Why Aaron Schatz predicts Pats to go 7-10 | Pats Interference
On this episode of Pats Interference, Andrew Callahan is joined by Aaron Schatz, the godfather of football analytics, creator of DVOA and Chief Analytics Officer at FTN Fantasy as he returns to run down why his mean win projection for the Patriots is 7.1. Plus, he shares nuggets from his 20th Football Almanac previewing the NFL seasons and what he expects from Drake Maye. All that, and much more!
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00:00Okay, one of the smartest guests, if not the smartest guests we have in this little dumb
00:16rinky-dink Patriots podcast, Aaron Schatz, godfather of football analytics, is back with
00:21us.
00:22More officially, the chief's analytics officer at FTN Fantasy, where you can get the FTN
00:26Fantasy Football Almanac, 20th that Aaron has done.
00:29Aaron, I don't know if there are many CAOs out there.
00:33I know we have a lot of COOs.
00:34We have plenty of CEOs.
00:36Do you know of any other CAO in your life or anywhere else in the world?
00:40They had to give me a high title, so this is what we came up with.
00:44Did you propose it?
00:45Who made the official pitch?
00:46No, no, they proposed it.
00:47They proposed it, but they were trying to figure out what to call me when they brought
00:50me in.
00:51This is what we came up with.
00:52Yeah, it's great.
00:53I think you're most commonly known for, of course, being a creator of DVOA, which like
00:57I told you off air, that your work helps enrich my work, and I think that's the highest
01:01compliment I can pay.
01:02Thank you.
01:03Thank you.
01:04Not to mention, when we get into the season, I do a lot of these preview episodes, it's
01:07a lot of breakdowns.
01:08They're 31st in DVOA by this, the second-y second in that, and it really helps shape
01:13because the metric is so now well-known, respected, and context-dependent, and opponent-adjusted,
01:18and all these wonderful things, to get as close as we can to who's good, who's not,
01:22and all those things we want to know.
01:24Until we play, we are reliant on books like yours.
01:27Again, the 20th FTN Fantasy Almanac.
01:29You can get this online.
01:30You can get it on Amazon.
01:32I have my copy.
01:33I have my notes from this, and of course, we are going to spend a lot of time on the
01:36Patriots today.
01:37But, Aaron, as you well know, your Almanac, your preview is not the only one out there.
01:41What I want to know first, broadly, is when we have people who listen to this podcast,
01:46follow the Patriots or other teams, what are a couple stats, trends, measurements that
01:50we should be zeroing in on?
01:51You know, after 20 years of doing this book, this stuff matters in a predictive way more
01:56than most trends or other stats or measurements.
01:59I mean, of course, I'd say to read my book first because DVOA correlates better from
02:04year to year than wins or points scored, and the adjusting for opponents is an important
02:10part of that.
02:12But if you're just looking at regular stats, the most important thing to remember is that
02:19preventing or gaining yards and points is more consistent from year to year than turnovers.
02:29So a defense that's built mostly on takeaways is going to be more likely to regress than
02:35a defense that's built mostly on just preventing yardage.
02:40That's important with, for example, a team like the Chicago Bears, which was fourth in
02:45the league in takeaways per drive last season, and that's not likely to repeat itself.
02:51And yet the Patriots, of course, you know, in reading you and following them from afar
02:55and now covering the team, were so long a team built on takeaways under Bill Belichick.
02:59I mean, do you very quickly here as an aside.
03:01Yeah, but they were also good at preventing yards.
03:03It wasn't that it was just takeaways.
03:05It was everything was good.
03:07Yes.
03:08And then in some years, you know, the turnover luck can paper over defenses like 2017, right?
03:13They get to the Super Bowl.
03:14I think they were 31st that year.
03:16The Eagles exposed them for what they were.
03:17Granted, the Eagles were excellent.
03:20But you're right.
