Greg Bedard goes solo on Christmas Eve to recap the Bills’ 24-21 comeback win over the Patriots after overcoming a 14-0 deficit. He discusses whether the Patriots’ effort, despite the loss, could help secure Jerod Mayo’s future as head coach.
The Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast is presented by:
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The Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast is presented by:
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00:00This is the Gregg Bedard Patriots Podcast with Nick Cavins.
00:07Hey everybody, welcome into the Gregg Bedard Patriots Podcast.
00:12I am here solo on Christmas Eve before I go into Felder and Mazz, but wanted to get this
00:19out to you guys to learn a little bit of something about the Patriots game on Sunday against
00:26the Bills.
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00:57Game time.
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01:23So, big picture, sort of where are we?
01:27Patriots, as we know, ended up losing to the Bills by three points, 24-21 on a frigid night
01:37in Buffalo.
01:40You know, I guess the most immediate thing is, okay, well, what does this do about Gerard
01:45Mayo and his future?
01:48To me, that kind of showing basically solidified, if not guaranteed, that he's back for year
01:56two.
01:58You can think of that however you want to.
02:01I tried to remove myself from this.
02:04I think everybody knows my thoughts on Mayo.
02:09Again, just to reiterate, I think he might make a fine head coach someday.
02:15I just think he wasn't ready for this job.
02:20I don't think it's a job that you can grow into.
02:22I think you need to be ready for it.
02:24I don't think he was ready for this.
02:25I don't care if it was ahead of schedule, it wasn't planned this way.
02:28It's not his fault that Kraus put him in this position.
02:31I think Sunday against Buffalo was good and bad for Gerard, quite frankly.
02:43I thought the second half, the first half, we saw they came out aggressive.
02:49Offense looked great.
02:51Got two touchdowns.
02:52The defense did enough against Josh Allen.
02:56We'll get into that a little bit more in a second.
03:00But a lot of what we were asking, or certainly what I was asking of this team, what I wanted
03:05to see was be a pain in the ass, especially for teams in the division, which they hadn't
03:10done.
03:11I think they were, I think in their first two matchups, their first matchup, first time
03:16they saw them, Aaron Rodgers and Tuatunga-Bailoa, I think the Patriots fell behind a collective
03:2155-3, something like that.
03:25So to do this against the Bills was good.
03:30This is what you should do.
03:31I mean, look at what the Carolina Panthers have been doing for about the last six, seven
03:38weeks.
03:39They're not perfect, of course, but for the most part, they've been a pain in the ass.
03:43Bryce Young split pretty good.
03:45If they're not winning games, they're giving really good teams all they can handle.
03:49And that's what you're looking for.
03:50You could see them building.
03:53Before Sunday, I think that was very much in question about this team and why I think
03:58Gerard Mayo's future was in focus, and I think rightfully so.
04:07So about Mayo on Sunday, I thought, fake punt in the first half, I thought, I don't
04:12know if you guys would agree with me, but, and I wrote this on BSJ on Sunday, and by
04:18the way, I should also mention, I wrote an open letter to Robert and Jonathan on Sunday
04:22morning that's open to everybody.
04:24You can go to BSJ and find that.
04:27The first half, to me, looked like a head coach and a coaching staff with a sense of
04:32urgency, like they were feeling the pressure to perform, show something before, say, midpoint
04:39of 2025.
04:40The whole talk about Mayo's going to be better in year two and all that bullcrap that I didn't
04:45like hearing.
04:46Nobody cares about next year.
04:48Everybody cares about the next game.
04:49You have a chance to accomplish something every week in the NFL, especially if you're
04:53trying to establish a program and a culture, and I thought that Mayo didn't have any urgency
04:58with that.
04:59It filtered down to the coaches, and it filtered down to the players.
05:04You could say that on Sunday, it looked like a group from Alex Van Pelt to Marcus Covington,
05:10Mayo even, that was coaching for their jobs, and if that was indeed the case, good.
