Patriots Unfiltered 7/29: Observations from Six Days of Training Camp, Khyiris Tonga In-Studio

Patriots Unfiltered 7/29: Observations from Six Days of Training Camp, Khyiris Tonga In-Studio

Some of the content of Patriots unfiltered may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. World’s original. This is Patriots unfiltered presented by Toyota’s official website for deals by toyota.com. Patriots unfiltered. All right, just a hard open here. Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Patriots Unfiltered. We are here at Gillette Stadium. Patriots had their second day of full pads practice. It’s in the books. Uh we’ll be joined later on in the show by Kyus Tonga who stopped by right after practice and sat down with Paul and I. But uh let’s get right to it. It’s Mike Douso, Evan Lazar, Paul Pollo, myself. Alex is in the booth today and uh let’s talk about what we saw. I thought it was a good day for the defense. Not the best day that we’ve seen from camp from the offense and Drake. I thought it wasn’t really about the pressure to me. It was felt like Drake was a little off, not his best practice. And it felt like a lot of the coverage was really good on the receivers, which was surprising considering that Christian Gonzalez, uh, you know, and Carlton Davis were not at practice. You thought maybe they’d be able to take advantage of some of those guys down the depth chart playing a quarterback, but not really. Seemed like the offense was was stumbling a little bit. They did have their moments in the red zone. There were a handful of plays that they made well, but overall, defense won the day. Yeah, I would agree with Mike. I you know they it was a lot of red zone work so that does make some of the the windows obviously tighter and a little bit more difficult but I thought he had some opportunities may um you know one in particular that really stood out was a a throw that I thought he just sort of led too far a Hunter Henry in the back corner of the end zone. Um you know it wasn’t without some some highlight throws too. He had a really nice throw to uh Diggs. He threw him open then he threw one in the bucket to Kyle Williams in the end zone which was a really nice pass. So, uh, you know, there were some good plays, too. And in fairness to me, I thought the receivers had some opportunities to make some plays for him that didn’t. Uh, Williams being one of them, I thought, uh, failed to to catch, I thought, you know, a pretty accurate throw. Um, the one to Booty really stood out to me uh for it was uh kind of layered in between the coverage on the sideline. Good throw. Really, really top-notch throw for May. I thought Booty was pretty active today. Couple good runs, but he was targeted more. Uh he had a great block by sorry Booty had a great block on a toss sweep to Stevenson on one of those red zone plays. You watched the blocking cracked well he sprung the guy for a touchdown. So was a nice round. Yeah I I I that one was a good one. A nice toss play and to Campbell’s side seal the edge and had I think Jack Westover was out in front of that one as well. But I agree with the guys. I think it was controlled by the defense for the most part. But I think it should be when you’re down in the tight red zone, you’re inside the 10 yard line trying to throw the ball into the end zone. Usually those types of practices favor the defense in that situation. So again, I you take the four or five throws that he made that were highlights and and you can put that on a highlight reel and say he looked great or you could say, you know, he had uh I think he was about 50% completion rate, so there were seven incompletions that you could look at those too. But I I think the uh the biggest thing just from two days in pads that I’ve come away with is is that the two rookie offensive linemen look like they can play. And that’s a really exciting development for that group. And Will Campbell and Jared Wilson both looked the part so far. And I thought Jared Wilson was really, really good today, especially in one-on- ones. He was just uh you know, engaging his guy and just stoning him, whoever it was. Milton Williams and Christian Barmore, too. So, we’re not talking about, you know, down the the depth chart here at the defensive tackle position. So, uh my excitement level for those two guys is at a 10. Uh my concern level for some of the veteran players that they brought in in free agency is maybe getting a little bit higher. You know, Morgan Moses left practice today with something and I don’t think he’s looked great. Milton Williams at times hasn’t necessarily stood out either. So, I’ like to see a little bit more from those guys, but the rookie lineman looked terrific so far. So that’s exciting. Yeah. I mean, I still say, you know, we had uh Tonga in here and he said, you know, we’re going full speed. We’re not going to the ground, but we’re going full speed. I just I just still don’t think it really is. You know, like you’re not up front. Yeah. Really? I think I think they’re like they’re they’re moving at full speed, but there’s not that intention to like be too violent, you know? I because so I I I do put evidently you have to temper your enthusiasm. Yeah, I put a little caution on all of this so far. I mean, we’re two days into pads. Let’s give me the joint practices next week and and then I think we can start to form more concrete opinions. Yeah. And I’ll say this about Milton Williams. I I don’t think Milton Williams is necessarily a flashy rusher. I think his his go-to move is speed to power. And I I don’t know if like that type of stuff is really he’s not like one of these defensive tackles that’s like spinning and ripping and doing all these crazy moves all the time. Like that’s not really his game. So I kind of look at him as more of like a game player than a practice player. And I’m not like concerned that Milton Williams is is going to be a bust or anything like that. Moses though, it worries me. Like he’s 34 years old. Uh he’s coming off a major knee injury from last season that he played through and he’s been in and out and he hasn’t looked great when he’s been in. So, it’s just something that’s on my radar. And, you know, Deuce’s guy, Trey Jacobs, is taking a lot of those reps at right tackle when Moses isn’t there. So, they don’t really have a great solution to that problem if it’s not Morgan Moses. So, it’s just something to monitor. I was going up the elevator with one of Paul’s guys. I won’t mention his name, but he’s like worried about our left tackle. Very concerned. Very concerned. And this is before practice. And I’m I was like, okay. I said he he’s going to be fine. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s like I mean, is this shaping up to me right now? I think I might have bigger questions about the center and left guard position than I do about the tackles. Not to say I don’t have questions about the right tackle position for sure. But we’ve gotten to a point now right now where I’m like, geez, I hope Will Campbell is good and can provide some kind of stability because right now I don’t know what the seasonl long answer is at center at left. So far, like I’ve seen one rep in one-on- ones where Keon White beat him. That was yesterday. Today, he looked fine. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he won both his reps today. We should mention one against Keon, one against uh Chaison. Taison got him a couple times and uh one early, one late, and in sort of more team periods. Uh but I I think what you’re seeing from Campbell is what I expected. He’s already in my mind a really good run blocker. Like I think he’s going to be a great run blocker right out of the gate. the pass protection. I think it’s more about adjusting to his limitations and how that’s going to work at this level and how he’s going to protect against his length and all that kind of stuff and sort of learning how to keep guys out of his frame and and keep guys especially that are speed rushers that can turn the corner tightly like a Chaison. Like how do I get out to those guys without compromising the inside? Yeah. He’s got to he’s got to rely on his athleticism and his quick feet. Yeah. Right. So, how can you know he set out to get his hands on a Chaison when Chaison speed rushes off the edge, but then you don’t want to open the inside and lose your leverage. So, you have to kind of find that sweet spot that he’s sort of still working on, I would say. But, like I said, I Wilson and Campbell really excite me. Like, I think those two guys are headed in the great direction right now. If anybody on the line worries me, it’s right tackle. Like, I I think they’ll figure out the interior and I think Campbell’s going to be fine. Uh, but overall I I this practice was more about the passing offense than it was about the line. I didn’t think the line was a problem today. And I thought it was more about the receivers and the quarterback. Yeah. And I I just pull on the thread on Chson, focus on him. I think he’s been a really nice surprise. I talked a lot about my concerns on, you know, the edge guys and the leadership he’s brought, the way he was answering questions the other day. Seen some of the veteran mentorship. So, I’m working with Trey Jacobs a little bit on the field after practice. Uh, I think he’s poised to have a really good season. It seems like the that was asked about him a couple days ago and, you know, first round pick, never really lived up to it in Jacksonville. Had a pretty good year last year in in Vegas. So, I think he’s been a real surprise and and one other guy I just think we need to highlight because I’m I’ve been hard on him is Javon Baker. I think he’s kind of started to poke his head out a little bit the last couple days and and make some plays. Uh, it seems like he’s earning a few more opportunities with upper level reps that he wasn’t necessarily getting a week ago. So, he’s a guy to me that is maybe, you know, and Jayvon and Jaylen Pulk caught a pass today as well, but I think Jayon Baker uh maybe making a little bit of a push here, which he needs to do. He needs to he needs to take advantage of the opportunities. Yeah, Jayson’s been their best edge rusher, I would say, through six practices. He’s been the most noticeable guy. Uh winning the pass rush, caught Campbell with a cross chop today, which is his go-to move. Like, he’s he’s looked really good. Now, a lot of this is run, you know, pass heavy practices. He’s a pass rusher, you know, that’s his role. So, you expect him to to be able to stand out, but I’m with Ducan on that. I think he’s probably been the most noticeable player on defense besides, you know, when Barour gets in there, Bar wrecks the game. He just takes over. But Bar is Yeah, Jayson’s been good. And also worth mentioning too through these practices that it seems the coaching staff is taking efforts to manage Barour just a tiny bit. He played almost all of it today, which was a good sign, but you know, the earlier days pads, he would come out a little bit more. So, I think they’re just being precautious with him and the, you know, the blood cots thing, making sure that that doesn’t come back. But, oh my god, Evan’s right. He’s he’s he’s a force in the middle. And it makes me, you know, I think we spent so much time focusing on Milton Williams, it’s like if Christian Barour starts to really get back to what we thought Christian Barour could be before last year and everything got derailed. I I mean, he might be the best player on the whole defense if if he’s able to fully come back. So, it’s exciting. Yeah. I mean, we mentioned Keon White earlier. He seems a step quicker to me than he was last year. Not not as stiff, a little bit faster around the edge. It may be part of the scheme too of just going and getting it. And that’s, you know, could be part of it. And he’s a key guy and had my eye on him a lot. I’m curious how he, you know, translate. He always looks tough. I think he had an interior rep today. I forget. He had a couple against the guard backup guards today that he just took their lunch money. Yeah, it was good to see that. But we know he can rush on the guards. Like that’s that’s a really big strength of his. the edge rushing. He’s admitted openly admitted that he’s not as good out there, you know, outside the tackle. So, I I think he’s looked okay at times, but, you know, there’s other times where Campbell’s gotten him, but that’s been a great one-on-one there. Like, it’s been all every practice it’s been Campbell versus Keon White and iron sharpens iron hopefully and those two guys have been going at it. Yeah. But, as we said before, I would say, and I agree with Evan, the biggest p the person who’s making the biggest push right now is Jared Wilson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and they need him to. And it’s no question why they’re giving him every opportunity because if he can provide that stability at just one of those spots, I mean, we were talking about it. Maybe it’s asking a lot for a rookie to come in at at center being David Andrews, another Georgia guy did do it, but still, I think he’s got the talent and the athleticism to to contribute and and stabilize the line. I love his athleticism, you know, no question. And then Bradberry got banged up late in practice, so that’s something to keep an eye on going forward. Bradberry didn’t do the conditioning runs at the end with the rest of the team. So maybe tomorrow you see Jared Wilson right from the right from jump. Looks like Bradberry got got stepped on in a pile. So hopefully it’s just that. But with Wilson I at this point if it continues this way with Wilson I don’t know how he’s not starting. I just don’t know where. Just take your lumps a little bit. Like I I just I am not sure if it’s going to be left guard or center. But uh if he plays this well throughout the entire camp then he’s got to be starting. Yeah. It’s really just Sorry F real quick. Just yesterday was really hot, today was really hot, full pads, like this little trio of practices, guys leaving, you said guys looking hot afterwards, look, you know, like they’re about to collapse. Really going to be a challenging practice tomorrow. I think like mental toughness and that to me sets a great stage for for Drake May because a lot of the throws Drake missed today, I felt like I’ve seen him make that throw. You know, some of them I just I I didn’t really get like whoa, just seemed to me a little bit like he was off. And hopefully tomorrow, similar conditions, it’s hot. Hopefully he can bounce back because it’s it’s going to be I think a similar practice script again. One of my things with May that I’ve noticed is it’s almost backwards. He makes his better throws while moving. Yeah. When he’s kind of clean in the pocket and just regular pocket passer, I think sometimes he loses his accuracy a little bit. Yeah. I Which is odd, you know, because you guys mentioned the protection wasn’t really an issue today and I thought he was a little bit off. It’s like a guy who can hit his runner, but he can’t hit free throws, right? I I was noticing a little bit of the Yep. the pump the pump pull down a little bit. Jerky. Just want to see clean motion throw. Boom. You know, it goes. But I I think Drake will be okay. I think this ultimately is probably a good practice because they’re probably turning the screws on him right now and saying, you know, wasn’t wasn’t a great day for him. But I think that’s what training camp is. It’s ups and downs and there going to be games that are down like this too. You’re going to have to bounce back. So nice stage set for tomorrow though for him. We mentioned uh Davis in, Gonzalez out. Uh Davis has been out. Gonzalez left practice yesterday with something with his leg. Jordan Schultz is reporting that it’s a hamstring. Yeah. Uh and that his uh you know, September isn’t in jeopardy because of it. So, I don’t know where he’s getting his information from, but let’s hope he’s right. Well, I mean, Gonzalez popped his head out at the end of practice. I think a lot of the, you