go with the ball.

Okay, it's josh Allen.

Yeah, couldn't run around scramble whatever he threw to covered receiver down the field.

I don't even think he threw to a cover receiver.

To be honest with you, I think Marcus Jones did a really good job of driving the catch point.

But I don't think he was like he was not like wide open by any means.

But Marcus Jones got beat off the line of scrimmage on the play.

Like I'm I don't know.

Those two plays should have been called the same way.

To me, there are very similar plays.

They should have been called the same way.

I'd be fine if they threw a flag on neither.

Personally, That's how I'd rather they do it.

I think that the Jones was sticky tack.

It also definitely wasn't caught.

But whatever.

But again, the officiating didn't ultimately impact the outcome of the game.

To me, you plow a twenty one point lead, it's a lot more in officiating, but between the conferences, the long conferences, and they couldn't figure out the clock at the end of the first half, and they weren't all plays consistently, and they're throwing the flags late, like, it just was not John Hussey, John Hussey has.

Been a leaf twenty four years.

It wasn't a good It was officiating.

It was not all right.

Let's take a break.

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All right, everybody's been waiting.

Thanks for waiting.

On hold, We're going to get to the calls, the emails.

We'll talk a little Ravens before the show wraps up.

Tony is in Canada.

What's up, Tony?

Hey, guys, good morning.

Before I forget, I'm sure we won't chat again.

So happy holidays to all of you guys.

Thank you too, Thank you.

Yeah.

So you know, I'm still trying to figure out the Buffalo loss, and definitely I agree listening to the show it was all three phases that cost us the game.

But if I have to put my finger on one one of those three phases.

I'm going to put it on the offense because the defense are all banged up and we can expect much more of the same next game.

Baltimore is going to want to run the ball and we have a scrambling quarterback.

But I'm going to put it on the offense.

Like you guys said, we're the highest scoring offensive team in the first half, and in the second half, things just shut down.

If you take away that run from Anderson in the second half, which was unbelievable, and you can't count on that very often.

We were really scoreless in the second half.

I'd like to see.

May scramble more, uses legs more, especially in those like at the last drive, third down, four down, only five yards we needed.

I was surprised he didn't use his legs and Buffalo did go to man to man and there was no separation with the receivers.

So that's all I have to say.

I'm gonna listen to the rest of the show.

Thanks again, guys, and go path.

Thanks Tony, thanks for the call.

Yeah, we talked a little bit about that on PU yesterday.

Alex just you know it wasn't.

The system wasn't working right.

There wasn't.

The guys weren't getting schemed open.

The receivers were having trouble separating, you know, So could Drake may have just gone playground mode and start running around and try to make some plays.

I think there's some truth to that.

Now, Buffalo did strategically spy him a couple of times on third and fourth down, and they had a nice nice job of doing that on a handful of plays.

So you know, the third down that he threw the ball up the sideline to Henderson kind of into no man's land, there was a spy on that play, So I didn't know if he necessarily could have ran.

I mean, he's fast.

He hit twenty point whatever miles an hour running in front of Trevon Henderson, So could he run away from the spy.

Sure he could have.

But you know that's what teams are gonna do.

They're gonna keep him in the pocket.

They're gonna make him read it out, you know, find the open guys like you.

He had booty on the backside coming across the field on the shallow on that particular play, so as somebody you know, watching it, It's easy for me to say with a clicker, but I would have rather him come off the covered side and come to the backside crosser and hit Booty coming across the field and give him a chance to get the first down.

But I do hear the argument that when there's nothing there and the plays aren't developing the way you want them to develop, he has that second reaction ability to just kind of start going playground mode on everybody, and maybe he could have done that a little bit more.

Patty is an aguan.

What's up, Patty?

Hey, Good morning, Jens.

Hey.

I just want to share the same sentiment.

Happy holidays to you guys.

If you remember last Wednesday when I called in, I said that I believe that offensive execution was going to be paramount to the past win in the game and to me, and like, it just brings up what happened in the second half brings up a much bigger problem just for this season, because I mean, I know we see that like they don't have the depth, you know, especially defensively.

But I think the only game that I could say that they probably played a good sixty minute game was the Panthers game.

And to me, that's like the biggest it's it's the thing that's going to hamstring them the most going forward and into the playoffs.

