The 2024 Patriots are actually…kinda not bad?

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Time Stamps
0:00 We’re back!
3:05 Last year was even worse than you think
10:32 Thank you, Underdog!
12:14 Patriots Scheme Breakdown
28:07 Front Office and Staff Breakdown
31:04 Best Patriots Fantasy Values
40:00 Free Agency Losses and Gains
47:54 The Patriots Rookie Class
56:53 Summary and Season Predictions

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hard to find the bad things in this particular picture to another year of summer series oh I did not mix that as well as I should have uh yeah diver Downs if you don’t mix them well you’re just drinking straight bicardi lone uh welcome to Patriots Day welcome to the 2024 bootle summer series uh 32 episodes going through all 32 teams one by one each team gets its own dedicated episode we finished with the AFC East last year so we’re starting with the AFC East this year and it’s Patriots Day yeah we’re not making people wait uh we’re try and flip it sometimes people just get stuck in the middle kind of like NFL teams can’t be bad enough can’t be good enough Patriots we get to get to uh early in this series very early kicking it off and um there’s a reason for that they had high pick in the draft for reasons many reasons reasons uh we’ll talk briefly about that if you’re a Patriots fan don’t leave yet we’re going to talk about a lot of the good stuff a lot of positive changes uh all that’s coming up for those of you wondering uh we’re out here on the water in the South Puget Sound you know e and I always do this series kind of in a home and home style so uh we’re doing half of it up here in the Seattle area and then he’s coming down to to La where there’s a lot less nature you could say that we’re wrapping it up out there uh but again it’s Patriots Day so if you’re a Pats fan uh you know grab yourself drink sit tight lot to go over today and if you’re not a Patriots fan too bad Jay roll the [Music] intro [Music] yeah welcome back once again to the boot Lake football podcast uh EJ I don’t actually think we described what we’re drinking here so for the new folks around here that are not familiar with bootleg lore uh please introduce them to our our patron saint the diver down ah yes the diver down so take your favorite clear Mexican logger mine happens to be Pacifico top it with uh just a little bit not too much of bardi lemon put your thumb over the top of the bot on the not too much by the way indeed because we’ll talk about the reasons for that in a minute but put your thumb over the top mix it as Brett did not as he mentioned otherwise you just get one big sticky sweet shot right in the beginning otherwise you get a very nice balance to your clear logger um they are wonderful but they are extremely dangerous do not drink more than two or three in a sitting without standing up because you got to check in every once in a while uh but they’re great for the summer and it’s 100% almost summer out here it’s trying it’s trying yeah we’ve been dodging uh rain and storms CU me an idiot did not realize that uh Pacific Northwest in May is not quite warmed up yet not yet there all right we got we got good weather today so uh it’s perfect for uh for kicking off this series starting with the Patriots uh they were supposed to be an elite defensive team with an average offense like that was the goal last year of don’t let anybody score and then we’ll score just enough to rip off some wins you know going into last year when we did this series and we looked at how they did in 2022 you know if we’re looking at all like the the EPA metrics and bunch of the advaned stats are like you know this this ball club’s actually pretty good um you know they were a top 12 team in in a lot of the key metrics um unfortunately you could be top 12 in a lot of areas and still be kind of [ __ ] if you don’t have the things that actually do matter uh which is great quarterback play and great offensive line play uh you know they had a bunch of injuries and they they shuffled guys around which we’ve talked about ad nauseum at this point but quarterback play with what they had uh and especially the support system around that quarterback last year didn’t really matter how good the defense was and especially when when the defense started taking on injuries with judon out and Gonzo out they just n they just had no hope so they kind of had to thread a needle last year to be a good team and they missed by a lot but they did fix a lot of those issues this off season so we can uh we can get the hype train rolling once again for the New England Patriots who surely won’t disappoint us this time no no not at all and as you said they had a fairly narrow window for SU success last year and uh tripped fell missed it busted their lip open and as a result a fairly complete reset the most complete reset we’ve seen in New England in you know two decades yeah so Patriots last year in 2023 4 and 13 we won’t belor the point rank in the division fourth home record 1-8 road record three and five last five games two and three uh we’re going to bring you an Effectiveness summary this year and we’re going to have two stats last year we just had power score we wanted to add on to that this year so I came up with a stat called QBs or quarterback support think of it as a metric for how much support a team provides holistically for a quarterback to succeed it includes offensive metrics defensive metrics even some special teams thrown in there if you want to know more about it you can check the link in the description you’ll get a full explanation of how it was built there uh arjin Menan and I from PFF collaborated to make that happen but basically it comes down to a z to 100 rating 100 is the best zero is the worst uh the Patriots were a 54.8 on that 0 to 100 scale and that put them right in the middle of the league 15th out of 32 teams so just barely above average so if anything that leads us to power score and they might have underachieved even that which is hard to think of so power score is much simpler we simply assigned their league rank to six stats rushing offense passing offense Rush defense pass defense points scored and points allowed where did they rank in the NFL that’s their number we take all six of those numbers average them out when you do that for the Patriots they were 22nd in rushing offense 30th in passing offense one of the death nails for this team Rush defense second they were Elite top five pass defense 15th you can survive with that in the NFL points scored 31st missed the bottom spot just a tick not great 32nd actually is it Carolina probably I I would have to assume we’ll figure that out we’re going to highlight the last folks in every category what a tease Patriots just barely missed it uh points allowed only 15th again middle of the pack so when you take all those numbers and average them out their raw power score uh 19.16 rounds up to 19.2 again Lower in power score is better it’s like golf uh that gave them a 22nd overall ranking in power score so again if you look at CU s in terms of support what they probably should have achieved they’re 15th what they actually achieved 22nd injuries really poor quarterback play they actually underachieved what they could have been had they threaded that needle and played in that small envelope um it was time for a reset and they got a big one and again these these two numbers um I know it’s easy to just say like ah you can’t you can’t break down an entire football team into one number and it’s like that’s not really what we’re we’re trying to do what we’re trying to do is just quantify all of the other objective numbers that tell the story right of of what this team was you know what are they like on the line of scrimmage um you know what’s like their average separation that their receivers get uh you know what’s their pass blocking