Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Tommy Curran, NBC Sports Boston. He's brought to you by D'Angelo's Subs, New
00:04England Sandwich Shop, and the Sandwich Shop for Jones and Keefe here on
00:07Tuesdays. Yep, delicious. I'm working on that chicken teriyaki sub right now. It's
00:10great. Flexcar, you can save thousands with your flexible car lease at flexcar.com
00:15and by Awaken 180 Weight Loss. If you're hearing this, chances are you're less
00:18than 20 minutes away from the closest Awaken 180, a once-a-week lunch break, a
00:21quick stop on the way from work, minutes away from proven weekly weight loss,
00:25Awaken180weightloss.com. Tommy Curran, what's up? What's up, boys? How are you? Happy Tuesday.
00:32Very good, yes. Very, very happy Tuesday. Big day out there. NFL trade deadline day. We'll start
00:37with this. You hearing anything on the pats and the deadline? Anything, huh?
00:40Nothing yet. I do believe that they are active in trying to move players and
00:45teams are active, actually more active, in reaching out to them. And I know that,
00:50you know, speaking to some agents, that they are very curious as to what might
00:55end up happening with their clients, especially the wide receiver position
00:58today. So that's something that would probably be the most likely spot,
01:03either a KJ Osborne or a Taequann Thornton deal, if either one comes to fruition. I
01:08think that would be the most likely one to happen. Yeah, the one that I'm the most
01:12surprised that is even out there in discussion is Kyle Duggar. Like, they
01:16just brought him back. You know, he's one of their better players. I know he's also
01:19dealing with, I think, an ankle injury, but he didn't play and he was inactive
01:23last week, which maybe raised some antenna up a little bit. But what do you
01:27think it would mean if they were to trade someone like Kyle Duggar?
01:30A guy, Phil Perry, at NBC Sports Plus, was able to ferret out some more
01:35information a little bit closer to the scene here. That's not happening. And I
01:39believe it was phrased to him, we got to use some common sense on these things.
01:45They're not moving on from Kyle Duggar. So, and why would you? I mean, you just
01:52lost to Bill Peppers. He might never play here again. You had two really good
01:56safeties, now you have one. And he is, you know, you need the backbone of your
02:01defense. I think it's insane to think that. And honestly, as appetizing as a
02:07Kendrick Bourne or Devon Godshaw might be for other teams, I think right now they
02:12are, somewhat by default, some of your culture leaders on the team. With David
02:18Andrews out, Juwan Bentley out, and so many players who were persuasive and
02:23influential in that locker room laid low, I wouldn't move on from either of those
02:27guys because of what they bring for you down what could be a very discouraging
02:31stretch of eight games.
02:32Tom, we did a show poll earlier today at Jones & Keefe. 72% of Patriots fans want
02:37them to sell at the deadline. 28% want them to buy. Is there a chance
02:43they're adding today and not just subtracting off of the roster? And if so,
02:47where? Where would they be looking to add?
02:49You'd be looking to add a player with some term left on his deal. You'd be
02:54looking to add any of these positions. Cornerback, edge defender, tackle, or
03:00wide receiver. Any of those four. Those, to me, look like their biggest areas of
03:04need with edge defender and cornerback coming up quickly on the outside. I would
03:08even say safety, but, you know, it's a little further down because you have, you
03:12know, the rotation of Duggar, Mapu, Jaylen Hawkins, who hasn't been a disaster.
03:18And actually, I think Del Pettis isn't a disaster either as a guy who was
03:22undrafted, who they added. So, but I'd say those other positions, definitely.
03:27You've got to find somebody with some term who might be blocked out where he
03:29is and feel as if you would have an opportunity to re-sign him, even if he
03:36had an expiring contract. But you need, I think, and I've said this a couple
03:41times, I think I've said it to you guys, they need professional football players.
03:45People who go about their jobs professionally right now because I think
03:49that that's very important to the level of emotional maturity on the team.
03:54Now, a big topic of conversation yesterday, as you can imagine, was whether or not the
03:58Patriots should have gone for two at the end of regulation. Both Jones and I think
04:03they should have gone for two. Where do you come down on that?