But I mean, I'm already, I'm listening.

I'm alright with it.

I kind of feel like we're playing with house money.

I do think they're going to win the division and you know, hopefully want a playoff game this year.

But I just think that, like when they do get to the playoffs, And I said this on the postgame show, you have to play sixty em in a game against good teams and because if you don't, you can't expect to play one half of good football and expect to win.

That's that's my uh, that's my little rant.

And I just wanted to get your guys opinion what that What the hell do you think is going on with Christian Zalids.

Yeah, I'll take that question off here.

Yeah, thanks for the call.

Bat.

It just on the first thing.

That was sort of why I opened the show the way that I opened, because I do think there is an element of they might just not be quite their talent wise to play sixty four minutes against a good team like Buffalo.

Well, and that's not to let them off the hook.

But it's just they might be a little bit, a few pieces away from being that kind of but I do think they're more talented team at this point than Buffalo.

Now the injury is hurt, but I don't know, after Allen and Cook, where does Buffalo have?

Line's good?

The line's very good.

I shouldn't say the offense lines a very good, but like, yeah, not a lot of talent on the defense on a wide receiver, you know, it's all in the running backs tight ends the line.

Well, that's what I say.

It's close, and that I think that that's reassuring even though you lost the game, Like you saw two teams on the field, and I don't want to offend anybody in Denver, so I'll say, yeah, two of the three best teams in the AFC maybe played that game on Sunday, Like I think you could really make.

There's only four one of four teams gonna come out of the a FC, and there may be different odds for each, but it's only gonna be one of four teams in my mind, to come out of the AFC.

And I'm just listening in the order off the top of my head.

Patriots, Bills, Broncos, Texans.

Yeah.

See, I don't see it for the Texans, but I agree with you all that defense.

It's a really good defense.

But they're gonna have to go on the road three straight games, and I just.

That defense will travel.

Maybe maybe they get the maybe they do catch the Jaguars, but it's gonna be hard.

All right.

But all right, let me ask you this.

Are the Texans closer to the Patriots, Broncos, and Bills or are they closer to these Steelers, Jaguars and Chargers.

Probably the first group, but I think the Jaguars are kind of sneak.

We'll see with the Jaguars.

And I'm not getting too caught up with what happened on the Jets, but every single time I try to, I keep on thinking the Jaguars are going to be the Jaguars.

They keep winning, so I have to give them credit.

I do give them credit.

But they beat the Jets, they beat the Colts without a quarterback, they beat the Titans, they beat the Cardinals, like that's their win streak right now.

They do have a win against the Chargers at home like they have.

We could do the easy schedule thing with them too, and Houston has beat them, I think twice this year and now they split.

But just to one more thing, to Patty's point, like you hope this game is Mike Rabels said earlier this year, and I look, I think it was a good quote.

You'd rather learn from winning than you would learn from losing.

Yeah, and I think that's a good approach.

But I do think there's some things that are just gonna be hammered home with a loss more than they are with a win.

And the playing sixty minutes the fourth quarter all that, it's kind of easy for that to go in one ear and out the other if you're still winning.

And so you hope that this isn't.

You don't want them to be one of those teams, sorry, Evan, like the forty nine ers that can't hold the lead in a big game.

Don't smur.

I think Kyle Shannon is the most blown fourth quarter leagues in the NFL.

Because this is this is You've done a nice job of not making this show about this, because this is the crux of your frustration of this.

Yeah, you are, mister, don't blow big lead, don't blow le Kyle Shanahan is your right.

You so put them on that level because they did it once.

Yeah, and they did it in a regular season game.

Kyle Shanahan has done it in multiple Super bowl Kyle, by the way, one more year, one more year until he's out of the Marv Leavy list.

By the way, one more year.

Can we just this is not the forty nine ers show.

But Kyle Shannan has done a hell of a job with that San Francisco team this year.

You know what, he's a great regular season coach.

You know what I have to see.

We both know.

But they have been decimated by and and you know.

Credit to Mac Jones, your credit to Jones.

Jones not playing, Jones not played.

Wekay, can you finish your point?

Don't blow big le you hold.

It's a wake up call.

And I trust Rabel, Like Rabel's a coach I trust in this situation.

So okay, like this is what happens when you let go of the rope.

Don't do it again.