03:21The correlation between turnovers allowed as well as points in yards allowed on the
03:24flipping that coin, because, again, we are going to have previews over here.
03:27I'm going to do multiple previews episode.
03:29If you just got to be the czar of football discourse here and said the following stats
03:33or cliches are banned when we're talking about previews and these things matter year to year.
03:38What are you kicking out NFL official rankings?
03:42The NFL official rankings are based on total yardage, which is terrible, especially for
03:49defense, because we know that defenses give up yardage when they have a lead late in the
03:54game and they're just trying to get the clock done.
03:57And so the NFL official rankings based on yardage are terrible.
04:01The other thing is strength of schedule that's based on the last year's record.
04:08Our strength of schedule predictions, they're not as predictive as we would like them to
04:13be, but they're much more predictive because they account for things like Aaron Rodgers
04:18is now the quarterback of the Jets, not Zach Wilson.
04:21If you look at last year's records, you would think playing the Jets is an easy game.
04:25But in reality, playing the Jets should be a harder game.
04:28And so you have to account for that when you're looking at schedule strength.
04:32I appreciate you saying that.
04:33I know there's a lot of work that Warren Sharpe, who I don't know if he's a chief analytics
04:37officer or not, but people are familiar with his work, has rooted a lot as someone who
04:41came from a gambling background and projected win-loss totals as the basis for strength
04:46of schedule as being much more predictive than you said.
04:48Yes, that's more predictive.
04:49I mean, ours is a little different because our strength of schedule is based on our projections,
04:54which do differ from Vegas for some teams, the Patriots being one of them.
04:58But anything, what you need with strength of schedule is to be forward-looking.
05:03You do not want to use last year's rankings or last year's record for strength of schedule.
05:08Okay.
05:09So to recap, if there's anything you take away from this podcast, aside from the next
05:1220 minutes on the Patriots, which the next little transition by you, this is only our
05:15second episode, but you're being a good teammate of, hey, there's a gap between our rankings
05:19and projections in Vegas.
05:20One of those examples is the Patriots, the team we're going to talk about.
05:24Takeaways are not a sustainable way to build a defense or predict year to year, but what
05:28is, is the amount of points and yards that you allow and looking forward as well.
05:32Strength of schedule.
05:33Forget last year's records.
05:34Also forget the NFL official rank.
05:36I love the way that you put that.
05:37Stop ranking things by total yards allowed, which we do here in the podcast, but forget
05:42it when you're doing your rankings.
05:43If you're friends that you're competing with in fantasy or otherwise, do it.
05:46Just stay quiet.
05:47Otherwise tell everyone, pass on the gospel for today.
05:50Yes.
05:51The worst is to do like run defenses by yards allowed.
05:55Yeah.
05:57Like there are good run defenses on bad teams that allow lots of rushing yards because their
06:03offenses aren't any good.
06:04So their opponents are leading.
06:06So their opponents are rushing late in games.
06:08And that's not, that doesn't tell you how good a rush defense really is.
06:12That's absolutely right.
06:13Now, uh, going back to the Patriots, Vegas has their over under wind total and it depends
06:19on the guy in your odds maker, right?
06:21Second lowest in the league at four and a half.
06:23Yeah.
06:24I've seen lowest in some places.
06:25Even lower.
06:26Yeah.
06:27But the mean wind projection, according to the FTN fantasy almanac, which again, I encourage
06:30you to go by.
06:31I've done it myself.
06:32You can get a discount.
06:33If you do a season long pass.
06:34I don't care if you do fantasy, you're into gambling.
06:36You just want to be a smarter fan.
06:37Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.
06:387.1 wins was the mean wind projection.
06:44Aaron, please explain to us how you and your system and your projections of the Patriots
06:48going seven and 10 essentially this season.
06:51Matthew Judah, Christian Gonzalez, and Marcus Jones.
06:57Basically, we have the Patriots with our number three average defensive projection behind
07:03Cleveland and the New York jets.