04:06One million percent should have gone for two. You're a two and six team trying to
04:10avoid two and seven. You get one shot from the two and a half or three, wherever
04:15the hell they put it now, and you have a quarterback who's half a magician. I know
04:18he was tuckered. I know he was gassed. But so was the Tennessee defense who had to
04:23chase for 12 seconds. I really think that they should have gone for it because, to
04:28me, you can't stop people on the ground right now. And they got it run down
04:33their throat, and the inevitable ending came the way it did. I think with a two
04:39and six team, would you have an opportunity to win that close? Go ahead
04:44and take it. Which loss do you think? I was going to put a poll out today. I
04:48switched my polls for quick glance at 6 p.m. I went with this poll. Did the
04:56Patriots... It's Caleb Williams and Drake May this weekend. If you needed a
05:02cornerstone player playing hypotheticals, would you prefer Williams, Caleb Williams?
05:07Would you prefer Jaden Daniels, or did they get the right guy in May? You don't
05:10have to answer. The other poll I wanted to put out was, which is the most
05:15frustrating and maddening loss of the season? Tennessee, Jacksonville, Seattle,
05:20or Miami? I would say I'm a recency-biased guy. I would say the Tennessee
05:26game feels like Tennessee right now. Yeah, but that might be recency-biased. Miami was
05:29the worst football game I may have ever seen. That was just a frustrating
05:33game all around, but this one was like, you were right there. You had this
05:36unbelievable play at the very end, and then why not go for two and try to win
05:40it there? Jacksonville, they blew a 10-point lead. Yeah, that's true.
05:45Jacksonville was fairly sickening in the fact that they blew a 10-point lead and
05:49then just got run over like a JV team. Yeah, that's true.
05:55Going back to the two-point decision, to your understanding, is that
06:00Jarrod Mayo's final call? He is the head coach. It should be his call, but is he
06:06talking to somebody upstairs that's giving him stats and just sort of like
06:09telling him what they think, and then he just goes with that? I'm curious,
06:12especially how he answered it postgame versus a different answer he gave
06:16Greg Hill on Monday morning. Is that his call, or is it somebody else's?
06:20It's one million percent his call, and this is, I think, the difficulty of
06:26having not just a first-year head coach, but first-year surrounding individuals.
06:30Whether it's Evan Rothstein, who's not a first-year guy, but he's kind
06:34of elevated to that Ernie Adams role, for lack of a better comp. You got a
06:40quarterbacks coach in T.C. McCartney. You have an offensive line coach in Scott
06:44Peters. You have a play caller in Alex Van Pelt. Everybody's new. What's their
06:50rooting interest? Are they gamblers? Are they safe guys? Are they in
06:54positions where they feel secure in their jobs? Do they feel like they don't
06:57want to push Jarrod into a situation where he might not be comfortable? To me,
07:03Jarrod said the decision was made. I think he made it sound as if the
07:08decision was made far before they had gone down the field, but I just don't
07:13love it. I didn't love the decision. You have to be malleable as the game is
07:18going on, transform and change to the flows of the game, and I think that
07:22that absolutely was opened up for the opportunity to go for two. I mean, you got
07:26a guy who just wandered around for 12 seconds. I don't care if he's tuckered
07:31out. He is the kind of player who can make something out of nothing, and I know
07:37you can't run it worth crap, but you can still have him in a run-pass option, and
07:41if that goes south, he can scurry around for a minute, and okay, so he had to throw
07:46it incomplete. Oh, he got picked off. Whatever, you lost. So what? You're 2-7.
07:50You took a shot. So with Drake May and the pick he threw in overtime and the
07:55turnovers he had in the game, I love the pick. I find the the poll
08:00question that you're putting out on quick slants very interesting because I
08:03was bullish on Drake May coming in. I've been a believer in him. I don't want to
08:07let him off the hook, though, for a turnover that lost him the game, three
08:11turnovers in this game, and so how do we square those two things away? Well, we're
08:14watching the team down the stretch. He's the quarterback of the future. We all
08:17believe in him, but we can't let him off the hook for some of these mistakes. How
08:20do we kind of square those two away going forward with the final
08:25whatever it is, the final eight games of the season? I like that question. Yeah, I like that question
08:30because this is how I squared it in the postgame was, were those what the frig
08:38turnovers? What is he thinking? That's an
08:41embarrassing decision. Were those pee-down-your-leg Sam Darnold, Mac Jones
08:46type turnovers, or were they somewhat understandable? So take the first one. He
08:52got suckered in his fourth start by an underneath defender who moved into his
08:57spot. I still don't think the wide receiver and tight end spacing was
09:00terrific on that. I wonder if there was supposed to be that much traffic, but he
09:04got suckered. That seems to me the kind of thing you could say, yep, I can
09:08make sure that doesn't happen again. The strip sack, it's Justin Simmons making a
09:12fantastic play. Jeffrey, Justin, Justin, Jay. Jay Simmons making a tremendous play
09:18from behind, but May knew he was coming, and he was trying to get away from the
09:22situation. He gets strip-sacked. Again, fixable, not panic. And then the last one,
09:27I don't mind him taking a shot. You stink. I know, he's gotta be so frustrated.
