• 17 hours ago
Taylor Kyles and Mike Kadlick of Patriots Daily team up with Brian Hines and Alex Barth of Patriots Beat for a special crossover episode to dive into the Patriots' coaching search. With Mike Vrabel set to interview on Thursday, will New England make a quick decision, or will they wait to hear from Ben Johnson on Friday?

The crew also reacts to the end of the Patriots' season and discusses the firing of Jerod Mayo after just one year as head coach. Don’t miss this in-depth breakdown of the latest developments in Foxborough!

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Transcript
00:00:00All right. And welcome into a brand new, uh, crossover episode. Patriots beat Patriots
00:00:07daily here. Alex Barth and Brian Heinz from Patriots beat Mike Cadillac and Taylor Kyle's
00:00:12from Patriots daily. Uh, we haven't done one of these in a minute. It's, it's, it's been
00:00:17quite a bit since we did a crossover show. Cause it got to the point sort of at the end
00:00:21of the year where, well, let's see what happens. And then we'll say it all. We'll do it all
00:00:25at once. And that's kind of where we're at. The Patriots 2024 season is over. They went
00:00:29four and 13, same as last year within about an hour, hour and a half of the season ending
00:00:34the Patriots fired head coach, Gerard Mayo, and now a coaching search is underway.
00:00:39So we kind of thought at the end of the year, we'd do a season recap show. I will do some
00:00:43of that today. I don't know how much people want to hear beyond they sucked. Like at this
00:00:47point, I think everybody's kind of onto the coaching search of it all, which is very understandable,
00:00:51but I do want to hit on a couple things from the end of the year. Cause they are still
00:00:55big stories that we haven't weighed in on together. So Brian, we'll start with you.
00:01:00Just your thoughts on the firing of Gerard Mayo. Was it the right move? Was it done in
00:01:05the right way? What Robert Kraft said the other day about it, just your thoughts on
00:01:10that all as a whole, before we get to the next coach, our last crossover was during
00:01:14the buy, wasn't it? Which is when everything went downhill after that. And that's where
00:01:20it kind of seems like this really took a turn for Gerard Mayo.
00:01:24Not like it was going great going into the buy, but at least they had some competitive
00:01:28games and there were some signs, but it fell off completely, not just on the field. You
00:01:34know, you get embarrassed in Arizona after the buy, you blow a 14, nothing lead, even
00:01:38when you look competitive in Buffalo. And then the chargers game was just the icing
00:01:43on the cake where not only do you just get blown out and embarrassed, but the stadium
00:01:47is half empty. The fans are chanting fire Mayo. And that's when it was clear. And that
00:01:53was just on the field. Then you look at off the field during all that. He throws Alex
00:01:57Van Pelt under the bus. After the Cardinals game, we have the whole Ramondre Stevenson
00:02:01Antonio Gibson thing at the, before the chargers game, who's going to start. So he really dug
00:02:06his grave too far to, to overcome that last month after the buy.
00:02:12And it was the right decision. It was just, and Kraft admitted it and credit to him for
00:02:17taking the accountability. It was just too early for him. He wasn't ready. And you pair
00:02:21that with the roster, the depleted roster, it just was not a good combination there.
00:02:27So credit to them for kind of recognizing that and moving on and not letting this problem
00:02:31just, you know, continue into next year. They made the right move to move on. And now we
00:02:36have this, this coaching staff search here. Mike. Yeah. So it was definitely the right
00:02:42thing to do. And I think the last month kind of, kind of sealed his fate. And Brian, you
00:02:47mentioned like on-field stuff and off-field stuff were bad.
00:02:51And I think the on-field stuff, everybody knew was kind of going to happen. And like
00:02:56that stuff was understandable. You had a bad roster. You had a young coaching staff. You
00:03:01had a executive vice president, Elliot Wolf kind of doing everything for the first time.
00:03:07So even Robert Kraft had mentioned it. I forget if it was at the owner's meetings or in some
00:03:11interview where they knew they were going to take their lumps, but once the off-field
00:03:15stuff happened and really like, I hate to make a big deal out of the media stuff because
00:03:22we're in the media.
00:03:23And I feel like we're kind of like not tooting our own horn, but using that angle of it.
00:03:27But all of these things in a vacuum would have been fine. But on top of one another,
00:03:32on top of one another, it just all added up into a nightmare scenario where, you know,
00:03:37starts with burn some cash and it ends with, I don't like it just all the crap with, with
00:03:43Gibson and stuff. And so, look, I mean, he also mentioned that they wanted to start the,
00:03:49or end the year strong and be the best version of themselves in December and be spoiler to
00:03:54some of these teams. And they were the exact opposite after the buy.
00:03:58And I think that that's kind of where, you know, it turned as well. And Kraft really
00:04:02admitted as such that it was sort of that last month that did him in. Now there's been
00:04:05other reporting. I know Greg Bedard mentioned that this sort of even started over the summer
00:04:09and some guys told Mike Giardi at some point that, you know, during training camp, they were
00:04:14curious when this was going to go off the rails. So the signs were always there. It does stink
00:04:18because there's the human aspects. These, you know, they built a great relationship over Gerard
00:04:2217 years. So you feel bad for both sides, but good on Robert Kraft for owning up to it, making the
00:04:28change and cutting the cord here because another year of this, the same way, clearly it wasn't
00:04:33going to work. They knew that on the inside, sort of nip it in the bud now and move on was
00:04:37the right thing to do. And again, like you said, looking forward to, you know, to this new head
00:04:41coaching search. Taylor. Yeah, it needed to be done. And I know that nationally, a lot of folks,
00:04:47I think misunderstand why he was fired. There's been a lot of comparisons to other black head
00:04:52coaches who were fired after one season, which look, I totally understand why when you lump
00:04:56these all together, because you had, you know, Rand Carthon got fired and then Antonio Pierce,
00:05:01it's not a year, but he gets fired after only one year. It's like the full-time actual head coach,
00:05:06but also I think it's important to look more closely at why they actually got fired. And
00:05:11Robert Kraft took responsibility was his fault. Gerard Mayo should never have been in this
00:05:15position. And he only was because Robert Kraft, frankly, was kind of a nepotism hire where he
00:05:19panicked about the potential of losing Mayo and then signed him up for a job. He was woefully
00:05:24unprepared for bill Belichick leaving or getting fired, obviously hurts that as well. But at the
00:05:29same time, how much would really Mayo been able to like soak it in those two years, you know,
00:05:35and then the whole process was because bill wasn't involved, it was kind of doomed from the
00:05:39start anyway. So I think we tried to be, especially Mike and I, we really tried to be gracious
00:05:44because we understood it. Wasn't going to look pretty and try to give them the benefit of the
00:05:48doubt, but our marker was the bi-week. And it's like, this is where you need to show some
00:05:52significant improvement. Like, you don't have to beat all three of those scenes, but you needed to
00:05:55be competitive and just getting blown out twice. It just felt like now in retrospect, that we know
00:06:01that Gerard was unprepared and that he was going to the back of the plane and like playing cards
00:06:06when he shouldn't be praying. It's just like all of those things. It just felt like the
00:06:10camel's back was broken and there was just so much. And we knew he looked, he looked drained
00:06:16after the bi-week you would expect him to be kind of refreshed. Not so much. It was so late,
00:06:19but like he looked like he was really tired. And, you know, I think that's kind of where the roster
00:06:24felt as well. So unfortunately he was put in that spot, but I'm glad that Robert Kraft ripped off
00:06:29the band-aid and it gives me hope that they're going to be serious about Gerard Mayo's replacement
00:06:33and really someone who's going to pair well with Drake May and give the organization some
00:06:37credibility that it desperately needs. Yeah. I think it came down to two things and I think this
00:06:42move had to be made. I think it was the right move as I'd been saying, there was a case to strong
00:06:47case to fire him for a few weeks there at the end, which is kind of how I articulate he should
00:06:51be fired. Um, which I know maybe didn't get across some people, but first off is the lack of
00:06:56improvement at the end of the year, Robert Kraft used the word regression at his press conference.
00:07:00He was a hundred percent right. As willing to be flexible early in the year, if it wasn't going
00:07:04great, because it was all right, you got to take your lumps. You got to have your learning
00:07:07experiences, but it didn't feel like they learned anything from the learning experiences and that's
00:07:11on the coaching and that's the red flag. And then you just had it. The one thing we would get this
00:07:16question. I got this question a lot. I don't know about you guys, but I would get the question a lot
00:07:19where you'd be like, well, raw, you know, I think the crafts are going to bring him back for better
00:07:22or worse. And people would say, well, why, what has he done? What is he doing that they should
00:07:26bring him back in? The one thing you could kind of point to was like, the players are bought in,
00:07:31the players are bought into the program and the players seem to believe in him.
00:07:35And then you just kind of had all this weird stuff happening with the culture,
00:07:39with reminder, Stevenson not being benched with players talking out against the fans,
00:07:43things like that. That was like, if this is what we're seeing on the surface,
00:07:46how bad is it really behind closed doors? And since he's been fired, we've kind of learned that.
00:07:51Yeah, it really wasn't going great behind closed doors. So they seem to all be on the same page,
00:07:56kind of, but for the wrong reasons, like Keon White would go to Keon White and Gerard Mayo
00:08:01had the behind the scenes talk when Keon said, uh, you know, said what he said about his fit.
00:08:06And then they have the conversation. Then after the game, he said, no, I meant exactly what I said.
00:08:10And then Jelani Tavai goes on radio and says what he says about the fans. Mayo says they have a talk
00:08:15and then Jelani has another opportunity to talk. And he says, no, I meant exactly what I said.
00:08:19Like, yeah, he apologized, but again, it was on the same page. They might've been a culture
00:08:24building, but clearly it was a poor culture. And Robert Graff did point that out during his press
00:08:29conference. He said, I don't know the team, the fan, I'm a steward, but the fans own the team.
00:08:34And that's where towards the end, it really felt like there was no chance he was coming back
00:08:38because we were seeing it. Stadium was empty. He was getting booed even not even just because of
00:08:43the traffic. It was clear the fire Mayo chance happened before that. So once you lose the fan
00:08:48base, it's very hard to justify bringing someone back, especially for an owner like Robert Graff,
00:08:53who, you know, as much, he liked Robert Graff much. He likes Mayo. He wants to be liked as
00:08:57well. And we were just like the Mayo's of the media's lost faith in him. The fans don't like
00:09:02him. What do you do? How do you go into another season like this? And, and, you know, as we know,
00:09:07they did not at the end of the day, it's an entertainment product. And Gerard Mayo was not
00:09:11good for the entertainment product. That was the New England Patriots before we move on to the
00:09:15coaching search though, just to put a bow on it. You know, I, I kind of like to look at every season
00:09:20and you know, to avoid sounding maybe too much like bill here. I think every season good or bad
00:09:26is a learning opportunity, not just for those inside the building, but for us that cover the
00:09:30game or even just as fans to learn more about football. So I guess I'll ask you guys and Taylor,
00:09:38we'll start with you. We'll work it back the other way here. You can, as a, as a football observer,
00:09:44as somebody who covers the sport, if somebody talks about sport, what is your biggest lesson
00:09:49learned from the 2024 New England Patriots? Experience matters, man. I think I was very
00:09:56naive in thinking that, you know, Mayo would be able to figure it out. And then yes, he had a
00:10:01young staff, but there were so many, you know, they added more people where you have like three
00:10:05offensive line coaches, two wide receivers coaches, and you figured, yes, they may be
00:10:09inexperienced, but hopefully some level of group thinking, you know, coordination and leadership
00:10:13in certain spots would be able to help kind of rise, raise all ships. And then obviously we saw
00:10:18an offense, the defense, it's kind of different because they have a ton of veteran starters.
