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00:00High noon! Jones and Keefe here on WEI.
00:04It's a tier Tuesday. We have tiered off all the NFL teams, Pats included.
00:09They're a Super Bowl or bust, by the way.
00:11Yeah, spoiler alert.
00:12You can check the whole thing out at Jones and Keefe Twitter and Instagram.
00:16Go seek those out.
00:16At Jones and Keefe, at Keefe21, at JonesWEI.
00:20You can find those there.
00:22We'll have Keefer Madness for you coming up about 45 minutes from now every Tuesday at 1245.
00:26But, right now, on Tuesday at high noon, it's a Tommy Tuesday with Tommy Curran from NBC Sports Boston.
00:33He is brought to you by your New England Chevy dealers.
00:35Together, let's drive and by Shaw's and Star Market.
00:39Go shopping and get rewarded.
00:41Tommy Curran, how are we doing this week?
00:44Tremendous. How are you, boys?
00:45Excellent.
00:45We've been looking at sort of how things are shaping up in the AFC.
00:50We all got a chance to kick back and watch football this weekend with the Patriots playing on Thursday night.
00:57Do you think it was a positive weekend for the Patriots with a team like Kansas City losing?
01:02Or a not-so-good weekend with a team like Denver winning and staying, at least at the moment, as the number one seed in the AFC?
01:08I think it's a positive in that you didn't see anybody that really said to you, outside of Buffalo, holy crap, that team is unbeatable.
01:21And I don't know if Buffalo even said that, but you see why Josh Allen is kind of the gold standard right now in 2025.
01:28He's fairly unstoppable when he gets in a groove, and he's going to remain that way for a few more years.
01:34So, you know, we're having a lot of conversations right now about who the best quarterback in the league is at this moment,
01:39who you'd like to have for the next five years.
01:42I think Josh Allen still remains far and away the best quarterback.
01:46The interesting thing, I did a little exercise last night and looked at the upcoming opponents for each of the teams that the Patriots would be most in competition with.
01:55Indianapolis has every single game against a capable team.
01:59And the bar, the low bar being Houston and Jacksonville.
02:05They're playing Jacksonville twice, Houston once.
02:09Every single game is against a good team.
02:11Denver's got four or five.
02:12Buffalo's got the Eagles.
02:14They have a litany of good teams.
02:16The Patriots have the Ravens and the Bills.
02:18So the schedule is very favorable for the Patriots, very favorable, compared to these other teams who have semi-gauntlets down the stretch.
02:27Yeah, and I wonder even how good are the Ravens?
02:30Like, I was watching some of that game this weekend, and you could maybe say, hey, it's a division game, whatever else.
02:34But just Lamar Jackson himself doesn't look right.
02:38So I know we keep saying that's one, and I even say, like, all right, even if they lose those two games, they're 13-4.
02:42But now I'm not even so sure how tough the Baltimore game is.
02:46No, and I agree with you.
02:48You never know which Sunday you're going to get which blend of each team, Patriots included.
02:53You never know exactly what you're going to get.
02:55So, you know, Baltimore has mounted very, very little pass rush, and they can't protect.
03:02And some of that was based on the time that Lamar was out and the number of sacks taken.
03:06But, you know, Baltimore has that Achilles heel.
03:09The Achilles heel for Denver is they don't have any offensive potency at all.
03:14You know, the Achilles heel for the Bills is they cannot stop the run.
03:18And that's, to go back to the Patriots, that's one thing.
03:22How does your strength match up with the Achilles heel of an opponent?
03:26And that's one thing that I think the Patriots really would love to see develop over the last six games is a more potent running game that is getting you four to five on a regular basis and not home run runs that end up altering the overall statistics.
03:43I mean, they need to be able to line up and make four when they need it on first down so you're in second and six instead of second and nine.
03:51Yeah, I would look at potential Achilles heels in the running game is one.
03:56You know, they've bogged down a little bit offensively in the red zone.
04:00Their slow starts on defense, probably another one.
04:03I just, I do look at their defense and I wonder how much of it I can truly believe in as like a championship caliber defense.
04:10I guess the way to define that for me would be if they had to run into Lamar and Mahomes back-to-back or they had to run into Allen and Lamar back-to-back or whatever combination, is this defense good enough to take down two quarterbacks like that in a row?
04:25Do you think it's a championship caliber defense?
