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00:00It's a Tuesday. We did our tiers earlier today. Those are on the Odyssey app, if you missed them.
00:05Tiering off the events at the NFL Combine, now in full swing in Indianapolis. We heard from Mike
00:11Vrabel earlier today in Indy. You heard it here on Jones and Keith on WEI. Let's react to it with
00:18Tommy Curran, NBC Sports Boston, on a Tommy Tuesday. Tommy Curran, how are we doing this week?
00:25Tremendous. What's going on with you guys? Oh, we're doing very, very well. I know Phil is in
00:29Indy. We heard Phil Perry asking some questions. We were reacting to Vrabel earlier today. What
00:34jumped out to you from his press conference? Phil and I talked. I said, hey, what do you
00:40want to ask about? I said, I want to ask about timeline. I want to ask about,
00:43you know, this is a team that Bill pronounced was going to rebuild in 2021 or 2020. He said
00:50everybody understood where we were. Mayo last year proclaimed that it was a foundational year.
00:54Basically, we're going to see where we are. And I wanted to hear whether or not Mike Vrabel would
00:58articulate the same thing. He avoided doing that. But then when pressed,
01:03did acknowledge that, you know, we are getting started on a lot of things here. It's not a magic
01:09wand. We can't fix the whole roster and through the draft or free agency. So I think that they
01:15don't want to put it out there publicly. And I understand why. But I think that that's one of
01:20the biggest subplots for this year. Expectations and reality. You know, he also did a couple of
01:27radio interviews after the fact. And one of them he was talking about, they want to add enough
01:32players in free agency so that they can say, here's our roster. We can play right now and
01:38then let the draft come to us. We've talked with you a lot about how free agency has changed over
01:44recent years, and there might not be a lot of great players available to you. So what did you
01:49make of that comment to be that aggressive and add that many players via free agency?
01:54I think that walks hand in hand with when he was asked about free agency, when Mike said,
01:59we are going to be hopefully aggressive. Now I think that rabbit ear people like Jones would
02:03say, Oh my God, that means ownership's going to step over and not let him pay.
02:08But I mean, honestly, basically, yeah, that's a pretty good job. A lot of people
02:11got good Jones impressions. That's pretty good. Aaron does a good job. He does. Yeah.
02:17I also have the hand gestures, but I'm doing them in my car.
02:20So, but I think hopefully aggressive means I can only be as aggressive. I can say that I went,
02:28you know, balls to the wall to get Ronnie Stanley. And if, as Eric, the cost of the
02:31Ravens just acknowledged when he was at the podium, we feel like we're going to get something
02:35done. Yay. We were aggressive. We didn't get him because he didn't want to come here. I mean,
02:42and Jones, you can say, which I'm sure you will, you have to make them want to come here.
02:45There is a point, isn't there, Adam? Yeah. I mean, well, it depends. I can't get the guy.
02:51Well, it depends. I mean, Vrabel said in a separate answer, like for Ronnie Stanley,
02:54specifically, it depends on how you view the tackle position. I think that's kind of
02:58his one car analogy where I don't know that I love the four or five cars on the lot.
03:02So I'd go all out for the one car. Personally, I think at wide receiver, I would have less of
03:06an issue if they didn't get the top shiny object, because I think there are a lot of options. I
03:10know you might have to trade for some of them, but I think, you know, wide receiver to me has
03:14in his analogy, four or five cars tackle kind of has the one. So I would have more of an issue
03:18with not going all out on Stanley than I would at wide receiver personally.
03:22I agree. I agree with that. But then when you, I do think that you have to first understand that
03:28he might never get there, which is to go back to what, what Rich is saying too. So that's,
03:33that's the bitch of this is you, you look at the team and they get so much calf space,
03:37they have the fourth overall pick. And last year they had the third overall pick,
03:40but that's why I alluded to the reality of where they are. They've been so desperately
03:45bad at player acquisition for more than a decade, whether it be draft or free agency,
03:52that you can have all great intentions, but people are going to look at your team and go,
03:56I can make almost the same money here. And I don't have to uproot my family and go up there
04:01and be part of a rebuild that I just doesn't look like it's got traction yet.
04:06Yeah. You've been talking about the suck tax for a while and having to pay a little bit more for
04:10this team. And, you know, we're able to talk a lot about compensation and opportunity. So the
04:14opportunity is across the board here, just about every position, but quarterback, whereas the
04:18compensation that still remains to be seen. Do you think that they have at least one contract
04:24this year where they're kind of uncomfortable about it? And they're like in a vacuum,
04:28this guy's not worth that, but we have to do something. You know, we, we talk about how Alex
04:34Bregman is a great player, but 40 million for one season for Bregman is pretty aggressive.
04:38Like do the Patriots have an equivalent of Bregman up their sleeve?
