00:00 I figured Greg, since there's so much to cover.
00:03 We begin because it's the sexiest position on the field.
00:07 It's the position that everybody talks about.
00:10 Mac Jones, Bailey's happy.
00:12 Some thought that this was going to be a quarterback competition.
00:15 Not only was it not a competition, but as of right now, and I stress right now,
00:20 because there's a lot that's going to be done as you and I know over the next,
00:23 you know, couple of days, couple of weeks.
00:25 But as of right now, Bailey's happy is not on this roster.
00:29 He was cut earlier today.
00:31 Just your thoughts from 30,000 feet, and maybe even a little bit in the weeds,
00:37 about what this plan might be at quarterback.
00:40 Okay, well, first and foremost, I'm sure a lot of this,
00:46 and I'm giving Bill Belichick the benefit of the doubt before I hammer him on other things.
00:51 Right.
00:51 This obviously wasn't the plan for a long time, whether it's quarterback or any other position.
00:56 But they had to, basically, I think at one point they had,
01:00 um, they had, what do they have now?
01:04 So they had 12 offensive linemen at one point.
01:06 They had 11 on the roster.
01:07 They have 11 now that Connor McDermott's been moved to IR with the official moves.
01:12 That's still extremely heavy.
01:14 It looks like probably Riley Reif will move to IR.
01:17 So that's 10.
01:19 That's general, in the general vicinity, I had nine on my final one.
01:23 Of course, I largely ignored the injury stuff,
01:26 because I just don't know.
01:26 I didn't know how serious anything was for anybody.
01:30 So McDermott's season is over.
01:33 Riley Reif, you would expect that he's going to move to in-season IR tomorrow.
01:39 So I'm sure a lot of this was not the plan.
01:45 Let's just start with the quarterback position.
01:49 Am I surprised that Bailey Zappe was released?
01:53 Yes.
01:54 You know, I guess I would say yes.
01:56 Now, did I have growing concerns about his future here,
02:00 his fit in this offense after what I saw,
02:04 the totality of the summer practices, the three preseason games,
02:09 especially the last couple?
02:11 Yeah, I was starting to say, OK, he had gone from-- last year,
02:16 he earned solid backup role for me, spot starter.
02:21 I feel good with Bailey Zappe.
02:22 Smart guy, tough guy, throw him in against the Packers,
02:25 almost led them to a victory, led them to two victories
02:28 against crappy defenses, but did a good job.
02:32 He put the steering wheel on 8 and 10 or whatever the saying is.
02:37 10 and 2.
02:38 10 and 2.
02:39 I forgot, my twins are in driving school.
02:42 I should have them down here telling me.
02:43 They're probably yelling at me right now.
02:45 You'd be like this.
02:45 Yeah, they'll be like, yeah.
02:47 That's how they drive anyways.
02:48 Anyways, so I thought he did a good job.
02:52 But we talked last year a lot about people
02:56 were going nuts about Bailey Zappe.
02:58 And we talked about, all right, fine, he's doing his job.
03:01 But this isn't really the toughest thing that he's had to do.
03:06 A lot of these are defined reads.
03:08 A lot of them, almost all of his big plays
03:10 were play action, like shot plays where guys were almost open,
03:14 or wide open, or he's throwing 50-50 balls.
03:18 And look, I think in hindsight-- and then you
03:21 looked at him this summer in Bill O'Brien's offense, which
03:24 is back to the traditional Patriots offense
03:26 where it's a lot on the quarterback.
03:28 You've got to get the protection right.
03:30 You've got to change routes.
03:32 You've got to read routes right in the moment.
03:33 Like it's just different than what Matt Patricia was running.
03:37 And that fits Mack Jones.
03:41 I didn't think that it would be an ill-advised fit for Bailey
03:45 Zappe, but that's the way it looked
03:46 over the course of the summer to the point
03:48 you got through the last preseason game.
03:50 You're just like, I don't know.
03:52 Can this guy do it?
03:53 And I think the Patriots had those discussions
03:56 amongst themselves.
03:57 Now, do I think that they want Bailey Zappe back
04:00 on the practice squad?
04:01 Yes, absolutely.
04:04 With all of this, with what we're going to talk about,
04:06 one quarterback, two running backs,
04:08 including one who hasn't even played for them yet,
04:11 and Ezekiel Elliott, and two tight ends,
04:15 that's not the way you draw it up at all, ever.
04:18 No.
04:19 No, you build depth.
04:21 You build youth.
04:22 You bring people along.
04:24 They're in your system from when they're drafted or brought
04:27 in in March, and April, and May.
04:29 And they're here for months.
04:30 They're learning it.
04:31 They practice during the summer.
04:33 And then if they're called upon, they're trained in your system.
04:37 Now the Patriots are put in a position where they're
04:39 going to have to basically--
04:41 look, this is being brutally honest.
04:44 I'm sorry if this offends some people, which apparently does
04:47 on Twitter, which isn't a surprise.
04:49 But basically, the Patriots are trolling other people's trash
04:52 now at quarterback, running back, and tight end.
04:55 That is not optimal.
04:56 You can slice it any way you want.
04:59 It's not optimal.
05:01 But yeah, I thought Bailey had done enough.
05:04 But do I think there's some interplay there
05:07 between him and Mac Jones, and Bill O'Brien,
05:10 and what went on last year?
05:12 And I think there's a little bit of that.
05:14 I think most of it was just like, do we
05:16 think this guy fits what we do now,
05:18 and what we're going to be doing for the foreseeable future in terms
05:21 of what we ask the quarterbacks to do?