00:10:23They just got hurt. But on offense, you just saw, especially when you lose all the offensive
00:10:27linemen and whatnot, the inexperience was really hard. And even with Drake may, like you saw with
00:10:32booty and with pop all the times, the guys just weren't on the same page or poke, like running
00:10:37into other receivers and just often she kind of knew, but really the lesson for me was on the
00:10:42coaching staff. You really need guys who know what they're doing. Now, obviously we're going to
00:10:46talk about Ben Johnson. That's a different situation, but the fact that Gerard Mayo didn't
00:10:51have a whole lot of advisors to help him out. And the ones that did were hired by Wolf, not him.
00:10:56I think that was very significant. So moving forward, when it comes to coaching staffs,
00:11:00that's going to be something I really looked at is, well, if you want to go young, everybody else
00:11:05on that staff better be old. Like we would joke about it in the bubble or sometimes at practice,
00:11:08where it's like, I would see Tom Quinn and be like, it's so weird seeing someone with gray hair
00:11:12on the staff. Like obviously fans are also kind of, but everyone looks so young. So yeah, I think
00:11:18that's the biggest thing for me is like, you need people on your team who are vested in, as David
00:11:21Andrews said towards the end of the year, you need guys who know what it's like to have success as
00:11:25well. So I hope they do that. Would you extend that to the roster too? For instance, having
00:11:30offensive linemen who have experienced playing the positions? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
00:11:34Especially if we saw with Peters where City, so I feel like was drowning last season because
00:11:38it's a system where it's a lot easier if you're a veteran to pick those kinds of things up. So yeah,
00:11:42roster wide, I think, you know, people always made fun of the Patriots when they were winning
00:11:46for being one of the older teams in the league, but that stuff mattered because you had so many
00:11:50guys who had been in all these playoff games and won so much. And they knew what it was like to
00:11:56be resilient and know how to win like Jonathan Jones, like all the veterans who had been around
00:11:59for the Superbowl that spoke said the same thing pretty much that like guys just don't know how to
00:12:04win here. And I think that's huge. And again, if you get like T Higgins in the building, if you
00:12:08maybe get Trey Smith, you know, the Eagles defensive lineman, those guys to help kind of
00:12:13add to the standard among the players, not just the coaches. I think that'd be huge for this team
00:12:17taking a step. That's why Taylor, thanks. Sorry to cut you off. Taylor, I think I gave you like
00:12:21this take a few weeks ago that this off season, not the number four role pick because the top
00:12:28five pick is a top five pick, but free agency for the Patriots could be almost more important than
00:12:33the rest of that draft. Cause you gotta get veterans in here, you know, obviously raise
00:12:38the talent with the 120, 130 million, but if you can, you know, Trey Smith is someone we've talked
00:12:44about whether you want to pay a guard or not, like get a guy in there where Superbowl experience on
00:12:48the chiefs, like get some of those veterans in there that can help lead the way and maybe take
00:12:53some of the pressure off the coaching staff, right? Like you had Tyler Hughes, the first year
00:12:57wide receiver coach, but his veteran in the room is Kendrick Bourne, who, you know, he's only 28
00:13:03and he's someone who's, you know, messing up a lot of the times on the field, pre-snap post-snap too.
00:13:08So get some veterans in here. If they have Superbowl experience, playoff experience or not,
00:13:12but just, they can even help you take some of the load off of inexperienced coaching staff,
00:13:16which we hope this coaching staff does have some experience, but they can help them along the way
00:13:21too though. Mike, what's your big takeaway from 2024? There's a fine line with the relationship
00:13:29with, or like the media relations aspect of the job where people were sick and tired of the way
00:13:35Bill handled things where, you know, even when it came down to speaking with coordinators every week
00:13:40and getting the assistance, it was like a pain in the, you know, kind of a pain in the ass. And
00:13:44you know, when you go to locker room and like things of that nature and Mayo took it to the
00:13:49complete opposite spectrum where he frankly was saying too much because he wanted to seem almost
00:13:54like anti-Bill, but there's a fine, there's a happy medium, which when we get to the coaching
00:14:00staff updates, you know, my, my candidate seems to be able to walk that pretty well, but with,
00:14:05you know, the, you don't have to say everything that's on your mind. And he wanted to be more
00:14:10open and have an open line of communication to understand what's going on with the team.
00:14:13And that's okay. And you can do that, but you also don't have to say everything that's on your mind,
00:14:18like the burn, some cash comment. We talked about it, but just completely unnecessary and set
00:14:23unreal expert on really unattainable expectations for them telling you, or telling the radio station
00:14:30that you're going to win more than four games sets on reasonable expectations for you. When you,
00:14:35there's no, you can't prove that yet. You shouldn't have said that same with the quarterback
00:14:39situation with the media, where he, you know, Gerard called us in for a, for a press conference
00:14:46on that day over the summer and said, you know, I wanted to tell the team and I wanted to tell
00:14:50you guys that Jacobi Rousset is our quarterback. And I owed it to my team to sit them down to do
00:14:54that. And then four weeks, five weeks was six weeks later, whenever it wasn't, I put Drake May
00:14:58in, it gets leaked to the media that it's on an off day and the team never saw it.
00:15:01So like, there was just so many, we do it this way, but then we do it that way.
00:15:06And the way it was articulated to a media market in Boston, that is one of the top and one of the
00:15:11harshest to deal with. He wasn't prepared. He wasn't ready for the coaching angle and he clearly
00:15:16wasn't ready for how to deal with the media either. So just there's a fine line to walk.
00:15:21It doesn't have to be like bill, but it shouldn't be like the way it was with Mayo either.
00:15:24All right, Brian, your, your lesson learned from the 2024 Patriots.
00:15:28There were a couple. I think it's one that kind of surprised me that you never really,
00:15:34we never really thought about here because it was bill for so long and
00:15:37bill's been around the league so long that he knew everyone. Right. But just
00:15:42as a coach, especially a young coach, like how valuable connections are because, you know,
00:15:47Gerard gets put in, in charge and he's played here, you know, eight, nine years.
00:15:53And then as a coach, he was here five years. So all of his experience, all of his connections were
00:15:58here and you saw them go through, what was it? 12 offensive coordinator interviews. And most of
00:16:03those seem to be like Elliot Wolfe funneling guys in. And that was really kind of the first
00:16:07red flag with that staff where you're just kind of like, Whoa, like what is going on here? Like
00:16:11they needed 12 guys and 12 out of 12. And you know, now you look at it and just draw, didn't
00:16:17know anyone cause he spent his whole career here. So now as we're talking about these other guys
00:16:21and you know, Mike Frable, Ben Johnson are, are the big two, like big part of this is okay.
00:16:26Who's coming with them because whether it's Vrabel, he's going to need the offensive coordinator,
00:16:31or if it's first year head coach, Ben Johnson, like he's going to need someone with experience
00:16:35on that staff. And now those two guys have been around obviously a lot longer. They've been to
00:16:40different places. They've been coaching a lot longer, so they have more connections and more
00:16:45of these guys that can reach out to her along the league. But that was just kind of jarring when,
00:16:49you know, you kind of see it for the first time with Gerard that, you know, he's been here his
00:16:53whole life and he didn't really have those outside resources around the league.
00:16:58They also burned a lot of bridges too. Like, sorry, Alex, real quick, but like that's a big
00:17:02part of it. It's, it might be even worse because at least if you don't have the connections,
00:17:05you can build them word of mouth spreads, whatever. But he burned connections with
00:17:09Bill Belichick. He burned connections with Bill O'Brien. He may have burned connections
00:17:12with Alex Van Pelt and everyone who's associated with him because he threw Alex under the bus.
00:17:17Like that's another big part of this where people keep saying like, yeah, you know,
00:17:20Gerard is so unfair. It's like, I don't even know when he'll be back coaching in football.
00:17:25To be very honest with you, because I don't know who would hire him. Maybe like Tom went down the
00:17:29road, kind of like what happened with Flores or, you know, somewhat disgraced for whatever reason
00:17:33for us, very different, obviously, but he comes back and gives him some kind of assistant role.
00:17:37We know Mayo knows Tom would, so maybe that's an end, but like, it's really, it's just, it's,
00:17:42it was sad, man. It was like a true crash out the past couple of years for Gerard.
00:17:46So if we're doing lesson learned, like I would say lesson reinforced
00:17:51is how important player development is. And you can't just bring in players and, you know,
00:17:58set it and forget it. You got to teach guys their roles. You got to teach guys how to be better.
00:18:02You got to stay on guys to be better because the fundamental stuff can drop away like that.
00:18:06I always felt that I would say the biggest lesson learned kind of along those same lines,
00:18:11just how easy it is for things to go from bad to worse and just how irrelevant September football
00:18:18really probably is. This season started with the Patriots beating the Bengals,
00:18:24lost the Patriots, the first overall pick in the Bengals, a playoff spot.
00:18:27They played Seattle, a good team competitively. We're half, literally half of Jalen Polk's foot
00:18:33away from that entire season going differently. They could have been two and two at the end of
00:18:37September and maybe Drake made us a start right away. And Jalen Polk never recovered from that
00:18:43because a lot of his, and some of that's on the coaching staff. It's not just on him,
00:18:48but he never recovered from that. And it felt like the team never recovered from that
00:18:52toe heel, toe heel changed the whole season. It's a game of inches. And
00:18:56in a game where such little things can have, you know, this massive butterfly effect,
00:19:02it really is important that you have a coaching staff and you have leadership on the roster
00:19:08that can keep everybody going in the same direction. When things started to spiral
00:19:12for the Patriots after that Dolphins game, they were good for like a week because Drake
00:19:17was playing well. And then they started to spiral. If, if, if we had kind of known the future then
00:19:22right, projected it correctly and said, they need somebody to snap everybody out of it and get
00:19:27everybody back on track. Who's doing that? We'd like to think Drake may will be that guy eventually,
00:19:34but he's a 22 year old rookie. He'd started like two, three games. That wasn't realistic.
00:19:37The head coach certainly wasn't doing it. I don't know how many guys on staff are doing it.
00:19:41There were David Andrews wasn't around. He was getting shoulder surgery. That was the answer.
00:19:45Right. Didn't you, didn't Drake kind of have to do it like two weeks later before the bears game.
00:19:50Remember that was the first time where everyone, he like tried, I just think there's only so much
00:19:56like ask ABP if he could, didn't he? It's a tough spot to put your 22 year old rookie quarterback in,
00:20:02but he had to do it. And that's where the team kind of worked. They played better. It kind of
00:20:06worked for a very small period of time. Look, when, when we go forward in this off season,
00:20:11we'll see who the coaches and we'll get into the coaching candidates next.
00:20:15It, a lot of, some of the guys they brought back Kyle Duggar, Kendrick Bourne. I know they were
00:20:23already here, but Dietrich wise, Jonathan Jones, guys like that. Some of the impact of bringing
00:20:28those guys back was I think may have wanted those to be his guys and help him instill the culture.