But it is something that's now on the radar.

But you know next time that you know, let's say they get up big on the Ravens early step on the throat and you now have this in the back of your head.

The team has in the back of the head of all right, we know what it looks like when we don't finish.

We know what a poor effort down the stretch looks like.

Uh, you know, we're We're going to turn around.

So I Rabel, I trust for this not to be an issue because I just the way he's approached other elements of the game and stretches a part of this too, Like they're so focused.

On the spot.

I'm just so surprised like that a team coached by Rabel and Josh McDaniels fell apart the way that it did.

And that's why I don't think that's why as frustrated as I was, Okay, it was very frustrating.

Yeah, you were in a dark place, so frustrated.

But it's not something I'm gonna panic about because I don't think that that's the DNA of what Mike Rabel's program is going to be.

I think they they it's a young team that needed a wake up call and got at a bad spot, and hopefully they treated as that.

Yeah, no, I agree, and that was sort of why I was on the other side on right when you were kind of you know, I know nothing bothers you more in sports, not just football.

Nothing in sports bothers you more than blown blowing big leads.

I mean, had you Celtics got up fourteen nothing on the Pistons and had you feel about that like it's frustrating.

It's frustrated in the.

First quarter of an NBA game.

So the NBA is a little different.

And I said this to you that the NBA do that.

But do you want to bring up the Celtics against the Knicks and the playoffs last year?

That's it.

We don't need to go back.

But that's a more fair comp to what happened in this game.

Look, and you just hope they learned from it and move on.

And again, they've been so good with the clock.

You look at the end of the game in Tampa, right, Yeah, they've been so good with the clock in managing these things.

I trust them to get it fixed and get it cleaned up.

It's just unfortunate had happened in that spot, specifically with was on the line against that team.

So the other thing that Patty brought up, that this thing goes up your backside.

The Christian Gonzales thing is starting to irk me a little bit.

Because I hold Christian Goanzales to a really high standard because I think he's a hell of a football player.

And I you know, we've all loved Christian Gonzalez since the draft they drafted him, and I've you know, thought he's been a great player ever since.

Like we know what Christian Gonzalez is capable of doing.

I did not think he played well in this game, and it didn't show up in the box score because they kept.

Dropping that first drive, he gets beat twice.

Yeah, he got beat twice on the first drive, both one drop, one air mail by Josh Allen.

Then Josh Palmer dropped another pass that he got beat on.

Later on in the game, he busted a coverage that Allen was late to the deep ball to Cooks that Jalen Hawkins came over and broke up.

Yeah, but that was the whole defense was in cover three and Christian Gonzales was in Cover two for some reason.

Okay, so he thought he had a safety behind him and he didn't, so he let Cooks go down the sideline to nobody.

I just know that there's another level for Christian Gonzales that he I don't think has always played to this year.

Ye.

Yeah, I don't know if that's the hamstring.

I don't know if it's the scheme.

I don't know what it is.

But there's another level that he can get to and we've seen it.

And the last thing I'll just say on the Christian Gonzales thing, this was one of those games where the defense needed somebody to make a play.

You needed to stem the tide.

You needed somebody to step up and make a play.

And on Monday, Mike Rabel was asked, and I'm not trying to throw shade, but Mike Rabel was asked about Christian Barmore and he pivoted the question Drake May a little bit as well, but he said, all of our good players and I just if you're gonna hold it against Christian Barmore that he's getting double and triple team because Milton Williams isn't a rushing with him anymore and he's not necessarily making as many impact full plays as he was before, then we have to do the same thing with Christian Gonzales.

Like you can make a play, like you can pick something off, you can break up a pass on third down.

Uh, you know you you can, you know, do something like do anything.

Well, I I think I don't get on Gonzalez's lack of on ball production as much as some other people, because.

To me, the great corners have on ball production.

But like it's not enough to just cover your guy.

But if you're not targeted, you're not targeted.

But he was targeted right now he's getting targeted.

So that's where I was gonna say, this game is a little different targeted.

Ty Law, you know kee to leave Gilmore.

Well, okay, but there's there's two kinds of corners.

Like there's been a lot of lockdowns versus ball hawks, but a lot.

Of those, like Diana's a ballhawk, but like a lot of the all the guys that I just named, Revus, Gilmour, sird Tan, those guys locked their guys down too.