efficiency like all those numbers already exist this number is basically just a way to to take all of those numbers and and to distill them down in a way that we can at a glance see what the overall Supporting Cast looked like we’re not just making stuff up here we’re not just making upgrades these are all just based off of actual objective numbers and I think what these numbers tell us is that their quarterback play was so bad like so utterly bad that it dragged a below average Supporting Cast down to bottom three team in the league and I think uh I think if you watch Patriots games last year unfortunately for those of you that our Patriots fans that were forced to watch this team every Sunday against your will um I think you kind of felt that where you’re like we shouldn’t like we’re bad but we shouldn’t be this bad but when M Jones is that inept and zappy ain’t much better and they just didn’t have any answers at the position it really kind of was an anchor on this team I’m not saying they should have been great they should have been average and the fact that they should have been average but were utterly garbage uh is a testament to how badly they needed a new quarterback and luckily they got a really good one and we’ll talk about him in a little bit when I put out a tweet a couple weeks ago saying like hey man Pats are not a bottom five team they’re not going to be a bottom five team again next year and I got a lot of push back like I didn’t just throw that out there like if you just a watch the Patriots and B look at all of these numbers and honestly it was after I saw these numbers where I was like [ __ ] they aren’t that bad it’s hard to come to the conclusion this is a bottom five team they’re not a bottom five team they were a bottom one QB situation and that counts for a lot again their metrics are pretty average they were in the middle they should have been one of those sort of 10 teams in the middle of the league that if again all the breaks go their way they’re at the top of that middle 10 and if the breaks don’t go their way they really shouldn’t have been below the bottom of that middle 10 they were below that as well so again they didn’t hit all the pitches they got down the middle right and that’s on them so a lot of changes were in the works a lot of changes came down the pipe um they’ve made a bunch of functional changes I know a lot of people are very tempted to say oh well you know a lot of this Personnel came from within the organization it’s still business as usual I don’t get that feeling in New England I think that a lot of functional things are going to be quite different they kind of have to be right you hope so like they don’t have any choice like they they have to be different uh before we get into the schematic information cuz we’re going to talk about the structure of this defense which we think should be staying relatively similar with new coach tood Mayo taking over bich uh I don’t want to say handpicked but it kind of felt like it like felt like they were grin him to be the successor so obviously he is the successor have to imagine there’s going to be a lot of carryover uh defensively uh but before we get into all that schematic information for the defense and the new offense under Alex velt I got to thank utter doog for making this possible all right we’re sitting here on the water in the almost summer in Washington state we got beers with my best bud talking football this wouldn’t be possible without them so uh Nick who works for Underdog and is a Patriots fan I’m sure he’s watching this thank you for making all this possible uh and if you guys are watching this and you’re also Patriots fans or just football fans in general and you like playing fantasy football and you miss fantasy football and you want to draft throughout the summer you can do so on Underdog fantasy if you’re already a fantasy player uh and and you’re going to be playing anyway we would love if you did it on Underdog to uh support our sponsors and to make things a little bit easier use promo code bootleg at the link down below or at the QR code on the screen uh you’ll get a special pick in the lobby for pickham and up to $250 in bonus cash on Deposit they have a whole bunch of different things you can play whether it’s best ball whether it’s NBA pickham golf pickham hockey pick thems I mean pick thems for basically everything they have season long NFL pick thems already going so if you want to look at the season long numbers you could do those of course baseball like I mentioned lot to do on Underdog so uh for all our friends over at Underdog because there’s a lot of Patriots fans over there thank you guys for making this possible uh and with that EJ shall we talk scheme we should talk scheme uh it affected a lot of what they did we’re going to see a I think a very different scheme when I talk about a lot of changes coming down the pike on offense again on defense yeah there’s probably going to be a lot of carryover and that’s fine the defense was effective last year it was certainly good enough to win so I’m not so concerned about that um they’ve got more consistency there offense is really the sort of n we have to crack here in terms of what this team is going to look like we’ll talk about Personnel changes later but what’ you get when you dug in it’s a really fascinating defense because there’s a lot of of of teams out there where you know they got big people they got medium people when they got little people the Patriots only have big people and little people there is no medium anywhere on this team did you ever used to play Nintendo ice hockey of course I grew up on that and you select one of three players right tiny skinny fast guy sort of good all-arounder or chunk don’t try and take F from that’s all they got man it’s just it’s just chunky dudes and a bunch of speed on the back end um they were 29th in terms of base Personnel package used meaning uh you know like a standard 34 or 43 right they were 29th in base Personnel uh they were 26th in nickel as well so you might be thinking okay well how are they 29th in base and 26th in nickel that doesn’t make sense how is that possible uh oh because they were number one in dime yeah where’s all the rest it’s in dime they were in dime constantly like they’re combined nickel and dime percentage was 86% like they just only lived and dime never left it uh you know they played nickel against 12 Personnel like when they absolutely had to like their answer against 12 Personnel was nickel that was them beefing up they played dime against everything else um and a lot of their dime was against 11 personnel uh which might seem like it’s being risky like oh man you’re going to play dime against 11 like what if they run out of 11 like everybody runs out of 11 these days like what are you going to do uh well if you play dime and you play nickel like the Patriots do you’re not going to get much on them anyway because their standard nickel is 335 emphasis on the first three there because it is three big strong powerful dudes that are going to absolutely beat the [ __ ] out of you with the line of scrimmage and then judon on the backside Edge and then you got two linebackers two that are 250 plus that come downhill and absolutely just terrorize guards and centers pure Coke Machines man dude yeah it let alone one it’s hard to find teams that have one they got two next to each other and Bentley and tvi right so if you’re wondering how they were still such a great run defense despite playing nickel and dime 86% of the time they still had weight in the front seven it was just distilled down to Five Guys instead of seven guys and they were very very good at it but what that allowed them to do almost kind of like that hyp specialization right of like here’s our three big dudes with barmore godshaw uh Dietrich Weiss Keon white and Dietrich kind of Switched