00:00NFL schedule drop day, although I feel like 90% of it has already been dropped.
00:06Really?
00:06Secretly.
00:07Well, every day there's a new game that Schefter or somebody on the inside
00:12shares with everybody else.
00:14But I, for one, am looking forward to finding out.
00:17We talked about it yesterday, but the Patriots certainly have a more –
00:23this is for Cam Newton if he happens to be up early with a hat on listening.
00:26Certainly have a more difficult – will have a more difficult schedule
00:30than they had last year.
00:32Statistically a top 10 most difficult schedule in the NFL.
00:36So I'm looking forward to the ins and outs of that
00:40and whether they are actually going to start the season on the road
00:44and start the – all of those things.
00:46Well, I think I heard Jones and Keith talking about this.
00:50No, this might have been the afternoon show where it was Rich, Ken, and Ted.
00:56And maybe they were talking about – and when the schedule comes out,
01:00do you want the easier games in the beginning or towards the end?
01:05So I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting there.
01:08Like, you know, when you start to figure out –
01:10What do you mean?
01:11Don't you definitely want the easier games in the beginning?
01:14There are some who are arguing –
01:16Build up confidence?
01:16I've seen online an argument that it's better to go –
01:22like, if you are going to start the season against the Seahawks,
01:26it's better to go out there and get that game out of the way early.
01:31Right.
01:31When the Patriots were great for two decades,
01:34you always wanted them week one or two.
01:37Because they almost never were playing at their best to start the season.
01:43It was always Belichick's teams would peak in Thanksgiving through the playoffs.
01:48And so to open the year, I think, against the Seahawks,
01:51when they raised their banner, is a great game.
01:54And it's also a game where the buildup –
01:57if it's Patriots-Jets, the only thing anybody's talking about is Vrabel.
02:02If it's Patriots-Seahawks, it's Drake May against that defense.
02:08Now he's 100% healthy with A.J. Brown.
02:12How's it going to look?
02:13Also, you open the year having all summer to fly out to Seattle.
02:18It's not a midseason trip to the upper – whatever the hell – northwest.
02:22And you get a bye after.
02:25So, yeah, I'm like, give me the tougher games, the Seattle, the Detroit,
02:31some of those playoff teams that you're going to be playing.
02:34Again, as I'm kind of looking at the schedule, the Chargers,
02:37even the Kansas City Chiefs.
02:39Give me those games earlier because you're still trying to figure out your identity,
02:43especially in this new world of football we live in
02:46where a lot of these guys are not playing in the preseason.
02:49Those first, you know, two, three, maybe four games are kind of like, you know,
02:56an advanced preseason for you where you're kind of like figuring out your team
03:01because by the end of this season, I think you're kind of rolling and running
03:06and you kind of know your identity.
03:08So if you can get some of the easier games at the back,
03:11now let's say you stumble a little bit, you're able to make up some ground.
03:14Well, I think when you think about the easier games at the end,
03:16you're probably thinking like, oh, if it's like last year
03:19where you had to weather some injuries going into the playoffs
03:22with your offensive line, for example,
03:24then you get these easy games that you can have a larger margin of error.
03:29But I don't know, guys, like if you start out one and three
03:33because you got the Chiefs, you got Seattle,
03:36you got the Bills like in your first four games,
03:41do you think that isn't there something psychologically where a team goes,
03:44do we suck? Like we're kind of seeing it with the Red Sox right now
03:48where the vibes suddenly plummet in the locker room.
03:52And then you have a coach who was under the microscope the entire offseason
03:56and you better believe that's going to continue into the regular season.
04:00Suddenly? I mean, I feel like the vibes have plummeted nearly as soon as the season started.
04:05With the Red Sox because it started so poorly, right?
04:07And we even had this situation where the year before,
04:10the Red Sox started a similar way, and people outside the building were saying,
04:14well, hold on, they started this way last year and they were a playoff team.
04:17Listen, Red Sox turnaround began last night.
04:19It did.
04:19Wiggy was spot on.
04:21It did.
04:22He was spot on yesterday.
04:24He turned around.
04:25TS10, he must have heard you guys talking.
04:28But even to Mangle's point a little bit asking that question,
04:32I know TS10's not this great leader or whatever, but we played audience.
04:37We're not going to do that.
04:38No, no, no.
04:38The TS10 thing?
04:40Are we going to keep this going?
04:41Well, that's what, I mean, when he hit his home run, that's what we'll call him.
04:43I was listening to the game.
04:44Let's call him Story.
04:46I'm going to call him Story.
04:47But the one thing that...
04:48Let's make Fetch happen.
04:49The one thing that we heard him talking about,
04:52and maybe, you know, kind of like a little bit of a,
04:55on the other side of the fence, Mangle, to your point,
04:58is because it's early in the season, some people are like,
05:02oh, we still got plenty of season left.
05:04So even if you struggle a little bit,
05:07there are still guys in that locker room or in that clubhouse that go,
05:10oh, it's still early in the season.