They locked Reavis didn't have a ton on ball production, so we threw him.

But Revis, when he was thrown at, you pay sure.

And Gonzalez has done that at times.

I think people get a little too like why doesn't he have ten interceptions?

Yeah, they're not thrown at him that much.

In this game he was thrown at.

He didn't find a way to make an impact on the ball.

All I'm saying is is that it takes all your stars in a game like that, not you know, Drake may Barmore, Gonzalez, Diggs, who I think needs you know, should be held accountable for his game and his performance as well.

It takes all your stars in a game like that.

And I don't know why.

It just seems like because maybe he didn't actually give up the catches in those spots that you know, Christian Gonzalez has kind of skated a little bit.

But in my opinion, you know, when your defense is giving up five straight touchdown drives against the reigning MVP, like you need your stars to start.

You need somebody to make a play, and I hold all of them accountable for not making the plays.

All right, let's move on to Sam here in Virginia.

What's up?

Sam?

Thank you.

Covered a lot of what I wanted to talk about you guys invest in the business here, But wanted to ask on that fourth down play call late in the fourth quarter, what'd you see on that?

It kind of looked like, I don't know, some poor esecution, kind of a weird play call where they stacked Mac mccollins and Hunter Henry and they basically just get pushed into each other.

It digs gets no separation and Sposa bat it down.

I don't know that one stuck out to me obviously because of the circumstances.

And one thing I wanted to ask about Trick mays an accuracy.

Taylor Kyle's brought up, you know, poor weather obviously maybe being a factor, citing the Bucks game as well, using that could contribute to the inaccuracy.

Do you think that's something worth monitoring.

Just kind of want to check in on what you guys saw in the film from that, So thanks, I'll take it off one.

Yes, Sam.

You know, look, I don't know if we have a large enough sample size yet on the poor weather thing.

I admit I kinda I kind of defend the wall a little bit on the poor weather thing because I think it's kind of low hanging fruit, like it was cold out.

Okay, Well, you play football in New England, so that's really a big thing for Drake May Then he's got to find the right combination of whether it's gear clothing, whether it's you know, practicing in the cold more.

I don't know how you do that in the offseason.

But find a way.

I don't know, but I'm not.

I just I think it's kind of like an excuse, like, well, he played poorly in the cold.

I don't want to go there.

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's gonna figure that out and get better.

Like this isn't like Tua in the cold, you know what I mean?

Like this is I also think, you know, you want to break it down.

Okay, so it was in the cold.

That's a varia, But we don't really know about Drake May.

Yeah, was also coming off an extended week off where he struggled as well against Cincinnati.

So is it some of that.

It's also we didn't talk about there's enough going into the game.

That's the first time Drake Mays played a team twice in a season in his career.

Yeah, because last year he didn't play in the first Dolphins game, right, he played the very end of the first Jets game, got hurt very early in the second, and then he played the first Bills game, played well, and then the second game is that Week eighteen thing where he you know, played a drive and came off.

So it could be any number of variables like This is just a young quarterback.

You kind of learn as you go.

These questions come up and you see, oh he answers them.

So or he just could have had a bad day.

I don't know, yeah, so like.

It could be any number of things.

Yeah, I just I admitted it.

I'm sensitive to the whole you know, he's bad in cold weather thing, because I think it's just such a small sample size of meaningful football games in cold weather, like this is basically the only one.

Like I'm not given gonna go back to his rookie season when they are getting blown out by the Chargers or something like that and say, ah, he's bad.

You know, that's another one, right Like that teams stunk like there was nobody around him, there was nothing he could do about it.

This is the first time that I really feel like he, you know, played a true cold weather game.

You know, I don't think it's gonna be quite as cold in Baltimore.

You know, we'll see, but you know, have the Jets game, I'll have the Dolphins game in Week eighteen.

It's gonna be cold.

You know, we'll see what happens if this starts to snowball like it did for Tua.

Where Tua I think is like oh and seven and now when it's below forty degrees with like a terrible passer rating and all that stuff, then we can then we can start to talk about it.

I think it's still a little bit too early to kind of put that on him as like, oh, he's a bad cold weather quarterback.

I think we're being a little bit premature.

Sean is in Vancouver.