00:20:33Cause when you're a first time coach, you usually bring a few guys from your prior spot and kind of
00:20:38plug them in to be examples of what your program is and how you want your program run. And they can
00:20:45go to the rest of the guys on the roster and say, I've been with him before. I know how he wants it
00:20:49done. Let me show you Gerard's program, essentially being like a watered down version of Belichick's
00:20:55program made that really tough to do. So whether it's Ray, but whether it's Ben Johnson, whether
00:21:01it's somebody else, they may not be superstar players. They probably won't be, but I'd like
00:21:06to see whoever the coach is. Couple guys on offense, couple guys on defense that you bring in
00:21:11and you point to is like, these are the guys that are going to set our culture. These are the guys
00:21:15when, when it hits the fan, this is who you're going to look at to see how to get out of it.
00:21:20Right? Cause I don't know that anybody this year really knew who to look at when, when they needed
00:21:27help. And that needs to be on the coaching level and on a player level. That's incredibly important.
00:21:34And it's something we haven't had to deal with much here because there hasn't been too much thin
00:21:37right. It's through thick and thin. It's all been pretty thick. So, you know, going through rebuild,
00:21:43there's going to be ups and downs. You need those cornerstone culture guys to get you through it.
00:21:47So I'll be interested to see who the next coach is. Like if it's Rabel, it's going to be guys
00:21:52from Tennessee, maybe a guy or two from Cleveland. If it's Ben Johnson, I'm sure we'll see guys come
00:21:57from Detroit, whoever that is. It's not going to be pay soul. It's not going to be Jameson Williams.
00:22:01He's like middle of the roster guys. Belichick had these guys for years that were around Matthew
00:22:07Slater is the prime example that comes to my mind, but I'll be interested to see who that is.
00:22:11All right. Alex on the on the player development point real quick, too. Like you said, you got to
00:22:16bring these guys along. Elliot Wolf speaking to Henry McKenna said, you know, we really thought
00:22:20Jalen Polk was plug and play. And he was kind of like, they plugged him in and he played pretty
00:22:25well, but clearly he wasn't developed enough to continue that success down the stretch. Now we
00:22:30look up some things like that, but even plug and play is a relative term for rookies. Like you still
00:22:35got to coach those guys up. And Tyler Hughes was not the answer. I feel comfortable in saying that
00:22:40when you look at what happened with him and Baker, I'll even throw like pop Douglas in
00:22:44pop Douglas had a good season. Was pop Douglas better this year than he was as a rookie?
00:22:49Did we see any tangible growth from him? Was Keishon booty? I know we didn't see him a ton
00:22:54last year, but even going to camp to camp, was he a better football player? Did he just have
00:22:58a better quarterback throwing him the ball? So he had more opportunities like that's that's
00:23:02tremendously important. All right, Mike's going to help us pay the bills here, and then we'll get
00:23:06to the coaching search. All right, let's talk about prize picks. Prize picks is the best place to get
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00:24:14Prize picks run. All right, let's before we go back, let's have some quick little fun here
00:24:20with our friends over at prize picks. We're going to make a four, a four square Pats beat
00:24:25Pats daily lineup for the Saturday games. I'm going to ask you a player with Brian are hot
00:24:30because we won ours. We want our six way one the last week. Six, six. Wow. All right, let's do it.
00:24:37We're going to use the Saturday games. I'll ask you guys for a pick. You tell me and we'll tweet
00:24:40it out on Saturday. All right. We'll start with you, Alex. Saquon Barkley returns after sitting
00:24:46out last weekend. Does he have more or less than a hundred and one and a half rushing yards? Oh,
00:24:51this is Sunday. So we're going to go cross, uh, cross weekend, but Saquon more. Yeah. Okay.
00:24:56Saquon Barkley, more than a hundred one. All right, Brian. Uh, I got to save that one for Taylor.
00:25:02Uh, Lamar Jackson, Saturday night, more or less than 217 and a half passing.
00:25:07I want lad McConkie more. That's what I'm going to give Taylor. I was giving Taylor lad.
00:25:13All right, Taylor. I want a lot more. All right. All right. Fine. Brian gets labbed
00:25:17McConkie more than 71 and a half receiving yards on a Saturday afternoon versus the Texans and
00:25:23Taylor Kyle's. Do you think Pat Friar muth versus Baltimore will have more or less than
00:25:3144 and a half receiving yards? Isn't Kyle Hamilton hurt? That's way above my pay grade
00:25:38in that last game, but I thought he came back in. I feel like I saw him on an injury report.
00:25:43Let me look real. I'm going to go with more. I'll go with more. All right. Taylor's taking
00:25:46more on muth. I am going to take Lamar Jackson to have, Hmm. You know what? I'll go more than
00:25:52217 and a half passing yards. So that's our lineup. Saquon more than one, 101 and a half
00:25:58rush yards. Lad McConkie more than 71 and a half receiving yards. Friar muth. Wow. We got all
00:26:04Morris muth, more than 44 and a half receiving yards. And I'm going Lamar Jackson to 17 and a
00:26:08half passing yards. Kyle Hamilton practice fully Kyle Hamilton practice full of today.
00:26:14I thought I was Taylor. Oh, today. Yeah. Okay. Uh, yeah. All right. Yeah. We're going to
00:26:19wait up the lineup. If you want to play along, join us, prize picks, download the app, use code
00:26:24CLNS to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. All right, Alex, we got for us.
00:26:30All right. We all set. All right. So let's move on to the coaching search. So just
00:26:34for people who've missed it, they have interviewed two coaches,
00:26:39Byron left, which, and why am I blanking on the name of the other guy? Hamilton,
00:26:43pep Hamilton. Thank you. And, uh, they have two interviews scheduled with Mike Vrabel and Ben
00:26:49Johnson, and they requested to interview Aaron Glenn. I don't know how many people saw this
00:26:54follow-up from Albert Breer. Glenn's schedule is pretty full. So they may have to wait till next
00:27:00week. If there is a next week, cause he can only interview Thursday through Saturday because of the
00:27:04rules for coaches in the playoffs. Um, there's been a lot of talk about the coaching search,
00:27:09maybe being too limited in scope. I don't know. There's a few more guys. I'd like them to talk
00:27:15to him. Glad they're talking to Glenn. I wouldn't hate if they talked to fly or I'd want them to
00:27:20talk to Flores, but they have to wait because Minnesota's in the playoffs. So that makes it
00:27:23tough. I don't need them to talk to 15 guys. I don't because they are, and I kind of surprised
00:27:32by this, but just based on all the reporting, they're the favorite. They have their pick.
00:27:36Some of these other guys that are getting interviews, let's be, let's be honest. They're
00:27:40like elsewhere. They're plan B candidates. They're candidates for teams that miss out on Mike Vrabel
00:27:46and Ben Johnson. The Patriots don't need to do that. What I do hope they're doing is intently
00:27:53with an open mind, interviewing Mike Vrabel, Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn,
00:27:59Flores. If they get there, obviously Hamilton and left, which I think that may be more, Hey,
00:28:03we want to get to the bill in you, in the building and talk to you.
00:28:06And then when we build out the rest of our staff, like we want to kind of have a familiarity with
00:28:10where you're at, but are you guys, do you guys think that they need to talk to more candidates
00:28:16aside? Cause they can't yet. Is there anybody else that Mike or maybe discouraged that they
00:28:22haven't talked to? So I'm not discouraged on any candidates. I think you hit the nail on the head
00:28:28with, you know, having your, your pick of the letter and bring in the top two guys. Like those
00:28:33are who everybody wants and that's who, you know, you should want to. Mike Vrabel has proven to be
00:28:37a relatively successful head coach and Ben Johnson is, you know, the new up and comer.
00:28:42But picking the brains of the, you know, the offensive minds and pep and,
00:28:45and Byron left, which I think was also a huge not huge, but a good idea. And I think like you
00:28:52mentioned, you know, pep having worked with Joe Milton before and Byron left, which with Brady,
00:28:57there's a clear angle to that where, you know, let's, let's bring these guys in and see what
00:29:03they have and sort of was on their mind around the league. So no, I don't think they have to
00:29:09bring in much more. I mean, again, you're, you're, you're looking at like Matt Campbell
00:29:13gets an interview today with the bears. Like, yeah, I don't need the Patriots. Talk to Matt
00:29:16Campbell. That's what I mean. I like Matt Campbell. I have no need for the Patriots.
00:29:20Talk to him. Bingo. And so I'm good with it. I do wonder how long this thing does end up dragging
00:29:26out. There's been some reports on both ends where, you know, Schefter today says on the radio
00:29:31that this thing could take a little while, but then we have local guys, you know, our friends
00:29:35and Mike Giardi, Phil Perry saying this thing could wrap up Thursday, Friday, now Friday.
00:29:39It's interesting. The Ben Johnson call is Friday. So you wonder if Braybel comes in here tomorrow
00:29:45and hits out of the park, do they cancel the zoom and say, he's our guy? I don't think they will,
00:29:50nor do I think they should. There is a possibility that they get trigger happy and do it. So we'll
00:29:56see what happens, but long story short interview, Braybel interview, Ben Johnson. If you like Ben
00:30:01Johnson and you trust yourself to not lose variable, bring them in the next week for the
00:30:05in-person and kind of start cooking with gas, but, uh, no don't interview anybody else. I think you
00:30:09kind of have your four, five guys here and, uh, that's usually picked from. Yeah. I think that's
00:30:13what it would come down to really is, are they nervous? They're going to lose, uh, Mike Braybels,
00:30:17Brady, you know, being there looming kind of worry them. But even if you like Braybel
00:30:23outside of the Brady angle, there's really no downside unless at least hearing Ben Johnson
00:30:27out. Taylor, is there anybody else that should be on this interview list? I've seen, um, Brian
00:30:33Flores, his name floated around a decent amount. Obviously he said that he'd be open to anyone who
00:30:38wants to give him an offer that included the Patriots. Although it did sound like they have
00:30:41not reached out to him. I will say they can't yet because of Minnesota being in the playoffs,
00:30:45they can't reach out. And that's what I'm saying. Like, no, no, they can't. I mean,
00:30:50they probably can like back channel, but, uh, none of the outside of the teams on buys,
00:30:56none of the playoff teams, those coaches can't speak and start speaking to teams until next week.
00:31:01So I, I don't think they're not talking to Brian Flores because they don't want to,
00:31:06or it's too soon to say that they literally can't. So I give him a pass on that one. Cause again,
00:31:13so that is just the name that I would put out there. He's the only other candidate I think
00:31:16really should be in that category. Cause those are, I think the top four candidates. I think
00:31:19the Patriots should be trying to get the top four guys. Cause they're one of the top two
00:31:23destinations this off season, at least, you know, from this perspective. So,
00:31:27and also one thing, if Forrest doesn't interview, I just want people to remember
00:31:31he's suing the NFL. That is not insignificant. If he is not brought in the fact that he brought
00:31:36in Aaron Glenn told me, okay, they're serious about this because you could argue Aaron Glenn
00:31:40is the best candidate. The guy was a pro bowler. He was like the general manager of an indoor
00:31:44football team, the Houston Rattlers, which is kind of crazy. He was a personnel scout for the jets
00:31:49and he was like, was a defense. He was an assistant under Sean Payton for a few years
00:31:54and has been under Dan Campbell. So really interesting guy has done pretty much everything
00:31:59has a ton of different perspective, although he specializes in defensive backs. So the fact
00:32:03they interviewed him, I thought was good, but if they don't interview for is like, I'm sorry,
00:32:07I won't think it's like the most egregious offense, because again, it's not like he's
00:32:11a squeaky clean candidate necessarily. And they have to wait a long time. They have to wait a
00:32:14long time. That's kind of, those are the rules, but those are the hoops you have to jump for
00:32:18jump through and then you risk losing out on Brable. So Brian, all right, if you're the most
00:32:25attractive job, then why, why is there a rush, right? Like, are we, if Rabel really wants to
00:32:32be here and like, this is the best job. Are we, are we sure he's just going to be like, all right,
00:32:37I have to wait a week. So I'm going to go to the bears. Like, I don't think the best job by that
00:32:41much. I live in the bears. I think so. And even the bears, I think they have a pretty good margin,
00:32:47depending on how somebody feels about Caleb Williams. And I was with Brady is interesting.