04:29At this juncture, I don't think it is just based upon the fact that they are the worst team in the league in the red zone.
04:35They have, they're like 71% touchdowns against, which I believe is 31st in the league in the red zone.
04:43And that's against a, you know, collection of teams mostly that aren't that good.
04:49So teams get inside their 20s, they're scoring touchdowns 71% of the time, and they have yet to stop a team all season that's gotten first and 10 in a goal-to-go situation or first and goal.
05:01They're 100% touchdown rate.
05:03So if you have a problem on first drives, which clearly the Patriots have had that, and you're down 7-0 against a good team who then gets in your red zone, it's a pretty good chance it's going to be 14-0.
05:20Now that's, you know, doom saying an apocalyptic talk and what ifs on a negative side, but I'm sure that they're looking at it too and saying, God, what are we doing in the red zone that's allowing these touchdowns repeatedly every time someone gets in there?
05:35How much of that is having a first-year defensive play caller, or how much of that do you think is just on the players?
05:41I think a lot of it's on the players.
05:43I think that, well, maybe some of it's on the play callers too.
05:47You know, for instance, the touchdown that was allowed, and I'm not locking in.
05:53To me, Mr. Armchair Defensive Coordinator, they had a red zone situation a couple weeks ago where it looked like they could have played zone and passed someone off,
06:04and they didn't, Gonzalez stuck with someone, or he got caught in the wash and ended up with an open touchdown.
06:12I think it might have been against Tampa.
06:14Is that the Ibuka one?
06:15Yeah.
06:16I think it was the Ibuka one.
06:17Yeah.
06:17Yeah, thank you.
06:20You know, do they look at that and say, okay, that happened, so next time we do it this way?
06:24And that's the one thing about Bill Belichick teams that always was present.
06:29They would have four or five games where you're like, well, clearly this is a problem.
06:33And then they'd get in the lab, and they'd fix it.
06:37So nothing is forever, I think, if you have time to spend on things as coaches.
06:42If you see an Achilles heel, you try and bolster it so that it doesn't remain an Achilles heel.
06:48So I think that that would be something that you could look at, and it's probably a combo of trying to understand what these guys do best
06:55and how the communication is best down in the red zone.
06:57But that, to me, seems a spot that I would be weary of when I look at, is this a championship defense?
07:05You'd need to get off the field and settle for three sometimes inside the red zone.
07:09Tommy Curran, NBC Sports Boston, every Tuesday at high noon, here on Jones and Keefe.
07:14Not to give you the Tommy Curran surprise question of the week, Hunter Henry style,
07:18But were you surprised Milton Williams went on IR, especially based on the way Vrabel seemed to be talking about it
07:24in the aftermath of Thursday night football?
07:26There's like a mini-buy after Thursday night.
07:29There's a bye week coming up.
07:30It didn't sound like Vrabel was talking about a guy who was going to be out for that long.
07:34Did that surprise you at all that he was placed on IR?
07:36No, because clearly, I mean, they're not going to put their best player on IRs.
07:43He's fine and dandy.
07:45I think a lot of us have had ankle sprains, and in the moment, you feel like,
07:51hey, I can scoot around on this a little bit.
07:55And then an hour and a half later, it's an absolute balloon, and you can't put any weight on it at all.
08:00So, I'm not surprised, I think, just based on that real-life experience that I think we've all had
08:08with ankles at different times.
08:09So, I didn't look at that.
08:11I just defer.
08:12I'm not surprised.
08:14They know better than us on injuries, certainly.
08:16If your best player has an ankle that's a balloon and you want him to be good down the stretch,
08:21put him on IR, bring other guys up so that you can still win in behind him.
08:25Travion Henderson, over the last three weeks, he had, let's see,
08:29it was 19 touches, then 15, then 24 in the most recent game against the Jets.
08:36Do you think that should continue even when Ramondre Stevenson comes back,
08:40or how would you use Travion Henderson the rest of the way?
08:43I don't think it should continue when Ramondre comes back because, you know,
08:48there's just a certain amount of plays you have on offense,
08:51and you want to divvy them up so one guy's not getting too much,
08:54especially if the strength of Ramondre is probably in between the tackles running
08:58in a way that it generally isn't for Henderson.
09:01But I do absolutely sense that Henderson is running with much,
09:05much more confidence right now and much more decisive about what he wants to do
09:10with the football when he gets it, which was coming.
