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00:00We heard Elliot Wolfe asked yesterday about Christian Gonzalez.
00:03He happened to mention he is under contract, Keefe.
00:06He sure is.
00:07Just in case he was getting any ideas.
00:08He is under contract.
00:11I was also asked about A.J. Brown and, of course, Mike Vrabel as well.
00:14For more on all of that, on a Tom E. Tuesday,
00:17Tommy Curran of NBC Sports Boston.
00:20What's going on, Tom?
00:21What's up, fellas?
00:23Hello.
00:24You know, not too much.
00:26Have you caught any kind of draft buzz yet?
00:28I was just compiling for quick slants today a list of all the mocks.
00:33Oh, well.
00:34Who people have mocked where.
00:36I was getting a bit of a draft buzz,
00:38and then Elliot Wolfe told me the draft sucked,
00:40so I got less of a buzz out of it.
00:43You silly son of a so-and-so.
00:46You know that he meant it more globally.
00:49There's not the – no, here's the thing that I would allege about this draft.
00:54There's no Larry Fitzgerald.
00:56There's no Andrew Luck.
00:57There's no – there's no skill player elite that you're going to look at
01:03and say, wow, we're going to be talking about this guy for decades.
01:08So, as a result, it's less buzzworthy.
01:11You know, quarterbacks drive it.
01:13There's two quarterbacks that will go in the first round,
01:16most likely, if Ty Simpson goes.
01:17So, I think that that's a lot of it.
01:19I think it's also where the Patriots are drafting.
01:23I mean, we're going back to what it used to be.
01:26Locally, it hurts us.
01:27Locally, it hurts because the last three years were super exciting.
01:30You could talk about any player, and they ended up drafting premium positions
01:34with corner, quarterback, left tackle, and three consecutive drafts.
01:38So, there was so much buzz and hype.
01:40Jones and I were talking about this the other day,
01:42how we did, like, position breakdowns for a month leading up to the draft,
01:46whereas now we're like, oh, it's next week.
01:49So, there's – it's a little different.
01:50It doesn't mean you can't make a big move.
01:51It doesn't mean you can't get a great player that's going to help you
01:54and everything else.
01:54But I think because your team is so good,
01:57then the draft is just a little bit less exciting locally.
02:01But to your point, too, nationally is similar.
02:03The ironic thing, though, that – pardon me – is the team is not so good.
02:09It played so well and had such great results.
02:12But when you look at these mock drafts, it's obvious that the team is not so good
02:17because you have wide receivers mocked here.
02:20You have defensive ends mocked here.
02:22You have tackles.
02:24You have guards.
02:25You have defensive linemen mocked here.
02:27And all of those are realistic because the Patriots are a good team.
02:32They're not a great team.
02:33There are plenty of vacancies, whether it be as starters this year
02:37or next year as guys who you're going to try to, you know,
02:41apprentice this year and fit in next year.
02:43They're – they have the misfortune of being a good team,
02:48drafting what a great team does because they had a great season.
02:51Yeah, I guess that's more what I meant, like picking 31 versus –
02:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:55I'm putting here with my guy.
02:56Yeah.
02:56Sorry.
02:57Well, the audio we played coming back was you and Burp Rear talking about
03:00Christian Gonzalez, which is also one of the biggest stories of the Patriots
03:03this offseason.
03:05I hadn't considered that, like, not just comparing him to Trent McDuffie's
03:09and Sauce Gardner's and those guys, but comparing him to all non-quarterbacks.
03:13If you look at it that way, would you be willing to give Christian Gonzalez
03:18$40 million a year, making him far and away the highest-paid corner?
03:23I think if I looked at it completely objectively and said, well,
03:27what's $40 million going to be by the time 2031 rolls around,
03:30which is when the CBA expires and all these players are being asked to then
03:34not take 50% of gross revenues and the league threatens a lockout.
03:39Because until that happens, the $300 million salary cap between now and 2031
03:44could well be a $380 million salary cap, just pulling a number,
03:50because of the way it's going up.
03:51So what's the percentage that $40 million is of the salary cap?
03:55I'm not doing it off the top of my head.