00:32:52And you have cap or not capital, but a potential with Mark Davis to convince them. Let's trade up
00:32:57Brady. Love shoulder Sanders. And I don't see shoulder and they would need the quarterback
00:33:02plan, but yeah. And like, I don't think anybody's going to be like, Oh, I could have should do or
00:33:07can't get out of the way. Caleb Williams and Drake may like, it's a fair point though. Brian,
00:33:11like, you know, if it's so great, then why can't you kind of play this thing up?
00:33:15Yeah. I don't need the laundry lists of names. Like I feel like I log on X and the jets are
00:33:23interviewing someone new or requesting an interview. So they talked to Adam Gase yet
00:33:27like Rex Ryan's in there. Condoleezza rice is coming. No disrespect to Darren Rizzi,
00:33:32who maybe that's someone we talked about with Ben Johnson. Yeah. I think so. I don't,
00:33:38I don't need to interview ridiculous one earlier too. I forget it was somebody who'd been at the
00:33:41league for a little bit, but, but when you're the jets, you have to do that.
00:33:49Have they talked to like Chad Pennington yet? At what point do they go down that road? But
00:33:53I think, look, when it comes down to it, it's good to talk to these other candidates because
00:33:58you get ideas, right? You kind of learn how your team is viewed externally.
00:34:01You hear as many ideas as possible. It's totally possible that the coach you hire, you say, Oh,
00:34:06by the way, this guy told us this during the interview. And we liked it. Let's see if we
00:34:10could do that. And, and, you know, the coach might be agreeable to it. So it is good to talk
00:34:15to as many people as possible, but realistically the way this specific coaching search sets up,
00:34:19especially for the Patriots, there's two options. It's Ben Johnson. It's Mike Vrabel.
00:34:23Flores would work, but again, you have to wait. There's not though. Like what if you
00:34:27interview someone and I agree, those are probably the two favorites, but what if you bring
00:34:32Liam Cohn in here and he just absolutely is, would you be confident Liam Cohn
00:34:40even if he blows you in the interview, would you be ready to, I agree.
00:34:45We know it says Ben Johnson or Mike Vrabel, but I don't have the possibility to sit down with
00:34:51these guys for three hours over zoom and then maybe bring them in in person. And like, that's
00:34:57where I think having that, like they could really just blow you away. And maybe Liam Cohn comes in
00:35:03here and he lays out this perfect staff that's experienced. He has a great plan for Drake May.
00:35:09So that's where I'm at. Again, I don't need 20 names, but just bring in
00:35:14the guys that you want. I think the chargers said it last year, either someone reported it
00:35:19or the owner even came out and said it. They knew the going into it, they were probably going to
00:35:24hire Jim Harbaugh, but they still brought in 15 people. Again, I don't need 15 people, but they
00:35:28brought these guys in and they still hired Harbaugh, but then they use parts that they said,
00:35:34okay, this guy from this organization, they like this. We think that's a good plan. Let's
00:35:38implement that. The Patriots, we've heard how archaic they are in some of these areas. They
00:35:44could use a little new life into the organization. Just hear some guys out who have been to new
00:35:50places and maybe one of them blows you away. Maybe you do all that and you just land on Mike
00:35:54Rabel, fine. But then maybe you can take some of those things those other people taught you.
00:35:58So that's where I'm at. There's no need to rush into this thing. Because again, I think you are
00:36:03the best job and it's better to hear these people out and what they have to say.
00:36:08So that's all absolutely fair. That's all absolutely fair. And that is why they should
00:36:12be talking to... I'm glad they're talking to Aaron Glenn and we'll see if guys like Liam Cohen maybe
00:36:17get added here down the stretch. David Shaw.
00:36:20No.
00:36:21He's interviewing with the Bears. I was just looking for some crazy...
00:36:24You see, that's awesome. What was his name? The coach at Texas A&M. Kevin Sumlin.
00:36:31They could talk to Kevin Sumlin too.
00:36:33Yeah. Steve Sarkisian's due up here real quick.
00:36:37Get Sark in the building. Come on.
00:36:39So Sark so see, you think of these tight pants...
00:36:41I heard you say this today on Catch-22.
00:36:43Yeah. Sark so sees some 54-year-old lifer college coach, Kyle Flood.
00:36:49Okay.
00:36:50Maybe worth a call. No, but all right. So you're going to talk to these other candidates. But
00:36:54realistically, they need somebody who has been through the wringer, who is as ready as possible.
00:37:04And Liam Cohen hasn't been in one spot consistently. He's bounced back and forth
00:37:09between college and the pros. I think when you look at the outside of the interviews,
00:37:15because it is more than the interviews, right? You're looking at their background and the
00:37:17product they've actually put on the field. The top candidates in this class are Ben Johnson,
00:37:24Mike Vrabel, Brian Flores, who they do have to wait to talk to and does have the pending
00:37:29litigation like Taylor mentioned, and Aaron Glenn. I think those are the four best coaches
00:37:33available with Brian Dayball going back to New York. When we look at it from the Patriots'
00:37:37point of view, there's really two questions that they need to ask themselves. Are they ready to
00:37:45risk another first-time rookie head coach for the potential upside it brings you schematically?
00:37:52Or do they want that experience and they'll take a defensive coach, even if it means they're going
00:37:58to really have to figure things out creatively, offensively, ideally Brian Dayball to hit the
00:38:02market. So when I look at that list again, that's where Aaron Glenn kind of falls to another tier
00:38:08for me because he's a first-time head coach and he's a defensive head coach.
00:38:12Is he a good coaching candidate? Yes. Is he a fit for what the Patriots need right now?
00:38:19Not as much as some other people. So that leaves us with Johnson, Vrabel, and Flores,
00:38:24unless anybody feels really strongly about another candidate should be, interviews aside,
00:38:29should be considered as the favorite. If so, feel free to chime in, but Brian, you gave that great
00:38:34point. So we'll start with you. What's the most important thing the Patriots should be looking
00:38:38for in our next head coach? Is it experience? Is it side of the ball? Is it something else?
00:38:43Some professionalism would be nice. And that comes with some experience with that.
00:38:47I put that in the experience umbrella. Yeah. I'm team maximize Drake May. So that's why I
00:38:54lean Ben Johnson a little bit more. And I get the first year head coach thing can kind of be scary,
00:39:00but this isn't Gerard Mayo. Ben Johnson has been coaching for 15 years. He's coached basically
00:39:06every position on the offensive side of the ball, except offensive line. He's been multiple
00:39:12different stops and multiple different organizations. He's got this, you know,
00:39:16we talked about earlier that channel and guys you can go to, to build your staff. Like he's got a
00:39:21lot of veteran coaches he can turn to, to come with him. So I think, and you know, he's been
00:39:28a coordinator now for three full years, which Gerard was never, he's called plays and he's
00:39:33known for two years that he's going to be a head coach at some point. So he's probably started to
00:39:38put that staff together in his mind and who knows, maybe he's even talked to some of these guys. So
00:39:44that's where I'm kind of at, you know, cause even if it's, you know, not perfect, you know,
00:39:49with the media or something like, you know, he's going to run a really good offense.
00:39:52He's going to have a really good scheme. It's probably going to maximize
00:39:55Drake May. So that's why I'm kind of on Ben Johnson right now, assuming he's got
00:40:00a good staff to come with him. And, you know, he checks all those other boxes in his,
00:40:05in his interview, Taylor, I am leading Ben Johnson as well. I still think Frabel would
00:40:11be a great candidate, but Brian, you honestly hit a lot of the points. So I'll kind of just
00:40:15add some other ones. When you talk about that coaching staff, like I mentioned before,
00:40:19if you're going to hire a first year coach, this guy needs to, like, when you're a kid and you
00:40:23have to co-sign with your parents to get like a debit card, he needs to co-sign with someone
00:40:27who's been a head coach before, has a lot of experience and who he actually knows to really
00:40:31help him through this process. So you can lean on, because he's also going to be a play calling
00:40:35head coach. That's another huge difference between him and Gerard Mayo. We thought maybe
00:40:39May would be more involved on the defensive side of the ball and make that side better.
00:40:42That never happened. He wanted to be Mr. CEO. Ben Johnson is probably going to be a play caller.
00:40:48And then, you know, that a lot of what he brought in Detroit would transfer over. Also like from
00:40:53what I've read, he's pretty much just like a less boisterous Dan Campbell, which is pretty huge in
00:40:58the way that like they handle their players and they're very good communicators and things like
00:41:02that. So if he's able to bring like Joe Philbin is the name that I really look at as a potential
00:41:07assistant head coach because he overlapped with Elliot Wolfe when Elliot Wolfe was rising up the
00:41:11ranks in Green Bay. So then we also know that Elliot Wolfe has a lot of respect. Maybe Ben
00:41:16Johnson keeps him around. Then you have a pretty good brain trust of people who know each other,
00:41:21have experience with each other, and maybe have a similar way of thinking about how they want to
00:41:24build out the football team. So again, you're potentially going to have a head coach who
00:41:29could coach Drake Mayne, bring the best out of him for his entire career. That's extremely
00:41:33tantalizing, especially if you get Rizzy, you get Philbin, and then Lou Anarumo seems like he would
00:41:39make a lot of sense as a defensive coordinator. He's a guy that came obviously was in Cincinnati,
00:41:44but he worked with Philbin and all the rest of these guys when they were in Miami. And with
00:41:48Anarumo, from what I've heard, the biggest issue with him was that really, he just didn't have a
00:41:53ton of veterans. And obviously they didn't resign guys and talent was an issue. But the guys just
00:41:57couldn't pick up his defense because there's a ton of disguises. They like to confuse quarterbacks,
00:42:01all that stuff. That's pretty perfect for the Patriots. When you're in a division with Josh
00:42:04Allen and Tua, you're in a conference with the best quarterbacks in football. And on defense,
00:42:09you have mostly guys who've been in the league for at least three seasons. So when I started to
00:42:13look at how Ben Johnson staff to compliment him, I felt a lot better about the fact that, yes,
00:42:18you're taking a gamble on a first year guy. You don't know if he's a leader of men. You don't
00:42:21know how well, even if he has help and guardrails, he's going to be able to handle having all that
00:42:26power. But at the same time, if he has good references and he comes with this bandwidth
00:42:30of experience supporting him, you know, I feel a lot better about it. Even if variable is probably
00:42:34the safer choice. Let me just ask you this. So you're talking about that kind of overseer role
00:42:39for young head coach at Joe Philbin. How is Joe Philbin a better football mind than why am I
00:42:47blanking on his name? Uh, Ben McAdoo. Yeah, I think it's a different thing. So I think
00:42:54because I never really think that Mayo bought in to the Wolf guys. Like there was always constant
00:43:00miscommunication with Alex van Pelt. We rarely heard Mayo even talked about Ben McAdoo outside,
00:43:05but I think he acknowledged that there was some stuff he did to help out with Drake may.
