00:00Tom E. Curran, how are we doing this week?
00:03Good, buddy. How are you?
00:04Oh, we're doing great, Tom.
00:05We know you don't like the large pendulum swings from one week to the other.
00:10Patriots were down in the dumps last week.
00:11They win this week.
00:12So let me ask you, are the Patriots back?
00:16No, not necessarily.
00:18I think that while you can look at that being a representative performance
00:22from what they should normally do,
00:24I do think they're in line for continued wild fluctuations throughout the season.
00:31But, you know, we did talk about it earlier when the season began
00:35that by October they'd start to figure out a little bit about who their team is.
00:39And as long as the quarterback plays well,
00:42they should be, you know, an above 500 playoff nosing around type of team.
00:49And I think that's what they're going to be.
00:51Where are you at on Efton Chisholm after the game?
00:54One of the stars of the game.
00:55He became even a bigger story, I think, thanks to C.J. Gardner-Johnson,
00:58and we were kind of kicking that conversation around.
01:00Knowing that A.J. Brown's out at least one more game,
01:03knowing that probably Mac Hollins is out,
01:07what type of role do you envision Efton Chisholm having
01:09at least the next couple of weeks?
01:12It has to elevate.
01:14I mean, Kyle Williams really hasn't done anything to separate himself
01:17with somebody who deserves more snaps.
01:19I think that DeMario Douglas continues to be kind of peekaboo productivity,
01:24but Efton Chisholm follows the track of what the NFL is supposed to be about.
01:30You pay your dues, you spend your time, you improve,
01:34you show well at practices during preseason,
01:37and then when you get an opportunity, you play well.
01:39So I would imagine he's going to get a magnified role,
01:45and I think he's versatile enough to play outside, too.
01:49That catch that he made at the end of the game, obviously,
01:52the touchdown was an outside position that he came from.
01:56The catch that he made where he had to kind of climb the ladder
01:58and made that catch, that might have come from the slot,
02:01but again, he started on the outside a little bit.
02:04So, to me, expand his role, because right now the hard thing for this team is
02:11without tight ends, you have a quarterback who isn't necessarily
02:14extremely dialed in right now, throwing to three very small wide receivers.
02:20We include Pop, Williams, and Chisholm,
02:24and Dobbs being the biggest of the group.
02:27You mentioned, well, who he's throwing to at this point in time.
02:31I am curious what's changed with Drake May against Buffalo.
02:34Maybe some of it is the Bills and that defense, not a great defense,
02:37but it's a bit of a chicken and an egg thing.
02:40Were they not trusting Drake May early because he wasn't playing well,
02:44or was he not playing well because they weren't trusting him?
02:46How did you view the slow start for Drake May?
02:50I think it was game-related.
02:51They're playing in the opener against Seattle,
02:53which has a very difficult defense.
02:55They were trying to figure out who they were.
02:56And then when Sam Donald goes out, they were of the mind,
02:59let's play conservatively, run the football.
03:02We'd only be throwing the ball 45 times against this team.
03:04We had a Super Bowl where we got bull rushed time and again into the quarterback.
03:09So I think it's game-specific.
03:10You get up 19, or you win 19-3 against Pittsburgh.
03:15You didn't really need to unwind it too much.
03:18I think it's game-specific, but that brings into question what we talked about
03:22a little bit last night is whether or not you should just play to May's strengths.
03:27And if his strength is to have the guardrails down,
03:30should the Patriots be less of a game-playing team and give their identity to Drake May?
03:35Say, we're going to be Drake May's team, and we're going to open it up,
03:39and we're going to play that way instead of asking him to be a chameleon.
03:42Because, you know, he's still a little bit football-immature just in terms of how much he's played.
03:48So it might be easier to just take the guardrails off,
03:50but I do think that there are weeks to be conservative.
03:52There's weeks to be aggressive.
03:54Do you get any sense at all that with Christian Gonzalez being hurt already and missing a game,
04:01obviously the contract's done.
04:02That's behind him.
04:03They agreed to that.
04:04But is there a little bit of like, oh, man, like here we go again, another season,
04:09another injury that we've got to worry about with Gonzalez?
04:14I think it's inevitable.