Off there um and then you got toine Bentley if they only cared about stopping the run against 11 and then you got a bunch of fast versatile secondary players that only care about stopping the pass that hypers specialization really helped them play Fast play aggressive and despite their injuries again they were missing in my opinion their best corner already in Gonzo they were missing judon after the first month of the Season yep and they kind of had to to throw this whole thing together with a bunch of different pieces and make it work but they still made it work because of that hypers specialization everybody knew exactly what they were on the field to do and they all did it amazingly well so looking at you know gerod Mayo taking over here I have to imagine they’re just going to do the same thing again except potentially be even better at it because they’re getting Gonzo back and because they’re getting judon back sure so I think uh rumors of the Patriots demise are a little bit early uh because they were already really good defensively last year they’re going to be even better this year and as long as Drake May is I don’t know a top 25 quarterback they’re going to be okay yeah defensively I think you rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated uh until I see it I’m not going to believe it a lot of times we say that about teams that we’re waiting for to get over the hump right get to the playoffs and prove it this is different the Patriots have proved it and I don’t I’m not going to predict regression on the defensive side of the ball in this organization until it happens and sort of smacks me upside the head and says okay you have to that doesn’t exist anymore I think it still does exist they were as you said undermanned last year because of injuries and still a middle of the road defense yeah even though they were on the field way too much they got very little offensive support despite all of that they were still fine defensively give them some reinforcements get the injured players back get you know some new blood in the draft and just keep rolling flipping it over the offense you know kind of trying to project what they’re going to do uh scheme wise on the offense with Van pel coming in It’s actually kind of hard for me to project because I don’t know how much uh of of the Kevin stansky Browns stuff is going to carry over and I also think a lot of people might uh have a dated understanding of what Kevin stefansky was even doing with the Browns you know early on in the stepensky tenure stepensky stansky tenure there we go sound it out Brett has a like I said cardi lone uh there’s a lot in there uh early on uh you know with the Browns a lot of wide Zone um a lot of bootlegs you know very much a okay Shanahan Tree West Coast like straight down the middle of the Fairway but just like Shanahan and just like Shawn McBay they’ve kind of moved away from that because of how fronts changed you know a lot of defenses around the league changed their front structures against these types of offenses because they they figured out exactly how to stop it you know uh it’s a lot of tight front it’s a lot of uh you know like the 61 tilt front stuff where you’re just putting bodies in line of scrimmage and get up field um and and wide Zone started to lose its effect not saying it’s completely ineffective but uh you couldn’t just rely on that and only rely on that unless you’re Miami and everybody runs 4-3 then okay fine you can get away with it but they started to move away from being very wide Zone heavy to being a little bit more downhill uh a lot more pin and pole schemes a lot more power Cleveland was third in power and first in pin and pole last year which again you don’t think of a Kevin stansky offense being like almost Greg romanish right but they were they absolutely were and so I I’m curious to see what van pel carries over it’s like is it going to be a lot of wide zone is it going to be a lot of power encounter I mean I I feel like the Patriots are more built to run that than they are to run wide Zone uh at least at at this point in time so I’m I’m very fascinated to see what they do I think regardless it’s going to be a lot of under Center for Drake may just because being under Center gives you the ability to be diverse in your run game you can run anything out of being under Center not so much when you’re in the shotgun all day uh and I I don’t get the sense that van Pelt wants to be handcuffing himself to only certain types of runs by being in the gun all day and Drake may I mean he did get some under Center work at North Carolina so like it’s not completely new to him like you can do you know hard play action fakes where you turn your back to the defense like he did that at North Carolina uh by the way on Underdog fantasy uh they actually sat down they had Colt McCoy and Josh noris sit down with Drake May and do this really long film study where where Colt uh and Drake were were walking through North Carolina’s film it’s some of the best football content I have ever seen like ever um I I don’t know if it’s still on YouTube because there’s a little complications with film our friends over at uh it wasn’t even North Carolina’s fault it was the people who owned North Carolina’s film uh I know it’s definitely on Twitter so go to Josh Norris’s Twitter uh and find that actually I’ll link it in the pin comment down below how about that there you go uh cuz if you’re a Patriots fan you have to watch that video it is incredible and it it really um it may be even more of a believer in Drake than I already was and I was already very high on him um but that video I think did a great job of of showing that yeah you can you can do a pretty under Center heavy offense with him and he’s going to be just fine it’s always interesting to me with guys like Alex Van pel so I’m G to ask you a question do you remember Alex fan Pelt as a college player honestly no okay I I do so here’s a guy that has a tremendously long football career he’s very successful obviously high school player he has influences from that he’s a very successful college player he ends up getting drafted right he has influences from that he has influences from his time as a player multiple different systems went into coaching just about as soon as he left being a player there there’s very little Gap there he was again one of those coaches that shows up in our coaching section every year and you’re like Alex Van bel’s already a coach can you believe it well he’s been a coach now for a long time and he’s been in multiple different places and people always wanted to fall to was the last thing he did was it going to be just like that and I’m like the guy has like at this point 30 years worth of different scheme formation tactic tendency stuff and he’s sort of mixes and stirs he becomes the OC where there is not um let’s just say a hardcore tradition that he has to continue it’s not like a defensive coordinator coming in and Gerard May’s your head coach and he was there last year and he’s like well it kind of worked guess what we’re going to run I think the window is a little bit more open for Alex vanel to say hey you need to be effective choose how that works with what we have and he can pull from all these experiences and sort of diverse systems that he’s been in and I I think he’s going to want to he’s going to want to maximize that of course some of that in any offensive coach is sitting down with your Now new quarterback or your existing quarterback in jacobe brassette both of them and saying hey what is it you’re most comfortable with all right this is what I want to do would you rather do this from under Center would you rather do this from pistol would you rather do this from uh a loaded formation um or would you rather do this from a different Personnel grouping that you know you like and customizing it to their skill