Patriots crush the Titans, and Drake Maye continues to put the league on notice

Patriots crush the Titans, and Drake Maye continues to put the league on notice

Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome into Tom Current’s Patriots Talk podcast. It is the aftermath of a 31-13 Patriots win in Tennessee. Phil Perry alongside the senator makes note of the fact that the Patriots are now 5-2 and in command of the second seed in the American Football Conference. A lot of talk on our postgame show about the idea that the Patriots are the second best team in the AFC. Michael Holly led that charge. Phil co-signed, as they like to say. I said, who gives a It’s the middle of October. Second best team in the AFC. Best team in the AFC, ninth best team. All it is is a checkpoint, but it’s an important one nonetheless. No one cares where you are. What we care about is how you’re playing. And this Patriots team, Phil, after this 31-13 win, is playing at an unparalleled clip compared to what we anticipated, especially the quarterback. No doubt about it. For Drake May to be as efficient as he was, my goodness. I mean, over 90% completions, Tom. He’s now had three games, over 80% completions, which no Patriots quarterback has ever done in a single season. Not even Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. So it it’s remarkable just how accurate he has been. We know he has the athleticism. We know he can push the ball down the field, but the accuracy has really been astounding. And you saw it on a variety of throws today down the field. You know what, 18, excuse me, 18 for 88 for uh a 4.9 average was Randre Stevenson. I’m looking at a different stat. I want to talk about the 21 for 23 for 222 with two touchdowns. twos everywhere for Drake May. And another stat that I unearthed during the game was the fact that May since week one, throw the Raiders game, 30 for 46 out, which is still pretty good clip. He was 76% completions from weeks 2 through six. Now weeks 2 through 7, he’s 78 completion percentage, 122 for 156 since the second week of the season against Miami. I still am confounded as to how a guy who came out of North Carolina with some wonky mechanics and a brilliant arm, but still fundamentals that needed work, who had it stripped down last April. By August, he was improved. He was a little jumpy sometimes last year. He was a little jumpy at times during training camp. He was a little jumpy in week one, a little jumpy in week three, and now I’ll fix. I’ll fix. It’s bizarre. It is bizarre. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around because we really haven’t seen a quarterback improve at this rate. He’s gone from he hasn’t gone from a little bit inaccurate to much improved. He’s gone from a little bit inaccurate to virtually freaking perfect. In these games where they’re winning, Tom, he he doesn’t turn it over either. So, it feels like he he’s making good decisions and yet he’s still aggressive. It’s a deadly combination when you’re as accurate as he is. So, for him to be able to prevent throwing the ball to the other team while still attacking down the field on a regular basis with a group of receivers who are re not really known as down the field receivers to receivers who quite frankly don’t often create a ton of separation. There are some metrics out there that would suggest they’re they’re getting open. And I don’t want to say that they’re not because they have performed beyond my expectation too. receiver group as a whole. But think about some of the best throws Drake May has made. These guys are smothered in coverage. Whether it’s Stefon Diggs today along the left sideline, uh Austin Hooper in the end zone today, Kahan Booty in the end zone last week. It feels like he trusts these players and he’s able to attack them at will and still prevent turnovers. Here’s Mike Frabel throwing some platit which was something he was hesitant to do earlier in this season. And here’s Drake May on his performance. I think there’s an uh I think there’s an athleticism to him that’s really really cool. I think he’s really accurate from all different spots, whether it’s in the pocket, off platform. I mean, he’s really done a nice job so far and spreading the football around. Um but there there’s an accuracy to him that uh that’s been really good for us. I don’t know if you’re aware of this. You set the Patriots record for all time completion percentage in the game. Just two incompletions in the game. Uh 21 to 23. What is your reaction to to that? Yeah, I left some out there that I end up running that I could have could have thrown. Um I think I I tucked it a couple times when I shouldn’t have and I think you need to get the backside of the progression more, but uh yeah, I think I’m trying to be careful with the football and and trying to challenge it down the field and not just be a um you know, check down Charlie. So, just trying to throw to the guys that’s open and they’re making great great plays. Phil, let’s play uh Drake May’s favorite throw, the