What's up, Sean, Hey, Alex, I been happy Kunaka, thank you, thank you, find thank you.

Will I want to find out if you think Joe Toney is getting enough praise, because, like you look at his career and he kept doing England.

He wont two Super Bowls with the Patriots.

He leaves the Patriots are terrible, and he goes to Kansas City.

They win another two super Bowls.

He leaves their terrible well in you know, relative terms, and he's with Chicago and they were terrible.

Now they're going to win their division most likely.

So what's your opinion about Joe Toney.

That's a very off topic conversation, Sean, But we both love Joe Touney.

I think, you know, he's probably one of the best guards of his era.

Yeah, I think he's gonna have a really really strong Hall of Fame case.

It's hard for guards to get into the Hall of Fame.

It's harder than it should be.

But he's gonna have a really strong case for it.

I mean, he's probably not.

His whole thing is probably more consistency than it is dominance.

Like I don't think that he's had.

Quite the peak, but like his sad moments, I mean, you go back to the twenty eighteen super Bowl, is going to be what they show when they make his case.

One on one against a Yeah, but they're I don't know about man handling, but he's one on one and Heed he took kind took him out of the game.

He won the reps.

He won the reps.

Zach Martin, Quentin Nelson.

I think those guys might have been better at their peaks, Like they might have been more dominant, you know, because they're both the kind of like road graders too, so it's like a different type of thing.

But he definitely definitely has the Hall of Fame case.

Great player.

I don't know, you know, let's just leave it at that.

I'm not sure if I would say, like, oh, the Patriots winning and the Chiefs winning is all because Joe Toney, like.

He's won a lot of football anam.

Yeah, he's playing with braid Ian Patack Mahomes, but he's an awesome player and deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Mark is in Connecticut.

What's that?

Mark?

Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call.

Happy holidays to you as well.

I was at the game over the weekend, and again it was a tail of two half and you know, it's just disappointing because you had like the so high in the first half and then you had the real love in the second half.

But what I wanted to ask you is, you know, the Philip Rivers thing is kind of interesting because do we have anybody sitting at home or anybody that is like an outside linebacker, edge rusher, or even a middle linebacker that can add some depth that you know, is not like a practice squad player, but like a legit kind of player that can come in here and help this team out.

Yeah, thanks for the call.

Mark.

If that player existed, then he'd be on at the area.

It's quarterback kicker on her really the only position you do that He almost won, though.

It almost went.

I had to watch it.

He almost won.

I saw a second half.

I mean, Judo just got cut.

Like that's probably as close you're going to get to that.

Yeah, I mean, and he's he's not had a great year.

Yeah, not had a great year.

Chad Muma.

Maybe Chad Mooma is not forty five years old.

We were overre talking about that, Oh that thing like pulling Luke Keikley out of retirement or something like that what his question was.

But yeah, I get like, is there anybody borderline like just retired that they could try to bring back for a run.

It's a pretty ridiculous that Luke Keikley wasn't the first ballot Hall of Famer him, but him coming back and then resetting his clock five years after he got snubbed last year would be kind of funny.

Would be great.

He probably still play.

He's not that old.

You're tired young.

Yeah, a lot of those linebackers do, Chad Mouma.

Was it just me or were you also in on him in that draft?

I remember, I mean it was an awesome athlete coming out, you know, one of the better combines for a linebacker in his class.

But it just you know, hasn't translated.

I'm sure that they probably have an idea of him cover and kicks, like, you know, that's the type of profile that.

Also, Louke Keigley's only one year older than Matthew Judon.

Yeah, he's not old at all.

Neither was like Patrick Willis or Patrick Willis is older when he were was Uh, I think it was Willis.

I think in Navara Bowman.

Navara Bowman was young too.

Oh wilsonly played eight years.

Okay, yeah, a lot of those guys.

All right, Hayden is in Minnesota.

What's up, Hayden?

Hey, first time, first time caller, longtime listener.

Uh, just want us to say, you know, how awesome you guys are.

You know, you guys actually talked ball and and actually talk about the sports instead of this this junk on you know, SBC SPN where they talk about just how everything affects legacies.

So I just wanted to say, you guys are awesome.

You can you know, and Pature's unfiltered as well.

Thank you appreciate that, Hayden, Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

And then.

Two questions here.