07:05All right.
07:07Defense is harder to project than offense, but what we do know about defense suggests
07:12that the Patriots will have one of the top defenses in the league.
07:16And a big reason for that is they had a very good defense last year and they're getting
07:21back their best pass rusher and two of their three best cornerbacks who all missed most
07:28of last season.
07:30So that is a lot of talent coming back to this defense.
07:33Now their offense, we don't think is going to be good.
07:36We have their offense 30th and they have a very hard schedule.
07:40We have their schedule second, but the defense should be good enough for them to win more
07:46games than the four and a half that Vegas is suggesting that they are going to win.
07:51Especially by the way, if Jacoby Brissett is the quarterback, because I think with Drake
07:56May you have a wider range of possibilities, but I think that Brissett is a quarterback
08:03who's more likely to lead a team that wins with running and defense and win six or seven
08:08games instead of four.
08:11And that's the path here, right?
08:13I know the Browns offense last year under Alex Van Pelt took more snaps.
08:16They went faster despite not going a lot with the no huddle, but the Patriots want to shorten
08:20every game, introduce more variants as an underdog, run the ball, take your time and
08:24play defense that lets you hang around until, oh, we found the end zone.
08:28Whether we stumbled backwards or we threw a deep pass and Drake May from his back foot
08:32across the field for 40 yards, those plays, those scores are going to be hard to come
08:36by so shorten the game.
08:37And that seems to be the path to the point of injuries because I think this is something
08:41in addition to the turnover variants that you brought up earlier, something you've done
08:44a lot of really good work in is adjusted games lost.
08:47So it's not just how many starters went down.
08:49It's not how many starts that they made, but specifically the loss of, you said, the best
08:53pass rusher and quarterback, the Patriots, according to your measurements, had the worst
08:57injury luck, the most adjusted games lost on defense.
09:00And they were 30th, bottom three offensively.
09:04What is the bounce to be expected fairly, understanding they could rank there again,
09:09but it just seems unlikely when you look at this team.
09:12Because it accounts not just for injury that you lose a game, but for injuries where you
09:18are on the injured list, but play anyway at less than a hundred percent.
09:23That's really where the adjustment comes in because you want to count guys who are playing
09:25at less than a hundred percent as well as the guys who missed the game.
09:30And I think defense is where you're really going to see the impact because that's where
09:34you see the most important players, offense.
09:36There were offensive line injuries and receivers and whatnot, but the defense is where you're
09:43really going to see it because again, it's their best pass rusher and their best cornerback.
09:48That is two important pieces to get back.
09:53Those are really two important pieces to get back.
09:55So in a little while, we'll all be boning up on fantasy football.
09:58Where can I get a reminder of Stevenson?
09:59Is Hunter Henry finally going to break out like Callahan has been saying so for years?
10:03What about Drake May?
10:04What about Galen Paul?
10:05Pop Douglas?
10:06Javon Baker?
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11:38Okay.
11:39So setting them aside, let's do some more reasons for optimism here, because again,
11:42this is not the definitive projection.
11:44It's within, you know, kind of the middle of the bell curve here, 7.1, which says it's
11:48just as equal or equally likely, seemingly, they might be eight and nine as they could
11:53be six and 11 or below according to your projections.
11:5630th on offense though, as far as adjusted games loss.
11:59I remember Reminder Stevenson being banged up to start the season.
12:02Mario Douglas missed the end or parts of the season.
12:05Hunter Henry misses the end, as did Reminder Stevenson, who I mentioned, and Trent Brown
12:09went from all pro left tackle through week eight to like bumbling, kind of slowly quitting
12:14on the team and then just being shelved for the rest of the year.
12:17Do you think there's enough there that, you know, we're going to talk a lot about quarterbacks
12:21and the benefit of reset, Drake May, but just if they go to 16th in adjusted games loss,
12:26that's almost as much reason to believe in them as the defensive guys returning that
12:29you already mentioned?