00:43:08So that's why I think it's different because Philbin was legitimately like a mentor figure,
00:43:12or at least that's what it seemed like with him being a head coach on the staff, obviously,
00:43:16and Johnson being an assistant. That's someone that he's worked with for a while,
00:43:19but he has a relationship with, I think that's much different than a Ben McAdoo. And obviously
00:43:24they're both guys who struggled as head coaches, but he does still bring a significant amount of
00:43:28success that he can say, Hey, this is what you want to avoid. And Ben Johnson's coming from a
00:43:33culture of winning. Like he's hasn't just been a position coach or anything. He's been the
00:43:37coordinator in the offensive head coach while Dan Campbell has been the CEO type. So I just feel
00:43:41like there's way more advantages for him walking in potentially than what Mayo had, which isn't
00:43:46totally on, you know, the people around me with partially on him as well, but I don't really think
00:43:50they're the exact same situation, especially if there's other guys on the staff who have been
00:43:54either head coaches or head coaches adjacent. You could bring Darren Rizzy too. That's another guy
00:43:58we talked about. Like he was with them in Miami. I think he even had the associate head coach title
00:44:03down there. Now he's been an intern. So if he's your assistant, a whole half a season, a whole
00:44:09half a season as a, as an interim head coach, Mike, what are you looking for in the next hire?
00:44:14I'm laughing because I know that me and Alex are on the same page in the argument. So I'm waiting
00:44:19switch the boxes. So it's team Ben Johnson over there. We go team Ben.
00:44:24The thing that, the thing that kind of sucks about this conversation is I feel like
00:44:29since Sunday night, I've tried to make an argument against Ben Johnson. And I don't think that's fair
00:44:34because I do think that he has what it takes to be a quality head coach. And I think he's going
00:44:39to land somewhere and could potentially be successful. He's a great play caller. He's
00:44:43learning the ropes, but the, if there right now just still feels too much for me. And the question
00:44:48coming into this was what's more important, the experience of the play calling and both of the
00:44:54caveats from Brian and Taylor were, well, if the staff and experience are there, then it's okay.
00:45:01Which tells me that the experience is still most important. And that's where I continue
00:45:05to lean and go where you just don't know how Ben Johnson is going to handle it here.
00:45:10And I hate to be, I said it in my first part of the show where I hate to talk about the media and
00:45:17the Boston market and how you handle it, but clearly that matters because of how this season
00:45:21ended last year with Gerard Mayo. And so he's never really dealt with this stuff for before
00:45:26there's reports out there that he can be a little bit of an introvert. And so I get that
00:45:32he can bring in this great staff. We mentioned Rizzy and Philbin and all those guys. I just,
00:45:36at the end of the day, we don't know yet if he is a leader of men. Ben, uh, Ben Brable,
00:45:41Mike Brable has been here before. I'm mixing the, you know what? Just hire both of them.
00:45:45If realistically guys, bring in Mike Brable and triple Ben Johnson's salary to be an OC slash
00:45:53assistant head coach here, game over. Now it's obviously not going to happen, but I just with,
00:45:58with what Brable has done in the past without a quarterback in Tennessee, he already has the
00:46:03connections around the league that are trusted. He will bring in, you would think a relatively
00:46:08solid staff. And I, frankly, I know that it's early in his development and Drake may still
00:46:14needs a quarterback guru adjacent person next to him, but he's good enough where like, I trust him
00:46:21to have what he has and do the best with it as long as it's competent coaching. And we know
00:46:26whether Brian, I know you don't like the idea of McDaniel's. I don't know where Taylor lands at
00:46:30this point, but somebody like that who can be here longer term. I think that's okay for Drake
00:46:34maze development with all the rest of the stuff that Brable Brable brings to the table.
00:46:38I think that would be maybe team Ben Johnson's rebuttal. Like you say, who's he braining with
00:46:44him for the experience? We would say, okay, well, what's Vrabel's plan at offensive coordinator?
00:46:48Cause that's the big question. I think with, with Vrabel is you need to have a good plan.
00:46:53You know, that is that CEO defensive type of coach. You do need to have a good plan
00:46:57at the offensive coordinator position to take it. So funny that we actually flipped us.
00:47:03So let me, let me jump in here. Cause this is where I think I can kind of bridge it. And first
00:47:06off, I meant to say this at the top. I don't want to speak for you guys. You can just give me a
00:47:09thumbs up or thumbs down on this. I would either hire would be great. I know Brian you're you're.
00:47:16Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Either. Yeah. Okay. Either hire would be like, I'm not going to bash them.
00:47:21If they hire Ben Johnson, I would rather Mike Rabel, but if they hire Ben Johnson, great hire
00:47:26to me, it's just about, but neither one is perfect. This is just like we did with that's
00:47:30why they're available. Well, no, it's just, no, there's, there's one complete coach and
00:47:35they fired him last year and he was a complete coach, but the front office stuff was a little
00:47:40bit loud and it's crumbled since, right? Well, you're not getting billed back though.
00:47:45Apparently NFL teams are calling him anyway. There's no perfect coach. So I look at it.
00:47:50I don't know. Call me a pessimist. Let's look at the worst case scenario for both.
00:47:54Let's just look at the nice. Let's just look at the worst case scenario for both.
00:47:59If you do that, if it, if, if it's Ben Johnson, right. And you're going to try to find some
00:48:05veteran advisor or whatever, but if it doesn't work out, if he can't build a program and you're
00:48:11going to meet, you're going to hear me use the word program here quite a bit. That refers to
00:48:15like Nick Saban. You're going to hear me. Well, that's, that's the college version of it in
00:48:20college. It's a program in the NFL. It's program. The program is the core philosophies, the core
00:48:28concepts, the, you know, what are our intrinsic beliefs and how we run this thing day to day,
00:48:34month to month, year to year. And the idea is that your program overall makes each individual
00:48:40thing easier. If you have a strong program draft day is going to be easier because you have things
00:48:45handled during the lead up process. If you have a strong program, Sundays are easier because Monday
00:48:52through Saturday, everything's buttoned up. So that's what you worry about. The first time head
00:48:56coach, the program building is filled in spades with Ben Johnson, with, uh, um, Dan Campbell.
00:49:03We don't know one way or the other how Ben Johnson is going to be. Cause he really hasn't had to do
00:49:07that. So back to my point, let's look at the worst case scenario for both sides. If it doesn't work
00:49:13with Mike Vrabel, because he got a bad offensive coordinator, right? And that didn't work.
00:49:18Not great. Certainly not great, but you can move on from the offensive coordinator.
00:49:23It doesn't work out with Ben Johnson. And it turns out his program's a mess and the culture sucks.
00:49:29Now, what are you going to want and done another coach? You're going to burn through
00:49:33Drake Mays rookie contract. And so when I look at the, what ifs, well, are we burning through
00:49:38Drake Mays rookie contract? If Mike Vrabel is offensive coordinator sucks and you have to fire
00:49:43him. I, so one, I don't think Ben Johnson can be a disaster, but his offense is probably tearing it
00:49:49up. Like the scheme and all that. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Especially
00:49:53it might be good for a year, but what happens if it's good for a year and the culture sucks and
00:49:57it's Mike McDaniel and guys are suddenly shooting their way out of town. What if the quarterbacks
00:50:02doesn't like it? If the offense is good, you just assume there went in some games.
00:50:07And I think that's the biggest thing that establishes.
00:50:11Are they winning games or are they building to something again? I'll give you the Miami
00:50:14dolphins who, yes, they're like right on the doorstep of the playoffs every year.
00:50:17They haven't won a big boy game since, uh, since Mike McDaniel got there. So,
00:50:23you know, I, I look at it like that. The other thing is there's a lot of talk when it comes
00:50:27to these two guys of floor and ceiling that brought Mike Vrabel is the floor candidate
00:50:33and Ben Johnson is the ceiling candidate. And I don't think that's incorrect, but we're,
00:50:37I think when you look at it that way, you're losing sight of a very important factor.
00:50:42And that is the roster. I'd rather have the talent set my ceiling than the coach.
00:50:47If Mike Vrabel's floor is nine wins and you give him a great roster, that's a Superbowl team. He
00:50:55won 12 games. It got to the AFC championship with Ryan freaking Tannehill. So Ben Johnson
00:51:01Rich, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm taking a point. If, if, if, if that helps the Vrabel
00:51:10argument, that's all right. If that, that Ryan Tannehill is rich, what does that have to do
00:51:15with anything? Cause they had to pay him and then everything went. Oh, I thought you meant like
00:51:18post career. He did like some real estate or some, but yeah, I'm keeping up on Tannehill's
00:51:23extracurriculars. That is a mess. He's going to come here. All right. If Ben Johnson ceiling
00:51:33is higher, but you need to overhaul the roster anyway. Like if Mike Vrabel can get me to nine
00:51:40wins, they need to get back to respectability, to professionalism, to accountability.
00:51:45You know, at the very least, Mike Vrabel is going to get you back there. I would be very
00:51:50shocked if he didn't, if he gets you back there and this goes to my other taking all this,
00:51:55the coaching hire is not the most important decision that the crafts are going to make here
00:51:59in the next couple of weeks. It's not the most important decision is who gets final say over
00:52:03the roster, who becomes the de facto GM. Is it, does it stay Elliot Wolf? Is it Mike Vrabel?
00:52:09Is it somebody Vrabel brings in? I wouldn't give it to Ben Johnson. It's just too much at once,
00:52:13but is it like Ray Agnew? If he brings Ray Agnew with them, the most important person is who's
00:52:18going to build this roster because nothing's getting fixed unless the roster gets better.
00:52:22And if you're going to have a bunch of moving pieces and you're going to have a bunch of guys
00:52:25coming in and out, a bunch of young players, I want them coming into a strong program.
00:52:29And that's what I know Mike Vrabel is going to give me. So I did one other thing I'd say,
00:52:35and then I'll just kind of open it up. All right. So you gave some names for,
00:52:41for Ben Johnson's advisor and that advisor is going to do however much so much.
00:52:48Why are we assuming who was Ben Johnson before he went to Detroit?
00:52:52What's to say Mike Vrabel who hired Matt LaFleur lost him after a year and then replaced him with
00:52:58Arthur Smith who led a top, you know, a top defense in the league. What if Mike Vrabel
00:53:03finds his own Ben Johnson? Ben Johnson's not finding his own Mike Vrabel. The whole part
00:53:08of building a program, it's not just the players. It's a coaching play line.
00:53:12Yeah. I don't want to totally.
00:53:14What if Ben Johnson does find a great staff and establishes a culture? Like it's just a what if
00:53:19game that we can't. Yeah. I don't really like right now. Well, I'm like, everybody's just
00:53:25assuming that Mike Vrabel's offense is going to be bad for Drake May. And I include, I don't know
00:53:30why we're assuming that. Remember if we're talking about Vrabel in the hiring, like mostly he had
00:53:34hits. He had Mike LaFleur, Arthur Smith, obviously Dean Pease, Todd Downing. We might bring with him
00:53:40also, or not. I'm sorry. Who's the Sean Bowen, but Todd Downing was a disaster in his two years
00:53:46as the offense coordinator. The guy was a disaster on the field and off the field.
