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00:00We're joined right now, though, by Tom E. Curran of NBC Sports Bosses, brought to you by Flexcar.
00:05Save thousands with your flexible car lease at flexcar.com. Tom E. Curran, how we doing this week?
00:11Tremendous. What's up, boys? Hello, Rich.
00:12Hello, Tom. Good to hear your voice again, sir.
00:16Good to hear yours.
00:17It's wonderful to hear everybody back together here. We're trying to figure out what the
00:21Patriots are going to be planning on doing, what voice we're going to hear. We know it'll be
00:25Jacoby Brissett today on WEI at 3 o'clock. Why haven't they made an announcement yet, Tom,
00:31on a starting quarterback, and when do you expect that to be?
00:35I just don't know if making an announcement on the off day is probably in the offing.
00:42And the game's not for 12 days, so there's nothing that's imminent that has to be said.
00:47I think that they have announced that they want to be as transparent as possible. They've maybe
00:50taken their transparency to a level that wasn't necessary, as in we're watching how the sausage
00:56gets made, and it's not that appetizing. But to me, when they announce it, I don't know why they
01:03haven't, but I don't think it's late either. Do you think that, and Mayo a couple days ago
01:08was saying how obviously there's going to be a group that has that decision, right? Like Alex
01:13Van Pelt's going to be in on it, Elliot Wolfe's going to be on it, other offensive guys. Do you
01:16like that approach, or should the head coach pick who the starters are?
01:21Absolutely not in this particular instance, in my estimation. The reason,
01:26Gerard Mayo has already announced a number of times and acknowledged, hey, I don't know what
01:30I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to be as a head coach. I might be good, I might not be good.
01:34The offense is the purview of Alex Van Pelt. I'm learning. He is head coach offense. Now,
01:40five years down the road, seven years down the road, if Mayo still happens to be the head coach,
01:45then he can be more of a big ol' swingin' Richard. But right now, he should one million percent
01:49defer to the guy who's been a quarterback in the league, has been an offensive coordinator,
01:54has been installing everything, and has a better grip, I think, on what he expects from his
01:59quarterback in this system than Gerard could. So to me, first say goes to Alex Van Pelt.
02:06Last say should go to Mayo, but in Mayo having last say, Jonesy, it should be, all right, well,
02:12we'll go with what you're doing, but if it doesn't work, we're going to switch to X if
02:17there is a difference of opinion. Right, so he could effectively overrule it at some point,
02:22which I gather, but do you think there's any, do you think the lack of uniform decision-making
02:29and maybe even the Bursette injury, I know Mayo said he could have played through it,
02:32but we kicked around these ideas earlier. Do you think those have played into
02:37the lack of an announcement? I know you said it's not a big deal. The game's not until September
02:408th, but they are one of the few teams that hasn't made the announcement. Do you think
02:43the amount of voices in the room have delayed picking someone?
02:49I think it's a complex decision, and I don't know if it would be even easy for, you know,
02:56with Sean Payton sitting here, very experienced off as a coach, it's a kind of a complex decision.
03:02Is it doing anyone any favors by having it drag out? I don't know what kind of damage it's doing.
03:07I don't even know if it's dragging out. I mean, you have an eight-year veteran and a
03:11guy who made 30 college starts. You have an offensive line that can't block to save its
03:17frigging soul. You've already said you're going to make a project of the kid that you're bringing in.
03:23He's well ahead of schedule as far as I'm concerned, but still, he is a project, and you
03:28just ruined a quarterback by shoving him out there and taking all his goodies away in his second year
03:33in Mac Jones. It's a fait accompli. I mean, to me, we're kind of waiting on white smoke,
03:40but we already know who the Pope is. It's going to be preset.
03:44So, I mean, if I had to bet money, I agree. I think it will be preset week one, but we saw
03:49Bailey Zappi got released, and I thought that might give a little bit of evidence that maybe
03:55they are going to go with Drake May. And the reason I say it is if they don't want to start
03:59Drake May, and they're like, hey, he's not ready, or at least the team around him isn't ready,
04:04we're going to go with the veteran, we're going to go with preset, who already got banged up in
04:07the last preseason game. So if he either can't go or he gets re-injured again, are they going to go
04:13right to Drake May then, or are they going to go with a veteran guy like Bailey Zappi? So do you
04:18read the cut of Zappi into this who's going to start at all? I don't, and some people have said
04:24that, and it's fair to say, look, if you want to protect May, do you want to have him a heartbeat
04:28away from going onto the field when you have the five blind mice working in front of him? Probably
04:33not. However, I don't think Bailey Zappi is going anywhere. Bailey Zappi is going to be right local
04:39for a while. I'm just saying if you want to sign him. So, but I still think it's just so patently
04:47obvious that Bailey Zappi, it's the second year in a row he got released, yet he was the starting
04:55quarterback for what the last three or four games last year. It's just such a bad team going back
05:02to last year. I don't think people have an appreciation for how horrible the 2023 Patriots
05:07really were. They went into the, at this time last year, Matt Jones was the only quarterback
05:12on the roster. They'd gone through Matt Corral, Ian book and released Zappi and Jones was the only
05:18guy. So nevermind. I don't, I don't, that was a bad team. It's still, still is. They weren't good.