12:30Well, the offense will improve a little bit if that happens, but I mean, part of the problem,
12:34they didn't really replace Brown, right?
12:37Left tackle is still such a question mark that I think if you look at it subjectively
12:42and you're like, okay, they missed games at left tackle last year because of injury, but
12:46who are they really replacing it with this year?
12:48It's not that great.
12:49Yeah, it's, uh, it's not so good.
12:51We have here in the list of reasons for pessimism, I, you know, I think they're fairly obvious
12:56receiver and offensive line.
12:57If we skip over this here quickly, is that there's nothing underlying that we're missing
13:01in your numbers or otherwise you've looked at and say, yeah, the reasons for, you know,
13:05to be down in this team, as much as Vegas is in the fans here at home, are those two
13:08position groups?
13:09I mean, a big reason is just, you cannot expect a rookie quarterback to be good.
13:16That's why we're lower on Chicago than the conventional wisdom.
13:19That's why we're lower on Indianapolis because Anthony Richardson is effectively a rookie.
13:25We're lower on Indianapolis than conventional wisdom.
13:27And if Drake may plays, you can't expect him to be good.
13:31You want him to be good.
13:33There's a chance he'll be good.
13:34There's a chance that he'll be bad and develop into being good in the future, which is sort
13:38of like, you know, certainly what you hope with a guy that young, but if he plays, he
13:43will probably be bad.
13:44And so when you have a team with a rookie quarterback, you have to project that there'll
13:48be bad.
13:49And what I projected, I projected that Bursette, uh, for the quarterback projection that's
13:53in the team projection.
13:54I used half Bursette and half May because I thought they'll probably switch around mid
13:59year from one to the other.
14:01So you know, probably a little bit, if they use Bursette the whole year, it's probably
14:05a little bit better on offense.
14:07If they were to use May the whole year, they might be the worst offense in the league projected.
14:11You just can't expect a rookie to be good quarterback.
14:15It's fair.
14:16There were a couple of numbers and that was one of them that caught my eye when I'm going
14:19through this almanac and just saying, look, what jumps out to me immediately?
14:22Like you don't, we don't want to comb through the whole thing here.
14:24One of which was, I think a lot of people could guess Patriots face 57% of their passing
14:30downs were against man coverage, which was number one in the league by a wide margin.
14:33And those are teams that like Miami then run by Vic Fangio, zone base, cover six, cover
14:37eight, some quarters in there.
14:39The Jets play a ton of quarters, the Bills more of his own defense.
14:42And they said, oh no, screw this Patriots turn down, find a guy, stick to him and that's
14:46it.
14:47They didn't really solve that.
14:48And it was interesting that in the FTN draft analysts that you have, Jalen Polk was probably
14:52in addition to DeMario Douglas, your best hope to break this trend, because I would
14:55expect them to finish high in this ranking moving forward.
14:59Jalen Polk's comp was Tyler Boyd.
15:01When you're projecting rookie receivers, rookie quarterback stink.
15:04What can we expect or what stood out to you as far as him and the receiving core with
15:08I mean, rookie receivers tend to put up nice numbers.
15:11It's interesting in our projection system, teams with rookie receivers tend to drop a
15:16little bit.
15:17And then teams with second year receivers tend to go up.
15:21Right.
15:22I know there's plenty of examples of teams with rookie receivers who are very successful,
15:27but all the things being equal, these guys, those offenses tend to struggle a little bit,
15:31even if the rookie receivers put up numbers.
15:34So that's another reason to believe that the offense won't necessarily be so good.
15:39Because they're going to depend a good amount on rookie receivers, whether I don't know
15:42how much Javon Baker will play, but mostly, you know, Jalen Polk.
15:46I mean, it's interesting.
15:47I think the Patriots receivers are a little underrated in that Bourne is really good back
15:52like back stats.