04:44I think that's a great question. When he alluded to what we saw in the Superbowl,
04:51meaning the trench warfare that occurred between the Eagles and the chiefs, and the fact that the
04:57Patriots had been held hostage by their offensive line for several years now, at least three,
05:03ever since they said goodbye to Shaq Mason or Joe Tooney, it seems and Trent Brown receded. That's,
05:08it's been not good. So I think it would be an offensive line ace up their sleeve. You know,
05:15how do they get to Ronnie Stanley before he says, no, I'd rather stay here? What's the cap
05:20situation there? What's, because in this instance, opportunity is not available to offer to Ronnie
05:28Stanley. He already has a better opportunity where he is. So you can only give him compensation.
05:34You know, you're, you're blocking for one of the best teams in football with a powerful running
05:39back and a tremendous quarterback. Ronnie Stanley from the Ravens that left tackle is not going to
05:43say, boy, I'd love to come out there and block for Ramondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson, you know,
05:49for a four-win team. So that's where the compensation has to come in. I would think
05:53that that would be where you would overspend. You're pissing up a rope with Tee Higgins.
05:58I really think that it's just find somebody else. Don't spend $40 million on Tee Higgins,
06:05which by the end of it, it's probably what it's going to cost. All right. Well, Tom, that one,
06:09Renee counterpoint though, and you can check out all Tommy current's latest at NBC sports Boston.
06:15He's doing these positional resets for what the Patriots have and what they don't have.
06:19I would say that the counterpoint at wide receiver and why you would just want to spend for a guy like
06:23Tee Higgins, should he become available or trade, you know, a boatload for a guy like Higgins or
06:29Metcalf or Olave or George Pickens or whatever you went through the history of the Patriots at
06:34wide receivers. It's staggering. Yeah. It's not just built up real. It is the way you came up
06:39with it in the last 50 years. There are seven better than average pro bowl level wide receivers
06:44with a total of seven pro bowl appearances. The list in the last 50 years, Stanley Morgan,
06:49Irving Fryer, Troy Brown, Terry Glenn, Troy Brown, by the way, an eighth round pick,
06:53Terry Glenn, Dion branch, Julian Edelman, and pop Douglas. That that's your list.
06:58So wouldn't that be a reason to really go all out spend, whether that means free agency or in terms
07:05of draft capital via trade, isn't that a reason to do it since they suck so bad at it, no matter
07:10who's doing. Yes. Trading, trading, trading. I'm a big proponent of trading. It's it's the it's
07:16the insane outlay of cash, I think, to a wide receiver that kind of uproots your room a little
07:24bit. I don't know. You can have it both ways. Maybe I'm just not a T Higgins believer. And
07:30that's probably maybe coloring what I'm saying. But this is something that I talked about last
07:35year. And you can go and get T Higgins and you can have Drake May and then you can still turn around
07:41and say, my God, we can't block anyone. Why can't we get the ball down the field? Well,
07:46because you guys didn't bother to go ahead and staff your offensive line. So I just I get
07:53sickened every year watching the postseason tournament on its playoffs. All right. The
07:59playoffs and saying to myself, what's in common with all these good teams? Well, they can all
08:04block. What can't the Patriots do? They can't block. I mean, Matt Jones. Again, I'm not saying
08:08Matt Jones was a godsend, but he never would have been as horrendous and embarrassing as he appeared
08:14to be in 2022 if it weren't for the fact that they just gave him absolutely no place, nowhere to
08:21run, nowhere to hide. Um, now Kuyper's latest mock draft had will Campbell go into the Patriots at
08:26four. And so, I mean, you know, obviously you can debate that, but whether they spend big money in
08:31free agency or not, I mean, you could always ask for both, but do you think they would go first
08:36pick offensive lineman and they just plug that player in right away?
08:42I do, especially if you don't get Ronnie Stanley or Alaric Johnson, Johnson from the Rams,
08:50who's the second rated free agent, offensive lineman. He's about 18th overall. And I think
08:56it was a pro football focus rankings I saw or Floreos, excuse me. Um, but yeah, if you,
09:02if you're walking around in April and you're still going off, well, maybe we can find the
09:06next chooks of core for, then you, you got a problem. So you have to address it. And when
09:13people say to themselves, my God, will Campbell's not a fourth overall pick, go back to the simple,
09:20look, all drafts are not created equal. Some years it's good. Some years it's not good. And
09:26the fourth overall pick might be the 15th overall pick in 2023. Sorry. That's what it is.
