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.