09:13And you knew that he was going to,
09:16once he got used to the National Football League and regular season games,
09:20he would become more confident.
09:21But, you know, those red zone runs that he had last week were just ridiculously impressive,
09:26I thought, both of them, one with power, a couple with power,
09:29and then one where he just stopped on a dime and left a Jets defender grasping at air.
09:34It just shows you that he does have unique explosive skill that they haven't had in the backfield for a while.
09:41Time for this week's Drake Take from Tom E. Curran,
09:44presented by your New England Chevy dealers.
09:46Together, let's drive.
09:48We were talking about this earlier in the show, Tom.
09:51Joe Burrow versus Drake May could have been the matchup on the field this week.
09:55Doesn't sound like that's going to be the case.
09:57Burrow turns 29 in December.
10:00He is missing a bunch of games for the third time in his career.
10:04A lot of people are worried about Drake May missing games, given his play style.
10:07But he's in his early 20s.
10:09He's an MVP candidate.
10:10If you were going to start a franchise right now, Joe Burrow or Drake May,
10:14who would you start with?
10:15I would take the 23-year-old player who doesn't get hurt all the time in a heartbeat.
10:22And Joe Burrow is tremendous.
10:23And I love the way he plays at the end of games and his confidence and his athletic ability.
10:28But he just gets hurt too much.
10:30And that has absolutely punctured Cincinnati's hopes season after season since their Super Bowl appearance.
10:39So I would 1 million percent take Drake May.
10:42And when you look at the 11 games played this season, the only time the Patriots have lost are when Drake May didn't play at his best.
10:51No one has yet really beaten Drake May.
10:55I mean, the unforced errors against the Raiders and the unforced errors against Pittsburgh were kind of on him.
11:02The nature of the picks, the nature of the fumble and pick against the Raiders, those were on him.
11:08So to me, I look at his performance and say the team could be 11-0 if you didn't have to.
11:16And you're allowed to have an off game in your second season in the league, especially early in the year.
11:22But there's very few guys that I would take in the league ahead of Drake May, if any, based upon his age.
11:30Now, if you want to say, who would you take for the rest of the season to be your quarterback for a team?
11:35I'd still have a hard time, but I don't think I would be able to say Drake May over Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes
11:42based upon what we've watched over the last six years from both of those guys.
11:47But I don't know of anybody I would take for the combination of toughness, leadership, on-field tone, and athleticism over Drake May.
11:59Yeah, it is amazing when you think about even the most optimistic prediction for the season and the player wasn't this.
12:07Like, even if you thought they were going to win a bunch of games, I don't think anybody thought he'd get MVP votes,
12:12let alone might win the MVP.
12:14And that's kind of where we're at 11 games in.
12:17Yeah, I mean, I remember saying, you know, we have to do the forecast, as we all do at the beginning of the season.
12:22I thought, you know, if he throws the 3,800 yards and he's 2-1 touchdown to interception, that's a great second year,
12:27because last year it was 15-10.
12:29And right now, he actually has played as many games as he did.
12:36Actually, he has as many attempts right now as he did.
12:39Excuse me.
12:40He has as many plays.
12:42I think it's like 426 right now as he did through this point last year or through the entirety of 2024.
12:50So you can look at the stats, and it is apples to apples.
12:53He's played as many plays this year as he has last year and just go apples to apples on things like average depth of target, yards per completion.
13:01And they're, you know, 40-50% higher than they were last year.
13:08Finished the last season 15-10 with picks.
13:12I'm not positive where he is right now.
13:13It's like 5 picks.
13:1420-5.
13:15Yeah, 20 touchdowns, 5 picks.
13:17So he's 4-1.
13:19And I did not think that that was about to happen.
13:22No.
13:23No.
13:23I mean, I don't think anybody did.
13:25And I think even some of the most optimistic, like us, couldn't have him much higher than, like, the top 20 coming into the league.
13:32And now he might be, you know, the number one quarterback at this point in the MVP race.
13:37Tom, we've spent some time today after the Monday night game last night looking at the Raiders and kind of the disaster they've become.
13:44They're 2-8.
13:45If they were 8-2, I personally, I don't know about you, but I'd personally be giving Brady a lot of credit.
13:50I'd say he has some influence and some input there.
13:52However, I'd imagine he has influence and input when it comes to the coaching quarterback, Pete Carroll and Geno Smith.