game, the video game. I like the third and eight throw down the middle of the field to Stefon Diggs for a gain of 24 yards, followed closely by the next play on which he hit on a slant M. Hollands with a nice throw. Your turn. My favorite throw was the down the left sideline to Stfan Diggs in the third quarter where he just floated it. Diggs was very tightly covered. It felt like Diggs gave some late hand, some Randy Moss late hands, which you’ve described to us on the podcast before. Doesn’t give the defensive back an opportunity to get his hand in there. So, great catch, but you could not have handed it to Diggs in a better spot. and he’s throwing it 15 yards or so down the field and just showed that touch too, right? He’s got the ability to laser it in there like that throw to Diggs. And he was wide open on that one. There really wasn’t that many uh bodies anywhere close to him. But boy, the touch is almost equally as impressive as the arm strength. And I wonder if you feel now that I ask you to analyze it better about that digs throw than you do about the honey hole throw to M. Hollands down the right sideline. I believe he also had a honey hole throw a couple weeks ago to was it Diggs down the right side? It was Kanan Booty at the end of that Buffalo game. Booty. And he also had a back shoulder throw on the other side to Booty to seal the Saints game last week. He did. That’s right. And he had an contested touchdown throw to Booty against Miami. And he had the deep throw to Booty today and the Hooper throw that you mentioned. I just didn’t think I would be here with a 5-2 Patriots team that had won three straight on the road. that was rolling up over 30 points in three of their games when they could barely crest 20 the last couple of years and be talking about all the unbelievably the unbelievable variety of throws. And you know what? I know there’s a lot of people out there, well, not a lot, just a loud bunch of um individuals who go, “Yeah, you didn’t think he could play. You’re not welcome on the Drake May bus.” No. Okay. If you thought he was going to make all these throws by week seven, I don’t believe you. I’m going to leave it at that. Okay. Trying to be nicer. So, it is uh it’s astounding to see that kind of improvement. What is also interesting is to see this wide receiver group, which we have both taken turns hammering over the years, um playing at the level they do. Why are they performing at this level because we’ve seen Dvonte Parker and Juju Smith Schustster and Nikquille Harry and Jaylen Pulk and any number of players just not be able to run out, turn around, complete the catch. Is the protection better? Is the offensive coordinator better? Is the wide receivers’s coach better? Are the players better? Is the quarterback better? What’s There has to be a reason. And I think it might be one of those unmeasurables, which is they’re just on a high. They run a route. They run it with confidence knowing that they might get the ball because of the distribution. And they know that they’re going to run it with confidence because their quarterback’s going to put it there. So, you can make money as in your profession if you run your route the right way and be ready because it’s probably going to be an accurate throw. I would agree with that. I also would just say yes. Yes. Yes. And yes to all the reasons you laid out. The protection is better. The quarterback’s better. The coaching they’re getting is better. And so you add it all up. I think one other thing I would add, and this is part of coaching, it feels like these receivers are being used to maximize their skill sets. So guys aren’t miscast. Guys aren’t miscast. You’re not asking, you know, Kahan Booty to be the guy on every third down, but he can be the guy down the field in contested situations. He can be the guy outside the numbers. M. Collins can be a guy who, you know, works his way into the game almost as a blocker. He’s a physical presence. There was a Roman Stevenson run today where it felt like he picked up four yards at the end of it just because Matt Collins got into the the scrum and just shoved him forward for three or four yards. Um, but you can use him in a variety of different ways. You can use Stefon Diggs to be your go-to guy in critical downs. You can use Pop Douglas, you know, he made a big- time catch over the middle today with one hand on fourth down. Uh, but I think they’re still trying to figure out the best way to use him. I still think it might be further down the field. I I that’s that’s what’s interesting to me is And then you throw in Henry and Hooper. Henry and Hooper in the red zone, you know, over the middle of the field. Like he has confidence going to all of these players. So you feel like between all of them, you have just about every blade of grass covered in terms of, okay, we can attack this area with him. we can attack this area with this guy on this down in this situation with this much time on the clock and if you only had two or three guys that you kind of