00:00 A couple things happened here.
00:01 One, Patriots had a good competitive day on Thursday.
00:05 That second practice, a lot of people, Taylor included,
00:08 I think, said that might have been
00:10 Mac's best overall practice of the summer,
00:13 and the best the team has looked in a competitive environment.
00:19 So that might have meant you might not
00:21 have seen them or seen much of them to play in the game.
00:24 And they did get out there.
00:25 And I think part of that is to try to get game speed.
00:28 But again, you're playing behind 2/5 of an offensive line,
00:32 maybe, not even.
00:33 Trent Brown barely played.
00:34 One development on the offensive line, we did see Taylor.
00:37 Riley Reif apparently is no longer a tackle,
00:40 which isn't a terrible thing.
00:42 And he got kicked inside.
00:44 He started the game at guard.
00:45 But what did you see out of that first team
00:47 offense with the caveat that there's no time,
00:50 there's not a lot of time, that pocket's collapsing quick.
00:52 Even when he made throws, he had to get them off quick.
00:55 You had one sack where he got eaten alive,
00:58 and that was Stuber coming in on the left side in for Trent
01:02 Brown.
01:04 That was DOA as far as that one goes.
01:07 One that might have been maybe he held it a tick too long
01:09 or it was a coverage sack.
01:10 Again, it closed quick, but it wasn't as bad as that.
01:15 But almost all of it, he had to move around in the pocket a lot
01:18 to make some of his throws, and I thought did all right.
01:21 Yeah, I think this is what we've seen from Mac.
01:23 In the joint practices, even the first practice,
01:26 we all say that the second one was good.
01:27 I didn't think he was bad in the first joint practice.
01:29 I thought it was just the same thing we've
01:31 been seeing is pressure.
01:32 Didn't really have time to go downfield,
01:34 and I think that affected a lot of people's perception
01:36 because there was a lot of dinking and dunking
01:37 and not a lot of explosive plays.
01:40 And then in the second practice, you
01:41 saw he finally on court pointed to DeVante Parker,
01:43 and that was what I think changed
01:44 a lot of people's perceptions.
01:46 But I thought what we saw today was pretty much
01:47 what we've seen.
01:48 Kendrick Bourne and Camp has been money on those slants.
01:51 We saw the RPO slant to convert a second and 11.
01:54 We saw a dig completion where Mac throws a free rusher
01:57 because it looked like Maffie and Stuber
01:59 had trouble picking up a stunt.
02:00 And Mac got reveled.
02:02 Free rusher got a clean hit at him,
02:04 and he still put it up there and let Kendrick Bourne
02:06 get a chance at it.
02:07 So I thought he'd had a really good performance.
02:09 It was good to see Kendrick Bourne get involved as well.
02:11 He's someone who has been kind of inconsistent in camp.
02:15 He's had his flashes for sure, and it's not
02:17 like he hasn't been contributing at all.
02:20 But it was nice to see Mac kind of lock in on him
02:22 and see Kendrick Bourne kind of do well in that capacity.
02:25 There was the one throw--
02:26 his incompletions even weren't really bad.
02:28 There was the play to Devontae Parker,
02:32 play action to deep shot where, again, he took a hit.
02:34 And it looked like the ball went through Devontae Parker's hands.
02:37 At first, I thought that he was just barely out of reach,
02:39 but I think it was actually a good throw.
02:41 He had the throw to Hunter Henry,
02:43 where I think it was a miscommunication where
02:45 he thought Henry was going to be more outside.
02:47 He threw it up the seam, and Henry
02:49 was looking the other direction.
02:50 Definitely miscommunication.
02:51 Not sure it was on.
02:52 That was pretty well designed there
02:54 because you saw the coverage.
02:55 Kind of both of them bit and went over
02:59 towards the receiver running a go,
03:03 and Henry was wide open on the seam.
03:05 So he did miss.
03:05 That was a miss.
03:06 I don't-- yeah, it's hard to say who that was on.
03:08 Yeah, and then there was another one--
03:09 The Parker one, too, when you watch that again,
03:11 you watch that a couple of times,
03:13 it really was a money throw.
03:15 It looked like Parker--
03:17 like, Alligate didn't quite go full for it.
03:22 It looked like it was within his reach.
03:24 I mean, just-- he didn't really extend for it.
03:28 It looks like he might have even hitched a little bit.
03:31 That throw was pretty solid for getting downfield
03:36 for a guy who's always going to be kind of sort of covered.
03:40 He had him there, so that was a good throw, I thought.
03:43 And then the other incompletion was a batted pass,
03:45 where again, it looked like Kendrick Bourne
03:46 got wide open on slant.
03:48 It was on the money.
03:49 It was a great read by the safety.
03:50 So yeah, I mean, that's what we've seen from Mac,
03:52 is the offensive line doesn't look good,
03:54 but he's been putting it on his receivers.
03:55 He's been accurate.
03:57 Downfield, I think the only really times
03:59 he's been inconsistent are some of the fades in the red zone.
04:02 But for the most part, he's been accurate throughout camp.
04:04 And Bill O'Brien said, the winner of this job
04:06 is going to be the guy who's most consistent.
04:08 Now, to be fair, Bailey Zappi hasn't really
04:09 been giving him much competition to begin with,
04:11 but we've also seen that Mac, every single day,
04:13 looks like a clear-cut starting quarterback.
04:16 And hopefully, the offensive line can get it together
04:19 once Cole Strange is back.
04:20 I think they're just being conservative with him.
04:22 Wynoo, I think, is probably going to miss some time
04:24 to start the year, because I haven't really
04:26 heard any updates on him.