sets and the routes they like to throw the timing they’re comfortable with and then just mixing some stuff in and saying hey I think we have the Personnel to do this we did this in Cleveland we did this way back in Pittsburgh when I was a player we did and just sort of melding that together and the answer is long story long we don’t know right that’s what’s exciting about it yeah it’s so cool and Alex Van Pelt certainly has more than enough experience to build an offense from all of those you know time well spent and it’s going to be fascinating to see what the final kind of alchemy is that becomes the Pats offense based on what their players are good at what he really wants to emphasize and build as an identity and and then who all the existing players are in New England that he really thinks he can maximize I also want to emphasize by the way uh that when it comes to quarterback training and development especially when it comes to rookie quarterbacks most often I don’t want to say 100% of the time but most often you know all these private quarterback trainers whether it’s uh John Beck uh will huet Jordan Palmer you know Quincy Avery like all these guys right that that work with these young quarterbacks they’re in communication with the teams um especially the teams at the top of the draft where it’s like hey we’re taking this kid right uh cuz it was it was fairly evident that the Patriots were going to take one of these quarterbacks whether it was Jaden or may whoever was there I think they were probably hoping for Drake and they got lucky and Drake was there but all these quarterback teachers especially after the draft when you when you know you’re doing training getting ready for rookie man camps getting ready for OTAs all that kind of stuff they’re in Communications with the teams and when they do that that communication essentially boils down to what are you going to run what do you need him to be ready for by the time he gets to Camp what kind of footwork do you want you want feet even you want left foot back you want right foot back like you know how are we doing our three-step drops you know what what’s the what’s all of our quick game footwork for certain Concepts um you know what’s what’s our five-step footwork what’s our seven step footwork uh you know and and they they will get it from the teams of of how they want certain things taught so that when they get to Camp all that’s already out of the way yep right like when a when a rookie quarterback shows up to training camp they’re not teaching him footwork it’s considered the professional responsibility of the player to have all of the technical development done on their own time in the summer like you don’t get Summers off it’s just independent study and and teams don’t teach skills no no no they teach scheme they’re doing installs they’re making sure you get the protections down feeder to you man and and I think there’s a a strong correlation between the rookies that put a lot of effort into that in their first off season that hit the ground running and the ones that don’t I think Drake May is one of the kids that’s going to put a lot of effort into it especially because footwork was kind of the thing he had to fix right well certainly one of the points of focus and you know we can talk about that all we want we will see what happens certainly in camping through his first rookie season he’s going to have a lot of growing pains as all rookie quarterbacks do but tons of talent we’ll talk about Drake when we get to the draft a little bit but as far as people I believe or players I believe can fix it because all players have things to fix coming into the NFL all of them I don’t care where they were drafted in terms of a lot of the content that you talked about you know with our colleagues Josh and and Colt and um you know at at other outlets as well talking to and listening to Drake may talk about football and how he understands it how he approaches it I believe he can fix it and I think that’s probably the most important thing I think Patriots are obviously sold on that as well um and if he does all that other stuff is is there for the taking and he still was as successful as he was in college without that stuff fixed so um Arrow’s pointing up for Drake uh it’s a really good get for the Patriots we’ll talk about that in a bit but um I’m not I know a lot of Patriots fans are really worried about that stuff and rightfully so but uh take a breath I I think there’s solid potential that’ll get that’ll get done well why don’t we talk about the man that drafted Drake as well as some of the coaches we already touched on let’s talk about the front office yeah EVP of player Personnel Now official not de facto Elliot wolf Ron Wolf’s kid uh did the draft and then there was this sort of small more than anything probably PR kurur ruffle about well now we’re going to interview him for the job he’s like he just handed him the keys to the draft and now you’re going to interview him for the job was a bit strange in terms of timing and compliance for the Rooney Rule and everything else but smoke is settled on that one Elliot wolf is the EVP of player Personnel in charge of building the roster for New England head coach Gerard Mayo first Year’s head coach uh last year in this episode one of the reasons we do this section overall this was our note about him possibly the next head coach of the Pats in Waiting oh so we nailed that one shocker chock up um in terms of coordinators we’ve talked a lot about uh offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt or AP for short during the season when we’re in a hurry defensive coordinator Demarcus Covington was the pat DL coach for the last four years has been with the organization longer than that but that was his most recent role he now takes over his DC largely largely from Mayo but that was never really clear because there was again a delineation of responsibilities between him and and bich and Steve and yeah the multiple bich bich and bich the from of bich and bich bichai I believe is the plural appropriate plural term special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer uh notable coaches on offense um Scott Peters for the O and then Ben McAdoo is senior offensive assistant so one of those vague terms of he’s going to be here and help out he’s going to do assignments as necessary very experienced figure I know polarizing figure from his time with the Giants and other teams but uh just one more person to come on and help AP develop uh I’m not going to say something from scratch but something largely from the ground up they’re not going to be carrying over a lot of Concepts from the Patriots offense from last year because as we discussed that that that didn’t go well no no no I I I think we want as little carryover as possible yes from 2023 clean all the slates uh on defense of special teams Jerry Montgomery is the defensive line coach spent the last nine years in Green Bay largely coaching the defensive line for them I think that’s a good get he had a very nice track record of developing young defensive linemen for the Packers Patriots have been very good at that as well I think this will just kind of continue and carry on and then Dante high tower inside linebacker coach familiar face back in the fold um probably teaching people to try and be just like him but boy is that going to be difficult yeah good luck matching Dante ey toer I I don’t I don’t think that’s really possible yeah uh he’ll he’ll probably be disappointed but he’ll keep pushing them to get there so an interesting staff uh you know a largely new staff especially on the offensive side some new faces on the defensive side as well that I think will integrate I don’t want to say seamlessly but well now given all of that information uh you know going through coaching changes uh some of the Personnel changes you know