had confidence in which I don’t even know if it was that many over the course of the last few years here Tom you’re just running a much more tentative type of passing attack and right now it doesn’t feel tentative at all. Yeah, I think that’s a really good uh observation which is ma one of the main reasons you were hired and then you’ve done so well in the profession is you make these good observations that I say good observation that might be the best point. The roles are defined so you don’t have you know pop Douglas trying to be an X or Stefon Diggs feeling as if I need to go out and have 11 catches. How come I don’t have 11 catches? These guys stink. They don’t know what they’re doing. None of that. and the accuracy with which May is distributing the ball. I mean, it’s it’s really interesting and I think that’s a really good point by you because they’ve already established, all right, this is the set of plays that Booty does really well and he knows he does them well. So, if he executes them, he’s going to expect the ball and Drake will get him the ball on those plays. That’s where the coverage will dictate. So, great point by you once again. Let’s stick with the offense a little bit and talk about the running game. We’ll talk about the verbal stuff in a minute. Interesting, but not important. The running game, Raandre Stevenson, 18 carries, 88 yards. Here’s Stevenson speaking about the confidence that he felt running and making big gains early in the game. And also Mike Vrabel on the running game being established a little bit on Sunday. If you run the ball, you know, well, four or five yards a carry and things like that, it’s definitely gives you confidence. uh you know, two carries for five yards, that’s first down. So, yeah, we love we love those four or five yard runs. Well, again, it’s not just the running back. And again, we we say the running back doesn’t do a good job and we got to run it better, but we got blocked better and I felt like there were some running lanes and when there weren’t, we were able to to stick it downhill and be able to uh push some piles. We had some some double- digit runs, we had some dirty runs. Uh it was great to see us finish there at the end. Uh, so I think it’s always a combination and we took care of the football and that’s really the formula and and they and they made a mistake there that we were able to capitalize on. Phil, is this a harbinger of things to come? It could be. I think you have to I think you have to understand the context of of a performance like this one, which is Tennessee played the vast majority of this game without its best defensive player who happens to be a 300lb defensive lineman who plays on all three downs and is a monster against the run as he is against the pass and Jeffrey Simmons. Injured his hamstring early in the game and that was it. So, you know, let’s see how it looks against a team that really can bow up as you like to say against the run, but you’ve got to take it if you’re the Patriots. They have been starved for run game efficiency and I think it did help. There were a couple although it wasn’t wasn’t as though it was uh the Patriots reigning playaction passes down on the heads of the Tennessee Titans, but there were a few. One of them was uh Matt Collins throw over the middle where it was under center play action fake. Every linebacker I felt like there were four of them on the field. All four second level defenders come up near the line of scrimmage to defend the run because they had been averaging about five yards or more per carry. And M. Holland is wide open in the middle of the field for a first down. So, you know, that’s the kind of thing you’re going to have available to you if you can run it a little bit more efficiently. It felt like the offensive line was really creating a good initial push, Tom, because these runs were not these were not gadget runs and they were not wide zone runs. I thought they might incorporate more of those this week. These were downhill, up the gut, duo, inside zone, mid zone, like they were going at the Titans. And Raandre Stevenson, credit to him, I thought was patient, protected the ball, found open running lanes, ran through contact. This was his best game for me maybe since week one of last year where they beat the Bengals and I remember being in that locker room after the fact and Remandre Stevenson had a huge smile on his face because under this, you know, at the time new coaching staff, he was thinking he was going to have the year of his career based on how much they wanted to lean on that run game. Didn’t work out that way. No. But if he can continue to perform the way he did today, he’s going to have a good rest of 2025. Let’s go in depth for a quick second on the running game. Patriots first possession, they’re actually down three to nothing. Um they get the ball with 1220 left in the first quarter at their own 35. Stevenson for eight. Stevenson for 14. Stevenson for eight. Stevenson for eight. Now it’s first and 10 at the 27. And the