One, I was looking for Christmas presents for my dad and the rivalry collection he was he was wanting some of the rivalry collections.

Couldn't find it anywhere.

Do you guys know if that's gonna be on fail or you know, gonna be gonna be out uh for for purchase.

I saw like a bunch of different different teams, you know, all the other teams, but couldn't find any Patriots stuff.

So was just curious what what that looks like on on your website there, Yeah, go ahead, and then and then the and then the last question I have is just you know, I've noticed this over the past couple of weeks of the past couple of games watching the Patriots and was just curious.

I haven't heard any anybody talk about it, but is there any concern from Drake may like not having that closer mentality like you think of like you know, Kobe Lebron fourth quarter, need a shot, they got it.

You know, there's been I know the Dolphins game, he had an opportunity to close it out and couldn't put a drive together, had to have the defense close it out.

I think the same thing happened with the Falcons game and this Bills game two, you know, three examples of him being able to have a drive to close it out and then not having you know, not completing that drive and making the defense close it out.

Is there any concern there?

Uh?

Yeah, thanks for the call.

And I think that this is another one that is filed in the interesting but not quite enough evidence yet, kind of like the cold weather thing.

Yeah, there's definitely something to what he said.

The caller said, Uh, he did put together the game winning drive in Buffalo, And I do think he has the right mentality and has the right background to be a good clutch quarterback because you know, he talks a lot about basketball and his brothers and you know, wanting that last shot and that sort of thing.

So I do think he has that mentality.

But uh, I clutches a thing.

I'm not trying to go on nerd on you and say clutch isn't a thing, But it's also about, you know, being able to execute really well right, And you know, it's not just enough to like want to be clutch or or you know whatever.

But you know what makes the great ones great is that they execute in the clutch on top of that.

So you know, he's a young quarterback and hopefully that comes along here eventually.

It's not that we've seen it in flashes.

You know, he did it against Buffalo in week five, and yeah, you know, hopefully there's more of that to come to the Rivalry gear.

That's more of a question for the boss man.

But I do think that I heard a rumor that maybe they were getting more in stock for the holiday season at the Pro Shop.

But I gotta tell you, because I have the Bomber jacket.

As you know, people stop me everywhere when I'm wearing that thing.

Like if I'm out in public in that jacket, I get asked at least once like where did Like how did you get that?

You know, it's kind of crazy how much people want it, so you're not alone hated and everybody's looking for the rivalry gear.

It's it's hot right now.

But I did think I do think that Fred might have said that they might be trying to restock it, like for you know, Christmas coming up now, but for the holidays, so maybe look on the Pro Shop.

Justina is in North Carolina.

What's up, Justina?

Hi?

Evan, You know that you and I were the first to support Drake and we knew we knew his talent, but at the same time, we also noticed that at the end of games he's some of the games he finished good, but in some of them he also seems to choke.

Even back in North Carolina State, even back last year with the cold, you know, through the interceptions and sometimes you can see that he has that I don't know what it is, but he's it's like he's had that hyperactivity and he may not see things as slowly.

I'm just thinking that maybe he should possibly when he feels that way, they should enable him the ability to call the time out to regroup, you know, in it's a critical situation like that at the end of the game.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, Justina, it's funny.

Uh, Paul said yesterday he needed a hockey time out.

I was going to say, like, would you want a basketball time out there at any point?

And I kind of do did kind of expect I kept on looking over to the sideline to see if Rabel kind of did any sort of like but you know, when it was kind of getting away from them in the second half, like a hockey timeout, like obviously don't have as much time necessarily, or it's not exactly the same, but I hear what Justina is saying, and I hear what she's saying about his college game as well, because that that was sort of them in college for Drake May was that you could put up his ten best throws from a game against anybody in the country, but then you look up at the scoreboard in North Carolina losing and it was like kind of like a weird thing of like style over substance, where like he was clearly talented and was just making unbelievable throws even at North Carolina.

But they his first year as the starter, they won some a good amount of games and made it to the a SEC Championship game, and they were a good team.

But his second year they were not a great team.

And I think a lot of people were kind of like, sort of like what we do with Justin Herbert, like why is this guy so good?

And the eye test is so clear that he's this good, but then he doesn't win in the big spots.

And I think there's some truth to that in a young player's career, But I do think that that can develop, Like I do think he can get better at those types of things, and I do think it's still kind of a small sample size.