05:23 And I think at the end of the day, their answer was no.
05:27 But I don't think it's quite the end of Bailey Zappi.
05:30 He could be back on the practice squad.
05:32 If I were him, I'd be running to a Kyle Shanahan system,
05:35 one of his disciples somewhere in the league.
05:37 Because if Brock Purdy can do what he did,
05:40 Bailey Zappi could come close.
05:42 So we'll have to see what happens at quarterback.
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05:59 Yeah, I mean, look, I understand people kind of freaking out
06:06 a little bit, because it's strange to look at a 53-man roster
06:09 and you have one quarterback on the roster right now.
06:12 I don't think Belichick's plan is to walk in with one quarterback when
06:16 they get ready to play the Eagles.
06:17 I don't think that's going to happen.
06:19 I also would say, Bailey Zappi--
06:22 and I know some people were in love with Bailey Zappi.
06:25 As you mentioned, Greg, we had the whole Zappi fever conversation last year.
06:29 You nor I were on the Zappi bandwagon.
06:32 Both of us had talked about the level of competition he played against,
06:36 the play calling, how it changed from Zappi to Jones,
06:39 and then back to Jones, then to Zappi.
06:41 It was clearly a different offense when Zappi was
06:46 quarterbacking than Jones last year.
06:48 That was clear for everybody to see.
06:50 So I never had Zappi fever.
06:52 Never hit me.
06:53 Never really understood it.
06:56 I still think the chanting for Zappi in that Chicago game
06:58 was an absolute embarrassment by those people that did that
07:01 that night at Gillette Stadium.
07:03 Let's all be honest, though.
07:05 If Bailey Zappi is part of this football team,
07:08 is he really the difference between this team winning
07:10 eight games, nine games, 10 games?
07:12 Like, if Mac Jones goes down, is Zappi the guy that you say, all right,
07:16 he's going to be able to really lead this offense
07:19 and be that kind of a backup quarterback?
07:22 Not to me.
07:22 Not right now.
07:23 Maybe last year, if you kept the same kind of offense
07:26 and you handled him with kid gloves again.
07:28 But as you mentioned, Greg, the way this thing is being run with Bill O'Brien,
07:33 Bailey Zappi was not going to be that big of a help.
07:35 He was going to be a body in the quarterback room.
07:38 So what's the difference?
07:40 I hear some people bitching about, oh, Colt McCoy or Brian Hoyer or this guy.
07:44 Honestly, everybody take a deep breath and tell me
07:47 what the difference is between a Bailey Zappi and a Colt McCoy.
07:51 It's not a huge difference.
07:54 McCoy's better, I would say.
07:57 And if you feel like McCoy, who has had some kind of experience
08:00 with this offense with Brian Dable, he at least
08:03 has some kind of an idea of what needs to be done.
08:07 It's just we're talking about the backup quarterback.
08:10 And I remember when I was 10, 11 years old,
08:12 I remember the Michael Bishop conversations.
08:14 I remember-- I'm old enough to remember when Malik Cunningham played
08:18 good for six minutes in a preseason game and people
08:21 started to lose their collective minds.
08:22 It's always been this way.
08:24 It will always be this way.
08:25 One of the most popular guys on the team is the backup quarterback
08:28 when the starting quarterback is not universally loved.
08:32 And that's what happens.
08:34 But Bailey Zappi being on this team or off this team
08:36 is not the difference between this team winning or losing.
08:39 It's just not.
08:40 It's just not.
08:41 So whether he gets through and he's on the practice squad
08:44 or they pick up Colt McCoy or somebody else,
08:47 it's going to be relatively the same kind of guy you're talking about.
08:50 This is Mac's team.
08:52 This is Mac's team.
08:53 And this team will go as far offensively as the offensive line,
08:57 which we'll get to in a couple of minutes, and Mac will help lead it.
09:01 That's as far as it's going to go, is as far as he and the offensive line
09:05 are going to take it and if they can stay healthy at wide receiver.
09:08 It's as simple as that.
09:09 And people just-- this whole Bailey Zappi narrative from the very beginning
09:14 has been just an absolute joke to me.
09:17 Let's look at the offense really on the whole.
09:20 You mentioned this, Greg.
09:23 And I feel like we need to underline and highlight this point
09:27 as we talk through this podcast.
09:28 Over and over, you'll hear this a lot.
09:30 We understand.
09:32 It's August 29.
09:33 There's a lot of time.
09:35 There are going to be some other moves made.
09:37 But right now, what I would say is Bill Belichick's roster offensively,
09:42 it's pretty ballsy.
09:44 Right now, you have two running backs.
09:46 Right now, you have two tight ends.
09:48 And right now, you have one quarterback on your 53-man roster.
09:53 So you almost have to hope that certain things kind of fall in line.
09:58 Now, maybe Riley Reif, as you mentioned, he goes on the IR
10:03 and they bring back Ty Montgomery.
10:05 And this is a handshake deal with Ty.
10:07 And we're not even worried about this.
10:10 But it does open the door for other teams to kind of sneak in and say, hey,
10:14 do you want to come join us?
10:16 It does open the door for a team to pick up Bailey Zappi
10:19 if they're interested.
10:20 And now you're trying to scramble and find that second guy
10:23 and hope McCoy is not an option.
10:24 Brian Hoyer, pretty ballsy to have two running backs, two tight ends,
10:28 and a quarterback on your 53-man roster to start things off.
10:32 Yeah, ballsy, crazy.
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