00:53:50We got arrested for a DUI and people completely lost respect for him in the building. And it
00:53:55kind of screwed that offense in terms of like their trajectory. So I still think Vrabel is
00:53:59very good at binding coaches. I'm just saying let's not act like he's perfect either. Like
00:54:03if he brings Tommy Reese, we're like, that's where it's been a lot of connections where he
00:54:06really likes him. The Browns current tight ends coaching, passing him coordinator. There's been
00:54:11buzz that he could be elevated office coordinator or that Vrabel is going to bring him with him
00:54:14wherever he goes. Alex, you know him better than I do, but I know he's had the stops with Nick Saban,
00:54:19like those are positive, but he's another pretty unproven guy at the NFL level.
00:54:23So that's kind of a similar thing to Ben Johnson. Obviously not the same because Ben Johnson's head
00:54:27coach, but with Ben Johnson, like I said, if he has the guardrails of a guy who's very well
00:54:31respected in the league and is one of the best, has been regarded as one of the best defensive
00:54:35coordinators for years, a guy who worked directly under Sean Payton. And then the offensive again,
00:54:40like that's, that's Dan Campbell or I'm sorry, that's a Ben Johnson side of the ball. Like,
00:54:45I feel like you can make similar arguments for both sides.
00:54:48For who? Sorry, I missed you. You were talking about Aaron Glenn there.
00:54:51No, I was talking about Ben Johnson of like the staff that he could bring. Like you're talking
00:54:55about if it's Tommy Reese, that's another guy who's not really experienced. He's not proven.
00:54:59So I guess I would, I would rather an experienced head coach developing the coaches under him than
00:55:04an inexperienced head coach being propped up by his staff. That's fair. I think that's fair. And
00:55:10that's where it really comes down to. It's that Vrabel. That's why we did, this is why we did
00:55:14the thumbs earlier. This is like the disclaimer, like if they hire, this isn't one is better than
00:55:21the other. What it ultimately comes down to is there's question marks with both with Vrabel.
00:55:26It's about the sustainability of the offense with Ben Johnson. It's whether or not he can build a
00:55:31program because there is, I'm not even going to say there's a bad program in new England. There's
00:55:35no program in new England right now. There really isn't. What are the cornerstone beliefs of this
00:55:40organization? I have no idea. I don't think they do either. So it's here's another way to put it.
00:55:46And I said this with Evan earlier, if you hire Ben Johnson, there's tremendous upside, but
00:55:52I don't think Ben Johnson answers, or you don't, the biggest questions from the Gerard Mayo era
00:55:59are still unanswered when it comes to Ben Johnson. It doesn't mean you can't answer them,
00:56:03but the biggest questions of the Gerard Mayo era are still unanswered when it comes to Ben Johnson.
00:56:07When it's, if it's Mike Vrabel, you're answering the questions from the Gerard Mayo era,
00:56:12but you're going back to the biggest questions from the last two years of Bill Belichick
00:56:16being unanswered. So it's basically, where do you want to put yourself on that timeline?
00:56:21What questions exactly? Can you sum that up a little better so I can understand?
00:56:28All right. So we're talking about the Belichick timeline.
00:56:31Would you rather be Vrabel in the last two years of Belichick or the unknown with Johnson? Is that
00:56:36what you're kind of saying? Well, no, they're both kind of unknowns, but it's with Ben Johnson.
00:56:40You don't know what the program is. You don't know what the culture is going to be. You don't
00:56:42know how he's going to be with the media. You don't know how he's going to be disciplinary
00:56:45as a disciplinary and everything like that, which we didn't know about Gerard Mayo.
00:56:48We didn't know day to day, the tone of the organization would shift wildly. We didn't
00:56:54have an answer on that. It might be better with Ben Johnson, but we don't know because there's no
00:56:58evidence there. He's never been a head coach. With Mike Vrabel, you more or less know. You look at
00:57:02what the program was in Tennessee. There was a strong program. They had their core concepts they
00:57:06were built on. They played tough football. It was a system of accountability. You didn't really see
00:57:12players making waves outside of the organization, things like that. But what you don't know with
00:57:16Mike Vrabel, and this is where I liken it to the end of the Belichick era. What's the deal
00:57:22going to be? What's the support system for the quarterback? What is the situation going to be
00:57:26like in terms of offensive player development? What is the offensive core philosophy going to be?
00:57:32We didn't know at the end with Belichick. They were guessing and they were failing in a lot of
00:57:36those regards. Maybe you don't want to deal with that. Maybe you just say, F the culture,
00:57:43just go out and win on Sunday. I think the Vrabel path, it's the floor ceiling thing.
00:57:49I think the Vrabel path can be sustainable. I think he can get you to eight, nine, 10 wins
00:57:54more often than not. Then it's about the talent to elevate from there. Ben Johnson could get you.
00:58:01He could be the next Kyle Shanahan, the next Kevin O'Connell. He could also be Josh McDaniels in
00:58:07Denver. He could be Mike McDaniel in Miami. I just think for where they're at right now,
00:58:12they can't afford something with that much variance. They need a steadying presence.
00:58:17Mike Vrabel is the definition of a steadying presence.
00:58:21When you look at using this timeline idea, where Belichick was and needing somebody to be there
00:58:28for the offense, now we know how stubborn he was going to be about it. You hope Vrabel's not as
00:58:36stubborn about it. Vrabel, I don't think, would be stubborn about it. He hasn't been in the past.
00:58:41He's actually had attainable offensive coaches. All right, Taylor, you're grinning. What's your
00:58:47thought here? Nothing. I'm just letting you pop off. Go ahead. Either of you guys react to any of
00:58:56this. Brian, you want to take it? This conversation is gone. We lost Taylor in the process. He's
00:59:07daydreaming. He's daydreaming about Ben Johnson running. I don't know if team Ben Johnson is fully
00:59:16getting your point here. If you're saying we're just going to go back to the questions we had in
00:59:22the last two years with Bill Belichick, just because we have a foundation and we might be
00:59:29playing tough football, I would rather take the shot that Ben Johnson can come in here,
00:59:35establish his culture, probably based off winning. It seems like the Lions players do
00:59:40really like him. We're going to have a good offense. We might score 30 points for once,
00:59:47winning games. That is going to build the new culture. It's a risk. There's definitely a level
00:59:53of professionalism with Mike Vrabel if he comes in here. Again, you mentioned that floor ceiling.
01:00:00I just think the ceiling with Ben Johnson is a little bit higher.
01:00:03I would just rather let the roster talent set the ceiling than the coach.
01:00:07If you can build a 12-13 win roster and then put Mike Vrabel at the helm of that,
01:00:12I feel you're a Super Bowl contender. I also think you could have both
01:00:18because if Ben Johnson brings somebody from Detroit, who clearly their staff is very good
01:00:22at building out rosters. Frankly, Mike Vrabel has never had the power to actually build the roster.
01:00:27That was one of the biggest issues with the end of his tenure with the Titans. He's an unknown in
01:00:31terms of building out the roster. We don't really know that either. Again, I think there's fair
01:00:36arguments for both. I know you're not trying to say definitively one is better than the other,
01:00:41but you could also have Ben Johnson come in, have his standard for what he wants for his offense,
01:00:46build that out. Then, oh, this offense that perfectly fits what he wants in his head
01:00:52is now what he has and he can coach it up. Past three years, he's had top five offenses.
01:00:57That's a pretty good track record. There wasn't this up-down. It's been like, no,
01:01:00it's gotten better. This year, they were the best offense in the NFL after being fifth in the past
01:01:04two seasons. I don't think it's one or the other. Again, if you have Luanna Rumo, who's hiring Luanna
01:01:09Rumo to be a head coach? Probably no one unless he coaches an outstanding defense. Again, a lot
01:01:15of these defensive pieces are here. They just need younger guys because a lot of their guys,
01:01:19they rely on their contracts are expiring or they're older. I just don't really get the idea
01:01:23that Ben Johnson doesn't also give you a boost in personnel and actually the way that the team
01:01:29plays. Well, no, look, I like Ray Agnew and I bring like Ray Agnew could be a GM. I could
01:01:35totally see that. It's again about the day-to-day ins and outs of running an organization and
01:01:41establishing that. We just haven't seen Ben Johnson do that. And it's, it's a far cry from
01:01:47being a genius on the whiteboard, which he is, but we've seen a lot of guys on both sides of the ball
01:01:52who were very good on the whiteboard who went elsewhere. And it was just too much for him.
01:01:58And if you're willing to take that risk for the schematic upside,
01:02:01like that's absolutely a fair argument. I just don't really want to see him take a risk right
01:02:06now. All right. I know we got to get to an ad, so let's do that. Then we'll, we'll wrap it up.
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01:03:13we can take that verse off the screen. Now we, we, we both set our points. We'll
01:03:17and it's certainly a good, good game. Go ahead. I just had one last thing I wanted to kind of
01:03:26squeeze in the analytics. I think it's one that we really need to address. We can talk about the
01:03:30roster. We can talk about the coaching. There's also the fact that this staff is severely undermanned.
01:03:35We know Mike Grable spent time with the Browns and with their analytics department,
01:03:39but we also don't know for sure if he's actually going to adopt those principles and build out.
01:03:43Because as we know, the top teams have their own scouting departments where like they have their
01:03:47own versions of PFF. Like the Patriots aren't going to build that in one off season, but they
01:03:51at least need someone who's been in that kind of area and is going to thrust them into that part
01:03:55into the future. And Ben Johnson, like the guy studied math in college, the Lions are an
01:03:59analytically minded team. I think he actually has some of the resources and connections to be able
01:04:03to build that out better. That was one other thing I think is pretty significant because it's not just
01:04:06coaching or the roster. And I mean, Can I ask team Vrabel a question too? And this is, I'm
01:04:12genuinely curious because I don't really remember. There's too much of a smirk on your face for you
01:04:16to be serious right now. No, I am like his in-game management. I thought I remember it as
01:04:23pretty conservative and is, I know he punked bill that one time. And I feel like everyone just
01:04:28points at that and be like, he's a great in-game manager. Cause he punked bill Belichick in the
01:04:33playoff game one time. Was he actually like consistently, like I remember him more conservative
01:04:39like he's obviously going to be better than Gerard Mayo with timeouts and decisions like that. But
01:04:44how was Vrabel from his time at Tennessee in the in-game department besides that one punt
01:04:50against Belichick? Right. So I, well, I also remember him having like one oddly conservative
01:04:56punt against the Steelers at, in one game outside of that, I, he was pretty down the middle. Like I
01:05:01wouldn't say he was an overly conservative or overly aggressive coach. It never really like
01:05:06each situation definitely felt different with him. I don't, and I know, I don't know if that
01:05:10sounds like a cop-out, but like, I don't think of him as aggressive or conservative. I think he
01:05:15more or less just kind of went with the, there weren't too many instances where I looked at it
01:05:19and I was like, what the hell is he doing? It was like, yeah, all right. It's probably the right
01:05:23idea. As far as like in-game management and just game planning in general. And I'm, I'm falling
01:05:29back on one of the things that I hated from Gerard when he would say, or a game plan football team,
01:05:34like every team should be a game plan football team. But I know, and I've seen it from interviews
01:05:38with Rabel is he was like Belichick in that if we do this, this, and this, we're going to win
01:05:45this football game. And at one point in the interview, I was watching with him. It was,
01:05:50we need to score 20 points and we need to reserve the right to punt. And we need to
01:05:54force two turnovers. And they did that and they won. And so the, some clips going around right
01:06:00now where he says like, yeah, we just need to live, live to punt, live to punt. And everyone's
01:06:05pissed about it, but it's like, if that's the way you can win this game, then that's okay.