05:11We can turn things around.
05:12When you kind of hit that bump in the road late in the season,
05:16you kind of tend to be like, oh, damn, what's going on here?
05:20Yeah.
05:21You know, we kind of saw it with the Bruins a little bit.
05:22Hit a little bit of a skid heading into the postseason,
05:25and it kind of carried on, you know?
05:27I just think it's the travel component,
05:30nothing to do with the talent or anything else.
05:32Like, logistically, this is a great way to play the Seahawks
05:36if you have to play them this year.
05:37But I'm not even talking about Seattle.
05:39Like, let's say you don't have to travel.
05:41I'd rather open up the season against Denver at home
05:45than wait until the end of the season to play them.
05:48You know what I mean?
05:49So I'm not talking about traveling or anything like that for Seattle.
05:52I'm just saying the teams that are going to be,
05:55that are on your schedule, whether they're home or away,
05:58that are more difficult, you know, they brought up the question,
06:01would you rather those games early in the season
06:04and then get your easier games late in the season or vice versa?
06:07I just think that we tend to assume that teams get better
06:10as the season goes on because that's what you saw
06:13with the Patriots for so long here.
06:14They would, to Curtis's point, like right off September sometimes
06:17and be like, oh, it's extended camp.
06:20A lot of times teams get worse.
06:22Like a lot of times teams fall apart mid-season
06:24or as we saw last year, they suffer injuries.
06:27And then you're like, damn, if we hadn't seen them in week two
06:30and we caught them in week 10, that's a different thing.
06:33But you also can like, you know, you go, man, all right,
06:36now you look at our schedule, fellas,
06:37and we got a nice little schedule rolling in towards, you know,
06:41when we really need to make a playoff push
06:43towards the end of the season.
06:45And you start to look at everybody does.
06:47You start to schedule watch and go, okay, oh, that should be a win.
06:50That should be a win.
06:51You kind of got all the tough games.
06:52I don't know if the very end of the season always indicates
06:54what's going to happen in the playoffs.
06:55I just, I know it's not the same sport.
06:58Right.
06:58But I just keep thinking about the Celtics game 82.
07:01And like that team at that point were rolling,
07:04going into the playoffs, rolled through the first game
07:06of that series against the Sixers,
07:07and then they fell apart pretty quickly.
07:09But I think football's a little different, right?
07:11Because if you look at, and we've seen this before,
07:13or, you know, we've seen it on the other side,
07:16where it's like, oh, all you got to do is beat the lowly Dolphins
07:20and you're able to get the one seed.
07:21And granted, they weren't able to do that.
07:23But if you know you have one of those games,
07:25it was like, all right, we got the Jets who shut it down.
07:28If you got them in week 16, you win that game.
07:31And then you got the number one seed versus,
07:33oh, we got Denver in week 16.
07:36So I guess you like where the trip to Germany falls
07:40in the schedule.
07:41Yeah, week 10.
07:42Yeah, week 10, November 15th.
07:44You like where that is, right?
07:45Yeah, I think that's, you know,
07:46because then that goes to kind of Curtis's point a little bit.
07:49It's more about the travel than anything.
07:52So I don't really mind that.
07:54I wasn't fortunate enough when I played.
07:56I don't think we even had like those international games.
08:00So I don't really know how the travel,
08:02I can only imagine because I remember playing on the East Coast
08:06and then having to play out in Seattle and the travel there.
08:09Yeah, so, but it's got to be a lot more difficult.
08:11Curtis, are there regular season NFL games
08:13that are still being played in North America this upcoming season?
08:16No.
08:17Okay.
08:17I just want to check on that.
08:18They're just going to be played in America.
08:20Okay.
08:21I don't know.
08:22I, like, there's a lot of whining.
08:26Why?
08:26Because of the travel that's involved
08:28and how many games there are on foreign soil.
08:33But they're trying to grow the game globally.
08:36And I think the players, they might, I don't really know what I have to ask them.
08:41But at the end of the day, the bigger the game gets,
08:43the more money that comes in.
08:45It's just more money you're putting in your pocket.
08:46Do they need to grow the game in Melbourne, Australia?
08:49I mean.
08:49It just feels like that's almost trying to piss the players off.
08:54They're just trying to take advantage.
08:56It's so far away.
08:56Yeah.
08:57But the players get half the revenue of it.
08:58Yeah.
08:59That just, that is the only one that sticks in my craw.
09:03Where I'm like, I get it.
09:04Going to Mexico.
09:05Going to Germany.
09:06Going to France.
09:07I don't know how far.
09:09I know Australia is extremely far for teams.
09:11It's about as far as you can go.
09:12Teams on the East Coast.
09:14But it's the same way for teams on the West Coast?
09:15I mean, it's five and a half hours, six hours less.
09:18Okay.
09:19So.
09:19But it's still at least a 20-hour flight.
09:22Right.
09:22Oh, so damn.
09:23Yeah.
09:24How far away?
Comments