Patriots insider Tom E. Curran weighs in on the Patriots trading Matthew Judon
Patriots insider Tom E. Curran weighs in on the Patriots trading Matthew Judon, the Patriots season preseason game tonight, Drake Maye so far this offseason.
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00:00Tommy Curran, how are we doing today?
00:02I am tremendous. How are you guys?
00:04Good to have you all back.
00:05Oh, we're doing excellent.
00:06Let me start with Matthew Judon.
00:08I know you feel it's a good return.
00:10Your colleague, Phil Perry, has reported
00:12on some executives in the league being shocked
00:14by the return. Why do it now?
00:16Like, in retrospect, why'd they wait so long
00:18and not get this done earlier in the offseason?
00:22Most likely it had to do with the fact
00:24nobody answered up a third-round pick prior.
00:26So that, to me, seems like
00:30the Occam's razor answer to this.
00:33Nobody else was offering a third-round pick
00:35until now. Other teams got desperate,
00:37said, we'll give you a third.
00:39Boom. Good. Done. Okay.
00:40We didn't think we'd get that.
00:42I can't imagine it's anything else.
00:44You're not going to just stand there
00:46for months at an impasse with a guy
00:48with no intention of giving him a long-term contract
00:51and him kicking rocks at practices
00:53if there's a third-round pick compensation
00:56I would imagine it's because of the return.
00:59Was there value in taking a little less,
01:01and this is in theory, but in your opinion,
01:03would there have been value in taking, say,
01:04a fourth-round pick at the beginning of the offseason,
01:06not going through the whole headache
01:07and the drawn-out process versus taking
01:09the third-rounder in 2025?
01:12In my estimation, no.
01:13I think they actually had an opportunity
01:16from Mayo to show some authority,
01:19and he did. When you look at all the contract
01:21impasses around the NFL,
01:23how many are ongoing that actually have
01:25the player on the field practicing?
01:28Yes, there was a dust-up at one practice
01:32that I think Mayo navigated pretty well,
01:34and since then you've had the player
01:36out on the field playing with a contract
01:38he doesn't like and playing pretty hard
01:40and taking part in everything.
01:41So to me, if you moved on earlier,
01:46you weren't going to get the same return,
01:48and in the end, when you look at it in hindsight,
01:51what kind of damage was done?
01:54Tom, you wrote about what we can expect
01:56in this second preseason game
01:58with how much playing time Drake May might get,
02:01especially compared to the first preseason game.
02:03There's a lot of stuff flying around out there
02:05about, like, are they trying to protect him
02:07or are they trying to hide him?
02:09What grade would you give Drake May
02:12at this point in training camp,
02:14knowing that you've been down there
02:15pretty much every single day
02:17watching every single snap he's taken?
02:20I'd give him a C.
02:21It's just a straight C.
02:23He has not exceeded expectations.
02:25He has not been below expectations.
02:29He's a project.
02:31Mayo said it at the owners' meetings
02:33when talking about all the quarterbacks.
02:35He has a low floor and a high ceiling.
02:38So right now they're trying to get him
02:40off the ground floor.
02:41He's made improvement since rookie minicamp
02:43to the end of minicamp.
02:44He's made improvement since the beginning
02:46of training camp.
02:47When you watch him in seven-on-seven,
02:48he's more than fine.
02:50They're definitely not playing seven-on-seven
02:52when the season starts.
02:53But the fact that the offensive line
02:55is in the disarray that it's been
02:56has really hamstrung him
02:59from showing up on a regular enough basis
03:01as a competent quarterback
03:04that you can say, oh, he's tracking
03:05to be the starter sometime this year.
03:07But I'd have to call it a C
03:08because if you didn't look at this team
03:12and the offense that it was last year
03:14at the end of the season
03:15or in the last two-thirds of the season
03:17and realize they were completely
03:19bereft of talent
03:21and realize that there was going to be
03:22an ongoing process to get them back
03:24to even have their heads above water,
03:26then you're selectively remembering
03:28just how bad it was.
03:31How much do you think we'll see May tonight
03:33and what conclusions will you draw
03:35based on his number of snaps?
03:39I think he's going to play a lot,
03:40which I think is worth a second guess
03:43because if you're going to play him a lot
03:45this week against the Eagles,
03:48who are a much better defense than Carolina,
03:52you could have played him a crap ton
03:53last week against Carolina
03:55and had it been less harm's way
03:56if that's the biggest concern.
03:58And I do think that's a big concern
04:00is they don't want to put him out there
04:02with players who aren't prepared to block for him.
04:04To me, I don't care.
04:06That happens.
04:07It happens to every rookie quarterback
04:09at some point.
04:10Is he going to get a twisted knee?
04:12Most likely not.
04:13Could he? Yep, still.
04:15Put him out there against Carolina.
04:16They're going to do it with Philadelphia now.
04:19You can game it up.
04:20You can run draws, screens.
04:21You don't have to throw it 35 times.
04:25But to me, it's a missed opportunity last week
04:28and this week since you acknowledge
04:30he's a developmental quarterback.
04:31These are the developmental periods.
04:33Use them.
04:34So you're going to see a lot of them.
04:35All that said, Christian,
04:37I think you'll see him
04:39certainly by the second quarter
04:41and maybe after halftime.
04:43Interesting.
04:44Okay, so Tommy Curran expects a lot of Drake May tonight,
04:46which I'm rooting for.
04:47I think we're all rooting for.
04:48He joins us here from NBC Sports Boston.