05:17About time.
05:20Second half, completely different side of the coin for me.
05:28To me, I'm just telling you what it looked like.
05:29I'm not telling you I heard this from anybody, but to me, it looked like a head coach, if
05:36not the entire coaching staff, that looked like they accomplished something in the first
05:39half, and were kind of just trying to make it look good.
05:43This is not a criticism of Mayo only, because I'm sure many of you recall, I've said the
05:54same thing about Bill towards the end of his tenure.
05:58There was a game against the Bills, where I ripped the game plan against them.
06:02There was a game against the Chiefs last year, where it looked like they were just trying
06:07to not get blown out, so this isn't Mayo specific.
06:12I thought that Mayo, in the second half, looked like he just wanted to keep it close, and
06:18I think that that decision to punt with 8.38 left was just utterly ridiculous, and proof
06:26of that, playing quote-unquote game field position against the Bills team that you never
06:33forced to go three and out the whole day, I thought it was a recipe to lose the game.
06:39I thought the decision to onside kick was also colossally stupid.
06:44You had all three timeouts, you only needed a field goal.
06:49Your best bet, and look, I know it's not a high percentage chance with Josh Allen out
06:54there and his ability to run in short yardage situations, but if you're trying to win the
07:00game there, you're trying to force overtime, you kick the ball off, and you sell out on
07:06defense, and you try to get the ball back, maybe around your own 40 or something, a couple
07:11plays, you're in field goal range, so I just did not understand that.
07:17So about Mayo sort of coaching to preserve his job, I thought what we heard out of him
07:25in the post-game press conference was an offshoot of that.
07:29To me, it looked like somebody got to him, maybe at the ownership level, and basically
07:35said, you need to show something on Sunday.
07:39We cannot afford to get blown out against the Bills, and also, you need to stop stepping
07:47in in press conferences, say less, say much less, and don't have to walk something back
07:54on Monday.
07:55And it looked like Mayo went out there trying to accomplish those goals, and I would say
08:00he's successful, and probably assured himself of a second year, at least.
08:09One thing I wanted to touch on in the wake of the game, I think everybody heard Drake
08:17May, he was, some of the questions, Drake May and Hunter Henry, they were asked about
08:22their coaches, about Mayo, May gave some sort of comment about, I think it's BS.
08:30First of all, the good portion of his comment, to me it was, it reinforced that he is loyal,
08:40and that anyone in a foxhole with him, whether it's his coaches, whether it's his teammates,
08:45his receivers, he's going to have their back in that particular series, season, that particular
08:52stretch of games.
08:54I think that's a great, it's great, and another good sign for his leadership chops going forward.
09:02However, but with all due respect, I don't give a crap about Drake May's opinion about
09:09Gerard Mayo, and it should not bear any weight on anything about his job status, probably
09:16does, because I think Robert Kraft, at this point, is an overly sentimental owner, and
09:23no longer looks at things critically, he looks at things out of ego, and wanting to
09:30prove himself, but back to Drake, look, he's 22 years old, he's a rookie, he's won one
09:37game this year, and between Mack Brown and Gerard Mayo, quite frankly, Drake May has
09:43no idea what good coaching, what good football coaching might look like.