15:54Like two years ago, he was number one in the league in receiving DVOA, which is kind of
15:59crazy.
16:00And he was he was just as good in the ESPN next gen stats based on the player tracking.
16:09Bourne was really good in those two.
16:10And then he got into Belichick's doghouse and didn't play that much the last couple
16:14of years.
16:15Like he's got a pretty good record.
16:17So the receivers might actually be a little bit underrated, but it's not like there's
16:22no clear number one.
16:23I mean, that's part of the problem is there's just no clear like this guy is a number one
16:27receiver.
16:28And yeah, Jeff Radcliffe, who does the fantasy stuff, and he did the fantasy projections
16:32in the book, doesn't see Polk as a number one receiver type.
16:35He sees him as more of a Tyler Boyd type, which I think would be a little bit of a disappointment
16:40for the Patriots if that's how he develops.
16:43So this is summertime, obviously, recording Monday, July 15th.
16:47Common summertime radio topic that you could get to at this point would be can you function
16:51without a number one wide receiver in the NFL or is it better just to have that guy
16:54that carries the gravity, pulls the defensive attention away and allows others to set up?
16:58Because that was my argument for DeAndre Hopkins coming in.
17:00It's not that he alone is going to solve a bunch of problems, but it allows Kendrick
17:04Bourne to face number two corners in a way.
17:07Do you look at this and say they might benefit from that absence or would just another better
17:11receiver allow everyone to fall into place?
17:13If your receivers are as young and talented as Green Bay's, you don't need one of them
17:18to necessarily be your number one, but you don't want a bunch of number threes.
17:28You could have a bunch of number twos.
17:30You could have four guys who are number twos.
17:33That's kind of what Green Bay has, and then things spread around pretty well, but that's
17:36not really what the Patriots have.
17:39If Bourne is at his best, then he's like a two, and if Polk develops into what you
17:43want him to be, he's like a two, but I don't think Douglas is like a slot guy, and Osbourne
17:51is like a slot guy.
17:53He's not that high up, and you don't know what Javon Baker is going to be.
17:56You can't expect that a fourth round pick is going to turn into that great, so yeah.
18:04When they go into next year's draft, I think people are going to be like, receiver, yes,
18:10take a guy so that he'll be your one, and Polk will be your two, and Douglas will be
18:14your three, and you'll feel like you're really built for the future.
18:17That's, I think, how people are going to be talking nine months from now.
18:20If we ever go into a draft there where the Patriots fans are not, rightfully, looking
18:24for a receiver, I don't know what I'm going to do.
18:26I feel like I carve out a whole week every April to get to know that group heading into
18:30the draft.
18:31One of the groups, though—
18:32Hopefully, Polk doesn't end up in the museum of bad Patriots second round receivers.
18:37Yes, that place is full.
18:39No vacancy.
18:40That place is full for no time.
18:44There's also an adjacent wing in that museum of second round cornerbacks, and one of the
18:49stats when I go to defense, as far as things, it just kind of jumped out at me because Jonathan
18:53Jones, I've said, wrong side of 30 for corners, maybe better in the slot, particularly at
18:585'9", zero interceptions last year, but he was top five.
19:01I believe it was either by DV away or success rate when targeted in this almanac in a way
19:07that says, oh, no, I'm fine.
19:08I'll be your number two corner.
19:10He was number five in success rate.
19:13So the DV away was not quite as impressive, meaning he was targeted a good amount because
19:17DV away is based on every snap in coverage rather than just when you're targeted, but
19:24his success rate was fifth in the league.
19:26So he was very good when he was targeted.
19:28He was very good at preventing success on plays.
19:30So what, you know, and we don't have to talk about how predictive that is or whether it
19:35will carry over again.
19:36He's in the back end of his career, but a very useful, valuable player in a way that
19:39captured it that I hadn't seen anything yet.
19:40What else in this almanac stood out defensively as you're putting this together and editing
19:44it?
19:45I mean, you know, it's interesting.