01:06:09Now, as far as his, his broad tactic on being conservative, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
01:06:14But I know that he, he was like Bill and that guys knew if we do what brave says, we're going
01:06:20to win this football game. I don't need style points. I just want to cover Superbowl again.
01:06:23I don't care if they win every game, 10 to three. I don't care if they win. Right. I don't really
01:06:29care. I just, I don't care what it looks like because if they're winning football games,
01:06:33it looks good in some regard. So I just want them to win football games. I'll bring up this
01:06:37point too. And then we'll move on and let me be clear. So I, the hub tweeted a clip of me saying
01:06:42this and I had a bunch of people being like, I agree or I disagree. I was literally just reading
01:06:48his resume. I don't know what there is to like people. It was a great caption. It was Jay
01:06:53Stu making the caption on there. It's it's not really a take. It's just kind of the background.
01:07:01Mike Vrabel is not a Belichick guy as a coach. His coaching upbringing is independent of Bill
01:07:06Belichick almost entirely. He started out at Ohio state. He was sort of there with Jim Trestle.
01:07:11Jim Trestle was like suspended ish. It was weird. Luke fickle is the interim. Then he worked under
01:07:16urban Meyer goes to Houston, worked for Bill O'Brien. So Belichick guy, but O'Brien's program
01:07:21in Houston was different than Belichick's program in new England. He never worked in that program
01:07:25goes to Tennessee. There was a Patriots flavor in the front office, really not on the coaching
01:07:30staff. Dean Pease was like the only guy. Um, and then he was in Cleveland last year where he was
01:07:35with more Elliot Wolf people than Belichick than any Belichick people. He's as many connections
01:07:39probably with Wolf at this point in his tree as he does Belichick. So like, if you want to say,
01:07:45we need to get completely out of the Belichick tree, that's fine. And this isn't an argument
01:07:49for or against Vrabel. I'm just, I see people saying this and I think they're incorrect.
01:07:52I just want to set the record. Mike Vrabel. He learned about football from Bill Belichick
01:07:56playing for him. I could probably learn the culture and X's and O's part of it more than
01:08:01like the coaching strategy. He learned about the sport, not so much about coaching the sport.
01:08:06Um, the guy that's in the Belichick tree is Flores and he's been out and he's, you know,
01:08:12established his own connections and been elsewhere and been independent as well.
01:08:16But Mike Vrabel is not a Belichick guy. Like that's not, there's going to be some similarities.
01:08:21Certainly. And you might see some overlap. The one I've kind of pointed to is, does
01:08:26he call Wes Welker who coaching wise is independent of new England, obviously played here,
01:08:30but is independent. Does he call Wes Welker? He coached within Houston. I'm come coach wide
01:08:34receivers. Like maybe, um, there's the job at all. He had the connection with now granted O'Brien
01:08:41called Cornell for that, but he worked with Cornell and Houston. And then he also called
01:08:44DNPs in Tennessee. So it's adjacent, but you're right. It's not the same thing. He's just going
01:08:48to call guys who work around him. That being said, I'd rather him look elsewhere than McDaniels
01:08:52for offense coordinator. I really would. But like, he's not, uh, you're not getting like this, like,
01:08:59like Mayo hadn't been literally not been anywhere else. That's not, that's not going to be. And
01:09:03that's obviously not the case with Johnson. He's been in Miami and Detroit, but it's Vrabel has his
01:09:08own connections. I also think I understand getting away from the Belichick coaching tree because I
01:09:13just think that to me, it's like rotten. Brian Forrest is one of the few guys who survived
01:09:17outside of here, especially like as I had to really floor is a day ball. That's kind of the
01:09:21whole list. Yeah. Like, and I, I understand we need to get away from a tree, but let's not just
01:09:25like clean break from the bill Belichick philosophies and things like that because
01:09:29like football is what happened. Oh yeah. But like the, the principles that bill Belichick
01:09:35espoused were helpful. Like that is how you win football games. It doesn't matter what era
01:09:39it really doesn't. At the end of the day, like the tough team thing, you need to stop the run,
01:09:43run the ball and cover kicks. Well, and we saw what happened when you couldn't do any of those
01:09:47things. It was damn embarrassing. So I just want to kind of put that in there. Sometimes I feel
01:09:51like people act like they just need to completely clean house and act like building exists because
01:09:55everything is so bad. Like, I think that the core philosophies that he taught are very important.
01:10:01And I think there's a lot of value in having people who played under those, but the fact
01:10:05that Frabel has been other places is his own person. I think, you know, obviously has a little
01:10:10bit of a different personality, but is that nice blend of Mayo and Belichick where it can be jokey.
01:10:15He can, you know, bust your balls, but at the same time, you're going to work hard and you're
01:10:19going to be exhausted because you work so hard. So, you know, that's just my two cents on that.
01:10:24Uh, interesting text from a listener. Uh,
01:10:26anybody know who Mike Frabel special teams coordinator was his last year in Tennessee?
01:10:30Jeremy Springer. No, it wasn't close. No, Taylor was close. I'm Quinn.
01:10:36Tom Quinn. The Patriots have hired more Vrabel or have hired as many Vrabel people
01:10:43as Vrabel has Patriots people throw that out there. And that's probably a good
01:10:47sign for Tom Quinn and maybe Jeremy Springer. Yeah. I kind of wanted to ask this, like
01:10:54the new coach is going to come in and mostly bring in his own staff. Cause that's just what you do.
01:10:59And it's mostly needed. Are there any coaches you guys feel strongly about that should at least
01:11:06get it? And as I hate how demeaning this sounds, but this is just what it is. Are there any coaches
01:11:11currently on the team that you think should get a chance to at least interview to keep their jobs?
01:11:14Cause I have four guys in mind that I'd like to see him keep from the staff.
01:11:17Uh, Alex in pelts one. I understand that's maybe not realistic. Like he's going to get an offensive
01:11:24coordinator job somewhere else. I think any new coach, obviously Ben Johnson's not going to want
01:11:28him Vrabel maybe, but that feels like a long shot. Um, TC McCartney kind of that same extension
01:11:33did a good job with quarterbacks. I wouldn't hate seeing Scott Peters stay. And he has,
01:11:39I think sort of a connection with Vrabel because the Cleveland stuff as bad as the line was,
01:11:44it should have been so much worse. And the job Peters did with the players he was given was
01:11:49excellent. And the other one's Mike Pellegrino, because he's been a hell of a player developer
01:11:54for years. He's been one of the best coaches on the staff for years. I thought they were going
01:11:57to lose him when bill left. I still could see them losing in the chapel Hill. Right. But, um,
01:12:03I, if there's, if you guys agree, disagree with any of those, if there's anybody else,
01:12:07uh, are there any coaches that like you would like to see acknowledging that most of them
01:12:12probably need to go? I think we all agree on that. Are there any coaches you'd like to see
01:12:16them try to keep in the building? I throw into Bob Bicknell. He just got rave reviews,
01:12:20the entire tight ends, right? Tight ends coach. Um, and obviously Hunter Henry and
01:12:25huge fan. So I'd say him. And then again, Jeremy Springer and Tom Quinn are the guys.
01:12:28I think it's sort of another shot. Did I not say Jeremy Springer? I meant to say Jeremy Springer.
01:12:33Yeah, we were, we're in agreement. Jeremy Springer did a good job through Tom Quinney
01:12:37has that connection. Like, boom, we were talking about him and Tom Quinn. So just throw them in
01:12:41there. Yeah. The only one is the same thing you said, Alex, where if rabble, if it's variable
01:12:47and not Johnson, and they're going to open up the OC search and AVP wants to stay similar system that
01:12:52they ran, obviously then I'm fine with that. Keep some continuity with Drake may, which is what the,
01:12:57the idea is this, of this whole thing in the first place to surround Drake may
01:13:00you surround it with ABP TC, keep going that way.
01:13:03Could I ask if it say it's variable and they're running a similar type of defense, right? Which
01:13:10I hope, especially in the secondary, you hope they lean into Christian Gonzalez and still play
01:13:14a lot of man coverage. Can I cut you off? Cause I just want to make this point real quick.
01:13:19For all we're talking about building the offense around Drake may I'm glad the same needs to be
01:13:25done for Christian Gonzalez. That is why it's a popular name. I think he's a good coach.
01:13:29I don't want Robert Sala. I have zero interest in turning Christian Gonzalez in a sauce Gardner.
01:13:33That's a waste. So I mean, in the sense of he doesn't travel, yes, but the jets play a ton
01:13:39of man coverage. They have like a similar scheme where it's just like, it's a lot of quarters,
01:13:42but it's mostly cover three and cover one. Fair enough, Brian, go ahead.
01:13:47Um, so yeah, if it's a similar defense, especially in that secondary and Brian Belichick,
01:13:53if he doesn't want to move his family down there to UNC, especially if maybe it's only a year,
01:13:58he knows that is he someone who would keep around with how the safety is played this year.
01:14:02Yeah. I kind of just assume he's going to UNC. I kind of figured that, but I,
01:14:06yeah, I, I wouldn't mind keeping him around. Uh, yeah.
01:14:09Nope. Had us developed really well. And I think the veterans like Kyle Duggar,
01:14:13I don't know what's up with him. Cause he was pulling coverages before he got hurt,
01:14:16but then like you lost peppers. I was just a tough situation.
01:14:18I'll say this just to go back to Van Pelt real quick. And it goes to something we
01:14:21were talking about earlier at the very least. I want them to whoever it is, Ben Johnson,
01:14:27Mike Vrabel, Brian Flores, whoever I want them to interview Alex Van Pelt.
01:14:33So that for the coordinator job, so that the new coach gets a full breakdown on what they did for
01:14:41Drake May and Joe Milton and why that worked. And then whether you bring it back or point in
01:14:45the game, I would good point. Oh, I totally forgot. We were doing the points. Cause I was
01:14:49going to say, I realized we stopped getting points when we split into teams and the guy who was on
01:14:54team Vrabel happened to be in the lead. So I don't want to say anything cause I thought we
01:14:58couldn't talk about points. So I would just keep my mouth shut. All right. Taylor gets points for
01:15:02bringing up the rule. I, we were having a good debate. This it's an, it's an imperfect, uh,
01:15:06system here. Um, I, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I I'd like to see him interview
01:15:14Alex Van Pelt at the very least as kind of cold as this sounds, Hey, tell us why you did a good
01:15:20job last year. We're not going to bring you back if you keep doing the job, but we need to know
01:15:24what you did. Right. So we can have our guy continue to do what you were doing correctly.
01:15:28So, and I will say that Vrabel, if he brings Tommy Reese, like Tommy Reese works with
01:15:32quarterbacks, has a background as a quarterback. So I feel like if Vrabel is the guy, I just don't
01:15:37really see. Cause they're not, I don't think they're going to demote Van Pelt. And I don't
01:15:41know that TC is going to want to be on a different staff when he's been learning the same kind of
01:15:45system for a while. So, you know, I, so the weird thing about Tommy Reese is Tommy Reese is kind of
01:15:52like a diet Alex and Pelt. Yeah. Quarterbacks got like played the position didn't play in the NFL,
01:15:57but played the position has been a quarterback's coach. Most of his career. Um, he did. So this
01:16:03is what's weird. Like when he was at Alabama in 23, right. He did a really good job with Jalen
01:16:08Milrow's development. Jalen Milrow became much better as a passer, as a quarterback under Tommy
01:16:15Reese. And then once you know it, he fell off last year when Tommy Reese left. So he has that,
01:16:21having said the play calling, like his offense is definitely innovative.