what we think the system may or may not look like given all that again we’re making educated guesses here that’s right uh we have a segment we’re going to be doing for every single team uh here on this series which is the underdog top three and by top three mean top three value vales because again it’s it’s fantasy season you know whether you’re doing baseball drafts right now maybe you’re getting ready for your home League drafts uh in a couple months you know maybe you’re doing mock drafts on Underdog right now because Underdog is really good for mock drafts because people are actually incentivized to stay in the entire draft so it’s good to get accurate mocks there uh but you know for all of your fantasy preparations this summer we look at what are the top three values per team relative to what their ADP is right now when looking at their ADP again we’re recording this what is it may 202nd May 22nd uh so maybe by the time you watch this later in the summer these numbers are going to be slightly different but as of the time of recording this our three best values that we can find are ra Andre Stevenson who’s at RB 20 which for a lead back in an offense that we think is going to run uh fairly frequently a bunch and perhaps fairly effectively that’s a little low uh plus REM really good receiver too really good Outlet so uh again little low for our taste uh Drake May is at QB 29 which is only true if you think jacobe Brett is going to be starting a significant number of games I’m not sure that he is Define significant I I kind of think it might be three maybe maybe at most lower than I am on that one I I would think five to six uh and then yeah after that it’s time I don’t think you’re going to need to see that much because I again gerod Mayo is a player right and so Mayo knows how players respond to practice in the sense that if Drake May is out there carving people up carving his defense up in practice you know a lot of Old School coaches they’ll kind of sit on it and be like nah no I’m not putting the kid in the game sure but Mayo knows how players see it which is players see what happens in practice and they’re like why the hell is that kid not yeah give us our best chance coach so with that mentality as a former player I think he might have a quicker trigger than maybe some some Old School coaches that that that were not players that didn’t either understand or care about that Dynamic of like hey man the locker room cares about that kind of stuff if they’re getting lit up in practice they want the kid who’s lighting them up in practice on the field because they’re trying to win games you only got 17 chances I think Mayo might might care about that more than say bich did uh because belich was just going to do whatever he wanted to do regardless of what the players wanted uh so again QB 29 I I would be very surprised if he ended up at 29 when all is said and done in terms of what quarterback put up the most points I think he’s getting it on the field earlier than we think uh and I think he’s going to perform better than maybe a lot of people uh expect because I also think they’re Supporting Cast rather who he’s throwing to is a lot better than last year which brings us to our third value which we’re cheating on this one because it’s kind of two guys yeah it’s pick your flavor it’s pick your flavor uh do you want the crazy value or the crazy crazy value because Jaylen pulk right now is going as wide receiver 69 and pop Douglas is going as wide receiver 82 now if you watched this episode last year when we talked about the Patriots we tried to tell you pop Douglas is the man and he was the man I’m not saying he had like crazy rookie season but for what a lot of people expected out of a six round receiver from Liberty which is nothing like we told you this time last year we saw him up close in person that was not your your typical six round receiver like he’s a really good player going as wide receiver 82 right now what round does that put him in oh last one whatever the last one is I think his ADP is like his overall ADP is what 190 something something like that something crazy low right so way way down there way way down there he’s he’s not your normal six round rookie he’s not your normal wide receiver 82 I think even if he’s only only wide receiver 59 wide receiver 60 at the end of the year he ain’t going to be 82 yeah like you’re still getting value on that uh very good separator very good third down weapon loved Mario Douglas uh I still think he’s one of the best if not the best pure separator on that roster which brings us to pulk okay well if we love Pop Douglas that much why would we pull the trigger on pulk over him it’s because pul is going to be Drake May’s best friend because Jaylen pulk I mean talk about catching everything you could throw that ball in the middle of the 405 and he’s going to come down with it doesn’t matter if it’s through contact doesn’t matter if it’s in double coverage you know that works up here too because we have one of those where 405 goes through br is it the same 405 it can’t be the same 405 no anyways I’ll teach you the intricacies of the interstate highway system numbering later but we also have a 405 so it works in La it works here it’s a perfect bootleg reference uh new englanders do you guys also have a 405 it do not let’s just say middle of the freeway middle of the freeway that’ll work and he’ll come down with it he is such a dominant catcher of the football I’m not even just saying contested I’m not even just saying in traffic he just catches the [ __ ] ball and at the end of the day you know there an old bootleg ISM the job description is in the name wide receiver that’s right I think Drake May is going to develop uh unsalable trust with him very early on because pul does the thing that his receivers at North Carolina didn’t which is make plays when you absolutely really need plays to be made he’s going to do it he’s going to fall in serious like very quickly yes I would I would agree with that as as well um he’s going to figure out that boy what I’m running around and getting pressured cuz things didn’t work out exactly like I saw them or like I thought they were going to and I Whip It Up in jaylen’s Direction like I don’t know like 80% of the time that works out for me so I’m just going to keep doing it because the end results good might be might not be the prettiest play um I think p is probably closer to his actual ADP so if you’re looking for like percentage of value pop Douglas might be a better play but I I believe at the end of the season pulk is going to be a favored Target of Drake Maye it really is just going to come down to what Alex vanpelt is having them do but I think a lot of those concepts are going to get funneled through the May to Jaylen pole connection because he’s going to see that as a player relationship that works really well as a connection that works on the field and he’s going to work his offense around that as all good play callers do and I think it was telling that you know top of the second round when they had their pi receiver like they they had ad Mitchell on the board right you know and it’s like okay who who are we taking here to help our Young quarterback because that pick is defined as the one you take to help your Young quarterback yeah it’s support whether it’s blocking or receiving MH they zeroed in on pulk because they knew without a doubt when the chips are down he’s a guy you can count on he’s not the fastest he’s not the best separator like he is not the most talented but you can count on him work with me here he’s a dog he is a dog literally a husky I know isn’t that great it’s kind of crazy how you could take that Washington receiving core from last year and you probably could have started all three of them on the Chiefs you could start the Washington huskys receiving core from last year on like