know, reporters saw him and uh his leg was still attached. He was still walking. So, I think he’s going to be okay, but Yeah, he he was they say he wasn’t limping. So that means he didn’t completely tear it. He probably just tweaked it, you know, and you know, precaution just, you know, want to make sure that I mean I’m in the Paul Pillo school of hamstring injuries scare me a little bit. Like, you know, I always do too many guys. They don’t worry me at all. The cranberries, you got See, they worry me for speed, guys. Like that’s like if if you’re like a guard and you pull a hamstring, I’m I’m, you know, I’m okay with that. But when you’re a corner or a receiver and you rely on your legs, like those can linger. I mean, in season, sure. Like, because obviously that would cause you to potentially miss games. Yeah. This time of year, I’m not as concerned about it. I’ll see you week one, Gonzo. That’s I I was about to say, don’t push it because that’s what happens. You get these soft tissues, they try to get on and then you reinjure it. Just Just let That’s why they worry me. this time of year, you don’t have that sort of urgency to get back out there and you don’t have the I don’t think he’ll be tempted to say, “Well, I don’t want to miss the preseason games.” No, like I hope he doesn’t play anyways in the preseason games even you have three full weeks, four weeks. No, this is by design. No, I would never. You know, you have you have, you know, actually closer to five weeks now, like before you need them to be ready. So, I’m not concerned at all. Not really at all right now. I just say I mean it’s a little bit of a diff disappointing start for the free agency class overall. Yeah. You know that that to me is what’s sticking out a little bit. Like to see a little bit more from that group on the field so far. It hasn’t been it’s been up and down. Guys have been missing time. Well, it’s been a mixed bag. Like I think Spalain I think has been been active and good. I think Diggs has been better than than we all sort of hoped. I I think Carlton Davis would be sort of you know down. Well, I guess you’re right when you put it that way, Paul. I guess it goes to what we said after 2021. Intuition, Paul. It’s a whole different guy. But you’re right. That’s how we looked at 21 though in hindsight where we said it even going into this year that not all these guys are going to work out. And I think sometimes you start to get and look this just start a week of practice. It’s not, you know, we haven’t written everything about them. And Paul’s right to highlight the the positive of those guys, but I think Morgan Moses has been in out of practice. Carlton Davis hasn’t really practiced. you know, those two guys stand out to me. You know, guys that were really hoping for so hopefully they can get back and I don’t know what the plan is with Moses. Seems like they’ve been working on it for a while. You know, you go in against your own guys. So, if Morgan Moses has been dominant, that would have been great. But it’s like Sha’s not doing anything. He can’t do anything, you know? So, like again, let’s I’m You can’t get too pumped up. You can’t get too down right now. Let’s just give it some time. We’re less than a week into training camp. Let’s see what happens next week when the Commanders come here and guys are playing I think just that little extra juice because you’re going against players from another team. Uh let’s see what happens in that one. The corners don’t worry me at all. Like all right, Gonzo, you got that guy. Carlton, you got that guy. Like I’ll see you in September. So just one slight caveat to that. I would agree everything about the schematic uh aspect of what you just said. They don’t have anything to learn. Like they’re getting Davis has durability issues in his career. He’s miss he misses games every year. Um so I’m not necessarily excited about the fact that he’s banged up, right? But how much is that is the sports science saying if we go easy on them in training camp? Like maybe that’ll give him some more longevity once the games come around. I just think it’s different when you talk about corners specifically, especially man corners where like there’s no scheme that they’re learning. Like they’re not they don’t have to learn anything. I’m not worried about the schemes at all, right? Like it’s not like some of these other guys that are learning a new system. Like receivers like they have to learn and build chemistry with the quarterback and learn routes and learn uh you know timing and anticipation and all those little things like corners. It’s just you know you’re on an island, you got your guy and it’s that’s all it is. I’m going to give you a little push back because they got to go to Miami week two and they got to go chase around those two guys and I just hope that they’re in shape and ready to go. Not good dealing with hamstring injuries. But that’s a physical concern, right? Like I like I’m saying like if they have to shut down for a couple weeks of practice, he’s not like learn missing anything that he’s supposed to be learning. Sure. Mentally, I guess I’m saying more the physical aspect of just are you ready to go? Certainly. Miami can be taxing in Massachusetts. Taxfree weekend is coming up and you can pre-select your favorite pieces with Bob’s discount furniture now. Score everything from game day ready power recliners, dining sets, bar carts, and servers for all your halftime snacks. even fan favorite Bobopedic mattresses for your rest and recovery routine. And remember, Bob’s discount goes even further on tax-free weekend. So, stop in, shop online, or reach out to Bob’s Squad to lock in those savings now with Bob’s Discount Furniture, the official furniture store of the New England Patriots. So, taxfree weekend coming up. You guys got any uh plans for taxfree weekend? Any big purchases, Paul? Oh, jeez. No. Well, that that segue was a work of art. You love that. Yeah. You didn’t know it was coming. I I I I knew I knew something was coming. Know what? It gave me a curveball. The taxfree weekend to me though was like I have a big purchase like something from Bob’s. Like I need to purchase a piece of furniture. This is the weekend to do it. Well, you could go to New Hampshire and do it anyway. But what are you doing? I’m only But it’s not like you’re going like, “Oh, I’m going to go do some clothes shopping.” And I I mean, I don’t think of it that way, but No. Well, clothes aren’t taxed in Massachusetts. Oh, really? No. Oh, I know that. Come on, dude. Food and clothes, no tax. Oh, jeez. Yeah. Food. I don’t think there’s Well, restaurants, but not in a grocery store. Oh, there’s a meal tax. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but not in a grocery store. So, anyway, um, yeah, that’s Bob’s Discount Furniture. All right. 855 Pass500 is the hotline. Podcast atris.com is the way to to email us. Anything else we want to cover in practice before we open it up? I feel like we should just mention the kickers. Oh yeah, you know, yesterday Parker got us six for six apparently. We think I mean they were a little I got a confirmation that um you know from Mike Reese who checks with the coaching a member of the coaching staff. He says he did in fact it’s confirmed six for six. If I had to put my mortgage on it I would say he missed the fifth one. But there going six for six. Funny. We didn’t watch it at practice together, but we saw it the same way. Those last two kicks looked like the first three first first four were looked good. The last two, you know what I think would be fun. A little bit of a draw. Like every practice at the end, he either pulls somebody from the media or somebody from the crowd to be the person on and and do the Yeah, that would be fun. Eric Alexander used to do that for us. Remember? Oh, I remember. He would always stand under the the goal post and he would come forward like that like he was like one of those Australian rules football guys. He would and then go. Yeah. Right. I like the two though where you look at each other, you do the nod and then he would do it. He would he would he would point and there’d be nobody there. He would point nod and then Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it’s interesting how they split up the kicker reps now? It’s like yesterday was a Romo day and today was a Borgalis day instead of having them go one after another within the practice because I feel like there’s a little bit more pressure, right? When like it’s all you. Burggales goes from 41 and then Romo goes and if he makes it then it’s kind of like a PK shootout, right? Where it’s a little bit more pressure. This now they’re giving all of the reps to one kicker per day instead of doing it the other way. It feels still very straightforward this year with the kicking drills, but I remember last year where they had everybody lining around them and screaming at them and trying to disrupt them. And it’s the same special teams coaches. I just I wonder if they’ll get back to that, if they’ve gotten away from that, if they’re going to continue to snaps have been good, though, which I something I I’ve been noting operation. I haven’t noticed any issue. I haven’t said Julian Ashby’s name once, which is a good sign. So, you have to make a decision right now. Who do you keep? Boralis. Boralis. I think it’s close enough that you give it to the rookie. It’s I mean it’s Yeah, it’s But you put the other guy on the practice squad just in case. Keep him keep him on ice. Yeah, I think if you can I mean I I guess I’ll be the turd in the punch bowl. I think we’re almost kicked better. I I would agree, but I don’t think it’s I don’t think that it’s so different that I’m not I’m cutting a guy I drafted this year uh to keep Parker Romo, who I do think would probably make it to the practice squad unless he has like some crazy kicks in preseason or I would also say that the coaching staff is certainly dealing with a lot more information in terms of what Parker Romo is, you know, at this stage of his career. I’m just judging it off of six days, right? That’s not how these decisions get made. No, on the six days, to me, there has been a discernable difference. I think Romo kicks them normally every time, and Boraggalis has at least a couple every day that don’t look right, even ones that go through. Yeah. So based on that, I would say Romo, but that’s not, like I said, they have a whole, you know, backlog of, you know, information on Romo and why they drafted Boralis. They might say, you know, it’s been a it’s a little bit of a struggle after a week, but it’ll work itself out. No, but that’s interesting. The wobbly ones are a good point. Like even if they go through, like he made two today that I would not feel great about. Right. Right. You hit those wobbly. when they go through that means you have a lot of power behind it and you’re you’re hitting through the misit. You know what I mean? But that’s not a good sign, especially once the weather starts to turn and it’s cold or snowing. There’s been no weather. There’s no like wind, you know, that’s that’s really affected you. Maybe one day the wind may have had an effect on some of the longer kicks, but not much. Yeah, it’s been pretty hot and humid. Good good kicking conditions. We we we should mention um you know, thoughts go out to the people at the NFL offices and everyone in that building at Park Avenue yesterday with what happened, particularly the loss of life from the police officer. Just uh not a good scene over there. And I know uh NFL.com or the social, they’ve gone dark today. They’re not posting because if you were there, that’s kind of a sure scary scary time. Yeah. Yeah. To shelter in place and and hide. Yeah. And apparently the guy took the wrong elevator otherwise he was going for the NFL offices. He uh you know the reports are that he had a note in his pocket about CTE and and this whole thing. So yeah, so not a good situation. All right. Um 855 PATS 500 is the hotline. Let’s get it open to you. Uh we’ll start with Todd in Gardener. What’s up Todd? Hey guys. Um, I’ve been loving the camp coverage, but I’ve got a quick question. Previous years, you guys would shut the camera down, but you’d stay and watch and give us kind of playbyplay, a little bit of highlights. You I know you couldn’t tell exactly like routes or anything, but that was really great just to hear the inflections in your voices, the excitement, the disappointment from time to time, too. And you guys aren’t doing that this year. Is there a reason why did they ask you not to? No, they didn’t ask us not to. We decided not to because I I didn’t feel it was very good content. Um not a lot of people were actually listening at that point. We you know the numbers wise you know we we know how many you know and so like there was a big drop off so we just didn’t think it was worth it. It also aid into how much we could actually watch and analyze practice because you’re worried about not having dead air and trying to relay stuff whereas now we can really focus on it and then come in either here or in the campcast and get into what the details were that happened rather than oh that was a big play by Gonzalez we can’t tell exactly what happened but that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And plus there’s like WI and some of the other guys that are live casting and you can watch there or something. So I guess there are other options. I just prefer you guys. All right. Good show, guys. Okay. Thanks, Todd. Thanks, Todd. Well, anyone else that’s doing it live, they can’t showing anything, you know. I hope so. No, their cameras are on right on them, right? Uh Mike’s on Long Island. What’s up, Mike? Hey, gentlemen. How you doing? All right. Did you do the brunt read yet? What’d he say? I I didn’t hear. Say that again. Did you do the brunt read? The brunt read? Oh, not yet. But we will. Mike, you work for Brunt? No. No. I just, uh, the British rule. Uh, anyway. Uh, so all this book talk the last couple weeks and the Jaws talk. I I’ve been wanting to call in, have been able to, but I read the book, the Jaws book, and it’s way better than the movie. Like an affair going on. And well, we’re not talking Jaws today, but thanks, Mike. I might be the first person I’ve ever heard say that. I know a lot of people that have read the book and they thought the book was I mean the movie was was actually better ties and all that. Yeah. They had all kinds of like these complicated affair. You know, Hopper has an affair with with Brody’s wife affair. There’s like mafia ties and that the the mayor is like compromised. I read the book and the movie is much better. Yeah. That’s what I hear more often than not. Yeah. I will say though, I am about halfway through Casino Royale. I’ve jumped into my first James Bond book and interesting. It’s very clever. Yeah, it’s Well, it’s it’s nice to just read a James Bunn and just interpret him as a character and not think about like Shan Connory or any of the guys that acted him. So, it’s very very short, very sparse book. That was what was interesting to me. So, I a full report for everybody. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Casino Royale is the first book. They didn’t make that one till Daniel Craig. So, I was like, why are they why they mix up with Connory back in the like the books are written in the 50s and then they jump right into like book five was the first one. All right. Well, that we we’ll get Fred’s not happy with this derailment through the football. We we just got out of practice, so I just want to uh make sure that we’re talking football for a little bit before people yell at us. Well, I have my eye though on obviously the quarterbacks and and Paul mentioned, did you mention DJ James in this one? DJ James, Alex Austin, a Marcela Style. So, those are the, you know, guys behind the scenes that these injuries linger or they pop up during the season. These are the guys they’re looking at. Um, Alex Austin talked after practice, still talking to Uncle Willie McInness. Mike Reese asked him. He said uh Willie told him exactly what to expect from Mike Vrabel. Um so, you know, just looking for Alex Austin to start the year like he finished the last two years. He made, you know, he had some good contributions at the end, battled injuries the start of these last two seasons, so hopefully he’s able to to mix in and and provide some insurance behind Davis and Gonzalez. Yeah, I don’t know if Marcel’s dial is an outside corner, but he’s played a little bit at in the slot at the nickel spot and he’s looked pretty good there. thought he had pretty good coverage on Hunter Henry a couple times today and was really good against the run yesterday in that runheavy practice. So, I wonder, you know, they talked a lot about Big Nicholls and getting some more size there. And, you know, who’s exactly going to cover tight ends when they do face a team like right out of the shoot with Brock Bowers in week one? Like, who’s going to cover him? And maybe Dial is somebody that can play more of like a slot nickel safety type of role. He’s a good tackler, you know, physical. Marcus Jones too has had some injury issues like pretty much every year. So, you need some insurance. I don’t know if I love him on the outside, but if that’s is the role they have in mind for Dial, I don’t mind that. That’s an interesting uh point about Bowers and we’re probably, you know, a couple of weeks away from really sort of diving into that, but it’s something that I have been thinking about who because Marcus Jones is not big enough for that for that role. And I do think they need a corner on here. Not I don’t I don’t like the idea of the safeties unless they just want to try to rough them up. Yeah. But I think that’s a dangerous game you’re playing. I don’t know if Craig Woodson or you know Marcus Eps I don’t think those guys are necessarily uh you know at that stage. You might need an Alex Austin or a Marcelis Dial as Evan just mentioned. Would you ever go Gonzo on him? I I would more wonder about Carlton Davis. You you could you could do that because it’s really only Jacobe Myers. Yeah. like that’s going to scare you um you know as a receiver and he’s not really even going to scare you. He’s just a good professional receiver. Um but they they don’t really have much else behind I think is the rookie, right? Is that Thornton Wilder? Thornton Melon. I wonder about Carl Davis uh on Bowers like long physical corner and Carl Davis maybe he plays Bowers and then you put Gonzo on Jacobe Meyers and good luck. Yeah. and then we win. And you know, Marcus Jones and then we win on with Turner, you know, fast like Pop Douglas type, right? So, like I wonder if maybe that’s the matchup like Carlton Davis seems like the type of guy that could that could give Bowers some problems, you know? I mean, he’s a special player. He’s the kind of guy where you might need to get a little bit outside of the box thinking that kind of thing to Yeah. No, I think you need someone with corner cover ability on him and I think Davis that makes a lot of sense. We haven’t suggested you had to worry about Genty. Not that the Raiders are going to go and win 12 games as I’m hyping up all their skill players, but they have good skills. You know, that’s I mean, probably gonna want to have a decent amount of guys in the box, seven, eight guys in the box against Genty. And do you just realize that the way we’re looking at all these teams is the same way they’re looking at us as like that’s a winnable game. The P like every one of these teams were saying the Raiders are a wable game. The Raiders are saying the Patriots is a winnable game. Yep. Emory writes in, uh, red zone work, he puts in quotes, can mean a lot of different things. Was it first and 10 from the 20? Third and goal from the five, first quarter, trailing in the fourth. Drake’s incentive to force the ball or throw it away or massively different depending on the details. Can you please expand on what red zone work meant today? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean it’s uh I can give it right to you. Um they started seven on seven in the red zone and then they moved into 11 on 111. The first portion was going from the 35 into the 18. Um and they were those were running through first, second, third downs uh consistently. The second one they moved to the 18. Uh did four reps there. And then the final one was red zone uh plus 12 to the plus three. So right down to the end. Um but a lot of those were yeah like the touchdown throw to Diggs was a third down touchdown throw. Couple of the couple of the groupings they had four reps but for the most part it was first, second, third down for Drake or for Dobs, whoever was in there at those specific yardages. So you’re totally right. That’s that’s good context to provide it. It was fair. It wasn’t live scrimmage, but it was first, second, third down that side of the field. You’re you’re building up towards actual football. I I would just say that none of it was got to have it plays. Like none of it was like he’s just forcing it because, you know, doesn’t matter if it’s incomplete or not, the game’s over. There were no situations like that. You’ve never gotten the sense in this camp that’s happened in camps before where it’s putting the ball in. All right, offense, whoever wins just gets push-ups. There hasn’t been any of that kind of stuff either where it was. And I would also say that it doesn’t really matter what quarter it is. No. Yeah. You know, unless, like I said, it’s like the the game is is ending and it’s, you know, you lose if this is incomplete. You don’t want to like throw it away. Yeah. You know, you’re forcing one in there. But these practice reps, doesn’t matter if it’s first quarter or fourth quarter. It’s, you know, Yeah. They’re trying to execute the red zone offense. Move the ball and score points. That’s the job. They did have some uh quarterback run stuff in there today that I thought was interesting. But I didn’t know if we were talking about that. It didn’t go so hot, I would say. But, you know, that’s that’s again another thing that’s going to take some timing and, you know, chemistry to build it, the mesh points and all that fancy stuff. But, it was uh I’m interested. You know, am I I’m a little bit excited. Was asked a little bit about it, too. I don’t know if you heard that, but yeah, it’s good that it’s in there and we’ll see how much they actually end up using it, but I’ve been pounding the table for it, especially in the low red zone, like down by the goal line. Like, he can just walts right in if you know the end crashes. He’s just going to walk into the end zone. So, you might as well uh have him be a threat to at least be able to do that. So, we’ll see how much of that they end up doing. But, there was some of that today. John writes in, and Paul will love this email. Are you guys only going to slam Drake May for two hours? He’s been excellent every other day. Well, I would say he wasn’t excellent on Saturday. He He was up and down on Saturday. I thought he was better than most other people thought he was, but I don’t think he was excellent on Saturday under anybody’s uh view. So, we’re going to comment on what he’s what he’s like that day. Yeah. I’m not going to tell you that he was I mean, Kyle Williams was really good on last Wednesday. Yeah. I haven’t really seen a whole lot from him since. Today was a bad day. Yeah, today was he had a couple I thought he had a horrific back shoulder drop today on one of the best throws that May made. He did have a drop, but he did catch into the end zone. That one it was down It was downfield. I don’t know if it was in the end zone. Well, Paul, you’re feel level. Yeah, that’s why you have trouble seeing and that’s why I saw it perfectly. He hit him right in the shoulder and he dropped it because one of our emails you were saying you don’t like using binoculars. He was saying that they have a new thing that you might be interested in. They’re called glasses. I I I wear glasses to see distance. Yes. I mean, that’s I wear contact lenses so I can see. Otherwise, I would walk into trouble seeing. Cuz it’s a long way away. So, why don’t you use the binoculars? I don’t like binoculars. I like to see everybody. I don’t want to just see the the two guys that you can see in the binoculars. That’s not how binoculars work. Paul see a whole bunch of things. You don’t have to You zoom in on one individual. You don’t have to. I see I see a whole line when I’m in my binocular. And I I told the boys today that it was uh interesting that today after we had the whole thing yesterday, they did everything down the far end of the field and I was like son of they could probably see a little bit better than me today. Now I wouldn’t have been able to see because it was even further away from other. So I do so I do have but it’s like you have a problem seeing 100 ft. So let’s go 400t in the air. So it’s even further away like that. That’s a good solution to good suggestion. I would take things that Paul says with a little grain of salt cuz he’s not really he’s looking through millions of people. I know Evan watches the the game unlike you. Did you see the early It was an early uh rep in team. It was maybe the second series of plays that that Drake had. I thought the timing was perfect on a back shoulder throw that Kyle Williams dropped. Did you see that? Talking about It’s interesting. Second down. There’s only one guy here that didn’t see it. You No, he saw it. No, no, but he just blocked it out of his memory because it was commented on the time. Did I not? Yeah, but not on the air. You’re saying that I couldn’t see it cuz I was at field. No, but you have trouble. You have trouble seeing. You admit it. You You have trouble seeing. I do have trouble seeing. But I saw that. So, we have to Yeah, the negative ones. But, you know, some people have rosecolored. You know, he has this like dark cloud color. Now, now I’m not anymore. Too negative. Well, what else? I’ve been getting made fun of for being too positive all camp. Now I’m too negative. I have not I just the emailer don’t want me to get they can have their own takes that’s okay but I think Drake’s been fine like I think he has been too I don’t like he hasn’t completed every pass but like I’ve seen exactly what I wanted to see out of him for the most part like he is not going to be Tom Brady he’s not going to complete 75% of the passes in a training camp practice is not the style I’ve had no issues with Drake May I don’t think today was one of his better days I agree with you but he’s going to have those sprays he’s going to have the erratic throws and he’s probably going to have what three, four of them a game that you’re like, where was that one going? But then he’s also going to drop one in the bucket to pop Douglas 60 yards down the field off platform and you’re going to be like, oh right, like that’s that’s why he’s the third play that was so good. I think I’ve written about it three different times, right? So like, you know, the throw to booty at the end of practice I thought was ending it on a high note. I thought he made a nice throw that Fred mentioned earlier, the feathered throw to Stefan Dicks, you know, right over Craig Woodson. Kyle Williams the fade away. Did you see that one, Paul? Yep. Yeah. Uh, but Kyle Williams fade touchdown when they work in the in the right there in the red zone. I think it’s not that hard. But it has Tony told me. Who’s Tony? Naserati. Oh Jesus. It’s funny that this email though he write in so we would stop talking about it and now we’re just going to double down on talking about Drake’s day. I just like I I don’t I don’t really have time for children. I really don’t. Like if you don’t want to hear that like the offensive line has been an issue at times, don’t listen. Just pretend it’s not an issue. If you don’t want to hear that Drake May made a lot of really good throws that were really tough on Saturday, but he also missed some. Don’t listen. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don’t want to tell you not to listen. Obviously, we want everybody that we can. But I I can’t just make it up. Right. Right. No, I’m I’m only kidding. I know. I know you. And that’s what’s like funny is like Evan and I watched practice and I walked down like you know go right up to Paul and what’ you think and it’s just like yeah we both watched the same practice. You know that’s this is what happened down and you said for everybody that watch you can’t say that for everybody. Oh no there’s times where like as I said on Saturday I had all of those guys making fun of me because I I thought because of the level of difficulty on some of the throws that Drake May was pretty good on Saturday. Everybody else that covered the practice thought he was really erratic and I was like it’s kind of hard to complete a 25 yard over route with a guy in your grill. Yeah. Today he didn’t have guys in his grill as often. Yeah. So when he was missing some throws today I was a little bit less forgiving on on some of the misfires. Tomorrow he might be perfect. Yeah. And we’ll say that he was perfect. I just feel like, you know, I think the the scribes had him seven for 14 today. And given where the field position was and where they were working, like I kind of expect a a quarterback to go seven for 14 when they’re throwing the ball from the three yard line, like those are going to be tight windows. Those are going to be hard passes to complete. So I’m not surprised that it wasn’t perfect and I don’t think his accuracy is perfect. Like I don’t think he’s a precision quarterback. You know, it’s so funny here in New England because other than Tom Brady, we’ve never had a hot, you know, a top quarterback to watch in training camp, you know, Cam Newton and M. Jones and Oh, don’t forget about Bailey Zappy, though. Yeah. You know, so like I wonder what it looks like at other places for, you know, like one of the better quarterbacks. Like what does the first week of practice look like for Yeah. you know, a quarterback like a top 15 quarterback, let’s say. I mean, I I I just say real quick for me, like I I’ve been surprised at how well Drake has looked through these early practices. I expected that there would be some hesitation, some not quite knowing where to go with it, that kind of thing. But he’s been really good picking up the offense, it seems like, knowing where to go with the ball, being decisive. So, the last couple days, and I’m probably a little bit more on the everybody making fun of Paul side than Paul side from Saturdays. I thought he was erratic and and missed some throws. But again, today like I I thought a lot of those I’ve seen him make those throws and it’s not like the offense looks like too much for him. It’s not push the panic button. Anybody who’s played sports, you ever have a bad day of practice where you felt a little off? Well, maybe that was what today was. But again, that what I’m excited now is to see how does he bounce back tomorrow. How does he take this performance? Which again, the first thing Harold Landry says is the offense kind of took it to us that you know and the coaches were kind of on us and we so now it’s time for the offense to try to respond and get their butts in gear. Rick in Riverside, Rhode Island, uh he has two points. Booty may not be a number one, but he’s solid and had some big plays last year. Do you see him benefiting from Josh’s system and Diggs drawing more attention? I think he can be a 5060 catch eight to10 touchdown player. And his second point is the O line looks much improved with a talent influx creating strong cap camp competition. Do you see Raandre benefiting from a revamped O line? I know he had the fumbles last year, but he is still a good to great running back. So the first point, what about Booty? Booty uh a nice practice say I think Paul said a couple days ago feels like he’s a little bit of a slow starter. I think he’s been a little bit more quiet than Diggs and and Douglas have been through the early practices, but as Evan pointed out, he caught a TD to wrap up today, uh, you know, from