01:16:26The sequencing kills me. He's one of these guys that it feels like just shoots from the hip and
01:16:32he will call 10 individual plays rather than we're going to run this and this, and then that sets up
01:16:36this and then we'll go to that. And then that leads to this. Like, it just feels like he just
01:16:39sort of calls plays. So if we think Alex Van Pelt dealt with that with Matt Patricia for a full year.
01:16:47Yeah. But at least the plays themselves work. So if it's, if it's Tommy Reese, there's like,
01:16:55he's Alex Van Pelt adjacent to me at that point, I might just keep
01:16:59Van Pelt, but I, they're not probably not going to do that. So
01:17:05any other thoughts on coordinator names? You guys like
01:17:11either side of the ball. You mentioned Josh with
01:17:17Vrabel. I'm not a big fan of that. So let me ask you this about Josh.
01:17:23If, cause people say that Josh McDaniel's offense, and this, this would be like
01:17:27the majority of my questions are variable. If I'm in that interview is Bay, I'd be like,
01:17:31call Josh, get them on speaker. We want him to be a part of this right before you decide anything.
01:17:36Do you buy that Josh McDaniel's can build, design, develop, and call a quarterback run game.
01:17:44And I asked that because look at what he did with Cam Newton. Do you believe that's transferable?
01:17:51And look, Cam was cooked at that point. All the, he was, you know, he gave his all for this team.
01:17:55I don't mean disrespect him, but he was done. Let's call a spade, a spade. He was done.
01:18:00Do you believe that Josh McDaniel's can build out? I not, not the Brady offense,
01:18:04not the Brady Josh McDaniel's offense. Do you believe there could be more to the
01:18:09Josh McDaniel's offense? Cause that's kind of what I would like to see him do. If he was the guy,
01:18:16wasn't that just like a bunch of QB power? Like, isn't that,
01:18:20he really just took all this stuff already. He took all this stuff that came with already
01:18:23and running in Carolina. Yeah, there's some options stuff in there, but I
01:18:28install it. But like, yeah, it was a lot of the same stuff.
01:18:32But I, that's what I'm saying. Like, do you think he just did that copy and paste and thought
01:18:36nothing more of it? Or, and I, I, this is a gut thing. I don't really know what there is to go
01:18:40off of, but like, at least he was willing to do it. Right. Do you think that he has the ability
01:18:46to go deeper into that bag and get some, some more of that? I honestly don't know. I have not
01:18:52seen Josh coach a football game in two years and he got fired. So like, obviously I don't think it
01:18:58was all because of the offense, but like, I really can't tell you, I don't, obviously we know that
01:19:01Josh had the ability to innovate, to adjust on the fly and all those things, but can he maximize
01:19:06the quarterback with Drake Bay skillset? I've seen little pieces of it. Like Jimmy Garoppolo
01:19:10in Arizona, you saw a lot of the outside zone Shanahan kind of stuff you wound up doing once
01:19:14he got to San Francisco again, cam Newton, he took the principles and the plays and concepts
01:19:19that he liked and brought them over. Can he? Sure. I would hope so, but I just, I don't know.
01:19:23I don't know. And that's, that's kind of. If look, if we want consistency in an OC,
01:19:30Josh McDaniels is your guy because he ain't getting another head coaching job. And now
01:19:33what's the ceiling on the offense compared to a Ben Johnson one? Obviously not as high.
01:19:37I think we can all agree on that, but, and I also, there's higher independent of Josh
01:19:43McDaniels. Like what if he gets like Michael LaFleur
01:19:47fair, but Mike, I talked about this with Evan earlier. He's not a caller in LA. Oh,
01:19:55is he an OC? Where is he? He's in LA. He's the OC, but he's not the play caller.
01:19:59So like, could he go to McVay? So the Patriots would need permission to interview him.
01:20:04Cause it's a lateral move, but like, could he go to McVay and be like,
01:20:07I need a chance to call plays so I can get to where I need to be, to be a head coach.
01:20:10You got to let me go interview in New England. Right. Would that, could something like that
01:20:14happen? That's like the Packers OC has been a popular one. Cause he's the same thing. Yes.
01:20:20Yeah. He's not a play caller. Cause LaFleur does it Matt, Matt LaFleur, but that that's been like
01:20:27a popular name that maybe he takes a quote unquote lateral move, but he goes somewhere
01:20:31and he gets to call plays instead. Yeah. I just think he's made the most out of it. No.
01:20:38What? We're at one 20. I thought we were like right around an hour. We've been going for an
01:20:43hour 20. So I'm like, finish your point. Then we'll wrap it up. No, I just saw Josh quickly.
01:20:46I know I, I don't like giving him all or a majority or credit towards like Tom Brady,
01:20:52Tom Brady's different breed, but he, he did get the most out of Mac Jones. I feel like he got the
01:20:56most out of what we mentioned was a cooked Cam Newton. I don't trust him wholeheartedly with
01:21:02Drake may, but I do like what he's done offensively outside of being a head coach.
01:21:06So again, I don't hate McDaniel's here. If everything else around him is, you know, the
01:21:10Vrabel, um, the Vrabel show, I guess. All right. Look, we, we Brian, go ahead. I just wanted to
01:21:17ask Barth one quick question before we wrap it up. I, it, it looks, I think we can all agree.
01:21:22This looks like it's going to be Mike Vrabel, right? Yeah. But Barth, if it is a tight pants
01:21:27guy and he's working with a Josh Allen clone mold, will you be, will you be okay? Like,
01:21:35well, I'm glad you asked me that Brian, because everybody's told me for a few years now that the
01:21:41bills are the model. Who's the bills head coach Sean McDermott's not a tight pants guy. No,
01:21:47he's not exactly. Sean McDermott is just a store brand dollar store. Mike Vrabel,
01:21:52like the bit in my argument. And you know, I feel strongly about this. If I'm willing to put the
01:21:57willing to use the bills as a positive example, the bills are kind of the model
01:22:02and the proof is in the pudding. And that everybody's the big concern with
01:22:07Vrabel is the OC turnover. One. I think people are worried about that a little bit. Cause Ben
01:22:12Johnson, who's like this generational coaching candidate, he stayed for three years. So maybe
01:22:17that one and done isn't as automatic as you think it is. And I kind of talked about this before,
01:22:22like Drake Mays young. Now he's not always going to be young. You really just need to get the next
01:22:26one to two guys, right? The bills with bad with Ken Dorsey, Josh Allen's fine. Josh Allen's still
01:22:33the same Josh on these better, frankly, after the Ken Dorsey experience. So I, yeah, you're right.
01:22:40Like if it's, if it's set up like Buffalo, I, I, as much as I dump on Josh Allen and Brian,
01:22:47you know, this, you guys know this, who do I always point to is the biggest reason the bills
01:22:50haven't gotten over the hump. It's Sean McDermott. If you had a better version, if you had a better
01:22:56head coach and that set up, I think that works. So yeah, absolutely. I will use the bills as an,
01:23:02I would be happy if they use the bills as an example, because that's a good what's up.
01:23:09Better roster would help. Well, they had a better roster and then they kind of hit the,
01:23:12the lead, like the two years ago, Buffalo bills, right. They had a better roster and they hit the
01:23:16ledge with the cap and age and stuff like that. And I said from the beginning, like roster is
01:23:20the most important thing, but no. Yeah. If they're like the bills, great. I, I would love nothing
01:23:25more, Brian, then for them to beat the Buffalo bills at their own game. I would love nothing
01:23:30more than that. I tell you that in all sincerity. And that's Mike Rabel. Mike Vrabel is your much,
01:23:36much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much better Sean McDermott.
01:23:41So you thought you had me there for a second, didn't you?
01:23:45You took it kind of a different, you went to Vrabel right away. I'm saying like, if you have,
01:23:49cause we know you're anti tight pants. Like if you have Ben Johnson and it's tight pants and
01:23:54then a Josh Allen at quarterback, like that's your ultimate nightmare. I feel like, well,
01:24:00we'll see if the tight pants guys out there doing the tight pants thing and throwing the ball up
01:24:04two scores late in game and mismanaging the clock and things like that. Yeah. I'm going
01:24:07to call them out for it. And if Drake may starts leading the league in turnovers and
01:24:12nobody gives credit to anybody else on the Patriots roster. Yeah. I'll call them out for
01:24:15that, but let's try to be, let's, instead of trying to be the bills, let's try to be a better
01:24:19version of the bills. How about that? Sounds good to me. Let's go win another Superbowl.
01:24:25I lost track of points again. So Mike wins 30 seconds. Go ahead.
01:24:28Oh, hang on. I forget how to do this. There we go. Mike, go ahead.
01:24:33Good. You gave me time to think of something. Cause I don't know. I wasn't prepared for this.
01:24:36I didn't think I was going to win this thing. I don't like being on screen.
01:24:39All right, fine. I'll give it to somebody else who was next. Uh, I can't see the scores here.
01:24:43Mike's gone. Uh, Brian, go ahead. Ah, shoot him. Get rid of everybody.
01:24:50What the hell happened here? What do you have to say, Alex?
01:24:55Brian, go ahead. I go ahead. Yeah. Um, all right. I, I tweeted this last night.
01:25:02Uh, we learned that chanting works in the state of Massachusetts. We
01:25:06Gerard Mayo got fired after, you know, chance of fire. Mayo ran through Gillette stadium,
01:25:11TD garden last night, fire Sweeney chance. Cause the Bruins are a dumpster fire.
01:25:15They lost their last five, uh, all in regulation to something needs to happen. And I'm terrified
01:25:22that Don Sweeney is going to do something to directly hurt the future, to help him now at
01:25:28the trade deadline in order to try to squeak into the playoffs and save his job. So I might be,
01:25:33uh, with the crowd on that one and good for, good for all the fans in Massachusetts firing up the
01:25:40chance lately and getting what they want. All right. Now we've got to see if it works on John
01:25:44Henry. That's the real question. Yeah, seriously. More months to worry about that. All right.
01:25:48Thanks so much everybody for tuning in for this hour and a half. So, um, Mike and Brian, you bet
01:25:53Mike and Taylor you back tomorrow. Yeah. Yes, sir. We'll do something. We'll probably do a
01:25:57mailbag of sorts. Maybe break down some Joe Milton film for, for you. But, uh, yeah, we didn't even
01:26:03get in every time. Yeah. Go ahead. I was just going to say, well, we'll ask for questions in
01:26:11the mailbag tomorrow. So make sure you tune in. All right. Me and Brian, we'll be back next week.
01:26:14We'll get to more Joe Milton stuff. Uh, then maybe we'll know the head coach who knows. So,
01:26:18uh, in the meantime, make sure you subscribe obviously to Patriots press pass on YouTube.
01:26:23You can find Mike and Taylor's work on CLNS media.com. You can find Brian's work on
01:26:26Pat's pulpit.com. You can check out my stuff on 98 by the sports hub.com. Also new catch 22,
01:26:32uh, earlier today, although you with, uh, Evan Lazar on Patriots.com, but you guys just heard
01:26:37a lot of what I had to say on that. So if you want to hear what Evan had to say, you can go
01:26:40check that out. But, uh, anyway, until the next one, thanks so much for tuning in and we'll all
01:26:45talk to you next time. Bye.

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