Patriots run a little gadget um push pass to Deario Douglas who looked like he thought he was going to get run into by Stevenson. Did you notice a little There was a there was an odd timing element to that play. Stevenson I think was running a read option fake to the right and I think that Pop thought he was going to get run into so he kind of slowed down. So they get no gain on that play. You’re going to sit there at home and say, “Why’ they just monkey around with what they were doing there? They just gained 60 yards on four carries and now they’re running a pop pass.” But if you wanted to criticize Josh McDaniels on the next play, Drake may bailed him out. 11 yard scramble, which is something you’ve pointed out. This is one of the things that McDaniels, excuse me, that May does for McDaniels. McDaniels does plenty for May. May could do plenty for McDaniels by bailing him out. Scramble gains 11. So, you’re a business still. Now, it’s first and 10 of the 16. Stevenson gets four. From there, the Patriots decided to throw twice. There was a chase out of bounds that was recorded as a sack and also a sack. What do you do if you’re Josh McDaniels in that situation? What do you say if you’re a fan or a media member? Do you say, you know what, you really just ran that thing into the bridge abutman or do you say, you know what, you have to show a little bit of versatility here? You do. I I I probably would lean more towards that second thing. As fun as it is to watch, and I’m sure if we had David Andrew sitting here with us, classic offensive lineman, he would love to run under center downhill runs 50 times a game, especially when they’re having eight yard, 14 yard, 8 yard, eight yard levels of success. But I know what McDaniels was trying to do with that pop pass, right? Like we’re we’re hammering them up the gut. and they are eventually going to continue to especially if we send Stephvenson in a different direction just sort of mosy toward that guy based on the amount of success we’re having let’s try to hit him for a big one on the outside and it doesn’t work so it looks bad if it doesn’t work um but I I do think you at some point I mean four plays in a row almost the same thing little different you know window dressing they had a fullback on the field for one uh they had a jet motion for another uh before giving it to Stevenson. So, four plays in a row of basically the same kind of concept is kind of a lot. I mean, I guess you could keep trying it until it stops working. Um, I just think it was important for them to have any level of success whatsoever on that because now Stephvenson will have more confidence. I think it’s been clear that he’s been a guy who has lacked confidence at times this year, but maybe a game like that one where he’s able to get in the end zone as well just helps them overall as a as a run offense moving forward. And you’re going to want that run offense next week, Tom, because as bad as the Browns may be, they do have a guy by the name of Miles Garrett on the other side. We’re going to have plenty of time to talk about him this week. You’re not going to want to drop back to pass 30 times against Cleveland next week is my guess. Who else do they have at their running back position, Phil? The Browns have Quinn Sean Judkins. Who? Quinn Sean Judkins. Oh, no. He’s not going to do it. Um, we Tom and I, the background of that is every time I don’t know if I’m am I the only one. Every time I hear Quinn Sean Judkins name, even going back to before the draft, I was constantly thinking of Leroy Jenkins. Who can blame you? And there’s probably plenty of listeners who don’t know the Leroy Chick have no idea what we’re talking about reference. And that’s understandable if you don’t have kids of a certain age or if you’re not a certain age, you might not know this, but it’s a video game. The hell was it? It was uh Worlds of Warcraft. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re setting up a little plan. You can hear the kids on their little headsets talking about a strategy and they’re putting all everything together and then all of a sudden he goes, “Whatever. Here comes Leroy.” Yeah. You got to you got to just you got to you got to Google. It’s like a two and a half minute video. Just Google Leroy. give you a good chuckle. You might chuckle, you might not. You might go, “You know what? I don’t even like these guys. I listen to their podcast and now they’re wasting my time making me go Google things.” Giving me homework. Jeez. Sorry. Sorry. But back to run game, you mentioned. And when we say run game, that’s because when we used to do uh pre and postgame with Gerrod Mayo and he was not in the uh football industry, every time he saw a run play, he would sit there and go right before the run, you go run game, meaning for run game. So when you hear us say run game, that’s why that is uh the fact that May is able to bail out McDaniels, for lack of a better word, or to cover up McDaniels, it is a symbiotic relationship between these guys because