19:47Safeties are, I think, the hardest position in the league to judge, both from a scouting
19:53perspective, because you don't necessarily know what their responsibilities are on plays,
19:57and from a stats perspective, they're very hard to judge.
20:00So it's interesting that Duggar's stats against the past don't come out that great.
20:06Against the run, they're really, really good.
20:08Jabril Peppers' stats against the past come out really good.
20:13So that's sort of interesting, given what you know about Peppers and Duggar.
20:18They both come out as really good against the run.
20:20I think safety is a really strong position for the Patriots.
20:25The other thing that I think people need to, if they don't understand, they need to understand
20:29is that the Patriots special teams, which were good year after year after year after
20:34year for like 25 years, have been awful the last two years.
20:38And they've got to get that solved.
20:41Yes.
20:41And it's funny, because Cam Accord became the proverbial punching bag, as deserved,
20:45as the special teams coordinator.
20:46But his debut season, number one by DVOA in 2020, and then, like you said, just basically
20:51straight down the hill since then, a lot of it was field goal kicking.
20:54There was some huge drop off, losing Marcus Jones as a part returner to Mario Douglas,
20:59who looks and profiles physically as a similar returner, but had far fewer yards below expectation.
21:05Meaning he should have gotten six, but he's dancing backwards and ends up with only two
21:08or four.
21:09Breaking news, we've got a young, exciting underdog team in Boston that's making a run
21:14for the playoffs.
21:15No, it's not the Patriots.
21:16Well, not the Patriots yet.
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22:29Wrapping up with the defense, though, because there are a couple other stats, and I want
22:32to know if this is meaningful to you.
22:34Patriots led the league in sacks by inside linebackers and defensive backs, which I think
22:38speaks to the versatility of those safeties.
22:40Like, I don't want to get hit by Jabril Peppers or Kyle Duggar.
22:44Yeah, it also speaks to the fact that they needed to manufacture a pass rush with no
22:48Matthew Judd on.
22:49Exactly.
22:49They were excellent when they blitzed, which they did more of late in the season.
22:52Their four-man rush suffered.
22:54They were also very good, talking about injuries, against number one receivers, even after Christian
22:58Gonzalez was injured, but they were terrible on all of the other receivers, really three
23:04on down.
23:05What do you make of that as being stable or just kind of—
23:08That is the Bill Belichick special, baby.
23:10I don't know if that's going to continue, but you remember the way Belichick used to
23:14always take his second-best corner and his safety and double the number one?
23:19And then put his best corner on the two.
23:21The Patriots always, in my little defense versus types of receivers, the Patriots are
23:28always better against number ones than number twos.
23:31Always, always, always.
23:32And I think that's a Belichick special, and I don't know what it will mean with the
23:35new defensive staff, whether that will change.
23:39Yeah, because there were seasons where the opposite happened, right?
23:42Stephon Gilmore was shouting everyone from the second half of 2018 through his defensive
23:46player of the year in 2019.
23:47Yeah, but even with Gilmore, sometimes they would put Gilmore on the two, and they would
23:51put Jonathan Jones and Devin McCourty doubled on whoever was the one.
23:57Yeah, it depended on a certain game plan, I think, the style of receiver, because there
24:01were some that Gilmore being a bigger, more physical corner, a great long speed, but the
24:05shiftiness wasn't necessarily there.
24:07Christian Gonzalez looks like, underscore looks like, has the complete package, and
24:11you're right, there might be a philosophical shift of Gerard Mayo being like, everyone
24:14knows we're going to play left-handed.
24:15They're happy.
24:16They've been practicing all week throwing left-handed.
24:19By the time we get to Sunday, they're good at it, and we don't have the same advantages,
24:22because when you look at the first quarter stats, defensively and offensively, Patriots
24:26are among the worst first quarter teams in the league.
24:28Speaking of Gerard Mayo, I have-
24:29That, I will say, is something that does not tend to carry over from year to year.