04:50Tom, you wrote this either over the weekend,
04:52late last week.
04:53I forget exactly when it was,
04:54but it was in the aftermath of Ayuk,
04:57which is still a mess in San Francisco.
04:59Is he staying with the Niners?
05:00Is he going to Pittsburgh?
05:01We know the Patriots aren't going to get him.
05:02And you said the Patriots haven't been
05:04this unattractive since 1992.
05:08I guess I wouldn't imagine that's changed at all
05:10since you wrote it, since the Judon move.
05:13Why do you feel that way?
05:16In 1993, they had Bill Parcells
05:18and soon drafted Drew Bledsoe.
05:20And since then, even in the Pete Carroll years,
05:23you had a litany of highly drafted,
05:25very good players, Bledsoe included,
05:27who by that time was a Pro Bowl level player.
05:30You had McGinnis, Molloy.
05:32You had a good team that had just gone to a Super Bowl.
05:35And even in Bill's first year in 2000,
05:37that's a team coming off 8-8 that went 5-11,
05:41but it still had Bledsoe.
05:43So they still had a Pro Bowl level quarterback in place.
05:47To me, this is as bad as it's been,
05:48and it's going to be treated vastly by prospective players
05:53until they show glimmers of hope in life.
05:56And what I think is interesting about the Judon deal
06:00is you haven't paid Ayuk.
06:02You didn't pay Ridley.
06:03You didn't pay Matthew Judon.
06:05Awesome.
06:06That's fine.
06:07I don't care.
06:08I'm not watching the pennies the way you guys are,
06:10all you 2-6 people.
06:12But you better spend like absolute drunken sailors
06:18with three days to live when free agency opens next year.
06:21You use that third overall pick that you're probably going to have
06:25and draft the tackle.
06:27Then you spend everything you can to convince
06:31whatever wide receiver you target to come here.
06:33Then you have Drake May, you have a left tackle,
06:35you have your wide receiver, you have an accomplished defense
06:38because it's going to be good again,
06:40and you have what I think will be a good second-round pick
06:43in his second year in Jalen Polk.
06:45So to me, there's a lot of artillery there now for them financially
06:51and most likely draft pick-wise.
06:54I was listening to you and Phil earlier this week,
06:57and you guys were talking about some of the observations
06:59that you had at practice and that it looks like the Patriots
07:02might be going a little bit back towards the gap running scheme
07:06rather than that outside zone that AVP brought over from Cleveland
07:10and his other stops.
07:12Are they going to, once again, partway through camp,
07:15abandon that outside zone idea again?
07:18Or is this just kind of because the way that the line is shaping up,
07:23they have to do this by need?
07:25What's going on with that scheme?
07:27It's a great question because it's fascinating.
07:29They have been trying to implement this wide zone stuff,
07:32which the West Coast offense has predicated on, since 2021.
07:36It didn't take when Josh McDaniels was here.
07:38They went back to kind of the gap runs with Damian Harris
07:41running between guard and center.
07:43The wide zone stuff requires nimble guards, centers especially,
07:49and a tackle who can seal things at the edge to get all those gaps
07:53running towards the sideline.
07:54Then the running back just has to pick a gap,
07:56turn it upfield by putting his foot in the ground.
07:59That's not been successful in 2021.
08:01They tried it again in 2022, actually drafting Cole Strange,
08:04who was better suited for that kind of an offense,
08:07and Pierre Strong, who was a running back suited for that,
08:10and Bailey Zappi was suited for that kind of an offense,
08:14and it didn't take.
08:16O'Brien went away from it last year, but now AVP is all in.
08:20That's everything that Alex Van Pelt's offense is about
08:23is you have to be able to run wide zone runs so that you can set up
08:27the bootleg stuff off of it.
08:29So I just don't know if they have the humans for it.
08:33They have road graders, not dancing bears, on their offensive line.
08:39So they're probably going to still run plenty of gap runs,
08:42but they're going to have to transition to being a wide zone team
08:45under Van Pelt because that's the curriculum, that's the lesson plan,
08:49that's everything that he believes in.
08:52Tom, before we let you go here, how would you characterize
08:55ownership's expectations for this team?
08:58Because I feel like that shifted a little bit recently.
09:02I don't know if it shifted.
09:04I think that it's always been tempered.
09:06I think that at the owner's meetings I'd have to look back at what Craft said
09:09because he said to us first that he expects a successful season,
09:13and then it was basically not word for word, but don't hold your breath.
09:18So I'd have to look back at that.
09:21I think ownership understands it's a rebuilding season.
09:23It was the worst offense in football last year.
09:26They went 4-13.
09:27They got a new head coach.
09:28Anybody expecting them to be appreciably better than last year
09:32after tearing it down to zero is kind of hoping against hope.
09:36Could they win five or six games?
09:38Sure, they could.
09:40Could they win two or three?
09:41Absolutely.
09:43More than that, or less than that, I don't see,
09:46but your sweet spot here is two to six, just like you guys.
09:49I was just going to say, just like Jones and Mego,
09:51I am looking forward to, Tom, locking hands
09:54and counting Robert Craft's pennies next offseason.
09:57We're really going to be on them for spending next offseason.
10:00I'm looking forward to that.
10:02Scrooge McDuck over there.
10:04You get him.
10:05I mean, that's not how I would refer to Robert Craft.
10:07But, okay, Tommy Curran, NBC Sports Boston, thanks so much.
10:10We'll talk to you next week.