13:58It's not going well.
14:00How much influence, how much impact do you think Tom Brady has with that ownership group in Vegas?
14:08They've stated a number of times that he's got incredible impact and influence.
14:13So anything that doesn't work, I would think that it's on Brady as well.
14:18And I think that that's inevitable.
14:20Like, when a team is trying to rebuild, you have to give it the latitude.
14:26And if it does rebuild quickly like the Patriots have, you have to give them the credit.
14:30I think it's slower to dole out blame for a team that sucks after it's been sucking because you don't expect a miraculous turnaround.
14:38You're like, well, they're still trying to figure out what they want.
14:40Do they want a 73-year-old coach?
14:41Do they want a retread quarterback?
14:43What do they want to be?
14:44They're getting information right now that indicates maybe we need to go in a different direction.
14:48That's why I would have been slower to criticize the Patriots if they were on their way to an 8-9 season and Drake May was, you know, not 20-5, but 17-8 touchdowns to the interceptions.
15:02I would say at that point, no, they're on the right track.
15:05There's still a lot of work to do.
15:06But I would be – you're slow to blame a team when it's trying to rebuild, I think, as long as you're seeing progress.
15:17The Patriots of 2024, certainly the progress was not there.
15:22They got worse.
15:25They got more dysfunctional.
15:26And as a result, you know, that was – okay, that's a disaster.
15:29That's on them.
15:30And there's no signs of life that you want to build around.
15:34So they had to make a change.
15:36But, you know, I think you also blame and look at, okay, what are they doing that did or didn't work?
15:42And I think they're getting information right now that, okay, this isn't working.
15:46What did you think of the latest statement from Belichick Enterprises where you say, look, I know a lot of people think I'm going to take the Giants job, but fear not.
15:54I'm staying here in North Carolina.
15:56I feel like he didn't write it.
15:58Yeah.
16:00Because knowing Bill, as I do, he would never have misspelled waiver.
16:07Oh, interesting.
16:08See, we're not writers, Tom.
16:09No, no, that was snuck right by the goalie over here.
16:12I didn't see that.
16:13I didn't catch that.
16:13Never would have misspelled waiver.
16:15They had it on the waiver wire as opposed to waiver in terms of being unsure.
16:19They had WAI.
16:21No, Bill wouldn't have done that.
16:22Bill would not make that mistake.
16:24Interesting.
16:24Okay.
16:25Do you think he's at North Carolina next year?
16:30Yes.
16:30Yeah, okay.
16:31Just out of spite.
16:33Yeah.
16:34Just hanging on for dear life.
16:36Okay.
16:37Well, he's Tommy Curran.
16:38You can check out his work at NBC Sports Boston.
16:40He joins us every Tuesday here on Jones and Keefe.
16:42We call it a Tommy Tuesday.
16:43Check him out on Wednesday.
16:45Thursday, rather, on WEI Afternoons.
16:47And, of course, Sundays as well.
16:49Tom, we appreciate the time.
16:50We'll talk to you next week.
16:52I'll just add, too.
16:52They have shown signs of life, which would be encouraging if you're in the program and
16:56you're Bill Belichick to say it's working a little bit.
16:59So, I think to ignore the signs of life that they have shown over the last three or so games
17:05would be signs of life.
17:07I got you.
17:08They may miss a bowl game when everybody gets invited to a bowl game.
17:11Those signs went back away against Wake.
17:13But, yeah, okay.
17:14I got you.
17:14All right.
17:14Well, Tom, we'll talk next week.
17:16All right, guys.
17:17Tommy Curran, NBC Sports Boston.
17:19You can follow him on Twitter at Tom E. Curran.
17:23Interesting stuff there.
17:24You know, the Burrow-May discussion.
17:26We'll get back into it.
17:28But that's wild.
17:29If you said in the offseason.
17:31You take May over Burrow?
17:32Yeah, please.
17:34Like, that'd be a call we'd laugh off the line.
17:36Correct.
17:37And now you're sitting here.
17:38It's almost Thanksgiving.
17:39And it's like all of us are taking Drake May over Joe Burrow.
17:42Yeah.
17:42Wild.
17:43Pretty much.
17:43We'll give you our answers on that.
17:45Plus, what other lessons the Patriots can learn from the Joe Burrow experience in Cincinnati.
17:49Yet another lost season.
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