05:25Someone called them a, a tier five. Don't look back in anger team. That's a, that's true. So
05:29we're talking to Tommy current NBC sports Boston. His latest is up there now, uh, Drake may in the
05:34starting quarterback decision. It's worth checking out. So you, you and I have argued about this in
05:38the past, Tom, like, uh, if Drake may, isn't ready week one, when is he going to be ready?
05:44And do you want him to sit the entire season? You address this in the column today? I guess my,
05:50my question would be if you don't think the team is ready for him week one, how do they get ready
05:55for him by say the middle of the year or even week five and six, which a lot of people have circled
06:00when I don't think they're going to magically find an offensive line, the five blind mice.
06:05I don't think they're magically going to find a number one receiver. So when, when will be a good
06:10time to drop Drake may in, how do they get the team ready for when he can come in and be
06:15successful in your mind? I guess it'd be my question. Yeah. Well, we all know that as the
06:20season goes along, every team gets better and yes, defenses are going to get better, but the Patriots
06:25will become more competent with what they're trying to do to the point where it doesn't look
06:29like it looked against Philadelphia in the joint practice or the other night without David Andrews
06:34and the Darien low on the field as well. It's going to look better. There'll be a higher level
06:40of competency. There'll be a knowledge from Van Pelt and the offensive line. Okay. We can't do
06:45that. That player can't do this at the same time. May we'll continue to improve. So when those two
06:52things dovetail, there's competency on the offensive line may has improved enough to a
06:57point where he can defend himself. And that's one funny thing is I'm less concerned about the
07:03physical battering than the mental battery. Everybody takes a beaten, whether it's Brady
07:08against behind a good offensive line, whether it's Jacoby percent on Sunday night, or whether
07:13it's Drake may they're going to take a beaten. It's the mental battery that I don't think Drake
07:19may needs to be subjected to because you've made a crap ton of progress since April. The best way
07:24to undo it is to drop them in the middle of the highway with speeding traffic on all sides and say,
07:30okay, show me that cool footwork. You learned it's not going to happen. So this, I think it's
07:36the mental aspect of it. Well, two of the big trigger words, like throughout all of camp,
07:41when asked about Drake may was plan. Like they have a plan and, but also it's a competition.
07:47So I guess my question would be, and I know Greg Hill the other day asked Mayo are, what is the
07:52plan? And the first thing he brought up was preset. And then he was talking about like kind
07:56of the, it was like other things to do with, with Drake may. But I guess my question would be like,
08:00if the plan truly was a competition and then Drake may wins the competition, like doesn't he then get
08:08the job or was really the plan all along just to do your best to develop them. But no matter what,
08:12you weren't going to play in week one. Yeah. I said this, um, see if you agree with this
08:17metaphor. It was like the globe trotters and the Washington generals go out there and compete,
08:23but we all know who's going to win in the end. And it wasn't a talent. Yeah. So, so compete,
08:29try and get the job, try and get the job. Okay. You did, you were better than him, but we're,
08:33we're not going to give you the job. He's spinning the ball on his finger. Just take it.
08:41You know, Tom, we've both been, uh, both keeping myself, maybe you over the year,
08:47you ever been a Washington general, Tom, both keeping myself a long time ago or Washington
08:50general. Yeah. We took the loss that day. Yeah. We didn't win. That's true to your,
08:53to your analogy. It's a good analogy. Neither of us won. So good point.
08:57Never been a general, but I know the role. Yeah. Understandable. Uh, so when it comes to
09:02the offensive line, it was, it was so bad. Can I circle back? Yeah, sure. Go for it.
09:08One thing I think that has been difficult is, and I said this last night on TV,
09:12it sounds a little patronizing. Maybe you, I think that the Patriots, I think that Mayo
09:19has been too transparent and expected people to understand the nuance of what he is saying
09:25in different interviews. And that has caused a lot of confusion. Like I can get the concept of
09:31someone can play better than like, I can play better golf than somebody who's a better player
09:37than me over a period of time. But when it comes to deciding who you want to be, your two-man
09:44scramble partner, you're going to say, I'll take the guy who's better golfer. I'm not going to
09:46take the guy who's been playing better recently. I know he's better. And if he screws up, well,
09:51that's fine. At least I went with the safe thing. I think that that's kind of what's going on. Yes,
09:56he's played, he has outperformed him, but he's not a better quarterback soup to nuts yet.