McDaniels has done so much for May. You can’t say that he improved in a bubble. Um but those plays on which May protects him and one of Here’s the point I was trying to make. I just filibustered all the runs. I think for the first time yielded a major impact in the passing game today and it was pointed out by Jason McCordi, Charles Davis and the crew on how much they were sucking up on play action today which made for some extremely easy down the middle of the field throws for Drake May. No question. And I I think whether it’s May’s ability to scramble or their ability to run in this game, you know, that does help moving forward. You put that on tape, right? So, it has an impact in that specific game, but now you’ve put it on tape that, hey, if we don’t if we don’t do certain things against the run, they, you know, Stephvenson’s running like a different guy than he was three weeks ago. You know, that’s probably the kind of thing you’re saying if you’re a defensive coach talking to the Browns or whoever the opponent is after a game like that one. So, they do have threats in the running game, and I think that was important for them to show at some point, and they were able to show it today. It felt like to me because they were so runheavy early in the game and Drake May spoke to this after the fact. It felt like he really didn’t even though it’s one of our first takeaways now after the game. Boy, how efficient was Drake May. He really wasn’t into the game until their third offensive drive and he scrambles. They start under center and he scramles for 19 yards but takes a pretty significant hit moving at a pretty high rate of speed. Has to swap his helmet. gets back on the field and that’s like when he caught fire. I mean, you’d had a few more downhill runs from Ramanz Raandre, excuse me, Stevenson, but Drake May took a shot on one play in the pocket and found Kahan Booty on kind of a change up. Remember that one Booty had to sort of sit there and wait for then that then came the honey hole shot to M. Collins and then came the touchdown to Austin Hooper and it felt like, you know, he was off and running at that point. Do you think that the Patriots should have taken Drake May out earlier? I don’t I like to see them play, but I feel like this is a kind of thing that Felgger or Maz would love to discuss or Jones and Keefe just, you know, and I get it. I do because he’s the franchise and you you’d almost rather lose a game than lose him to injury, right? if you feel like for whatever reason he’s just not able to protect himself or they’re not able to protect him, I do think that is something that it won’t get lost because we’ll dig deeper into this as the week goes on and you and I will pod uh later in the week for the linear version of the Patriots talk podcast television, but I didn’t think it was the world’s greatest game from the offensive line. I mean, Drake May ended up having eight carries, eight scrambles. I think a good number of those are probably because he was feeling pressure. He ended up being sacked, I think, four times in the game. Um, yeah, he got whacked around. I wondered if it was that today than he has all season. Really? I think so because, you know, he takes that hit in the second half, the first drive of the second half where he has to come off the field and go through the concussion protocol. Tom, I counted I counted five hits that he took after that. Corner blitz. Hit with a corner blitz. Ended up um fumbling on another uh sack. There were multiple scrambles where he’s he’s hitting the ground and you’re just watching the replay to see if his head is has touched the turf because that’s really all that mattered at that point in the game. It felt like the game was over and he took five more hits after leaving the game. He his head wobbles a lot. He’s got to figure out a way to fall so his head doesn’t keep snapping back. He’s like Mertton Hanks out there. For those of you who remember the 1995 or so San Francisco 49ers, you can Google that as well. Merin Hanks. um chicken dance, goose dance, whatever. Just had absolutely no vertebrae. Iconic. Iconic. But I I it was really Tom, it was it was the start of the fourth quarter. Their third offensive drive of the second half began late third quarter, ended early fourth quarter. And I have it in my notes here. Third and 12. Takes a shot twisted down awkwardly. Little slow to get member. And I have it in my notes here. Should he be in? And I still I’ll answer my own question. I still say yes because there’s too much time left in the game. There’s over I think there was over 10 minutes left in the game at this point. I’ll have to go back and check. But I know three scores feels like a lot. We’ve seen crazier things happen in the NFL. So to me, I don’t blame them for keeping him in even though it’s a three-score game in the fourth quarter. Gritty, gutty performance by Joshua Dobs too to make a completion. Um so there were a lot of fun plays that are off the beaten path that we’re not going to get to here. Um, you