09:33Is that, does that underscore kind of the, the problem? This is where we started the show today
09:36before we played some of Mike Vrabel here on Jones and Keefe on WEEI. We kind of started
09:42with the Patriots are just, they're not in an ideal spot. It's not a good year to have a ton
09:46of cap space and it's not a great year to have high draft capital. Like last year was a really
09:51good draft to have the third pick. It turned out, it worked out great. There were three quarterbacks
09:55or you got the third one and you wound up in a great spot. There were more than three
09:58quarterbacks. If you like Bo Nix and still believe in Bo Penick, uh, uh, Michael Penick's
10:03rather, et cetera, this year, maybe not so much. Does that just kind of underscore, yeah, the
10:08Patriots have this draft capital and they have this cap space, but it's not the greatest year
10:11to have those things. Right. So, I mean, now we're in the second rebuild of the decade,
10:19the 2020 rebuild that Bill acknowledged after Brady, we have to get ourselves set. So 2021,
10:24that rebuild consisted of basically what the 2025 rebuild is or 2024 and 2025 rebuild is.
10:31You took a quarterback, you spent an unbelievable amount on free agents, which the Patriots did to
10:36an extent, but all in their own players, cause it was such a bad class. They're going to have
10:39to do the same thing. So if you're going to rebuild every five years or four years, which
10:45the Patriots have had to do because of the path of the franchise, then sometimes you might hit,
10:51you're not going to hit everything. Like they hit on Judon, they hit on Hunter Henry.
10:57They didn't hit on Mack Jones for a variety of reasons, but that you're exactly right. So you
11:04don't want to be in a place where your program has deteriorated to the point where you're relying on
11:12going to the market and finding people. You should have found them in the first place.
11:16And if you didn't, well, that's why you're back in this thing and trying to do something
11:21that's really hard, which is build a team from people you don't know and haven't developed.
11:26You know, in addition to talking about free agency and the draft,
11:29Vrabel also spoke today about both of his coordinators right off the rip. It was about
11:35Josh McDaniels. And I know a lot has been made about, you know, who hired McDaniels,
11:39was it Kraft? Was it Vrabel? And just sort of, when you look at the rest of the coaches on the
11:43staff versus McDaniels, like how do you break it all down now that, you know, these two guys have
11:48been, I guess, together for about a month or so, but they're about to really kick off here,
11:52the draft, free agency, and the whole real off-season together?
11:57I guess to me, I continue to come back to what do you need? What does the patient,
12:00what does the ill patient on the table need? And this ill patient that's on the table right now
12:07needs someone like Josh McDaniels, as opposed to somebody who can have intricate, involved,
12:13new, fresh, never-before-seen ideas, which I think Keith's a huge fan of. And I look at
12:20McDaniels as, look, that would be nice if we didn't know that I have a general practitioner
12:28standing over the patient here who has seen everything, and he can come up with a treatment
12:34for it. And that's why I think Josh McDaniels is a fit. And I don't think it was a force on
12:41variable or by variable. I think it's what does the patient need? It needs a steady hand.
12:45It needs a competent hand. It needs an experienced hand. And that's why I think McDaniels fits in
12:53my estimation. Tom, I'm curious, well, if I'm not mistaken,
12:57you haven't talked to Elliot Wolfe as a collective media group since last August,
13:03end of the preseason, leading up to the regular season. What do you want to hear from Elliot
13:08Wolfe when he speaks tomorrow at one o'clock? Ownership of his mistakes. I want him to
13:14acknowledge that it was his responsibility to have a plan in place for offensive line. It was
13:26his responsibility to draft wide receivers who had developmental upside and could be counted upon
13:33to not have these inflated senses of self-worth. And then produce for you 12 catches between the
13:40two of them, between Jalen Polk and Jayvon Baker. I even want to go back a little further and say
13:47to him, how did you guys arrive at type one point and Jacobi Myers out and Juju Smith-Schuster in?
13:56And why should we have faith that you can pick a wide receiver to play for this team?
14:02Because you're not good at it from every indication. And how much ducking, bobbing,
14:08and weaving does Elliot Wolfe then engage in and buck passing? Because that's been my biggest
14:15agitation with Elliot Wolfe is this condescending, no at all, lack of humility bravado that accompanies
14:29his public statements. And then you look at it and there's no bear there. He hasn't done anything,
14:37literally, whether it be Cleveland when he was there. What great revelations did Elliot Wolfe
14:44bring about? Whether it be Green Bay when he was basically riding in the third row of the minivan,
14:50what did he do there? So to me, I want to hear from him. Why should people have faith in what
14:57you're doing when it's not been good? Because do you have a great spreadsheet and people like
15:01a grading system? Yay. Find a player. I don't know if you saw this, but Steve Smith, the former wide
15:07receiver did like a full breakdown on Jalen Polk and some of the receivers with the Patriots and
15:12basically taking all of the blame off of Polk and being like, he was coached wrong. And this guy's
15:18actually pretty good, but he wasn't getting any help last year. Do you subscribe to that at all?