03:57But if you want to look at percentages, then, yeah, you could entertain it.
04:02So that's objectively.
04:03But then it's the principle of the thing.
04:05Well, if you're going to pay, say, for instance, you're Drake May.
04:10I think Phil brought this up.
04:11But it's a good point.
04:13If you're Drake May, I don't know who brought it up,
04:15so I don't want to discredit or not credit the person.
04:19I think it was me.
04:19If it was a good idea, it was me.
04:21It was a good idea.
04:21The bad idea was Jones.
04:22It might have been one of you idiots.
04:23It might have been one of you before.
04:24Yeah, I think it was us.
04:26And I think that, you know, Drake May comes to the table and says,
04:29blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
04:30So I was the runner-up for MVP,
04:32and smart people realized that I should have been the MVP.
04:36And Christian has been a good player at a position that's very far from the
04:40football and doesn't really produce anything.
04:42It just prevents things from happening.
04:44And you paid him more than anybody else.
04:47And as a result, I look at that, at his position,
04:51by a significant amount.
04:53And as a result,
04:54I think that I ought to get that same kind of treatment at my position
04:57because I'm better than them.
05:00Now, May is not in a position to do that, nor should he be.
05:03It's his agent.
05:04And that's why you hire an agent because May is definitely a nice guy,
05:07and he's definitely team-oriented.
05:10But I would make sure that my agent goes in there and watches exactly what
05:13happens with Christian Gonzalez and says,
05:16wherever the scale is that Gonzalez does, if they blow it up for him,
05:19they better blow it up for me.
05:20Well, interesting.
05:21So they're not just negotiating with Gonzalez.
05:23They're negotiating in some ways with Drake May as well.
05:26I hadn't considered that.
05:28Could you see them taking a similar approach with Drake May
05:34and reminding Drake that he's under contract like they did with Christian
05:37Gonzalez yesterday?
05:39I wonder what the root of that is, to keep pointing that out,
05:43because everybody knows that.
05:45So why point it out?
05:46Is there a situation that exists where they've had to remind Christian
05:52Gonzalez of that?
05:53Because I think that negotiation-wise, media relation-wise, or whatever,
06:00you don't want to keep saber-rattling at the player if you want to keep it
06:03friendly.
06:04So was that just a dumb thing to do?
06:06Or has Gonzalez or his camp intimated that we're not playing for $4 million?
06:12Which is probably a good idea on their part if they have.
06:15But it is an indicator, if that's the case, that Elliott Wolfe is peeing on his
06:21territory for the Patriots and saying, you're under contract.
06:24We're going to get something done with you, but it's not going to be great if you
06:28have to hold out, because we're not going to do it at the point of a bayonet.
06:31But $4 million is the salary for this year.
06:34He cannot, with a straight face, take the field for that compensation.
06:38So they're going to have to come to some kind of accord.
06:41Yeah, because I'm with you on that.
06:43Of all the different scenarios that could play out, him playing this season under
06:48his current contract seems like one that we can throw out.
06:51And so it'd either be you're willing to make him one of the highest-paid non-
06:55quarterbacks in NFL history, or are we talking about entertaining a trade?
07:00Would it come to that?
07:03I don't know.
07:04I just don't think that they've made any statement that would say that that's an
07:10option right now, certainly if it came to him holding out and refusing to come in
07:18or participate and became a nuisance.
07:20But I don't know if any of those things are going to happen.
07:23So you can't rule out the trade possibility.
07:25But I think they'll want to keep him around.
07:29But again, we're talking about it now as we should, and we're going to be talking
07:34about it most likely in July, August, and September, because I can't see him putting
07:39himself in harm's way with a quarter of a billion dollars on the line or so.
07:44Well, the deadline to pick up the fifth-year option on a first-round pick from his draft
07:49class is May 1st.
07:51And they haven't officially done that yet.
07:53I know Vrabel had that line, like, yeah, we should do that if we haven't done that yet.
07:56If we haven't done it, we should do it.
07:57But, like, Houston just picked up guys on that option.
07:59Seattle did it a while ago and then extended JSN.