in total like not pick and choose as a threesome on at at least three teams I would say at least I would say possibly up to five to six depending on probably the Patriots last year yeah depending on what you know I think they would take them this year yeah like if you just said hey you get all three Washington huskys receivers and you have to get rid of all you know basically all the rest of your receivers they’d be sorry to part with pop Douglas but they’d probably still do it oh yeah if you’re getting Rome you’re getting McMillan and pulk um the three for they they’d probably do it very talented wide receiving Corp uh all right let’s get into uh potentially some of the the not so nice stuff here uh which is remaking the veteran part of the roster you know free agency losses and free agency gains uh a fairly significant amount of movement here I don’t think there’s a single free agency loss that makes me upset like it kind of felt like a lot of addition by subtraction not trying to be mean just trying to to be real about it there is nothing on this list that makes me go ah man they’re going to want him yeah it’s it’s always a difficult time of year in terms of especially guys that have been with the organization a long time but when you have organizational change at the level that the Patriots had this off season some of this is going to happen so these are not all the names we’ll put all the names on screen but some of the Highlight ones Conor McDermot Right Guard um didn’t play a ton of snaps for them a little bit older James friends kind of in the same category also a guard uh again didn’t play a ton of snaps for them almost none last year and was 35 but has played a lot of good football for the Patriots organization over time so some fans are going to look at that and say ah what are we doing letting those guys go um at the end of the year they probably won’t but right now it sure feels like that Matthew Slater wide receiver he’s 39 longtime special teamer for the Patriots and again sort of fixture in the New England locker room well he’s still there the team kept him on as an adviser so he’s still there he kind of moved over the line so you really lose Matthew Slater um Lawrence guy we talked about the big guys up front again 45% of the snaps as an absolute run stopper two Gap plugger um an important guy but not an Irreplaceable guy to your point JC Jackson the cornerback they really thought that was going to work out 46% of the snaps ton of money uh M nope he moves on Mike ceki uh always seemed a little bit miscast um you know came over from the Dolphins and they just didn’t use him in the way I think was probably his best life uh tried to fit a bit of a you know round peg in a square hole in New England and uh so not retained which is again not a surprise Trent Brown at right tackle 55% of the snaps he moves over to the Bengals uh again that is this one of the ones that’s going to be tougher to replace but again with availability being the most important ability uh I think they have a plan for that Zeke Elliott goes home to Dallas Devonte Parker uh never really developed into again the wide receiver that they thought he was going to be certainly had the opportunity to um made some plays for them but he heads down south to the Eagles uh his route tree always cracks me up CU it’s just Devon run straight okay gotcha coach neat no worries I can do it Jaylen Mills is a corner uh played well for them nearly 40% of the snaps but uh again head south to the Giants M Jones really just had to move on like there wasn’t a future for him in New England uh goes to back up uh the Jaguars quarterbacking room and Miles Bryant uh again another dog out of udub getting low draft pick that certainly outplayed his status goes to your Texans that one hurts a little bit in terms of he was a glue guy in their secondary for a long time played 75% of their snaps played all over you talked about that multiple alignment in the secondary um he could kind of do it all depending on the play well when you say kind of yeah kind of that’s the thing emphasis on the word kind of do it all yeah out play his draft good at it but it kind of do it out played his draft status but his draft status was really low so take that as you will but miles Bryant no longer a patriot uh down with the Texans now if he’s getting significant snaps in Houston I’m not not sure that’s a not sure it’s a great thing net positive we’ll get to that in the Houston episode later this summer uh all right let’s talk about who they retained Michael and wenu was the big one you know obviously the guard Market uh well guard lash Tackle Mark I mean Michael and wenu is yes like what what’s his position I don’t know all of it one of your best five uh but his value it’s it’s hard to quantify because he’s kind of been their most in my opinion their most stable offensive lineman don’t even want to say guard I quantify it they did roughly 19 million roughly 19 million and he still might be underpaid possibly um but the the offensive line Market has exploded uh as it should because other than other than quarterback offensive line is literally the position group on your team that will Define how successful you are so if you got one as good as Michael lwena you don’t let him go so correct absolutely appropriately paid there uh brought back Josh uch you know 20 25 snaps a game of fire and brimstone off the edge that’s his one role and he’s good at it Kyle Dugger he’s actually one of the big reasons why they can play so much nickel and still stop the run because they have Kyle DG duer who’s a linebacker in a safety’s body it’s back to the Avengers we have a Hulk we have a Kyle Dugger we have a Kyle Dugger go ahead run counter yeah I dare you work on it uh Christian barmore also got paid big time money 21 million a year uh and then Kendrick Bourne uh he’s back again at 6 and a half million Hunter Henry he’s back at 9 million God Hunter Henry at 9 million tight end Market’s kind of sneaky getting up there too going to say the offensive line Market is not the only one it’s going up in terms of third party editions uh KJ Osborne they brought in to be another glue guy 4 million a year uh CH aak coraor potentially going to be a starting tackle for them at 4 million a year Antonio Gibson they brought in to be an rb2 behind rre at 3.7 million a year uh jacobe brette brought in to be probably a starter at first but not for long he’ll be kind of like that veteran Bridge starter not even that yeah short short Bridge starter veteran Mentor yeah you know for Drake may like how to be a pro not that Drake May is not like a professional kid solidifying influence in terms of you know I’ve I’ve been around the block I can tell you you can ask me questions it’s not necessarily going to hurt my feelings like yes I want to start I’m competitive but I also know which way the wind’s blowing here uh so I’m probably not going to be a turd about it and jacobe went there knowing this was going to happen 100% right like he’s he’s aware of his role and he’s great in that role yep like you need him to start for a few games when Drake goes down with an injury knock on not wood track stacking yeah whatever this material is uh knock on that uh he he’s going to be just fine uh Joey Sly is another one I want to highlight uh fun fact Patriots field goal percentage last season I’m talking all field goals from all distances 64% that is unreal that’s bad there’s only a few a few teams that I found in the last 15 years no it’s that’s bad I mean that is inexcusably bad so yeah their their point scored was bad uh but it was made even worse by the fact that even when they were in field goal range you were crossing your fingers man yeah it very much felt like college kicking yeah which and college kicking is a complete roll of the dice uh you don’t typically see that to that level in the pros but by the