15:23Or what did you make of that? I just go anecdotal. And I ask,
15:27why was he in the end zone two and a half feet from Austin Hooper on that touchdown pass to
15:35Hooper when Polk was not stout enough. It was on the left sideline. I can't remember which game it
15:42is. I think you guys remember it too, because it bothered me so much and probably bothered you
15:46and many fans. But Hooper's catching the ball at the front left pylon and Polk was supposed to
15:53clear out and go to the back left pylon, just keep going. But he wasn't able to keep his line. He got
16:00forced out of bounds. Then he kind of quit on the route and turned around and started waving his
16:05arms and brought more people into the area. It's just, that's not coaching. That's a lack of,
16:14nobody tells a player to just stop your route. If you can't get past your guy,
16:18just stand there and start waving your arms around. I mean, who told him to drop four balls
16:23and catch 12? Yeah. Or, or be out of bounds against Miami. Like that's sort of like,
16:28you know, I disagree with Steve as great of a receiver as he was. I do disagree.
16:32Yeah. He was targeted. Listen to this because I just did it. He was targeted 33 times. He caught
16:3912 and he dropped four of those. It's bad coaching. It's bad coaching. It's not a great
16:44ratio for him. Yeah. I mean, Drake may was kind of echoing some of it. Like he expects those guys
16:49to break out this year. I, uh, I personally do not. Uh, before we let you go, Tom, you a combine
16:54guy. Do you like the combine? Um, to an extent, I think, I think it's interesting when you watch,
17:01you know what I like? I like the gauntlet drill. Um, we were trying to talk, keep into it. He hates
17:07it. That's not true. I don't hate it. These guys were talking up all the positional drills. I was
17:12like, well, some are a little bit better than others. I like the wide receiver gauntlet drill.
17:17You know which one I'm talking about with a run down the line and that's a hold the line
17:20and boom, boom, boom. I love that. Yeah. I get it. Sterling Shepard was my favorite than that.
17:25Oh, he never moved off. Neither did Luke frigging McCaffrey or Ladd,
17:29McConkie or whichever one it was. It's a big difference.
17:35It's very similar. It's true. It's true. All right. We'll put you down for a good
17:40combine. Thank you, Tom. Uh, Tom, we appreciate it as always. Thanks so much. Talk to you next
17:44week on our next Tom E Tuesday, check out all his latest NBC sports, Boston, all over
17:48BST and early edition and all of his positional recaps that he's been doing. He has the wide
17:53receiver group. Uh, this would shock no one on a scale of one to five. Uh, the need is a five.
17:58It is a big need for the Patriots. Who do you think? We already said there's probably only
18:03three people that can do multiple reps of two 25 at the station. Who do you think would have
18:08the best three cone drill? Oh, Agile Courtney. Maybe. Yeah. Uh, who would not me? No. What
18:17about you? I think I'd fall down. I wouldn't shortchange. I don't think I could do the
18:20three cone drill. Okay. At this point in the day, um, vertical jump, best vertical jump
18:27Ted, probably Ted. I was, I was going to say Ted probably three cone to Ted probably would
18:30crush most of this stuff. He shouldn't be allowed to be part of that. If you were actually in the
18:35NFL combine, like, yeah. Yeah. I bet Ted would do well at most of these. I was going to say
18:40Ted's probably still in the same shape. So I have all of his combine numbers when he was in the
18:44car. What do you got? What do you got? His bench press 28. That's it. I feel like he could do more
18:49heart did 31. He claims broad jump soft. Yeah. 10 feet. One inch. It sounds like a good broad
18:55jump. It seems like a long ways. Yeah. So I got next size there. Uh, no, no. I think you'd win
19:01broke the, broke the scale for the infinite symbol. Yeah. Vertical jump 31 and a half.
19:08Nice. That's good for a Haas. Yeah. He was six, three and three eights. You got a 40 time there.
19:13Uh, yeah, I do. Four, eight, four. I think he'd probably, it's not flying, but it's not,
19:19that's not, I mean, it's not slow. No. It's slower to Marcus Russell, but yeah,
19:23a big middle linebacker. No, it's not bad. 20 yard shuttle. Four, three, five
19:28got nine and a quarter inch hands. Nice. 32 and a half inch arms. And he weighed in at two 48. Okay.
19:36It's probably the same across the board. I wonder what the, I wonder what the play and
19:40weight versus present day where you might, you might be able to shave a little bit of time off
19:43on his 40 quite frankly. Yeah. Okay. Good numbers there. I like the combine. We're combined guys.
19:48I like the combine myself. You like the NFL combine. You don't like the Jones and Keefe
19:51so far. I do not. I've been struggling with it mightily. You can go to
19:55a at Jones and Keefe on Instagram and watch how bad I am and all these things.