09:49Related to this, when of course, the reaction about Drake May's comments was vindication
09:58of Gerard, and look at this, and it means Gerard's doing X, Y, and Z, which I totally
10:05dismiss, I said to myself, I said, I wonder what Justin Herbert had to say about Brandon
10:12Staley, and I looked back, this was not even after the game, this was the day after the
10:19Chargers suffered the third largest collapse in postseason history, remember, they were
10:25up 27-0 on the Jaguars, and fell 31-30, this was the next day, Justin Herbert said, everyone
10:34would be lucky to have a coach like Staley, he's been an incredible leader, and has the
10:37respect of everyone on our team, he's genuine, he's himself, and he has been the same person
10:44for two years, you know, great, and who knows, maybe that swayed the Spanos', that turned
10:54out ultimately to be a not very bright decision, Staley was retained after that year, despite
11:00all the evidence that he wasn't up to the job, and like Mayo, a defensive head coach
11:07unlike Mayo, he goes forward on every fourth down, but that doesn't really matter here,
11:14Staley was retained, brought back for the 2023 season, and he was fired with a record
11:20of 5-9, so long story short, I don't care what players say, I don't care what players
11:30say about coaches, it bears no weight to me on the situation, it's not accurate, I
11:41expect them, I don't expect the guy to come out, especially a first-year coach, maybe
11:47year two, year three, you might hear some different things at the podium, but to me
11:56it means nothing, and so that's where I am on that.
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13:12Let's deal with the Patriots offense against the Bills defense, the Bills have not been
13:19great on defense, their stats over the last previous four games were horrible, they were
13:25down four starters on defense, and I think it showed, they were not good in this game,
13:32they had a tough time against the run, they had a tough time against Drake May, but my
13:38big sort of 10,000 foot takeaway on this is, I know he had the pick, I know we'll talk
13:49about the lateral in a second, but to me I thought this was a very positive game for
13:55Drake May, I mean I went into this game not knowing, can he hold on to the ball in the
13:59cold, how's he going to do in Buffalo, but to come out the way that he did, and I gotta
14:07tell you, the Bills threw the kitchen sink at Drake May, I mean they came out hot and
14:13heavy from the get go, for the whole game, I have them for, they went all out blitz,
14:20well at least rushed six, ten times in this game, that's absurd, the Bills never blitz,
14:28and they sent guys, May dealt with it all the time, I thought he was really good in
14:34the first half, second half was a little bit of a struggle, but still, he graded out
14:41slightly positive for me in this game, it was sort of like a 50-50 game for him, the
14:48interception in my mind was a pass that should have been thrown out of the back of the end
14:53zone, he rushed it, there was pressure on him, Michael went in with a lot of pressure
14:59on that play, and he thought Cooper was going to go flat, Cooper went to the flag, where
15:08they were, the 16-yard line at Buffalo, down three, you just can't afford to turn over
15:12there, but largely I'm not, the lateral to me was a, it was shared between Alex Van Pelt,
15:25DeMontre Jacobs, and Drake May, that play never should have been called in that situation,
15:33too many things had to go right, starting with DeMontre Jacobs cutting an athletic end
15:39like Gregory Rousseau, I mean, Rousseau could have just ran up the field, it was, that's
15:45like a 50-50 proposition anyways, as far as DeMontre making that, on that, in that field,
15:52in that environment, probably went down even less, you know, May and Stevenson have to
15:58sync up their drops, so that's not a lateral, you know, does May, does May sort of need
16:05to see Rousseau, it was tough timing, I mean, I'm not going to say that May definitely should
16:11have seen him there and not thrown the pass, it's a tough play, you know, but, you know,
16:20in that situation, you've got to look, is the end cut or not, if he's not, rifle the
16:25ball out of bounds, so that was rough, but, you know, largely, I'm still of the mindset
16:31where I'm not too bothered by Drake May's turnovers, I just think he's going to learn
16:38from it, he's going to learn from both plays, and he's going to be good going forward, but
16:44largely, for the whole game, in that environment, I thought it was a very positive result, now,
16:50now we know that Drake May can go up there in the toughest of conditions and play well,
16:57and in some respects, you might say, outplayed Josh Allen, I thought that Alex Van Pelt created