end of the season it really felt like are you sure you want to kick here I mean I know you’re on the 30 but it was brutal man yeah and I I when I first saw that number I was like there’s no way there’s no way an NFL team was under 70% on the season how is that even possible Patriots fans are like hold our beers uh we’ll show you hold our Boston loggers man that’s right we’ve seen some [ __ ] yeah all right that brings us to the draft you know after we’re after we’re through March you got to get through April they had a very strong April um kind of a sneaky fun class like even taking May out of it and we’ve talked about May a lot sure if you’re looking at you know round two through round seven they got a lot of pieces that I think are going to play significant snaps for them like even as rookies yeah and they hope a lot of these guys develop of course numbers say not all of them will but you start with the best possible cut of guys you think fit in your program Drake may obviously the most important piece and as he goes so goes this draft that’s the way it is with all quarterbacks drafted highly Jaylen pulk we talked about out of Washington big fans of his Kaden Wallace was I think where a lot of Patriots fans were like wait hold up like that’s something we needed but not necessarily the one we thought we were going to get the offensive tackle out of Penn State third round it picks 68 overall so odd tackle draft and that it was really strong but again it got drained really quick and they went through even that second tier kind of blazing through that second tier and Kaden Wallace was right at sort of the tail end of that it was like well if we don’t get that what we’re really talking about is a developmental third swing tackle Kaden Wallace was kind of the tail end of hey we think this guy could start giving a chance maybe not right away uh but sooner rather than later leaden Robinson was a fun one for me the guard out of Texas A&M uh I’d sent some receipts to some people around the league that I know and I send a few of these every year and go hey man there’s a guy that I like that you know a lot of people aren’t paying attention to leaden Robinson if you you know were looking at Mock Draft simulators or big boards or really any sort of draft reference before the draft he was a sixth maybe seventh rounder a lot of times sometimes undrafted um had a lot more preseason hype I liked his game apparently the Patriots did too because it’s two rounds earlier than I would have taken him I still would have taken him but I sent uh some of those people that sent receipts to like hey uh so it wasn’t this high on him but somebody else believed I think he can start he’s their type of guard um again not right off doesn’t need to WR off but I have a feeling you know come you know 18 21 months from now it might be like oh guess who’s playing guard for the Patriots and is going to be there for the next four to five years oh it’s slen Robinson look at that weird which would be the most Patriots thing ever you know Finding day three offensive in the play Forever yeah never happens especially not New England yeah no come on Javon Baker wide receiver out of UCF big fans of his explosive player started at Alabama they got him at pick 110 in the fourth round I think if we’re talking about we talked you know in the underdog top three section about two other sneaky wide receivers like when Drake May guns it Javon Baker’s going to be the guy on the other end of that and he can pay it off he’s a deep ball guy yeah for sure and he’s going to be better at it than Devonte was for them I think almost without question from the gun cuz he can do things that Devonte can’t do like turn right or left sorry had to yeah had to now I I think very explosive extremely athletic player so Patriot skipped the fifth round didn’t have a pick there but Elliot wolf comes back picks marcelis dial the quarterback from South Carolina at 18 180th overall in the sixth round really good size and then throws a poker chip uh also in the late sixth round Joe Milton the third the quarterback out of Tennessee with unreal physical Talent uh big fast absolute Cannon for an arm this is a let’s roll the dice and see if it works out we’re going to look like Geniuses and if it doesn’t it was a late sixth round pick nobody’s going to care I was standing six feet behind him with my camera when he threw that 73 yard bomb at the comet actually Jay let’s throw that clip in uh right now because I I had a visceral re action when the ball came out of his hand we’ll throw that in right now they don’t understand they don’t [Music] understand [Applause] Jesus see like I said visual reaction so after you composed yourself after I changed my pants that’s right Patriots came back and picked Jahim Bell the tight end out of Florida State who tight end is kind of a I think restrictive moniker for him he HB back fullback slot receiver Yak threat um getting him in the seventh round at 231 overall one of the best value picks of the entire draft I think Alex vel’s going to have a lot of fun with him because there is no key for him you can line him up all over and do almost anything out of that formation and if you get him the ball in space he’s going to be a threat I mean he had a 8.1 yards after the catch per reception which was just shy of malach Corley who had eight and a half and Malachi was seen as like the yak threat uh in this class and rightly so but GM Bell was like right there yeah I I think he could be one of the only tight ends in the league that gets kick return reps yes given the new kickoff structure right because he kind it basically turns it into a screen pass that’s right that’s how that’s how kickoffs are structured now uh guess who’s really good at screen passes Jim Bell and they got him in the seventh at 231 I a lot lot of folks because they couldn’t narrowly Define his role I understood that he wasn’t going to get picked in the fourth or even the early fifth round but anytime after that a guy with that much versatility and production is a great value they had two rounds after that there had to have been something we don’t know about I would I’m talking like a medical thing right I would imagine so yeah really good player I love this class overall man you got your franchise quarterback again I Had Drake May’s qb2 um there was always debate between Jaden and Drake at who’s two who’s three I mean they were they were right next to each other so it’s not like it matters that much but for me uh if I was running a franchise and like putting food on the table for my family relied on getting the quarterback pick Right Drake May was the one that I was going to go with so I thought they got a great value even though it’s tough to say value at third overall I think they got a value in Drake may I think they got one of the players they really coveted and anytime you can do that especially at a position as important quarterback you’re doing great uh and then to get pulk and you know Javon Baker and and Jem Bell uh you know we’ll we’ll see what happens with Kaden Wallace I’m not saying it was a bad pick it was just one that I didn’t expect sure um you and a lot of Patriots fans me yeah it wouldn’t be a Patriots draft without some weird picks that we don’t expect right what’s this but overall it’s it’s a good draft it’s a really good draft solid first effort from Elliot wolf uh excited to see what he does in the future uh looking at udfas who they brought in Deshawn Fenwick he’s like that classic Patriots pound running back that just runs over people uh again only goes One Direction straight but he’s really good at going One Direction I was next to Shane Coughlin at The Shrine Bowl who’s the director of Scouting For The Shrine Bowl we walked by to Shawn Fenwick on like day one before practice had started in a hallway just t-shirt and shorts holy [ __ ] man who’s