watch the game, you watch the postgame, we talked all about him, so we’re not going to go in depth, but that was a cool play by Dobs getting that there. That was a great throw. Um, also cool play by Deario Douglas. We could do the cool play of the game. We’re not going to do that. Um, I do want to before we wrap it up here and get ready for tomorrow’s pod and all our columns that we have to do for NBC Sports Boston. Um, I do want to make mention of the Patriots upcoming schedule and the AFC. They got the Browns, Falcons, Bucks. That might be the toughest stretch of the season going for the rest. It absolutely is. It’s the toughest threeame stretch they’ll see. Hold on now. They go Browns, Falcons, Bucks, then they go Jets, Bengals, Giants. Then they go Bills, Ravens, Jets. Okay. Okay. So, they’re Hold on now. Hold on now. Giants, Bills, Ravens. Giants are pluckucky. Giants are pluckucky. Giants are playing as we speak right now, but they’re plucky. All right, that’s that could be a tough if Lamar Jackson’s back, that’s a tough three games. The AFC is just a mess. Um Patriots are 5-2, Buffalo losers of two straight. Miamiy’s trash, beyond trash. The Jets are also beyond trash. Um and that’s in your division. They’re a combined 1 and 13. Pittsburgh ain’t so freaking good. They just lost to Cincinnati, which is three-4. Cleveland’s two-5. Baltimore is one and five. Colts are five- one and beating up on the Chargers, who we thought might be good, but they’re going to be four and three before the day is over. Jacksonville stinks. They lost. Houston still not playing any good. Tennessee sucks. Kansas City getting its little renaissance on. Raiders suck. Thanks, M. Um, but if you look at this, the teams the Patriots are playing, you cannot contrive to put together a better mix of teams. And Buffalo still has to play a first place schedule. And we’re going to get into this more for the linear, but here are some of the teams that the uh Buffalo Bills will be playing the rest of the way. The Bills have games against the Chiefs, Bucks, Texans, Steelers, and Eagles still. pretty good. Not great. No, but but difficult games, but far different from what the Patriots are going to face. Even the Eagles aren’t going great. I mean, they, you know, they just they beat the Wes today. Yeah, the fight in Wes. It’s a difficult defense. Interesting way to defend that tush bush there. Speaking of uh difficult defenses, did the Patriots have some difficulty because they stink or stunk at the beginning of the game today or because Cam Ward played pretty good? I thought Cam Ward was good at the beginning of the game. He made some real throws. I mean, the guys are in the NFL. If they run around long enough and they’re protected and you make a good throw, it’s going to be complete. I mean, he was making legit, you know, number one overall pick types of throws, I thought early in that game. And this game will be remembered because he lost the football and gave the Patriots a touchdown. Threw it backwards, which wasn’t a good thing. That’s just not how you’re going to win in the National Football League. Was it you or was it Holly who said there were a lot of plays that looked like Drake May circa 2024 from Cam Ward? A few, not a lot, a few. I didn’t say that, but I did say sort of the argument against Cam Ward being a franchise guy. I think I think you could have said the same things and I think a lot of people were saying the same things about Drake May last year, right? Situation’s not great, but boy, you know, he’s not accurate enough. He’s he’s good athlete. He’s got a big arm, but is he really going to be able to put it together? You say, “Hold on now. not so fast. You wait to see if he can get a get a supporting cast, get, you know, a little different coaching and let’s see how it goes. And it’s obviously exceeded anyone’s expectations the way it’s gone for Drake May and his path. And I’m not saying that Cam Ward will be one of the best quarterbacks in football next year, but I’m just saying hold on. Just just let it play out. Let’s just see. Because if he can do what he did in the first half against other teams and do it on a more consistent basis and put two halves together and get some better people around him. I mean, who’s he throwing to out there? Chamir DK. Shamir DK. I mean, he actually looked like a good player, but Chamir DK is I think a sixth round pick or fifth round pick. So, I I I don’t hate Cam Ward. That was a brutal play that helped lose his team the game and and helped make it uncompetitive. and Mike McCoy was not able to provide the the interim head coach bump thanks in part because of the quarterback. But I don’t hate Kamort. I thought he played well. And and I look at this defense, Tom, three for 12 on third and fourth downs for the Patriots today. That’s what you should do against a young quarterback with a bad supporting cast. Five sacks, two turnovers. You end up scoring a touchdown. The play I think I like the most because it kind of told you where their heads