24:33Those kind of quarter by quarter breakdowns are not predictive.
24:37You want them to be, you believe that they should be, they're not really, especially
24:40on defense.
24:41Okay, very good to know, and I think everyone is very glad to hear that.
24:44I mentioned Mayo.
24:45His game management is a bing unknown to me.
24:48I think it would be hard to get more conservative than Belichick was at the end of the season.
24:52You and I have talked about this privately, publicly, fourth down decision-
24:55He changed pretty much over the course of his career.
24:57It's very strange.
24:58Very strange, but what, to me, that's a variable that it's hard to capture in any
25:02preview for Almanac, because we just don't know what he's going to do.
25:05Is there anything else that you have your eye on as this longtime follower of this team
25:08to say, this could really shake things up, and it's not highlighted in the Almanac,
25:12because we just can't do it yet.
25:14We have to wait and see about this.
25:15Oh, I mean, I think the fact that Mayo is probably much more of a player's coach than
25:19Belichick is one of those intangible things that someone like me can't measure, but it
25:23absolutely is going to mean something.
25:25Where would that manifest, do you think?
25:27Is it like being-
25:28Just in player performance, but you won't see, you won't know where, you won't know
25:32which players manifest as better or worse because they react better or worse to Mayo's
25:37style of coaching.
25:38We will have no idea, but I'm sure it will have an impact.
25:42Yeah, my guess and sense is that they might be less risk averse on fourth down.
25:47Like, hey, if you're a player's coach and you want to get their buy-in and have them
25:50believe in you, Dan Campbell, very famously aggressive.
25:52I'd like to see it.
25:53I'd like to see it.
25:54Yes, and they were excellent, you know, again, to all the things you can find in this, and
25:58you can go get the FTN Football Almanac and find all these stats and more.
26:01Patriots offensive line, largely poor, very good in short yardage.
26:04And again, they've returned most of those players, though Cole Strange is going to be
26:08out, sounds like, until November, December.
26:09So they're going to have a hole at guard and left tackle, more stuff that we have to
26:12wait and see.
26:13But I think they will be more aggressive in the player's coach and development is a big
26:16part of that.
26:17But we got to get you out on this.
26:18Prediction time.
26:19Two parts.
26:21I need a win-loss record.
26:22Are you abiding by your own Almanac, 7 and 10?
26:25And then give us just an outline of the most likely Drake May season that you expect this
26:29year.
26:30I do.
26:30I think their defense will be good enough for them to be 7 and 10, but I think that it
26:36will be clear by November or December that they're not really in the playoff race.
26:40And my guess is that Brissette starts the first three months of the season and Drake
26:44May takes over for the last month.
26:47Are we excited with what we see from Drake May?
26:50I mean, yeah, rookie quarterback.
26:52I mean, I don't know what to expect from him, but when we were all having this debate before
26:57the draft, I was very much like, it's got to be a quarterback.
26:59It's got to be a quarterback.
27:01If there's three quarterbacks people think are at the top of the draft and you have pick
27:04number three, you don't take a wide receiver.
27:07You take a quarterback.
27:08That's what you need.
27:09The quarterback is the most important position on the field.
27:12So I'm glad they took one.
27:13Yeah, the obvious thing in the draft.
27:15How about that?
27:15It really is a new era in New England when they make the pick you expect.
27:19You've got to go Aaron Schatz, read him, find him at FTN Fantasy.
27:24ESPN Plus is an analyst.
27:26And if you don't remember Chief Analytics Officer, just go with the Godfather of Football
27:29Analytics and creator of DBOA.
27:31Thank you for spending some more time.
27:32Everyone should go buy the book.
27:33And I appreciate you enriching all of us here on the podcast.
27:36ftnfantasy.com slash almanac to buy the online edition of the book.
27:43I've got it right here.
27:44See you soon, man.
27:45All right.