Drake. Nice throw. So, uh, I I think he’s absolutely in the mix. I don’t even really consider him on the bubble. We’ll see how it develops over the course of the year if Kyle Williams maybe is able to eat into some of his snaps. If he does good, but he’s he’s been solid. Yeah. I mean, it’s not flashy, you know, he’s not, you know, but I think he’s for the role that they need him for, I think he’ll be he’ll be pretty good. Yeah. Eight to 10 touchdowns is a lot. I would say maybe you’re closer to him potentially on the reception side. Like I don’t necessarily watch Kanan Booty and think like red zone threat that all of a sudden he’s going to start racking up a bunch of touchdowns. But I I I think that for the role that they want that X receiver to play, which in the past has been referred to as just like a sacrificial X, like you’re basically just on the outside taking taking the top off, you know, occupying the deep safety. If you’re one-on-one backside, you might get a target like that that role. I I don’t see why he can’t do that. I mean hopefully some down the down the line they can upgrade that spot but for the time being he’s the best that they got. What do you think about run blocking? Can you make any judgment yet? It’s it’s been good. I think through two practices it’s two practices. So I think it’s premature to make any big judgments but like Campbell and Jared Wilson could really help their run blocking. You know they’re both really good run blockers, really athletic players as well. So it kind of allows them to do some different things. you know, whether it’s like tossing or getting up to the second level or pulling, you know, either one of those guys, like they have that athleticism and that movement skill. So, I think they’re going to be able to run the ball a little bit if this continues to progress in this direction. And Campbell, he does seem like a mer in the run game. He does once he gets his mitts on a guy, it’s all over. Yeah, he moves his feet well. He’s aggressive, you know. Yeah. Y um let’s go to the phones. James in is in Bise. What’s up, James? Hey Frank, can you hear me? Yes. You should put me back on hold. I don’t want to talk about football. Oh, okay. You don’t want to talk about football. This is James, first of all, because I’m calling you from the middle of nowhere. Oh, 007. Is that you? I like it. What’s up? So, yeah. So, um nothing much. I’m busy like uh visiting all the local bars to try and find the official Patriot bar here, trying to register the fan club, but obviously that takes a lot of information and things like that. So, I just thought I’d check in and see how things are. I think I think mostly like uh Paul and Mike. So, there are definitely fans who I think the majority of us think like you. I’m cautiously optimistic about a wins. If I squint, I think I can see, you know, maybe 10 wins. But, you know, we’ll see how it goes. Those are my thoughts. Listen, if they have eight wins, even eight wins, and thanks, James, even eight wins is four better than last year, and some things will have to go right. Now, obviously, nine times they didn’t they they ended up losing, but even to get to eight wins, you’re going to have to see a lot of improvement from last year. Yeah. Yeah. It’s I’ve talking to Mike Reese before practice. We’ve talked about a little. It’s just the last couple years I felt, you know, I felt optimistic last year, too. And it’s just trying to figure out because right now I feel like this looks like a football team to me. It looks like an NFL football team that’s going to win some games. I I don’t want to put a number on it what it’s going to be, but it looks like a team that’s going to have an identity, that’s going to have a play style, that’s going to follow the lead of their head coach. But even like two years ago, you felt like, yeah, it hasn’t been great, but we got Bill Bichc and it’s going to come together. And you know, last year maybe was a little bit more I’m maintaining an open mind, trying to be positive, but this is going to be something completely new. So I feel a little bit like I just I’m not quite sure what I believe anymore. Like I need to see and feel like if these guys come out and look solid, you know, he’s like a kid who was told Santa Claus, right? Right. He’s been hurt. Well, I but I mean you guys have watched plenty of teams and I mean it’s you’re probably a little skewed because you’re watching, you know, the greatest run in in football history and other teams are probably like, you know, more up and down and some quarterbacks aren’t just Tom Brady where he just seems to keep getting better and every year he’s awesome and, you know, some guys are like Russell Wilson where it’s good and it’s bad and it’s good and it’s bad and it’s bad and it’s bad and it’s good and it’s bad. those kind of ups and downs. And when people ask us to predict like what we see, I feel really positive about the team that they’re putting together up there. They might have some warts. They might not be the greatest team in the world yet, but I feel good about the team that they’re building right now. I don’t know what it’s going to translate to, but I’m just hoping that I’m not again being the cockeyed optimist of, well, Mike Frabel’s running around and doing drills and everybody’s saying all the right things and then you get in the regular season and you’re like, oh my god, we don’t have those. I mean, honestly, since Brady left, Paul, and have have we had a training camp time, a summer, and you get through until the, you know, September where we said, “Wow, that was a great training camp. That was a great preseason. This team’s ready to go.” Have we had that since Brady left? Even with Brady, did you feel that way, though? I mean, do you still feel kind of like about a few things? So, there there were a couple of times I did, but to be honest, no. I didn’t always think like that. I mean, you knew they were good because they had him, right? Right. That’s the great holes. Seven. They just looked like it was different. Like, you could just tell that the team had a look that was really efficient and effective and you could tell that that team was going to be really things that you hadn’t seen before. But yeah, I mean, when Brady was here, I always thought, well, you know, it’s going to be 12 and four minimum. You know, they’re going to host the AFC Championship game. Deuce got very upset at that. But but you were probably saying the reason they’re going to lose these four games in training camp is because I don’t think like we don’t have the depth on the defensive, you know, or we can’t. And this is what I used to argue with Bill O’Brien. Bill O’Brien used to give Annie and I a hard time about it like I don’t know how you guys do it. I don’t know how you guys come and we we explained to him like Billy, we’re not saying that the team’s not great. What we’re saying is is there something about the team that’s going to cause you to have to go on the road in a big playoff game and you know and it would be something like that like I don’t know if they have enough depth at corner like that Nickelback spot or you know where are they going to get you know the pass rush from you know beyond X or whatever you know something it was never like I don’t know if they have a number one receiver or I don’t know if they have an answer at left tackle it it was never something like that it was always like a depth related secondary piece that you know might be the difference between 12 and 14 wins. Now we just want to get back to respectability. Yeah, I feel like that’s like the way I see what’s been going on really since the spring is like I feel like they’re going to put 11 guys on the field that know what they’re doing because of the coaching. Like I feel like they’re going to be coached correctly and they’re going to know their assignments and they’re going to play fundamentally sound and I think that they’re going to be able to do all that. you know, where the roster is and where that is are two different things. Like there’s a professional football player, so there’s a if you coach them right, they can get to that level of like we’re competent, right? Right. But are they going to have the top end talent in certain areas? Are they going to have the depth in certain areas? I I think that’s that still remains to be seen. I I looking back I feel like I looked at certainly 2019 my first season here when Brady was still here but even after Brady left no matter what happened in camp I think I would defer to we have Bill Bichc we have the greatest coach of all time it’s going to pull together even no matter how things look in camp he’s a good enough coach he’s going to pull it together and maybe I you know had the wool pulled over my eyes a little bit with those observations 23 24 now you’re starting not to just blindly believe that this team’s going to somehow pull it together. And right now, I really do feel really good about what they’re building out there. And and it’s just I’m, you know, I’m trying not to be like over the moon because I know it’s not going to be as great as you think it could possibly be, but I still think it could be really good. And what I’ve seen from this team in the first week, I really believe in Mike Rabel as a coach. I believe in the program that he’s doing. I just hope that they have the talent to really trade punches with these really good teams that they inevitably have to face up and down the I’m just wondering is there things that you need to see in August in the month of August to be able to definitively say, “Yeah, this offense is going to be okay.” Yeah, it’s hard, right? I get it is hard because you know you talk about joint practices and you know I’m sure Philly came out of here feeling like well maybe the Patriots just stunk last year and their offensive line was terrible and you know or they felt like wow we are primed to do what we’re about to do. It’s so hard. It’s just it it goes back to the only real truth is games and no matter what we talk about from preseason, from joint practices, from OTAAS, I mean, all this stuff and we certainly get information about how the coaches feel about players and we see big plays, but how’s it all going to come together in an organic game setting where there’s ups and downs and the flow of the game and this team needs mental toughness and they need to preserve a lead or they need to come from behind like all those characteristics. I just I don’t think there’s any way to know from from what happens in August up to August until they blow the whistle and it’s kickoff week one. This this camp feels a little bit like 21 to me. Like they had this free agency class that they brought in that has some guys that you feel like are veteran players that are proven commodities in the league and you’re not filling holes with guys that are really not meant to be in those roles. like Milan Williams is a starting defensive lineman. Morgan Moses is a starting tackle in the NFL, but we know what free agency is. We know that that’s not really where the top end talent is. So, the difference is is you hope that Drake May is better than M. Jones, and you hope that Will Campbell is better than, you know, some of the guys that they drafted in that time frame. Yeah. Uh, but I feel like what I’m watching feels similar to that where it’s like, okay, they’re going to be competent and that year competent meant 10 wins in a playoff birth. I don’t know where it’s going to get them this year. Uh, but we’ll see. I think offensively you want to see them be able to be multiple. Like, can they do everything at their disposal to move the football? When you’re onedimensional, if you can’t run the ball, you can’t pass block, you can’t run block, you can’t throw, what happens? You make it easy to defend. know if they can be my sequence it all together then they can score. The way Evan just put that I think is is perfect. I like and I would want to make sure that they do not have to do a lot of really different things to scheme around pass protection. Yeah. Scheme around the tackles. Yeah. Because I think that’s a hard I mean you can do it and I know Josh will be a little Josh will be better at it than Alex. tough way to live, but I think you’re very limited if you can only do it one way, you know, and then, you know, in other words, you have to glue somebody next to Will Campbell every time you face, you know, a speed rusher. Like, that’s not ideal. So, in the past, you know, no matter what it looked like, we had faith in Bichc that he’s he’ll figure it out. That faith started to erode, I think, really in the Patricia year where he named him offensive Yep. coordinator and it didn’t look good and it wasn’t good. Like even I was saying, “Oh, it’ll be fine.” You know, it’s Bellichc. He knows what he’s doing. Patricia was used to be a head coach. He knows football. It’ll be fine. It wasn’t. It was It was terrible. And then every year and then the next year was even when you had Bill O’Brien, it just still didn’t look good. You were thinking, “Okay, we’ll get out of August and Bill O’Brien’s a good offensive coordinator. He’ll he’ll make it fine.” It it still wasn’t good. And there wasn’t any indications in the summer that it would be. We just had faith in Bill O’Brien. But that didn’t work either. And so I’m I’m a little bit, you know, still traumatized by that. Now I I do believe in Mike Vrabel. I think he is a good coach and like you said, it does seem like they’re buttoned up and he is stressing the fundamentals and and situational play and taking care taking advantage of bad football. So you hope that that’s true. But we got to see it now. like we’re, you know, we’re we’re a fan base that’s been kind of, like I said, traumatized over the last few years. There was a couple things and like that to that point about like buttoning things up like Kyus Tonga just comes unblocked through the A gap today and and sacks Drake May in like under a second like can’t have that like that. You can’t have that. So like well yesterday it was Spalain came unblocked, right? But like that’s at least a a blitz from the second level, right? Yeah, you can’t have the nose tackle standing right over the center going what happened, right? You know, like so speed pass that’s unacceptable. So like and we saw that like I don’t know if it was last year last year where you’d have linemen just like in space like who am I blocking the communication was terrible. Does Rael take that next step of like being like no like we’re that is you know this is where the S that gets you beat. Yeah, right. Like that’s in that category. Not knowing who to block is part of the S that gets you beat. you know, the uh the the snaps, like they had they’ve had three aborted snaps at this point through six practices. Like, they got to clean that up. That goes in that bucket, too. Y and if that stops, like by next week, if all that kind of stuff stops because they clean it up, then I I feel like I’m going to be feeling pretty good about where they’re going. But the one thing that has me optimistic about the offense is I think that they’re going to be able to run block. And if they can run block, then you can scheme stuff off the run game. You get play action involved. uh you move the pocket like you do different things like that uh that are around the run game that aren’t necessarily about volume of run game but if they can truly run block like that uh then you can be optimistic about that’s a foundation of an offense that’s like an identity of an offense and hopefully uh that continues in that direction but can’t have Kyus Tong who’s 340 pounds like no one put a hat on that guy like it’s kind of hard to miss yeah come on uh Javon’s in New York what’s up Javon Hey, Javon. No. Okay. Uh, how about Dan in Vermont? Hey, Dan. Dan. Don. Okay. I’ll tell you, if Patty doesn’t come through, it’s time to push away from the table. Patty’s an AWAM. What’s up, Patty? Hey, guys. How are you? Okay. Good seeing you today, Patty. Uh just just um question on the right tackle position. Um has Mark Marcus Bryant and Jack Jack Conley been taking any reps at right tackle in these two padded practices? Because I don’t know about you guys, but Damonte Jacobs scares the hell out of me if he has to play any extended time. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve seen a little bit, but not not in any meaningful 11on1 work. Uh Connley has played some tackle. uh both sides like with the threes and you know like stuff like that like opportunity reps for those guys. But yeah, I mean right now like having a I’m going to give Morgan Moses the benefit of the doubt for now. Like he’s a 12- year veteran and it’s training camp and like a lot of guys don’t even show up to training camp this time of year anymore in his shoes. So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. But is he going to be there for 17 games is a real question. And if it is Damontree Jacobs is his top backup or Kaden Wallace kicks back outside or whatever the case may be, like they have to figure out we they need to have a functional backup right tackle because I don’t know if Morgan Moses is going to be there for the, you know, the entire season. Like he’s probably going to have some bumps in the road. Yep. Uh Sean’s in Virginia. Hey Sean. Oh good. How you guys doing? Okay. Sean, hey, I listen to you guys talk. I mean, and I listen to a lot of people talk about this as far as like the depth of the team and stuff like that, you know, whatever. I guess people expect the team to be perfect, you know, cuz I I don’t really see the top team being this perfect. At least I can say about this team that we all can really agree upon. It’s really uh that this team actually does have guys thought on different teams. I mean, that’s what we have said in the past. So, so, uh, I would believe that this city can compete against the best of the best because they actually have started capable players, something they didn’t have the best. Okay. Is there a question there or no? Just catch. No, not necessarily. Just talk about uh this team as far as uh everybody see, you know, uh, in a lot of different ways, but yeah, even even the contenders that we named don’t have that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s it’s it’s never perfect. It’s never perfect, but I think, you know, Thanks, Sean. I you know, we’re kind of doing what the coaches do. We’re we’re really getting into the weeds and analyzing, you know, almost every play. Um who had a good one, who who didn’t have a good one. Um you know, on a play that the defense wins, you know, somebody in the offense, you could say somebody in the offense didn’t do their jobs, or you can look at it the other way, somebody on the defense did a really good job. Um, but you have to do that. That’s what practice is all about. They go after the each practice, they go and they look at each, you know, play and they break it down and then they present it back to the players and, you know, they they call out who had who did what and that’s how you get better. So, no, it’s it’s not perfect. It it’s just impossible to be perfect. Uh, and I don’t think that’s the expectation here, you know. I think it’s about figuring out what, but if you have three botch snaps, those are three botch snaps. Those are those are clear mistakes. You have to call those out. And a couple of those like, you know, to go go back to Evan’s point, you know, the bleep that gets you beat. A couple of them were in the red zone. So, that’s potentially taking points off the board, at least four, but maybe even seven, you know, if you’re losing the the possession. That’s the stuff you can’t overcome. like you can’t you gotta it it’s not a strive for perfection. I mean I I know all coaches want to strive for perfection knowing that they can’t achieve it, but we’re not like nitpicking things. These are major major problems that need to get cleaned up, you know, that were, you know, the things that we’re talking about specifically are issues that last year were problems all summer and they carried over into the season. And at the same time, you know, you want to focus on the center position. We, you know, that three botch snaps, but we’re also saying that Jared Wilson is a bright spot at center. Like he could be a guy pushing for a job either there or at left guard. Um, you know, even with those and I don’t think I think he only had one of the bot snaps, although Paul No, he had two. Well, we’re in disagreement on that one. Yeah. I mean, that’s another one that I’m positive. Paul, I think two of them were on Bradberry, but okay. But regardless whether it’s, you know, Wilson or or Bradberry, you know, um, if it’s Wilson, we think that that’s a positive so far. He’s a guy pushing pushing a veteran for a starting job right now. Yeah, it’s uh I I just love how Vable break broke it down the good, the bad, and the stuff that gets you bleed beat because it’s just like that’s so perfect. Like that’s exactly what it is. Like some of the throws that like to the caller’s point, it has to be perfect. Like some of the throws we were talking about earlier that Drake missed today, that’s just the bad. That’s not the stuff that gets you beat, right? The stuff that gets you beat is letting Kyus Tonga come through the A gap unblocked. That gets you beat. The the botch snaps get you beat. There actually haven’t been a ton of turnovers. They haven’t thrown a ton of picks. I think there’s only been two picks the whole camp, which is all the quarterbacks, not just Drake. I don’t think Drake’s thrown any. He hasn’t thrown any yet. Now, he’s had a couple dropped, but he, you know, he hasn’t thrown any. Had some turnover worthy plays. But that’s the stuff that gets you beat. The stuff that we’re talking about is kind of, you know, some of the throws are that’s nitpicking. Like, all right, he kind of had Hunter Henry there and he sailed it a little bit and it was in like that. That’s the bad a and like I’m not that stuff’s not going to lose you games necessarily like the other stuff will. So, that’s not perfect, right? Like that’s by definition. Yeah. even without the expanding beyond the context of a game and getting beat is, you know, what issues are they are we seeing in camp that are going to be problems into the season and what issues which I would think like the snap are things that are camp cleanup stuff like that shouldn’t be an issue. If that’s an issue, you got major problems. But, you know, some of this stuff, I think, with the just overall depth and the performance level in important positions. That’s the stuff that you’re really trying to identify and lock down and figure out what the answers are going to be because, you know, I I still think like not that Wes Schwitzer was the answer, but I think, you know, to have another veteran guard who maybe had played some games um at this point looks like that be that might be nice to have. Maybe that’s something they’re on the lookout for. I haven’t I don’t think that Cole Strange has been terrible. I I think he’s he’s I think he’s been pretty good passable. grade for him. Like, so I I would say like if it’s him and and Jared Wilson or Bradberry at center, like I would still put Jared Wilson at left guard. That’s just me. But maybe that’s just because I can’t get over the whole having a 22-year-old rookie at center. Like that just worries me. Uh but in general, I I think that Cole Strange has been okay. So maybe that is that’s your interiors. Strange Wilson on Wenu. You know, they did it with David Andrews. He was fine. Yeah, but David Andrews was like a four or five year starter at Georgia. Like we’re talking about a 22-y old kid who started 12 games at Georgia. And so like it’s just a lot. It’s a lot to put on him. And you already have a second year quarterback and there’s a lot on his plate. And so it’s just you have a very young battery. Like th those two guys are very young together. Um but it doesn’t mean they can’t do it. It just is something to He’s my favorite personality guy, personality rookie. just listen to him talk like he just seems like really well spoken, thought out, you know, has his head on his shoulders, has a good perspective on things. I like him a lot. All right. Uh we’re going to take a break, but before we do, uh want to remind people that you can travel with the Patriots this year. Enter the Patriots road trip raffle for your chance to go to New Orleans as the Patriots take on the Saints on October 12th. One lucky fan will receive two tickets on a private charter to the game, tickets to the game, hotel accommodations, and much more. Enter for a chance to win for just $10. All your proceeds benefit the Patriots Foundation. To purchase your tickets, visit patriots.com/ community. And as Mike uh reminded us, Brunt is based right here in New England. Brunt Workware makes work boots and apparel that are built for the job site. Their gear is comfortable, durable, and named after the real workers in the trades that helped design it. You can even try Brunt out on the job. And if it doesn’t blow you away, they let you send it back. Save $10 on your first order at bruntworkwear.com/pats or with coupon code Pats. I can’t wait till the weather gets a little colder because I’m going to wear those boots. It’s too hot to wear right now, but I’m going to I’m going to be rocking those boots when it gets a little cooler out. Do some work in the yard. Maybe break some leaves. Yeah, I noticed my Instagram feed, too. There a lot of Brunt ads that are popping up. It’s hearing you talk. I think it’s feeding you more. You’re not supposed to be doing that, but anyway. All right, we’ll take a break. Uh, we got a nice interview with uh uh Kyus Tonga that you can listen to right now. Whether you’re in the game or betting on the game, you’ll need a game plan. DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the New England Patriots, provides you with everything you need to build your personal betting game plan so you can get in on all the action while practicing safe bets. Visit draftkings.com/responsible-gaming to learn more about all the safe betting tools DraftKings has to offer. Hope is here. 800327-50 or gamblinghellinemma.org. Must be 21 plus. Play it smart from the start. gamesensemma.com. physically present in Massachusetts. See draftkings.com/responsible-gaming for details and state specific responsible gambling resources. 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I believe in your first padded practice, you might have gotten into a fight. Uh, should I assume that you don’t want your rookies doing that? I don’t want any of us doing that. It’s a long time ago, Karen. Yeah. Can Can you give a little detail? No. Okay. You got a followup? Have the players been told that they can’t do it, Mike? Of course. I mean, we don’t I mean, we want to be able to practice the same way we have to play, which is physical and within the rules and have a great play demeanor, finish through the whistle and all those things. And you know, if you throw a punch, you’re going to get kicked out of the game, which is going to cost the team. So, I don’t anticipate any of that. I I want us to celebrate with with our team and the defensive unit. Celebrate with the each other, offensive unit. Get excited and celebrate with each other, not get into the taunting and the things that we would, you know, that we can’t have during the game. Did you at least win? I think I did. It’s it’s it’s a it’s a good story about don’t use the fight but the about a veteran player Greg Lloyd was a a very dominant uh player imposing figure and I got drafted in April and he didn’t say a word to me through OTAAS uh and I’m on the defense mind you so didn’t say a word to me um the entire off season we go to training camp you know there was there’s a fight with me and a tight end and I’m exhausted after practice and I see this like shadow come over me as I’m sitting in the locker room and he’s like in his deep voice and he’s like yeah the next time you want to come up underneath the face mask and I was like you just now are going to talk to me he’s like yeah I just wanted to make sure you weren’t like a punk and then then I would talk to you. So, it’s a good example of just a veteran making sure that, you know, rookies kind of earn their stripes, I guess, a little bit. But, do you feel like satisfied with the foundation you built in camp so far to get to the point of putting it? Yeah, I think so. You know, this will be, you know, true. We’ll be down in the red zone. We’ll be getting a lot of work in the red zone. Things happen a lot quicker down there. Uh, tighter windows. Um, just the the speed of everything, it could just get sped up. And so that’ll be good for us to to move on to that situation as well as see how we, you know, start to practice in pads and our pad level, our fundamentals, our hands, and those types of things. Uh Mike, as you share that story and talk about the guy not talking to you for a couple months while you’re together, do you feel like it’s different in the NFL or with this specific team now? Well, I just think that that was a Greg that was a Greg Lloyd type of thing, you know? I mean, I think that’s that was certainly his personality. I think that there’s, you know, Mhm. You’re always trying to, you know, prove yourself to to your teammates, especially as a young player. And Greg probably took it a little too to too too extreme. After all these OTAAS and the first four days without pads, your your excitement level today, maybe on a scale from 1 to 10, I I just think coming off of a day off, I think this is just another step in in in our program. And so I try to come out here with the same excitement and and give them everything I got and and help them. Uh so this is just another uh important step throughout the process of of preparation. Go ahead. Don’t you worry about that. What’s it been like having Terrell Williams back out there with the team and having him on defense? What have you seen from him? Well, um you know, he has an energy to him. there’s there’s um you know the the players are you know they respond well to him and when he you know he has his clips that he shows them and the things that he thinks are important as a coordinator um you know I think that they’re believing in in what we want to do and our style of play and um so just keep moving ahead and but it’s it’s great to have him back just his personality and demeanor. Mike, if you were in our shoes, what would you think you’d say? You know, you guys should really watch this. You’ve been doing this for a long time. You know how you mean if I was a part of the media? Yeah. If you would like say you guys I don’t think there’s ever a scenario where that would happen. Oh, that’s absolutely a matter of time. You already did stuff with Felga 15 years ago. As soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to be in the witness protection plan. You won’t you will never find me. All right. Well, if you decided you would help us. I mean, I just think that how maybe some of these um you know, to me it’s at it’s it’s critical at the line of scrimmage, right? just being able to make contact. There’s going to be a stalemate. There’s two professional players lined up across from each other. Who can re-engage? Who can reset their feet? Maybe get a little extra movement. Um, you know, how do how do we play on do we stay on our feet? Can we practice like this and stay on our feet? We got a bunch of guys falling on the ground. I’d rather not see that. I just don’t think that that good teams uh end up practicing that way. Uh, and again just the the urgency in which we move around practice that there’s we’re in and out of the huddle. The players are running on and off the field. Those are all things that I think are critical. I think that translate to the field uh to the game, excuse me, right? Where, you know, you don’t you’re not standing 10 yards behind the ball. You’re you’re coming from the sideline and we’re communicating uh the personnel and and the quarterback has to echo that. Um those are the types of things right now