were at was Harold Landry and Christian Barour working together on a stunt. Barour going out, Landry looping in, picking up the sack. And the first thing he did, didn’t celebrate, found where Barour was and pointed at him like he had just been given an unbelievable outlet pass for an easy layup, pointed to the guy who gave the assist. That to me is that’s a veteran guy who’s had a lot of sacks in this league, but he knows that Barmore probably hasn’t had the number of sacks that he has wanted, and he knows that that guy’s making a big impact every single week. And so, he pops up immediately. This guy’s a captain. pops up immediately and says, “Thanks, buddy.” That that to me is that’s that might sound cheesy, but that to me is a a sign of where this team’s at in terms of its mentality. I think that’s a good thing for them long term. It’s mentality, its mindset, and you know, we really looked hard at the Patriots decision to be a new broom sweeping clean on so many of the players that we would thought were good leaders and some of their better players. Who were some of their better players, whether it was Dietrich Weise, Jonathan Jones, those guys jump out to me. They didn’t resign either. um on down the line, Jawan Bentley, Godshaw, whatever. But you know, a lot of these guys who that were highly paid and relied upon, they moved on from. And I think that has helped them instill a new culture more quickly because there is no, even if they wouldn’t have said it, oh well, this is how it was last year. No one’s really asking about how it was last year anymore because so many of the leadership group is gone. And the guys who were here, Hunter, Henry, etc., they’re overshadowed at least in terms of hey we want to go talk to them. I don’t know if I’m making the point accurately here, but the number of new faces overwhelms the number of guys who are veteran and returning so that those guys are rejuvenated, I guess, is what I’m saying. Hunter Henry was a very good player prior. Tomorrow Douglas is a productive player. Kan Booty kind of productive. But M. Holland, Stefon Digs, we did this last week. I think the whole culture and confidence that Vrabel has been able to enjoy coming back here has been a byproduct of the culture that he’s instilled. And the last point I’ll make is on Vrabel returning to Tennessee. Here’s Pop Douglas talking about having Varel’s back. All right. Verbel again reiterated, hey, you know, if people want to make it a big deal about me, then they won’t cheer for me and yell varel. That’s great. I appreciate it. I appreciate anybody cheering for us. But he must look across and say, “Thank God you guys fired me.” No one wants to be fired. No one wants to move on. And it must have been painful. And he admitted it this past week about how hard it is to be let go. He reached out to Brian Callahan, his successor with Tennessee. We talked about that with him in a press conference earlier this week. Just to extend his uh regrets, condolences, whatever it is when someone loses a job. But your life gets turned inside out. You don’t just lose a job and move on to the next one in Cleveland. And you know, you just pack up and buy a plane ticket. Your whole family gets uprooted. You probably have a level of introspection as to, do I really want to keep doing this This sucks. Why did I get fired? I got fired because of the minations up top and I was served a difficult situation. So to see his arc go from the day he was fired in Tennessee and looked and said, “I’m not going to be able to go to New England either. They’re hiring Mayo. I guess I’ll have to go to Cleveland now to now October 18th. It’s It’s pretty seismic in terms of the difference. No doubt. He it you’re right about how thankful he must be on some level even to go through those experiences because all he has to do is look at the sideline opposite his today in Tennessee say I’d much rather have the roster that I have here. I think I got a much better shot. that is still that’s that’s at the ground level of a rebuild there in Tennessee. And I think a lot of people thought that the same would be the case for Varel here. Like this was a continuation of the rebuild. I’m not saying it’s not cuz it probably is to a degree. They’re still a young team, but this is not a team in terms of its talent level that you would say is rebuilding. They’re five and two. They’re one of the best teams in the AFC. Whether they’re two or three or four, whatever, they should be going to the postseason. you much rather have that and guys that can take you there as opposed to what Tennessee has right now because even if Rael was there in Tennessee, Tom, they wouldn’t be five and two. Can I ask you a question? And I want you folks to listening to uh to ponder this as well. And we’ll leave on this. It’s very simple. Is Drake May better than Justin Herbert? That’s that’s where he is. That’s where Drake May is. Guys wonder how good is he? Where is he? Just tell me whether or not he’s better than Justin Herbert yet. I think that’s a