04:16They're going to get hurt, especially when you're asking them, you know,
04:20if you look at all three of their corners, Charles Woods, Gonzalez, and Carlton Davis,
04:24all of them have now shoulder injuries from having to make tackles.
04:27It's just the nature of the business.
04:29It's not like it was a non-contact injury or the tackle on which he got injured was a physical
04:35play.
04:35It's just the nature of that spot.
04:38I can't imagine that they're looking at him saying, boy, I wish he didn't stick your nose in there and
04:41make that tackle.
04:42So I would imagine that they don't have any regret and say, oh, boy, he's injury prone.
04:49That was the kind of play on which you say, well, I can see why his shoulder hurts.
04:55What's your understanding on a timeline for a return for A.J. Brown?
04:58We're hoping that he's back for the Jets game in week six when he's eligible to return.
05:03What's your understanding on when they could get him back?
05:07That sounds a little optimistic, you know, given, you know, say they get him back week six.
05:14How much are they going to be able to do?
05:15And you're not going to find out until he's out there on the field.
05:20How does he cut?
05:21How does he plant?
05:22How does he accelerate?
05:23Is he at all limited in that way?
05:25And what the interesting thing is, sometimes teams have the luxury of saying, well, is he better than the guy
05:31behind him who's going to be at 100%?
05:34They're not going to have that luxury.
05:35They're going to need him to play as soon as he can, even if he's not 100%.
05:40You know, these are just rumors that are out there right now, Tom, but I'm curious your thoughts.
05:45Does, do you give there any chance at all that Tom Brady could make a return to the NFL?
05:50There's been some speculation out there, including the guy that was writing the book with him.
05:58I would find that really impossible to envision.
06:03He's got two jobs right now.
06:06He's pushing 50.
06:08I think that that's, doesn't it crop up annually?
06:13Yeah, it does.
06:16Yeah, it for sure does.
06:18I mean, we were just talking in fairness, and look, you're right.
06:21He has two jobs, and he's got a lot going on, much more than Breeze, but it just came up
06:24that Breeze was either reached out to or reaching out about playing in the AFC championship game last year.
06:30He went through with his son and was like, oh, I can't do it.
06:32But I feel like Brady might be like, hey, can I play at 50 and then break some other record
06:37that no one's ever going to touch?
06:40Well, that's the thing is you can never underestimate Brady's appetite for trying to do something somebody else hasn't done.
06:45So that, to me, is a really good – that would be the only thing that would enter into it
06:51as being a logical option.
06:52Where would he go?
06:53I ask you guys.
06:54Well, I think Minnesota makes a ton of sense.
06:57He knows Kevin O'Connell.
06:58Vikings defense is great.
06:59Kyler looks horrible.
07:00Justin Jefferson.
07:01Horrible.
07:01He has Justin Jefferson.
07:02Yeah, that one would make sense.
07:06Anything else?
07:07Yeah.
07:08Can you be an owner?
07:09Yeah, see, I don't know.
07:10Probably not.
07:11Yeah, you probably got to divest and do that and, like, a whole bunch of untangling.
07:15Can you own the team that you're playing against while you're announcing the game for Fox?
07:18I was going to say, the league seems to give him some preferential treatment now, not during the play game,
07:23but now they do.
07:24So maybe they make an exception for him.
07:27Vikings, Raiders, Super Bowl, and Brady is the quarterback for the Vikings.
07:33How about this one, Tom?
07:34What about any interest in going outside the organization, in the receiver room, Tyreek Hill, Marvin Harrison Jr., anyone like
07:41that?
07:41Or do you think they're just waiting for A.J. Brown to return?
07:44That's a good question, too, and it certainly makes some sense to look.
07:48But given the amount of time it's taken Romeo Dobbs, for instance, to come around to being relied upon target,
07:55and he had the entire offseason and training camp, preseason, which they didn't play in, and the first three games,
08:03anything more than a stopgap, I can't imagine.
08:06I mean, do they go and get a veteran who hasn't been playing and has been staying in shape, that
08:13type of thing?
08:14I would imagine they're probably content to just wait for A.J. Brown and take their chances against the Raiders
08:20and Jets.