08:02So a lot of teams have done it, even though they haven't had to do it yet.
08:04Yeah, so do you read into that at all, that they haven't officially done that yet?
08:08And then if they do, and then we find out that, all right, they picked up the fifth-year
08:12option, but then there's no news after that, that doesn't sound like a great sign towards
08:17any kind of long-term agreement.
08:19No, it's a formality.
08:20Maybe they're not doing it so that they can show, okay, well, we're still in an active position
08:25here with negotiating with you.
08:27We're not going to, you know, exercise this fifth-year option because it would seem maybe
08:32you'd read, and again, I was completely theorizing, if we pick up the fifth-year option, you're
08:38going to say, okay, they're already planning not to pay me, so.
08:42Are we, you know what I mean?
08:44Yeah.
08:44Look, we've talked a lot, Tom, about A.J.
08:47Brown, obviously, and specifically June 1st.
08:50Do you think June 1st is the date, or do you think it's more likely he moves during the
08:54draft?
08:55I think it's way more likely it'll be June 1st.
08:59The reason is that massive implication that happens with the salary cap for the Eagles.
09:06It's, I believe it's either 20, it either is from 43 to 27 or 43 to 17.
09:13I've been talking about it for so long, I forget which one it is, but the cap penalty
09:17is so significant in dead money for Philadelphia if they do it before June 1st that it makes
09:23it difficult.
09:24The only way it would, I think, happen before the draft is if a team not named the Patriots
09:29emerges and says, you know what?
09:31We want them.
09:32Here's what we're going to give you for that.
09:35And blows the Eagles out of the water and says, okay, we'll swallow hard and do that because
09:40they're giving us two firsts or whatever.
09:43That's what I think is going to be interesting to watch is who has cap space, and Patriots
09:48still have it.
09:49Who needs a wide out?
09:52And who fails to bring in a wide out during the draft?
09:57So that's actually something I'm also working on for quick minutes to do my little, you
10:00know, my little full screens.
10:01You know, a full screen comes into existence, but we do the research and we say, okay, here's
10:06your top 10 cap teams who can take on $29 million guaranteed this year.
10:12And, you know, do they need a wide out?
10:14Nice.
10:15So that's how the sausage gets made, television wise.
10:18That is a fun little peek behind the curtain there.
10:20How about that?
10:20Yeah.
10:21That's good stuff.
10:23Tom, obviously quite a bit has been made over the last couple of weeks of Mike Rabel and
10:28Diana Rossini.
10:29And Michael Hawley on BST was talking about, he talked with a former player and he thinks
10:36it is going to have to be addressed inside the locker room.
10:39You know, that was one thing I wasn't really sure about.
10:41I was like, well, obviously it's a big soap opera story around here.
10:44It's going to affect Diana Rossini's job way more in my mind than it is Mike Rabel's
10:47job.
10:48But that aspect of it, is that something that you believe is going to have to happen where
10:53he addresses the team and sort of talks about it in front of the whole group?
10:59It depends on how it continues to play out.
11:02I don't think that it would personally from my vantage point.
11:06It's a workplace.
11:07I think that every workplace, and that's obviously a much more intimate workplace in the National
11:12Football League than it is at, you know, Traveler's Insurance.
11:15It's, you know, people are with each other constantly dressing, you know, there's an intimate
11:22bond that goes on.
11:25But I don't know if in every workplace, I think some people in a workplace, if something is
11:29being aired that is personally embarrassing, humiliating, difficult, that I don't think people
11:38want to talk about it unless, except to say, you know, if you want to talk, I'm here for
11:42you, buddy.
11:43But this is different in that it involves media.
11:45And that's, I think, the reason that this is a far different story than if it was, you
11:51know, Gain Doe and Mike had been photographed.
11:55It's because there's, you know, the ethical nature, the appearance of impropriety, the fact
12:02that it's the New York Times, which is the paper or record, the fact that it's the New
12:06England Patriots who just played in the Super Bowl.
12:09All of these things enter into it.
12:10They continue to breathe life and curiosity into it.
12:13But I don't think it necessarily, I, it all depends upon how everybody, how Mike is.