good thing. That’s a good goal for him to shoot for in 2025. I I think it’s a fair conversation. Better than Justin Herbert. Is it a fair conversation? Justin Herbert has 18 comeback wins over the course of his career. He’s very good. Doesn’t win enough. We just walked into the pod studio having watched Justin Herbert throw just a heinous interception in the end zone on a horrible throw to Quinn Sean. Excuse me. Quinn Judkins. Quinton Johnson. Oh, friend of the next Pats Pog. Quinton Johnson. Nice guy. Good player. Um, but yeah, that if that’s the conversation he’s in, Tom, you’re talking about being maybe in the conversation as a top five quarterback big picture, not just this season. That’s that’s that’s that’s lofty territory. I know because it’s Momes, it’s Burrow, it’s Jackson, and it’s Allen. Somewhere after that, it’s Herbert Prescott, Mayfield that and um, excuse me, uh, Jaden Daniels has to be in that mix as well. He’s better than Dak Prescott. Prescott’s having a really really good year this year too. I know. I know. You don’t care. I know the career record for Justin Herbert. Yes. Quarterback record does absolutely 45 and 40 touchdowns to interceptions is insane though. He’s almost 100 in the plus. 147 to 49. Remember when two to one was what you’d shoot for? Wow. Yeah. Um wait. But Jay Herby has uh quarterbacked in where’s his playoff spreads? Spreads splits. Gross. Let’s see how many playoff games this donkeys played in. Oh, two. He went 25 for 43 and 14 for 32. Okay, so one touchdown and four picks. That was just just a few months ago, folks. That was against Houston. 13 to 12 loss. It took four sacks. That was a really bad game. I forgot about that a little bit here. A lot of it. You think there’s a team out there that would take if they if the the league blew up and they were starting again, they would say, “Give me Drake May over Justin Herbert.” Do you know what’s really funny? I just remembered. Is that happening? I’ll talk to you off the record. Wow, what a tease. All right, leave people with that. Is there anything else we can share with them to just satiate them? I’ll talk to you later. Wow. I got to see if I have ever mentioned it before. Wow. I got to see if I’ve ever mentioned it before. Okay. I think I did mention it in the leadup to the 2020 four draft. Um, but I’ll circle back on it and see. And if I did, I’ll unveil the detail once again. Okay. I’m excited to hear. All right, everybody. talk to you uh for Tuesday. Sorry. Sorry. Tom’s withholding info and intel. We’ll see if we can pull it out of him later later on. And then we’ll share. Promise. And we’re back. So, I did a little uh recon and saw that I have mentioned this um previously and this was mentioned first on on draft night. The conversation was whether or not the Patriots would be willing to spend and the conversation that night was whether or not they should trade for Brandon Aayuk. Long story short, I said, “Here’s an indicator the Patriots would be willing to spend.” Throughout that draft process, the Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh had consistently spoken about JJ McCarthy as the best quarterback in the draft. It’s going to be one of the best players in the league. So, as I said that night, I had it on good authority that the Patriots, having heard that a hundred times from Jim Harbaugh, they said, “You know what? why don’t you go ahead and call the Chargers and see if they’ll trade Justin Herbert for the number third three overall pick. Basically calling their bluff, not anticipating that they would do that. And the Chargers indeed said, “No, we’re not going to do that.” But it just is a related conversation to Justin Herbert as we bring it up because it flushes out the conversation a bit. Oh, no question. But it wasn’t for Drake May. The presumption was, let’s just call their bluff. If they want to keep talking about how good he is, let’s see if they’ll do it. They like JJ McCarthy that much. They want that reunion that badly. Okay, let’s give him the opportunity and let’s bring in a very expensive quarterback. In the meantime, boy, that worked out for the Patriots though that they said no. Because not saying that Drake May is better than Justin Herbert yet. I think actually in the time we started talking about Herbert, he’s thrown two touchdown passes. But you’re getting a much cheaper version of the big strong armed really athletic quarterback right now here in New England with Drake May and you’re in the middle of a four-ame win streak and you’re near the top of the AFC. And that’s the rest of the story. Talk to you later in the week.

Tom Curran and Phil Perry break down the Patriots’ 31-13 win over the Tennessee Titans. Just how impressive has Drake Maye’s development been? What’s the biggest reason the WR room has improved?

1:00-Drake Maye continues to improve, WAY ahead of schedule
5:30-Favorite throw of the day from Drake?
7:30-Giving credit to the WR room
11:30-Improved running game?

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