We have eight minutes here to talk about the Ravens, which is always how this kind of feels like it goes down.

So I'll just kind of whittle this down to like my few big picture points on this game.

The number one thing I always think about what the Baltimore Ravens before you play a game against them is physicality.

Like you better be ready to hit on Sunday night.

This is gonna be an old school, smash mouthed bully ball type of game, and you better bring your hard hat, says Kevin Garnett would say, like, this is not this is not for the fan of this is not for the week.

This is not gonna be one of those types of games.

This isn't gonna be finesse.

They're gonna come at you in the trenches, especially offensively.

Can the Patriots fine a run defense in six days?

Like?

I don't know, But this Baltimore team, even though they've had some struggles this year and Lamar hasn't been quite as good because of the injuries and all that kind of stuff, they still run the ball with the best of them, and they're gonna put heavy personnel on the field.

You're gonna have multiple tight ends you're gonna have Patrick Card their full back, who's a beast, and they're gonna have Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson, and they're gonna come right at you running the football.

So can you find a way to stop the run?

I wish I had like some I don't know, like schematics or x's and o's that I could tell you all.

But to me, this is just about want to Like, you just have to have that mentality to her.

Players say a lot, that's what we're on defenses.

You know how many yards the Ravens averaged on the ground last week?

Oh?

Got it?

Probably a lot?

Nine point one?

Yeah, they like they do an excellent job of scripting and sequencing their run game two.

Yeah, Like I'm gonna publish game plan my preview tomorrow.

And there's one power play that they run and they hit it three different ways, but it all looks the same, right, and so they'll run power lead just the natural way, just right down at your throat run game.

Then they have like a misdirection toss off the power lead where they pull the guard and then they toss it out to Henry out on the perimeter in the opposite direction and then they have power lead play actions.

They have pop passes where they are running play action off the power lead.

Not even to mention the gun runs and the RPOs and the Lamar Jackson elements and all that kind of stuff.

It is a terrifically well designed run game.

Like Todd Monkin is a wizard with the run game.

I mean, I'm looking at the Ravens and they only threw the ball twelve times last week.

Now they got up early, Yeah, so that helps.

But like, what incentive is there for the Ravens to throw the ball in this game zero.

I would not be surprised if the Ravens come out run the ball thirty somethingtimes if the Patriots opened the door for him.

But now here's the thing.

This is where you go back to last week's game.

The Bill showed that just because you're behind multiple scores on the Patriots doesn't mean you need to stop running the football.

So this is where you're gonna have a chance, hopefully, like if the Patriots are getting early, lad, you're gonna have a chance to kind of right the wrong from last week.

Because in theory down twenty one nothing you should stop running the ball.

Bill's doubled down on running the ball and it worked.

Yeah.

I would not be surprised if the Ravens take the same philosophy if they fall behind.

Yeah, you got.

This is one of those games where this is not negotiabull, stop the run type of game.

And you're not going to completely shut out Derrick Henry and Mitchell's a good back too, Like they're change of pace back.

He's good as well.

You're not going to completely shut those guys down, but you need to manage the run game so that it doesn't take over the football game.

You know.

That's a big part of this game as well, a big thing for me.

We didn't talk about it earlier, but part of what killed him against the Bills was, especially in the second half, there were some players where I'm watching it and it's like, all right, well they got contact with James Cook, like a yard or two from line scrimmage.

Great, And then I look up and it's second and five.

Yeah, because Cook's winning the tackle when the two come together.

Derrick Henry is gonna win every tackle.

So but they he is.

You're run but like you got and that's where they miss Splaine.

You got a gang tackle.

You got to get multiple defenders to the football, so that Okay, you hit him two yards past line of scrimmage, but then he drags guys and he falls forward and suddenly you actually defended the run.

Okay, but it's still a seven yard run.

Yeah, R Henry, it's a key to the game.

And it sucks because Derek Henry is the best in the league at this, maybe the best at this all right, Jim Brown, Earl Campbell R.

Yeah, it's gonna vote Earl Campbell or some of those guys.

Yeah, but those hidden yards killed them?

Was it one hundred one of one hundred and seven yards after contact for one oh one out of one oh seven?

I forget if that was Cook or the team, but that was Cook.