12:22And we saw him yesterday when we did our tour of the facility, their new training facility.
12:27And we saw Mike and jovial, big, robust handshake.
12:31How you doing?
12:32How you doing?
12:32How's it going?
12:33How do you like the tour?
12:34Are we feeding him today?
12:34Ha ha ha.
12:35And, you know, up he went.
12:38Oh, so you actually, all right.
12:39So you, you actually got to interact with him.
12:41I mean, just like handshakes and stuff, but you actually got to interact with him.
12:43I didn't realize it was that.
12:44I thought it was just kind of like you guys saw him.
12:47No, no, no.
12:47I personally didn't.
12:48It was a group of about 30 and I was on the back outskirt of it.
12:51But, you know, he walked around with, you know, quick high fives.
12:54Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii.
12:56And then scooted into his office.
12:57But I don't think that it was, again, I really don't think it's a total coincidence that over
13:03the course of the 45 minute tour, the moment at which we were passing Mike's office was the
13:10moment at which he came up the stairs.
13:15So are they trying to show Mike is unfazed?
13:19There's not a problem here.
13:20He gave his explanation.
13:21And as a result, there's no reason for him to hide and not interact with people.
13:25So, again, until there's more information, and I said this on Early Edition yesterday, after
13:35a week of it here, it's so humiliating and embarrassing and difficult, I would imagine,
13:42for the families involved that it would behoove them to give some kind of an indication that
13:47there's nothing to it that you're killing us over here.
13:51We're trying to eat dinner, and we're ready to throw up on each other because of this injustice
13:55that's being perpetrated on our family.
13:58So you see what I'm saying with that?
14:00I mean, I think if there wasn't an element of truth or something, another shoe to drop,
14:07then you would be more vociferously and frequently saying, cut the crap.
14:13Stop doing this.
14:14Well, and because he's not going to speak until after round one of the draft, at least I believe
14:19that's the next time he's planned to speak, do you think he'll address it then?
14:24Do you think he should be asked about it then if he hasn't made any kind of update to his
14:29original statement?
14:29How do you think that's going to go?
14:31I think that, you know, there's just an avalanche of attention that has been poured upon the
14:39situation.
14:40And as a result, the Patriots, the Patriots' brand, their football team, it's implausible
14:46that he wouldn't be asked about it.
14:48It's the story involving his football team and has dominated the headlines around it.
14:53So, yeah, we're there to talk about the players who are joining the Patriots.
14:57And I'm sure that Mike will reiterate that.
15:00But we're also there to talk about the Patriots and their brand and who they are and the things
15:06that are impacting their team.
15:07So if they want to say that it's not an impact at all, then go ahead and say that.
15:11But they have to be given the opportunity to do so.
15:14So if it's because I can already see who Vrabel, they make a pick at 31 or they trade for
15:21A.J.
15:21Brown that night.
15:22And now Mike Vrabel, instead of talking about the trade or talking about the pick, is being
15:27asked about Diana Rossini.
15:29And I can see people, mostly fans, getting their back up about that or maybe even Vrabel gets
15:34his back up about it.
15:35And to me, if you want to avoid that, then he should do something separate, whether it's
15:40a statement like that they put out ahead of time or whether he makes himself available
15:44ahead of time to make a statement, answer whatever questions there are.
15:49Like, if he really wants to separate the two, there is a way to do that.
15:52I don't get a sense that's going to happen, but I think that might behoove him.
15:56Yeah.
15:57And that's something we talked about on early edition last night.
15:59Do you want to sit down?
16:00Do you want to, you know, resubmit a statement?
16:05Then you better have something that extinguishes the entire conversation.
16:10If you're going to share something, it should extinguish everything.
16:13And with the, you know, New York Times and The Athletic embarking on an investigation of
16:19Diana Rossini, then do you know that you better be sure that's it?
16:24If you're going to put out a statement, that has to be it.
16:26You know, you can't be revisiting later after more information comes to light.
16:31So it does you no good to release a statement that you might later have to look at and say,
16:37yeah, well, maybe I didn't say everything.
16:40Yeah, I don't think the statements was very smart by either one of them.