that he goes That’s Fenwick he’s built man I was like the running back looks like a linebacker he’s like I know yeah I don’t I don’t know what he was listed at at Oregon State but it probably wasn’t high enough like that dude is dense he’s got his own gravitational pole yeah so I wouldn’t want to be in front of him no again he went undrafted because the whole like change of Direction thing uh not really his skill set but if you’re just running counter and you’re saying all right Desa absolute Hammer you’re going to get contact get the ball go forward run into somebody he’s going to do that he’s going to do it really well uh Charles Turner the cator of LSU another priority free agent pickup for them uh John Trey Hunter linebacker out of Georgia state was somebody who I know you liked a lot uh then Mikey Victor the corner out of Alabama State I did not get to him but I know you highlighted him uh what was your thoughts on him uh he is extremely athletic and built he is big for a corner um not like linebacker big necessarily but you’re kind of looking at him going is a strong safety no no outside corner oh okay that big that long that strong John Hunter little bit undersized for again you talked about the Patriots molded linebacker being large on the inside he’s not that big but oh absolute Hammer uh impact tackler between the numbers uh and Charles Turner sneaky get um had a good draft season and held up well against a bunch of players in the SEC Patriots saw that and said yeah we’ll we’ll take that as a priority udfa well you know when when talk about Victor uh if there is any team that’s really good at taking guys who it’s like is he a corner is he a safety is he a linebacker and just saying we’ll figure it out it’s the New England Patriots that’s kind of their body type uh all right brings us to the summary we got two sections to this where we kind of distilled it down from the report card section that we had last year where we’re going through offense defense coaching blah blah blah we’re just kind of distilling it down to to one thing this or that literally that’s it thumbs up thumbs down or thumbs even did they get better did they get worse or are they when factoring in all the additions and losses are they roughly the same are they Treading Water you cannot argue for anything other than thumbs up for the New England Patriots they ideally got better at quarterback they got better weapons uh I think offensive coaching staff massive Improvement we’ll see about the offensive line but it’s not like there was a huge amount of turnover there the defense when you’re getting guys back you’re getting Gonzo back you’re getting judon back this team should be keyword should I know things have gone ay in New England last couple years but should be on paper way way way way way better would not be surprised if this team I’m not saying they will get a wild card spot they’ll be at least in the discussion they will not be mathematically eliminated by Christmas which would be a huge uptick for the Patriots by their standards yeah I’m going thumbs up but it’s relative again they were absolute garbage last year in terms of their overall result not in terms of players or quality or anything result on the field way below everybody in the organization standards so when I say thumbs up and massive Improvement it’s relative we’ll talk about what we think the win totals are they are much better off than they were last year they are trending in the right direction that for me does not mean like oh like start printing the banners that’s not a thing they could have massive Improvement still miss the playoffs they’re not the Colts they don’t just put up banners for anything didn’t finish with a top five pick drop the banner boys shots fired in Indianapolis um oh Marvin senior’s around here somewhere oh sorry sorry but they could be you know not a playoff team and wildly improved this year so thumbs up is still the thing but temper the expectations hard to be worse yeah like really really difficult you G have to work to be worse uh all right that brings us to ceiling and floor you know what’s the ceiling what’s the floor I wrestled with this one it’s like did I want to go all the way to nine I thought about it but I was like ah let me be conservative let me just settle for taking steps in the right direction so I I put their ceiling of wins at eight uh and I put their floor of wins at five so they’re going to be better mhm baring something catastrophic like all the quarterbacks getting injured you know something like that uh I I feel like last year really was the floor again you’re looking at quarterback sport system you’re looking at all of our metrics like they underachieved last year yeah and they bottomed out um was it three wins I think it was right something like that that’s correct so can’t imagine they’re going to be back down there again so floor at five ceiling at eight what do you got we agree on this one uh it’s one of the ones where we match on both ceiling and floor and I I thought sort of nine wins is really Wild Card contention uh in the AFC it might not be but that’s tickling for sure that felt like just barely A Bridge Too Far because they have so many moving pieces and a long way to go from where they were they’re going to be much better they’re going to be improved even if they are an eight- win team that’s a huge step up from where they were and again another solid draft if they get it next year another year of building through free agency and they will be in contention for the division title again for uh not just wild cards but you know solid playoff births and floor at five that defense they should have won five last year even with everything even if somebody gets hurt I mean jacobe brette will win you a couple of games a couple more than last year puts you at five so eight at the top five at the floor I also want to note they have um four individual games where they are playing on three plus more rest days than their opponent so four separate weeks they have a three plus day oh their schedule is very favorable when it comes to rest uh they don’t play anybody coming off a buy or a mini buy the entire year wow I think they might be the only team that say that’s R it’s it’s kind of ridiculous like how how much of a break they here Patriots get better I mean it’s kind of good for the league if the Patriots are good people people are saying they’re tired of the Patriots dynasty they’re tired of of the Pats succeeding they won three games last year it’s like I think yikes I think the league is ready for you know the Boston media Market to be back on board so it’s like all right let’s throw these guys a break yeah uh yeah fun episode uh many more to come 31 more episodes to come in this series tomorrow we’re hitting the Jets then the week after that or the day after that is uh Miami and then we’re rapping it up with the bills uh later this week and then we’re doing the NFC East next week so if you’re a Patriots fan hope you enjoyed this uh if you like playing fantasy football again go play an underdog fantasy beste ball drafts are going on right now as well as pickham for uh you know baseball basketball I think this episode’s releasing during the week of NBA finals I’m assuming the Celtics made it that this might age terribly I was gonna say you had to didn’t you yikes if the Celtics are in it you could do NBA pickham on Underdog fantasy uh and if they’re not in it they probably already turned this off so it’s okay insert graphic of Brett walking on extremely thin ice and then falling through uh also want to thank amage our clothing partner they do all of our bootleg merch they also do NFL merch so uh even if you don’t want to get bootleg merch but you want to get merch supporting your favorite team uh maybe you’re a a Patriots fan watching this 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