10:02What about, what about Mayo at the end of July saying Jacoby percent is obviously our starter.
10:08And then the last week saying we don't have a starter.
10:12I think that's indicative of him closing in on it. And I think that he was saying at that time,
10:18Jacoby's our starter. I don't think he was saying Jacoby's going to start week one.
10:22He was saying at this time, Jacoby's our starter as in he'll take first reps. But again, this is,
10:27this goes to the conversation. We pay attention to sports. We're pretty, have a decent command
10:32of the language and yet we're still trying to decipher what he meant. And I think that's
10:37what he meant. And I think that's something that Mayo was really going to have to work on is,
10:41is a preparation of messaging because you can't have people where they're paying attention.
10:46They give a crap about your team. Don't be muddled with your messaging.
10:50No. And I think that's a good point, right? Even if, even if there was nuance that he
10:53expects us to be clued in on, he he's got to be the one cluing us in. So I would agree with that
10:57on the offensive line. Is that all about talent or is there, is there an issue with coaching
11:02here as well? Cause they look completely unprepared the other night.
11:06I'm going to start with personnel. Actually, I'm going to start with Elliot Wolf.
11:09I mean, he's a guy who has a straight face, said that this team could support
11:14a rookie quarterback, no problem. And that they'd be good to go. And that's the inverse
11:18has happened. You clearly cannot support that quarterback because your offensive line
11:22isn't good enough right now to use them. And even the veteran quarterbacks in
11:26jeopardy as a result of the offensive line. So I start with Elliot Wolf and Matt Groh,
11:31who were part of the group last year who said, let's go get Riley Reef and Vidarian Lowe and
11:35Tyrone Wheatley Jr. And Calvin Anderson. And they presented those as solutions and they weren't.
11:40And now they've presented us with these solutions. You know, Leighton Robinson,
11:45people who watch the offensive line a hell of a lot closer than me at practice have all talked
11:48about how great Leighton Robinson would be. And he got absolutely shoved around like a kid.
11:53Caden Wallace drafted as a possible left tackle has never played. It'd been a right tackle. Same
11:59thing with Chuck Sikora for it. This is starts with them. And then I think it goes to the
12:06coaching staff. Scott Peters clearly not getting through. But who hired these guys is what is
12:12irksome to me. Yeah, I agree. I mean, just not lining up properly, not executing a snap. I mean,
12:18that's even worse than, you know, giving up a pass rush. But anyway, it was it was a disaster
12:22all the way around. Now, this is not a roster that is going to have a lot of surprise cuts
12:26because as we were talking about earlier, not 53 great players to begin with. So got
12:30fifty four through, you know, 70, probably not super noteworthy. However, Kevin Harris,
12:36I thought, look good in camp. I thought he was going to be one of the running backs on the team
12:39and he gets cut today. What are your thoughts on Harris getting released? Yeah, I think there'll
12:44be such a glut of running backs who are released from different teams because every team has
12:50plenty of them that they would absolutely be desirous of bringing him back if the Patriots
12:54want to go four deep and him on the practice squad. I look at Antonio Gibson as kind of a
13:00Rex Burkhead type if we're going to look at it in a similar because he can run between the tackles.
13:07He can be your change up back. He can catch passes as well. Hasty would be definitely
13:13your change up back. And then obviously from Andre Stevenson's your lead back. But
13:19if Stevenson gets dinged, you probably don't want 27 carries to go to Antonio Gibson. And this is
13:26a team that is going to want to carry the ball twenty five to thirty five times a game. I would
13:32think score dependent. So I would think that Harris would probably be on the short list. But
13:40I mean, as we know, these guys are so friggin interchangeable running backs. There's so many
13:46of them. OK, well, check out all the latest from Tommy Curran. It's up now at NBC Sports Boston.
13:51You can see him on Quick Slants early edition all over the thank you for tonight. Go the Patriots.
14:01Tremendous to Mario Douglas irrelevant questions you're going to love.
14:04Oh, I do like those little a little. Can we get a little preview sneak peek?
14:09Yeah, because I do something. Hey, what's your number and how he was able to decide on the
14:15number he got? And that gets really, really funny. Oh, I asked Christian. I was just going
14:20to say and he was he had a ton of energy about that. He was super excited to talk to us. It
14:24was less funny. So that's good. OK, good. So you. Yeah, OK. So that's that's the night on
14:28Quick Slants. Did he have no energy? I was not much. No, yeah. He must have been maybe tired
14:33from the day. Must have been an exhausting practice. That's true. Tom, we appreciate it.
14:37Thanks so much. You got. Thanks, Tom. All right. Tommy Curran joining us here on W.E.I. brought
14:42to you by Flexcar.