16:43They came out pretty quickly with statements and all they did was like confirm that they
16:46were there.
16:47They could have been like AI, AI, AI, we're hacked, but they were like, we were there and
16:51we weren't with our spouses.
16:52We were with like other people.
16:53We just happened to meet up.
16:54I'm like, ah, that's not very good.
16:56And then The Athletic bought it for like a second.
16:59And then now they're like, no, just kidding.
17:00We don't buy this anymore.
17:01And now it's just, I think, I don't know, it's going to get worse, but like everything
17:04else, it'll eventually blow over.
17:06But right now they're still in it.
17:07Yeah, bad.
17:09With the NFL, excuse me, with the NHL and NBA regular seasons ending and baseball teams 10
17:15games into their season and the final four having just ended and a dreary draft and
17:22locally picking at 31 into the void.
17:26Sell that.
17:27Yep.
17:27Okay.
17:28We use Tommy Curran.
17:29You can check him out.
17:30Quick slants, NBC Sports Boston.
17:32You can also follow him on Twitter at Tom E. Curran joins us every Tuesday at high noon.
17:37We call it Tommy Tuesday.
17:38Tom, thanks so much.
17:40All right, guys.
17:41Talk soon.
17:42Tommy Curran here on Jones and Keith.
17:45It is interesting because I agree from like a football standpoint, it's going to blow over.
17:49I mean, he's going to have a lot to deal with in his personal life for a long time from
17:52this one.
17:53Yeah, that's different.
17:54But football wise, I do think it will eventually blow over.
17:59You make a good point, Keith, about their original statements to the New York Post.
18:02Why'd they do that?
18:04But if Rabel wants to have like a statement will help him on draft night if he's going to
18:08face a Q&A.
18:09Like at that point, a statement will help him because he can direct everybody to the statement.
18:14Oh, that makes sense.
18:14Which allows him to avoid the question.
18:16So I think it would be smart of him to get in front of draft night and not just get
18:22up
18:22there.
18:22And when the first question, Karen or whomever, the first question is about Diana Rossini.
18:27He's not just, well, guys, we're here to talk about the draft.
18:30I mean, he certainly can do that.
18:32He might.
18:33But I don't think that's satisfactory.
18:36Like you avoided the media until here.
18:38And there are questions, I think fair questions to be had about, you know, what this means
18:44for your job and how you can do your job and all these other things.
18:47Maybe he has satisfactory answers, but I think those are fair questions.
18:50And if he wants to wait till draft night to answer them, fine, but he's going to have to
18:54answer them then.
18:55Yeah.
18:55And it's, you're right.
18:57It takes away from, especially if they take a player at one or whatever else, like, or
19:01not at one, but at 31 in the first round, like it sort of takes away from that.
19:04Obviously if they end up trading for AJ Brown, like what, what should be a great night and
19:08all that, but I really just want to get in front of this because I know what fans are
19:11going to do.
19:12Well, I can't believe you asked the sanctity of the draft.
19:15It's such a, it's such a sanctimonious event.
19:18You can't possibly ask about it.
19:19It's like they drafted a college kid.
19:20They'll get to those questions.
19:22This is a massive story that he's ducked to this point in time.
19:26So sorry.
19:27This is when he chose to do it.
19:28This is when he has to do it.
19:29I just want to get in front of that with fans.
19:30Do you rule out if they like trade out, for example?
19:34And they just trot Elliot Wolf back out there on night or like Matt Groh?
19:38Yeah.
19:38No, I don't rule that out, but then he'll probably have to be available night.
19:41Eventually he's going to be available at some point during the draft.
19:44If they trade it out on night one, maybe it wouldn't be till night two.
19:47Fair point.
19:47You got to get it over.
19:48And then, you know, maybe you push that into the weekend and maybe there's a benefit
19:51there.
19:51I don't know, but yeah, they could play some games like that for sure.
19:55617-779-7937.
19:56All your phone calls there here on Jones and Keith.
19:59Let's get back to the baseball team.
20:01Great outing last night.
20:02And I thought from Garrett Crochet, how nervous should we be?
20:05That's right after trending with Billy Laney.
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