You cannot allow hitting yards, but it just so happens.

He's there facing is maybe the greatest hitten yard of running back of all time.

Yeah.

So it's a tough matchup in that sense.

But this is not Pete Lamar as a passer or a runner.

There's some he's clearly hurt and limited with his ability to run because like he's getting caught by like defensive linemen, which is just you never see that from Lamar Jackson, like, that's that's super rare from him.

So it's not that you can take him lightly.

But I do think if the Patriots can turn this into a drop back passing game for Lamar and at least manage the run, you know, and not get completely exposed in the run game, I don't think this is the best the Ravens have ever really been as a drop back passing team, and they've always been a little bit, you know, kind of weary in that regard.

Anyways, big thing with Lamar, you know, I love Lamar, but going back to college, he does not want to throw the ball outside the numbers.

He's always been a better middle of the field thrower.

The stats bear that out.

This is one of those games where when you do get him to throw, you want to funnel the ball outside.

You want to make him try to push the ball outside the numbers.

He can be lethal if you let him live on seams and crossers in the middle of the field, to the tight ends and zay flowers, he will tear you apart.

He will be lethal.

But he is not a great outside the numbers thrower and never really has been going back to college.

Defensively, really quickly.

They're going to spin the dial on Drake May.

It's what they did to Joe Burrow last week.

That was a first time Joe Burrow's been shut out in his NFL career last week against the Ravens.

They are exotic.

They spin the dial a lot, but they have to because they don't get a ton of pressure without it.

So they are kind of in the same boat as the Patriots, where like their standard four man rushes have not been very good this year.

They're thirty first in the league in ZACH rate their twenty fourth and pass rush win rate.

So they're creating pressure with scheme like they're disguising pressure.

They're doing different things to get quarterbacks to hold the football, which is in allowing them to get pressure.

So I do think that Drake May is going to have time to survey in this game.

But they have to do a much better job of reading out coverages and seeing the open spaces and separating than what they did against Buffalo.

So I think that the Ravens are going to hit all the same notes that the Bills did.

They're gonna run the football, They're going to just dress it up and disguise it on defense, and I'm sure that John Harbaugh, because he normally does, will probably have some returns you know ready on the kickoff returns as well.

So I think that this is going to be the exact kind of game that you just played.

I don't know if they're going to be up twenty one nothing, but the type of game and the way it's going to go is going to be exact.

They're gonna have a lot of chance to prove what was real last week and what was an anomaly.

Yeah, this is going to be one of your types of games.

Al, It's going to be a bully ball.

This is smash mouth football on Sunday night football.

The Ravens need it too.

I don't think they're mathematically eliminated if they lose, but it gets the real dicey for them.

I mean, the AFC North is a beautiful mess.

Well, they have to win the North.

They're not going to win.

They're not going to be a wildcard team.

So if they're going to make the playoffs, they have to beat the Steelers.

I think they play in Week eighteen.

I'm sure that game might be the last game is Sunday night game.

Yeah, Well, they also at the Beckers after this one.

Okay, So yeah, they're in trouble if they lose this game.

There's no doubt about that.

So that's the Ravens.

I wish we had a few more minutes to break that down, but that's that's the juxt of it.

That's the simplest of it.

Really quickly.

Actually, just one last thing, tight ends.

This is gonna they he loves throwing to is likely and Mark Andrews.

The Patriots had some issues with Knox and Kincaid last week, so that would be another key to the game.

But that's it.

Stop the run, have some fun.

It's gonna be a tough one, I think on Sunday night.

But I do think the Patriots bounced back in this game.

I think they're the better team, and they are at least the healthier team, you know, with where Lamar is at right now.

But we'll see.

I'll be there in Baltimore, Alex and I will be back next week to talk about this Ravens game.

Previous the Jets, I guess.

I mean, you know, whatever is left of the Jets by the time that rolls around, Cook Brady Cook could be not you know, they can't win the division by themselves.

But if the Eagles beat If the Patriots win the next two and the Eagles beat the Bills in Buffalo in week seventeen, raps, that's wraps.

Yeah, so maybe they'll be in position if they can take care of business on Sunday night.

Patriots on Filter will be up in nine minutes.

We'll be back next week on Catch twenty two.

We'll see you guys.

Then.

Hey, this is Alex.

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