04:27 He's been around, which is a good sign.
04:28 Real quick, let me just give a quick update
04:32 from the Patriots have just sent an update on Isaiah Bolden.
04:43 Bolden, the Patriots said that cornerback Isaiah Bolden
04:46 sustained an injury during the fourth quarter of tonight's
04:48 game.
04:49 He had feeling in all his extremities,
04:50 but has been taken to a local hospital
04:52 for further tests and observations.
04:53 So that's the first--
04:54 Huge.
04:55 That's the first checked box there, which is good.
04:59 But obviously, awaiting more word.
05:03 But that's definitely some good news there.
05:07 So again, more updates as we have them.
05:10 But yeah, continue on here.
05:12 Yeah, no, I mean, I'm kind of just going on.
05:13 But yeah, Mac has been good.
05:15 I thought it was a continuation of what we've seen in camp.
05:18 And I was talking about the offensive line.
05:20 You hope that that gets figured out.
05:21 Like I said, Cole Strange is probably
05:23 going to be coming back week one.
05:24 I think they're just being cautious with him.
05:26 Mike and Wenu could miss some time,
05:27 although he's been at practices and you've seen him around.
05:30 So that's a positive sign.
05:31 I'm more worried about Strange than on Wenu at this point.
05:33 You've seen on Wenu.
05:34 We haven't even seen Strange since he went down.
05:36 I saw Strange right after that injury.
05:38 He was exploding.
05:39 He was in his pass sets.
05:40 He was pulling.
05:41 So that one seems more like they're being very, very
05:44 careful with him.
05:46 We saw them be cautious with Trent Brown as well.
05:48 I don't know what he was dealing with exactly,
05:50 but it took a while for him to start getting involved.
05:52 And he was out even longer before Cole Strange was.
05:55 So yeah, I think if the offensive line gets it
05:58 together, this is going to be a more formidable Patriots
06:00 passing offense than a lot of people are maybe assuming.
06:03 A lot of that goes to Bill O'Brien,
06:05 but I think a lot of that also goes to Mack
06:07 buying into this new system and doing well there.
06:10 But yeah, it was a good performance from him.
06:12 I saw some people on Twitter didn't think so.
06:14 I don't really know what they were watching necessarily.
06:16 I don't know.
06:17 It's Twitter.
06:18 Everybody's going to--
06:19 No, on which player?
06:21 On Mack.
06:22 There's people saying that they didn't think
06:24 he had a good night.
06:24 But I thought he was putting the ball where he needed to be.
06:26 I thought Mack--
06:26 He was standing in versus pressure.
06:27 Like, I don't know what else he wanted from him.
06:29 I thought Mack did as much as he could have possibly
06:31 done tonight.
06:31 I'm not a-- I think it's very convenient to blame
06:37 the O-line every single time a quarterback struggles.
06:41 But in this case, this game and last, which Mack did not play,
06:45 it's really hard to assess what, if anything,
06:48 is going on with the Patriots' offense,
06:51 whether what O'Brien's doing is going to work,
06:54 whether it's even going to matter.
06:56 It turns out you really need a good O-line in football.
07:01 Who knew?
07:01 And you definitely need tackles.
07:03 And they've basically been playing with no--
07:06 basically no tackles.
07:10 They're not playing with NFL caliber tackles at all.
07:13 Well, Trent Brown's pretty damn good.
07:14 Yeah, but he hasn't played.
07:15 He played, like, five snaps tonight.
07:17 You know what I mean?
07:17 It's like--
07:17 I mean, to be fair, he threw somebody down.
07:19 It was pretty sick.
07:19 On the play where I think he got hit by City.
07:21 So you see on the other side of the line,
07:22 Trent took somebody and threw him to the ground.
07:24 I'm just saying, left side's good as long as Trent's there.
07:27 What I'm saying is you've barely seen Trent Brown.
07:29 All I'm saying is you're counting
07:31 on a guy who's difficult to count on.
07:33 And certainly, he's solid in that role
07:38 if he can play and be healthy and make it through a season.
07:41 But it's a-- I mean, what we've seen
07:43 for the majority of two preseason games
07:45 is very little starting caliber tackle play from this team.
07:51 And that's going to be a problem if they don't figure that out.
07:54 It's going to be a problem no matter what on the right side.
07:57 You hope one of the-- maybe a rookie or someone
08:00 can kind of morph into that role.
08:02 Or you might just be desperate and have
08:03 to kick on one who back out to the right just out
08:06 of necessity.
08:07 And that's worked in the past.
08:09 And I wouldn't be stunned if that's what ends up happening,
08:11 even though he's so good where-- in his more natural position.
08:15 But yeah, it's been rough.
08:18 It's really hard to assess what's going on with this team.
08:20 But yeah, they did have the slants going, that little game.
08:23 And you think that's what they're going to run.
08:25 I'm glad this wasn't just all screens
08:27 like we saw in game one, which was a bummer and kind
08:30 of depressing.
08:31 Because that, to me, was like borderline capitulation.
08:34 Like, hey, we know we can't protect.
08:35 So we're just going to have to run this kind of stuff
08:38 all season long.
08:39 They're building.
08:39 They're building.
08:40 They're building.
08:40 Yeah, sure.
08:41 Sure.
08:42 And you're happy to see some positive movement,
08:46 taking a couple of shots downfield
08:47 and being able to hit a couple of passes.
08:49 But again, impossible, just impossible
08:51 to really get a good sense of what these guys are
08:54 capable of doing until you have an entire healthy offensive
08:59 line and then see how they do there.
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