that we’re trying to build. Mike, um Pop Douglas seems to be having a pretty strong camp. So, what have you seen from him and what have you learned about him this offseason? Great energy, uh great demeanor, very coachable, uh one of our offseason award winners, so he obviously worked extremely hard, was here uh every day, uh ready to learn, ready to um you know, earn a role and love being around Pop. He’s got a great great energy and he’s he’s got a lot of respect from everybody around here. Mike, I think it’s a one-on-one pass rush we saw a little bit the other day. How much of that period is for experimentation with new moves or techniques versus the evaluation where guys are really obviously trying to win every rep? Yeah, I I I watch it a little bit. I do think that that’s probably a great question. One of the players I coached in Houston, Whitney Merciless, you know, we went through some developmental things with him. He was a very talented player. One thing I always respected about Whitney was his willingness to to try new moves during practice. And you know, some of them wouldn’t work. Some of them he he needed to see at full speed for him to say, you know, that’s not something that I’m going to commit a lot of time to. And then others that, you know, worked and that he would commit time to. So that’s exactly why you do practice is so that you can, you know, sometimes figure out what doesn’t work and you can eliminate some things and you can move on. Especially as a pass rusher, right? you’re trying to have a couple different pitches, not too many. Um, but I certainly need some some a fast ball and some off speed pitches and some counters. So, um, this is why we practice is to be able to go out there and do that. And I I understand, you know, a lot of those things and, you know, when you get to the team periods and you get to the games and you can see u how guys pass rush, but you know, I think that’s obviously a good thing. The offensive linemen are going to work on different techniques and things like that so they’re not doing the same thing every single snap. guys. And now, great moments in history. Are you Are you going for barbecue? I don’t know. I No, I’m not a big barbecue guy. What’s wrong with it? Really? No. I’d probably go across the street to like Del Frisco’s or something. Just bring back the memories. Oh, I ate there three times. Super Super Bowl week. Super Bowl week. We spent You ate there three times? I did. Wow. Expensed everyone. I was going to say the rubber paper. One of one of them was picked up for what was the what was the go to? I ate there once. Different things. Different things each time or same thing three times with I might have had different things. Yeah. Keep working. All steak. But the ribeye then the filt. I had different things. So filt ribeye corner. Different different parts of the animal. Yeah. Steak. But it’s literally across the street. So it is right right there. And there’s a great breakfast joint on that street too. Really? Oh yeah. You and your breakfast. Yes. Me and my breakfast. That’s right. If I ever travel, Scout, I’m in with you. Any breakfast. Damn right. It’s called, you know how we love desserts. House of pies. That’s what it’s called. Love it. I like pie. Breakfast. I like pie. Yes, definitely. That’s another great moment from us now straight off the practice field is Kyus Tonga. Kyus, how you doing? I’m doing well. How you doing? I’m Fred Kersh. This is Paul Carillo. This is Patriots Unfiltered. This is the team’s uh podcast, flagship podcast. Okay. And I’ll have you know this is the world’s longest running podcast in the world. Really? Yeah. And I’m not kidding. That’s true. Glad to be a part of it. Fred started it. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Back in 2000. He’s a little He’s a little older than me. Yeah. A little bit. Just a little bit. So, how are things going for you? It’s going well. Everything’s going well. Yes, sir. Yeah. Sorry. That’s all right. Good. Things are going good. Yes, sir. All right. So, you’ve been around a couple different teams. Um, any differences on how teams do things in training camp or, you know, is it pretty much the same? You know, every team is usually kind of the same. They have they have their own little flavors to how they like their schedules, but um, but here, yeah, it’s been very well, you know, being with coach Varel and how he runs it. He’s so mean, he’s been in the league and he’s been a player in this league, so he understands kind of the uh how the body works for players on these long camp days. So, it’s so cool to see him tweak schedules and kind of fit into our so that we can get the best out of uh and the most out of everything that we do. So, it’s been it’s been very cool. You know, that’s interesting. Was there a little bit of a tweak today? Cuz it did seem yesterday you guys were very active uh bouncing around. Today, it did seem to be a little bit of a lower pace. Was that a tweak to the schedule? Yeah, I think uh just him knowing like, okay, we got full pads and making sure our legs are good and the days we got to run long, he’s going to make sure we’re good before the days we got the the short yardage stuff, make sure that we’re we’re using that full maximum effort in those short yardage. So, he does a very good job of taking care of us. Yeah, I mean, he comes off as a tough guy and all that. And I he was I mean, I was here when he was playing. He was a tough guy and he is a tough guy, but he does have that care for the players. Like there’s no sense in beating everybody up in the first last week of July, you know, so like I I you know I I would think players appreciate that. Exactly. Yes, sir. We do. Yeah. Yes, sir. We definitely do. And it was hot out there today. Yeah. And it’s going to be hot out there tomorrow. Yeah. So, defensively, um you’re one of them. A lot of new faces and a new scheme for New England. I know you’re the first year here anyway. So, uh just curious your thoughts about how those pieces are coming together. Um your initial thoughts. You’re about a week into training camp now. Just how that front seven specifically is coming together. Yeah, we uh we stacking these days. Um kind of like our coach, he really harps on just being able to go out and just be consistent and how we are. Some days are going to be bad. We’re going to have some bad plays and some days are going to be very well. Um however that looks, we just got to continue to stack. And I think for our front seven, that’s kind of been the theme. Just continue to work, feed off each other, learn from one another, and it’s been it’s been working very well so far. Yeah. So, you guys did um a little bit of red zone today. Um but even though you’re in full pads, you’re still not like 100% going to the ground yet and all that stuff. Yeah, that’s the only thing we’re not doing. Everything else to that point is is full speed 100%. We’re just not throwing guys on the ground so we can take care of each other. Right. So, so as a space heater up front, like is there a point in practice or in training camps in the past where you get, okay, this is now I can do what I do, you know, like um, you know, goal line for example. No, I love goal line. Uh, just just being that mentality of they got to gain one yard and you being the person that they got to move, it brings it brings out a chip in someone like like me and those D linemen. But I think uh just anywhere on the field really. um if it’s third down, second down, goal line, uh just being able to go out and just do your job is is is very exciting. So, you have, you know, Milton Williams and and Christian Barmore, and they’re a little bit of a different sort of body type than you. They’re a little bit uh, you know, smaller and more penetrating, you know, pass rushing. You are more of a space eating runto stopper, right? I mean, is that I mean, is that No. Yes, sir. Would that be accurate? So, I’m just um How does that dynamic work with you guys? How how well do you think you guys compleiment uh each other? I think it it works very well. Um we get to feed off one another. I think uh just like you said the get offs William is really good at doing that. And I think uh being able to to show the room that it’s possible um and and even if you’re nose, you can still get off in this league. And so just having that confidence in teammates like Millian just helping you out, that makes it so much easier. And then with Barour, he’s just a freak. So, he’s he’s such an athletic freak that he can play the position inside and out. Um, and just seeing that the same things, just learning from him and being able to feed off one another. Um, it’s been it’s been amazing. Now, when Christian gets really excited and starts talking really fast, do you have any idea what he’s saying either? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, sometimes you just got to let him talk. It’s impossible to transcribe, you know, for sometimes he just he talking. He he going to talk and uh I love that about Elmore, man. He’s amazing. So, how do you what do you think of New England? What have you, you know, how do you like living here so far? You know, New England’s been cool. It’s been, it’s such a different, uh, vibe from the West Coast. Yeah. Um, but, you know, I love it out here. Scenery wise, beautiful. Team-wise, it’s it’s been very welcoming from player standpoint and u, the coaches been very cool and the and the fans have been uh, very welcoming and very nice. So, it’s been it’s been it’s been good. Now, you’ve been settled in. You you mentioned cuz I was listening to you talk out there. Um, have you gotten your family here, too, or fouryear-old? Yeah, I got a uh yeah, four year old. Um no, during the camps it’s kind of hard because it’s so far and you don’t see them. Yeah. Yeah. So, um I usually try to bring them out during the season. Same as my siblings and my parents, they try to come out during the season. So, during camp time, it’s just we’re locked in and no family around. So, it kind of makes it a little easy. And you also were one of the offseason award winners. I I I saw um this morning, you know, what what went into that? And you know, does that I assume that’s a point of pride for you. Yeah, you know, it’s uh it was pretty cool. I was shocked um only because everybody was working um any literally anybody could have gotten that award. Like this OTAAS was everybody was just go go go and we were feeding off each other. So, and that and just coming into camp the same mentality. Nothing’s changed. Like it’s been cool, but everybody’s working. You see it on the field. So, it’s it’s been pretty uh it’s been it was good though. Oh, you must have had the neatest locker or something like that. You must have done something. There were only four guys, Fred. He was one of them. You must have done something, man. We was just working. We was just working. Yes, sir. As fans, we love to hear that. And uh we love seeing seeing you here. Appreciate you coming by. I know you got stuff to do. Get showered up and get some food in you and get ready for the meetings this afternoon. Yes, sir. I appreciate you guys for having me. Thank you. Yeah, Kyus. Appreciate it. All right, Kyus Tonga. We’ll be right back after this. Right, we’re back here on Patus unfiltered. That was Paul and myself’s interview with Kyus Tonga. Real nice guy as you could see. Some real nice. I listened to him a little bit outside as well. And uh the big man in the middle. Yep. He’s going to be a big part of it. Yeah. Sneaky, important player, I think. Yeah, I think he’s kind of one of one. Yeah, exactly what I was about to say. He’s the only guy on the team that does what he does. Yeah, I kind of I didn’t want to necessarily throw any of his teammates under the bus when I asked him that question, but that’s kind of what I was talking about. Like, you know, Milton Williams and Barmore different kinds of players even though you guys all play the same position. And he was like, “Yeah, no, no, you’re right. You’re right.” And I was like, “You have more of a run stuffing space eater.” And I didn’t want to say, “You don’t really have any.” And well, no, I didn’t want to say you don’t really have anybody else like that, right? Because they kind of got rid of most of the bigger defensive linemen. They have a lot of athletic defensive tackles. They got rid of God Shaw and they got Yeah. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but is this kind of how you would prefer it? Like I know you weren’t a big fan of, you know, paying Devon Godshaw, who is like a high price tong. You’d rather play also stopped their own on the way to the quarterback. I Yeah. I mean, I just feel like if the other team wants to try to beat you running the ball, I think it in general will work to the Patriots favor. uh because I think it’ll keep the score down and you don’t have an offense that’s necessarily conducive right now to getting in 35 point shootouts. Yeah. So I think if the other team wants to run the ball and they give up because I do think that they have a chance to be a little bit leaky against the run with their smaller front seven with with him like I think he was a seventh round draft pick or something like that and he started playing special teams and things like that but over the court like I think last year was the most games he’s played in. So that’s kind of a good thing. Like no, he’s been on a lot of teams, but like he got more playing time recently than early in his career. Like he’s built toward that. So maybe maybe he could be a sneaky contributor to the defense. Who knows? Yeah. I think unfortunately for him, like you said, dying breed like there. No, no, but there will be times where, you know, situationally, I don’t I don’t talk about every play situationally where we got to make this stop. it’s, you know, third and inches or on the goal or whatever and they put him in. Yep. It just doesn’t, you know, what I more meant was like that’s not a very soughtafter commodity in in today’s NFL. So, you’re not seeing a lot of nose tackles drafted high anymore. Like Vince Wolffork is a first round pick. Like, you’d have to be that dominant probably to get drafted in in the top 50 these days. Like, it’s just not a position that lends itself to that. But situationally, whether it’s just end of game, four-minute offense, they’re trying to close out the game, you’re trying to get a stop, they, you know, they’re going to run the ball, goal line, third down, fourth down. Like, those are spots where I could see Milton Williams coming off the field maybe for a Kyus Tonga or, you know, someone like that. That’s that Well, that’s where I was just about to go, Ev was who is the someone like that? That’s what I’m curious about. You know, Tonga is going to have a role. You know, Williams and Barmer will have big roles, but I think what we’re seeing a little bit of is Jeremiah Farms maybe, or could, you know, Farmer, the draft pick, Josh Farmer from Florida State. Haven’t seen much from him just yet. It still seems like today, too. Jeremiah Farms is the guy, the next guy up with that group. So, yeah, we’ll see how that continues to progress. Podcast.com is a way to email us. Linda from Georgia writes in, “Made it to camp today to see everything in person and form some opinions of what’s going to be the 25 pat season. Also got to meet Evan before practice as a bonus.” That’s true. We took a selfie. That’s nice. And her husband were here and they’re both fans of the show. Ex-husband now, Evan, after that picture. Oh. Oh, I see. So, I’m also an ex-husband that three weeks in. Uh, now to football. I thought the rotation for offensive side was notable. O line, left guard, and center changes that look like they’re going for the best combo. This is the time of year to do that. And it helps find the next man up should injuries happen, as they might. Wide receiver, lots of changes with each formation, too, with multiple lineups to block or be a decoy for the defense. Running back, good to see them securing the ball with two hands on almost every possession. Good sign for the group. Tight end, great to see Hooper in the mix again. What do you say? anything I miss for these positions. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for a defense from the stands and get my opinion form there. So there you go. That’s all good stuff. I mean that’s you know kind of what we’re telling you. But if if you need further confirmation that’s that’s how it goes in camp. It’s you know it’s hard you don’t want to overreact every time you see and I’m this is a bad example but like Effing Chisum all of a sudden is is out for a rep. you know, you don’t want, oh my god, it’s happening. But you see a few days a guy starts to like Jared Wilson, you know, you start to see him expanding his role a little bit more. You start to track those things. Um, that that’s what really I’ve been watching and and some of these injuries that have offered opportunities for other guys. That’s what makes it interesting to me as I look at my nerd depth chart and start to put together, you know, how do they see the team? Who’s the next guy up, you know, at this position? How would they, you know, if a right tackle went out or if Trey Jacobs, how would, you know, those questions, how would they affect the inevitable kind of juggling you always end up doing on rosters? Uh, Colleen from Houston says, uh, about the botch snaps? Yeah. Uh, it seems like the common denominator is Drake. Has Dobs received a botch snap? Could it be Drake who’s messing up the snap and not the center? Yes, that was a thing last year, too, regardless of the center. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I definitely think that that that’s there’s a chance of that. And it just goes back. I mean, he did it more last year, but like these college quarterbacks are not under center. They don’t take snass from under center in the college game anymore. Everybody runs spread. Everybody runs gun. Like the amount of times like some of these teams are so anti-underder center. They kneel from the shotgun. Like they have it’s a shotgun snap into a quarterback kneel at the end of the game. Like that’s how allergic these teams are to going under center. So Drake May, you could probably count on two hands. the amount of times that he was under center at North Carolina. It just doesn’t happen. So, for a lot of these young quarterbacks, it’s an adjustment. But the other question that I’ve always had with it is, do they eventually just adjust to him, right? Like, okay, if you’re really not comfortable doing this, maybe we go to the pistol, maybe we go more shotgun heavy offense and we build it around the fact that you’re not necessarily comfortable being an under center quarterback because there are teams that have done that too. you know, Philadelphia with Jaylen Herz. Like the only times that the Eagles are under center of the tush push. Yeah, that’s it. So, Colleen could be on to something there. Um, one of those botch snaps I did notice it was up here. So, I don’t know what h like how do you go from under center and it ends up up at your shoulder, but it could be like he just mishandle it and it flew up over his shoulder. I don’t know. Yeah, there were there were some low snaps in shotgun, too. I think part of the appeal to me though of Jared Wilson is Drake, get your hands up under his butt, get used to it the next 10 years that you guys are going to be a married couple, like you’re going to grow together. If they could somehow get on the same page with that stuff, that’d be, you know, part of the appeal to me of having a young center that he can grow with and can get used to Yeah. having his hands up there, you know? I mean, ideally he he gets a under center. Deuce talks about it. It’s a little dirty. Yeah. Having having his hands up there, get up there. Yeah. You would like to be able to go under center it. Yeah, I imagine play action advantages are palpable. They’re statistically proven. Like you’d want to be able to to do that at at least like a 25 to 30% clip. Can imagine Josh would say that our playbook will be in really limited if we’re unable to do that. Why do you think it does? Why do you think the stats do bear that out? Is it because it gives an advantage to the runner to be able to get a good look at things before he takes off or like why is it they’re Well, I think the main reason is the running back’s coming from deeper in the back field so he has a run up to the line of scrimmage whereas when he’s in the shotgun he’s starting from a stagnant stance so he’s not having See, I used to get made fun of when I talked about that. Oh, when I said that he’s starting from a dead start. Paul would make fun of me. A dead start. Yes, I did. I Well, that’s the same thing as stagnant. It’s more stagnant. Dead start, stagnant, or a dead stop. What do you think? Oh, I see. I see. Oh, this is more semantic things and not so much. It’s a Fred Paul argument. What do you think? What do you think it was? Actually, I didn’t know like like I get what Fred’s saying. That’s right. Right. But no, dead dead start. It was one of those just kind of was a funny phrase and me and Andy took notice of it and you know, you didn’t think it was anything relevant, did you? You know what I mean? We know what you mean. Behind the quarterback under center, he’s eight yards in the back field. So now Randre has eight yards of a running start into the line of scrimmage. So he’s moving a lot faster at the point of attack than he would be. But but if you’re at shotgun now the quarterback is five or six yards back and he hands it to the running back. You’re still But the running back doesn’t have a head start. Like the running back in under center is running before he even has the ball. Oh. So he’s running to the quarterback. Correct. Cuz they’re going to meet at the junction. But the other thing that’s really big is play action. Because when you’re under center, you turn around and you turn your back to the defense and you can hide the ball, right? Whereas if you’re in the shotgun, the defense can see the football. Okay? So that’s why RPOS’s became a thing. Not to go down the whole rabbit hole, but that’s So RPO’s became a thing because it teams that were gunheavy, like in college, they had to find a way to be more effective with play action from the gun because they couldn’t do it like you do it from other What about the fact that on a shotgun the ball gets to the running back faster? Well, I I mean that could I guess you could say that’s an advantage in the other direction, but I think most of the time the advantages of being under center outweigh that. Okay. I would say. All right. Especially just from like a running back perspective. And to your point, Fred, like I I can tell you pushing back, which I like. Um, obviously the things that are an advantage of being under center are not necessarily viewed as outweighing the benefits of the vast majority of teams are in shotgun more often than not. Right. Or at least a high percentage. Yes. So if there was such a big advantage, I think more teams would say, “No, we have to do this.” Right. You know, right? It’s a big advantage for the run game and play action if you want to be like a traditional play action team. Now, a lot of offenses nowadays run the pistol, which is the perfect medium. It’s right in the middle because you still have the back behind the quarterback and you can still turn and hide the ball when you turn in the pistol. So, and the pistol, you’re just closer to the center. Well, the running back is directly behind the quarterback instead of offset. Yeah. Like he is in the gun. So, like Miami is Shanahan tree, you know, Mike McDaniel. But Tua doesn’t like going under center because he’s so short. So what they do is they put Tua in the pistol. And then they run all the same actions that like Kyle Shanahan and Shawn McVey run from under center, but they run it from the pistol. So there’s just there’s different ways that you can do it. And I I’ve been clamoring for the Patriots to run more pistol because I don’t think Drake is great from under center. Is there an even better comp like the slingshot for example, like in between the pistol and under center? Oh, that has not been invented. But if you there’s the like there’s different variations of like soap with a slide, you know, ways that they they have like the side car, right, where you have like a lead blocker is offset and then the running back’s behind the quarterback and you kind have a threeman back field. You know, the the Ravens do that a lot. Uh but there’s not a slingshot. No, no sling. What a bow and arrow. No, you can invent it though. If you want to tell Josh, I maybe he’ll come up. By the way, do we ever figure out your uh no lampy today? I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. Okay. No, no Brock Lampy. No Brock Lampy. No fullback in the onen. There was some speculation from from Paul’s people from the media tent. Well, they cut him. How could they do that the day after Pats? That seems It would be It would be disappointing to say that. Uh Noah is in Toronto. He says, “I’m worried that I haven’t heard anything about the QB run game options. Do you think this is coming soon or are we going to hamstring ourselves again this year?” I just talked about it earlier that they did a ton of it today. I don’t want to give away too much, but they did it today. It’s in the back. The Jets have resigned Nick Faulk, everybody. Wow. Good for him. Except when he plays. When’s the wheel going to fall off the bus with him? I guess he’s just going to keep kicking field goals. Well, he’s on the Jets, so my guess is now. Yeah. Uh Ry’s in Providence. What’s up, Randy? Randy. Hey, how’s it going, guy? Good. Uh, so I call it I’ve got two questions for you guys regarding the position battles there. Um, Boralis versus Parker Romo. It sounds like through the reporting through the past couple days that it’s kind of lean more towards Barker Romo and I was watching the um afterpractice interview I think with Boralis the other day and it just like and maybe I’m reading into it too much or whatever but he was like oh yeah you know I got a good foot on the ball but it didn’t go in but that’s fine because I got a good foot on the ball and it just seemed to me like that’s not the result that you want. you don’t the result that you’re pursuing is three points or one point. It’s not getting a good foot on the ball. And sometimes you got to, you know, like anticipate those sorts of things. And again, not to get into the minutia of kicking, but like it just didn’t seem like there was a lot of uh lot of caring about the result from him. I I sort of understand that though, Randy, because like kicking is it’s it’s almost like a golf swing. like it’s repetitive stroke and you just want the stroke to look exactly the same and you want your routine to be exactly the same. So like if you’re having a rep repetitive stroke then the results usually come. It’s when like one time you you know you’re leaning this way, one time you’re leaning that way, that’s when Thanks. the shanks start to happen. I think what he’s basically telling you is I feel like if I hit it like this a 100 times I’m going to make 95 of them. Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s going to happen. It’s I think the golf analogy is a perfect one. I’ve done that a million times as a hacker. I might be, you know, 150 yards and I hit my iron and I hit it flush and I, you know, I just hit it a little bit left of the green or right of the green. I’m like, yeah, I’m I’m okay with that. I’m not on the green. That’s what I was trying to do. But I hit it the way I normally want to hit it. And I think if I hit it like that every time, more often than not, it’s going to go on the green. And I bet you that’s what he meant is if I hit him like that all the time, more often than not, we’re going to be happy. I always hear the golf and when you hear talk to special teams coordinators and stuff, they always use golf. It’s just a repetitive swing. You want the stroke to look exactly the same every single time. And that those are the best kickers. The best kickers, they don’t change. Even if they’re kicking from like 60 like and they’re trying to hit it’s But isn’t there a change in trajectory though? If you’re going longer, you need to kind of drive it a little bit more maybe. But like you can’t hit it as high the leg swing they and the steps and the the whole process of getting the ball off the ground. They want to keep it the same. Okay. Now to Ry’s um you know initial concern, I would say it’s you know I small C. Um I do think Romo has been a little bit better. We talked about this earlier in the show. Um and there have been times where I haven’t felt Boragawa hit it quote unquote the way you know I don’t think he got a good foot on every one of these misses. you know, to use Boragalis’s terminology, I think he’s struggled a little bit with that golf swing trying to get there. Like, I don’t know how close, you know, we can actually see, but when he had those when the ball just didn’t look right coming off, was the placement of the ball, right? You know, like I don’t know. A lot goes into it. Yeah, I know. But it’s that like 10 to four, you know, that that sideways kind of spin. No, I know what you’re saying. It looks like a knuckle ball sometimes. But I just don’t get the jump. Like I don’t think any of his balls look like that in college. Like is it the different ball or I I don’t know. It could be. It could be, you know, or like I said take an adjustment to kick, you know, laces out, all that type of stuff. Is it a little bit, you know, left to right? I never hear much. I mean, I’ve worked here for six years now. I’ve never really heard much about the change in ball from college. Well, for no, from college to to the pros, and it is the Duke, it’s a bigger ball. Yeah. Is is the college ball a little fatter? It’s shorter and fatter. They’re basically the same size, but they’re Yeah, a little bit different. The consistency is different. It’s shorter and fatter in college. You’re looking for a consistent stroke. I’m sorry. Yeah. I don’t know where that came from. Well, it’s just it affects you’re going to have a consistent stroke to a short fat one. It’s not. Wow. I was going to say something serious, too. But yeah, pros are longer. Sorry that I let myself down that way. They’re just longer. I did. That’s exactly how I was feeling. Like I really just No, listen. Size matters. Okay. All right. Well, it does. And not enough players talk about like, you know, all of a sudden, like I can’t imagine going from college hockey to pro hockey and the puck’s a little bit longer now. Like I mean all of a sudden I had this great snapshot and now it kind of comes off the stick funny and I mean it’s like the three it’s like the three-point line in basketball in college. It’s shorter in the NBA. Get used to it. But but people never really talk about like the ball’s a little weird for me. I got to adjust. No one ever says that. I agree with you. You don’t hear a lot of people talk about the point where I was about to bring this up two seconds ago. I had to like do mental inventory like the ball is different. Maybe we should get Bory Alice in here. We’ll ask Jeremy Springer. What do you like is short and fat or the the long? They changed the college ball. Maybe it’s not different anymore. Now, I do remember in those Friday press conferences last year with Jeremy Springer where there would be like five of us, you know, people that actually stay for the special teams coach. And he uh congratulations. He he actually talked about the different holds. Like there are different holds. Yeah. And certain kickers depending on the conditions and stuff like that. the the way that the po the ball is literally pointed and held can be different. And I know it sounds silly and like I’m making excuses for him, but like there’s a chance that him and Bearinger are still in the lab like trying to figure out exactly how he likes the ball to be held. Distance matters, wind conditions matter, the the surface sometimes matters on the field. Uh so like these things do factor into all this. Where’s Bar when you need him? And uh I I was expecting him just to magically appear like I dream of genie like smoke and then he’s like is someone talking kicking. It’s funny though it’s Alex. As much as like we all just kind of write all this stuff off like they’re that’s the special teams coach like this is their job and so like like any job they know all the minutiae of like all the details of the different holds and all this kind of stuff. So maybe maybe that’s it. So, I just did a quick Google search and they are roughly the same. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, college footballs are generally within the same length and circumference ranges of NFL footballs, but can vary more due to different manufacturers. Okay. Um, and it talks about, you know, it’s 27 to 28 and a half um around. They got the stripe. Maybe that look makes it look shorter. I like the stripe. I like the stripe. I do like the stripe, too. I do too. Pop. Whenever I buy a backyard football, I’m looking. I’m going the weight, the pressure, it’s roughly roughly the same spiral a little bit better with the stripe, you know. Uh Eldred’s on the line. What’s up, Eldred? Big E. There we go. Hey, folks. How y’all doing? All right. Hey, uh saw something on the report yesterday. Uh I know I’m late getting to the show, but how bad is Gonzo? And they said that Pope showed out a little bit. So, I’m like, uh here we go again. Well, Gonzo, according to the reports, uh it it’s a hamstring. It won’t threaten his availability for the season, but they’re going to just take it easy on him right now and and let him rest. But it’s nothing major. It’s it is a hamstring hamstring tweak according to Jordan Schulz. So, just three minutes ago, Karen Grigian, I’m told the Patriots aren’t sure how long top corner Christian Gonzalez will be out with a hamstring injury. They’re just taking it quote day by day. Yeah. So day by day for him and then Poke I don’t know if catching a pass is showing out. Poke I mean there’s there is no scenario that you could say Pulk has been showing out. He’s back on the practice field the last two days which is a really positive sign for him just getting back into it, right? Yeah. No, I mean he caught one pass yesterday and I think one pass with the twos today. Yeah, the touchdown that he caught was as schemed open as you can possibly be here. It was very similar for people that didn’t see it. The touchdown that he caught last year in Chicago. Yeah, actually he had a good catch though. I don’t know. It was a catch for sure. Seemed like he thought it was a catch, but the far end zone back left like it was I I don’t know. It was Oh, the one where he jumped out of bounds. See, I didn’t I nitpicked that one because that was the play that Drake was extending. You know, he was running around and Poke ran himself out of bounds. Like all of a sudden, like you’re trying to get open for your guy and you know, the sideline becomes the second defender on you. Like move to where there’s more space. He He just ran out of room. Yeah, I came to it late. I But I thought maybe he was open. He seemed like he thought he was open. I’m with you, D. Touchdown. I mean, it should have been. There were two occasions last year where he insisted. I don’t know what you’re talking about, too. I I didn’t want to go. Are you talking about the one we were talking about together where Oh, you could get me there. Are we were talking about the one we all talked about together where we were like, “Oh, that was out of bounds.” Yeah. No, it was out of bounds. That was clearly out of bounds. I know. We were joking about the the two feet. It wasn’t even close. Even I shot heel toe. Heel toe. I guess I don’t know. Tohill. Uh, Emry’s in Virginia. What’s Emory? What’s up, Emory? Good. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Hey, you guys are doing an amazing job keeping us Pat fans informed with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thank you. Really thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. I love it. Hey, listen. I I need I need your update from your optics. Not not not what just what the uh the uh reporters are saying, the other uh people who are covering the pass, but your optics as far as the linebackers and the DBs, which include both the corners and safeties. Tell tell me what you’re seeing. I I would greatly appreciate it. Okay, Emory, you’re looking for the uh optics of the back end of the defense, the back eight or whatever you want to call it. We’ve seen Splain and Christian Ellis paired together a lot as sort of like the top inside linebacker duo and Splain’s not surprising, but no TV in these practices. He’s been out. So that might contribute a little bit to Ellis being so involved, but I feel like those two guys have been pretty locked in there as the top two inside linebackers with maybe like a little bit of Jack Gibbons every once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I mean on the safety it’s a lot of Duggar and Peppers, but a lot of rotation going on back there. Uh giving guys like Jaylen Hawkins a chance. Marcus Eps thought Marcus Eps made a nice play today in coverage on one of those reps. I’d say, you know, Craig Woodson hasn’t really entered that conversation yet, which something to watch. Hasn’t entered the chat. Yeah, it hasn’t entered the chat yet that top unit, but it like I said, I think last show, a lot of rotation going on in the back. seems like they’re looking for what the how the best three fit, but they clearly seem to understand that Peppers and and Duggar play well when they’re close to the line. You know, I I mentioned that, you know, show me what goes on in the joint practice and I’ll be able to come up with a little bit more informed opinions. But Friday night’s in stadium practice for Foxboro residents and season ticket members, we’re told, will be more like a scrimmage, like an actual scrimmage or like a procedural. Well, that’s the thing. We’ve been conditioned because Bill, I think out of spite kind of made those in stadium practices glorified walkthroughs. Like they’d be in uniform, but it was no more than a walk through. It was more about knowing what I’ve I heard that this might be more like a scrimmage. Well, I think might have said something to somebody on the radio maybe if I I I thought I saw that. It might have been serious or something. Oh, maybe it was to the to the Pat cuz like a lot of times these are like like you said and it’s like you know relaying things from the sideline and substitution patterns and like making sure that game day operation which is fine. You got to do that. But do you think it’ll be like any different than say yesterday was in terms of like the intensity level I’m not talking about exactly what they do but I mean oh like are we going to kick off and we’re going to start I don’t think we’re going to get anybody tackled. Yeah. Which is kind of what they did though. Don’t they usually do that? Like they do a kickoff and they kind I mean they don’t go full speed through it but it was well they stop. Yeah. Like they don’t return it. That’s probably the only difference is that it will be My guess is we’re not going to get any tackling. No live to the ground. Yeah. I think it’s going to be just like practice. I think it’s which is good that to Fred’s point it’s a step up from what Bill used to do. It’s like they did last year though. I think that with Rael though that there could be an a competitive element to it. And I’m not saying that means tackling but maybe just a little bit more let’s make it a little bit of a game. But I I think that the pace will be the same, but it will be more controlled of, you know, kickoffs and and you know, the stuff we always thought was like, and this is where you stand for the national anthem, and then you go over here, and then at halftime, we go out this door. You know, it’s one of those things, Freddy, like we we’ve seen a million of these. You know it when you see it. Oh, that that’s a little different than what they normally do. You’ll be able to tell. You would like to see like cuz we haven’t really gotten to like it’s first and 10 from the 25. We’re going to put the ball down. We’re going to put everybody to the side. the coaches aren’t going to coach. We’re just going to let it run. We’re going to blare the music. Like, if that happens on Friday night, that would be different. And if it’s incomplete, does it go second and 10 or do they move it where it was supposed to move? Right. Right. You know, that’s the kind of stuff. Yep. Uh Williams and Phillum, what’s up, Will? Hey. Hey, Fred. How you doing? All right. Okay. Uh congratulations, Evan. Thank you. Thank you. Uh just keep the wife happy, right? I’ll try. Oh, he is. It’s hard this time of year, but I’ve tried. Right. Um, here’s just a question, and I talked to Evan about this before, so I’ll say, um, you got the quarterback, God willing, you got the tackle, God willing, but you know, we’re missing. And, um, I talked to you about a certain receiver and I’m on his train until that meantime. I know he it’s going to be like about two years when he come out, but Evan know who I’m talking about. Talking about Jeremiah Smith. Oh jeez. Yes, sir. Dude, if the Patriots are drafting high enough to draft Jeremiah Smith in two years, he’s still he’s 14 though. He’s got a little while 27 draft in Washington DC. I know. I know. We only in 2025. I get it. But it’s just making sense though because of how we’re trying to get number one. And it’s been so long since we had one. Yeah. And it just it just makes sense to me. I don’t know. It makes sense, but I hope we’re not in a position to get, believe it or not. If we are, if we’re pick we’re picking number one overall if we’re drafting Jeremiah Smith, right? At least right now. Yeah. So, like if Yeah. I don’t want to be that bad where he’s No, not bad. Not bad. But far as like us trading up to get him though. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like say we got all the pieces and everything hopefully and we go ahead and make that big deal. You know, we always trade back but we never trade up. It’s been a while, you know. I mean, we’re talking about a for a non-quarterback like an all-time package to get Jeremiah Smith. Like, he’s right. It’s not just the season that he had last year at Ohio State. Like, he’s been on the radar since he was like 16. Like, you know, like he’s been ready for the NFL for like three years. So, it’s not just that he had the great year last year at Ohio State. You know, he’s a generational talent. You might need the Burough Chase thing to happen. That’s where my my my concept Thanks, William. That’s where my concept of future picks, being able to future pick a guy and giving up your first round pick, no matter what happens, you’ve lost it. To be able to say two years from now, they could have draft they could have drafted him instead of Will Campbell this year and stashed him for they could have taken Baby Grank in the third round and like, “Hey, just wait.” Um, David Maine says, “Have you guys seen any reps with Strange at center and Wilson at guard? Strange did okay at center last year. Could you see that being the best five? I have. No, I don’t. I I think that experiment’s over, but but Wilson Yes. Wilson at left guard and center. Yep. So, we haven’t seen Strange at center at all? No. No. Not Not one snap. Interesting. They’ve had uh Bradbury, Ben Brown, Jared Wilson. Yeah. I said to Evan, too, like I just I like Ben Brown’s size. I don’t know if he’s really even in the mix or the conversation for that spot, but I just think I’d like I like the idea of having a big center with so many tough big interior guys and our recent history of guys on skates getting pushed back into the pocket. There is a there’s a chance. Are you talking about a certain retired? No, nobody retired. Okay. maybe towards the there’s a sliver of a chance that it’s Jared Wilson and Ben Brown as the backup center. I’m not saying that we’re there yet, but that is Do you think they might release Bradberry? There’s a sliver. I do not think that that is much of a possibility. Just a sliver. Okay. Destiny from Maryland writes in, “Have you guys heard how Taekquin is lighting it up at Chief’s training camp?” Oh, apparently he’s been running with the first team offense and the Chiefs fans are gushing. I love to see the downfall of other fans. Okay, let’s let’s But I do wish he pans out. We have to teach you a lesson about Taekwon Thornton. This is what he does in this is what he shines. This is when he shines. It’s non-patted practices and stuff. It’s nobody gets hands on him. He’s nobody’s going to actually like press him or be physical with him this time of year. And the 42 comes out and he just is b like last year he was he was mossing Christian Gonzalez last year in these early practices. This is the Taekquin experience. I’ve been duped. Don’t don’t get duped Kansas City. Don’t get duped. Well maybe you know what third fourth year. Is this his fourth year in the league? Fourth year. Fourth year jump maybe. Wow. Very common fourth year jump. Life comes at you fast. New new environment, new setting, fresh start. Who knows? Maybe he put some pounds on in the right places. I’ve never heard that before about Taekwon. No. Oh, he gained 15 pounds of muscle in the off season. Different guy. Fred’s rooting for him. Same. Sure. Uh Melbourne. Oh, really? He’s on another team. Jake and Melbourne. Apologies if it’s always already been mentioned, but what has the backup five on the O line been? Or has it been too mixed up? I can tell you what it was today. Yeah, it was Marcus Bryant, Kaden Wallace, Jared Wilson, City. So and Trey Jacobs left to right. That was your second group today. By the way, City So had some good one-on- ones. He had one city so had the best one-on-one I saw yesterday. He absolutely destroyed Farmer. Yeah. Just Joshua Farmer ragdonaldled it. Yeah. Still doesn’t seem like he’s getting a sniff at at left guard yet, though. It’s weird like him and Leen Robinson are both repping at right guard and it’s like I get you need to have a backup, but like if they’re not going to if they’re not going to swing, if you’re not going to have if you’re not going to be able to multiple positions like you can’t you can’t be a oneposition backup on the especially exactly what Wilson said yesterday one of the days this week especially on the interior. So like at some point they’re going to have to throw them in they if they have real like hopes of them making the team then they’re going to have to throw them in at left guard and see if can they hold up on both sides so that they can be a backup on game day. Otherwise you’re one position backup which you don’t want to be. All right we’re going to end it a little early today. I’ve got some things I’ve got to do. Uh I’m busy. But uh appreciate everyone watching, listening. Uh tomorrow we’ll be back at our normal time. No, uh 1:00 tomorrow, right? We’ll start at 1:00 again tomorrow. No, tomorrow’s Wednesday. No show tomorrow. I’m sorry. Catch 22. Catch 22. 2 to 4, I believe. That’s correct. 2 to 4. A little bit after two because Bart’s busy. So, you know, a little after. Maybe like 2:15. Got to write down all the punting times. It’s sparse world we’re all just living in. He’s got he’s got to talk to Zo about practice. We’ll let everyone know. Okay. So, uh, catch 22 tomorrow and then we’ll be back on Thursday. See you then. Hey, this is Deuce. Thanks for tuning in to the show. If you really want to help us, make sure you like us wherever you get your podcast like Apple Podcast or Spotify. Also, make sure you follow us on the New England Patriots YouTube channel to see this show and everything else that we do here at the Patriots. Thanks a lot. Heat. Heat.

Watch as the PU crew offer their key observations though six days of Patriots Training Camp. Plus, an interview with DT Khyiris Tonga.

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