17:07a lot of pressure in this game, especially not helping out DeMontre Jacobs, like, ever
17:12in the game, you know, I thought the offensive line was good for the most part, May brought
17:19pressure on himself, I would say, I think it was between the team, and a lot of that
17:24is scheme, you know, that they just can't block them, or guys are free, running free,
17:33I mean, that's just, there's nothing, that's not the responsibility of anybody, so between
17:38the team and Drake May, they accounted for half the pressure in this game, and there
17:41was a lot of pressure, but that's just the sort of the way things went, so we will talk
17:51about the defense in one second, you got to get out to a game, Chargers game is coming
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18:38what time is it? Game time. The defense, I'm not over the moon about the defensive performance,
18:47to me, there are a couple of things at play in this game, I mean, look, I'm happy that they
18:53had an approach, which was basically, we're not going to let Josh Allen run all over the place,
18:58they spied him a lot, most of the time they had good rush integrity, they weren't going to give
19:02up the big plays, but, you know, for me, I thought their performance has been overrated by some,
19:11from what I've heard about it, first of all, the Bills had three huge drops in the game,
19:17I thought Joe Brady, the offensive coordinator, abandoned the run too much, they could have run
19:21all day if they wanted to, and never passed, and, quite frankly, I thought Josh Allen played
19:28terrible, this was not about, the Patriots did play good coverage, and they played a lot of
19:33man coverage, and we've talked about that before, they play their best defense when they play man
19:37coverage, but, I counted, what did I have him for, you know, I thought that he was, it was a letdown
19:45game for him, maybe not for the Bills as a whole, but considering the schedule, he was also, you
19:53know, hurt a little bit, but to me, early on especially, he was looking for the knockout punch
19:59with his crappy weapons, he does not have good weapons, he was looking deep way too much, this
20:06is something that he had graduated from, and why he's become so good, where he just, you know,
20:10reads the defense and takes the check downs, he did not do that all day, I had, I tabulated
20:17Allen for 10 minus plays in this game, plays that were there, that he didn't make,
20:24add in the drops, I thought Josh Allen left a lot of plays on the field, you know, but,
20:32you know, solid job, better approach from DeMarcus Covington, but I did want to point out one thing,
20:37by the way, we got another horrible defensive call for DeMarcus Covington at the 14-27 mark
20:43of the fourth quarter, with Buffalo up by three, on first and 16, Covington sent a rare blitz,
20:50and that's when Khalil Shakur was wide open coming across the field, when Jonathan Jones
20:56caught up and punched him out, punched the ball out, that was just a horrible, horrible call
21:03in that situation, I don't know why you would do that, it's first and 16, so that's my view on
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22:51things I liked, things I didn't like, let's see, things I liked,
22:58it will avoid the running backs, I thought Austin Hooper was sensational in this game,
23:03especially with his run blocking, that catch over the middle was awesome, I thought Ben Brown,
23:12clean sheet, Michael Wenu, just one quarterback pressure, one stuff and Vardarian Lowe were all
23:19really good in this game, I also thought Booty was really good, Bourne was good and that's it,
23:27offensively, defensively, not a whole lot, Jeremiah Farms was awesome in this game,
23:38I thought Tavai was good, Jonathan Jones, Christian Gonzalez, Kyle Duggar had his best game in weeks
23:44and Marte Mapu wasn't quite as good as everybody said, things I did not like in this game,
23:52um, nobody really among the pass catchers, um, Leighton Robinson was okay, Demantre Jacobs,
24:01not good, um, could have used some help there, uh, defensively, I thought Anthony Jennings was
24:07absolutely horrible with missed tackles, uh, the edge, uh, Sion Takitaki had a big minus,
24:15um, Alex Austin, I think he got benched at one point, oh and by the way, I wanted to point out,
24:21the big touchdown run by the Bills was because Kyle Duggar didn't, was not in the right place
24:27and was kind of lazy, um, flowing with the, with, with the play and then, uh, Marte Mapu, um, took
24:35a bad angle and didn't make the play, that should not have happened again, but we've seen this
24:39before, uh, okay, that's going to be it for me, uh, thanks everybody, have a very Merry Christmas,
24:45Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, all that stuff and we will see you later in the week.