09:37You know, it's like, you guys play a little golf, right? You're on your way to shoot the 94.
09:42Just blast it. You got 220 over water on the last pull. Whatever. 94, I'm having a good day.
09:4894 would be great. Yeah, that sounds like I'm hitting them well, is what it sounds like.
09:53Tom, you've been all over this with the receiving core and the draft picks
09:57specifically. Polk and Baker, you know, it's always one of those fine lines. Like,
10:02is too early to call a guy a bust versus just being right and sort of seeing it early on.
10:08I've been so frustrated with Jalen Polk because it was a second-round wide receiver,
10:13very productive guy in college, thought he'd be a good fit. And it's just been a variety of stuff
10:18he says, then it drops, and then it's penalties. It's like he can't get out of his own way,
10:25but that is still a guy that in the final eight games of the season, I want to see out there.
10:29I want to know going into next season just how much or how little I can count on him.
10:34Yeah, same thing with Jayvon Baker. I mean, he should be kind of in a tryout situation now,
10:38and I hope that this personnel department will have the same hang and judge mentality that Bill
10:46Belichick sometimes would. Okay, it's not working out. I don't care that I took two thoughts in the
10:50second round. See ya. You're done. Bye. It's not working here. And if you have to do that with
10:55some players, do that. Don't protect your draft picks and say, well, he just didn't have enough
10:59time. I would also say relative to Polk, Thornton, Baker, K.J. Osborne, anybody, we need to start
11:10looking up who's the wide receiver's coach. His name's Tyler Hughes. Tyquan Underwood's there as
11:16well. Tyler Hughes was an assistant in Washington for a year. He was a Patriots offensive assistant
11:23for a few years. He has not really had what you would call a decorated career developing wideouts.
11:30So if he doesn't develop in this year, this changes the conversation because this notion
11:35of everybody's going to grow together and in a couple years it'll be good. You might have to
11:39throw that to the wind because, sorry, Drake May's ready already. So if you have to say,
11:46everything gets upgraded now. We're not having this kumbaya where everybody moves together.
11:51Urgency has to enter the equation. If you have to say goodbye to coaches who didn't sparkle in
11:56their first year and replace them with experienced ones, and I'm not trying to fire Tyler Hughes here,
12:02but your expectations for all of the coaching staff has to be higher because your window is
12:08officially open and I believe that to be the case as of Sunday. He's ready. He's good. He's really
12:15good. So let's get after it. Time now for Tommy Curran's Flex of the Game presented by Flexcar.
12:21You can ditch the dealership and save thousands with Flexcar. Tommy Curran, what's your Flex of
12:26the Game from Patriots-Titans? Flex of the Game was that first scramble by Drake May. God bless
12:32him. Comes out of the concussion protocol with feet skedaddling down the field. Didn't even slide,
12:37didn't even roll, just ran right into attack. God bless him. That's the kind of moxie you need.
12:42That's the kind of want to. That's the kind of brass balls you gotta have.
12:47I like it. I like it. That's a good flex. It's funny. We were talking about how last
12:53week in the game he got hurt. He slid a number of times and both Van Pelt and Mayo were like,
12:57he's got to protect himself, got to protect himself. Then the next week he's like head
13:01first into every defender after the concussion. I feel like he took their advice less after the
13:06injury. I think that they somehow think that going head first is safer than sliding. I've
13:15heard Andy Hart making this point, Keith. Yeah, but you don't have the same protections.
13:23When you start your slide, when your ass starts to slide, that's when your protections start.
13:28And he started his slide a little late the previous week because he was stumbling
13:32and couldn't really get into it and make it obvious that he was about to slide.
13:36He had a very good slide at another point in the game. If you have the room to slide,
13:39always slide feet first. If somebody might, as you're sliding, already be going,
13:45if he's within a yard or two, might as well just kind of armadillo it.
13:52One more quick one here, Tom, before we let you go. Thank you for spending a little extra time
13:55here today. Are you worried at all? Maybe worried is not the right word. Are you paying attention
14:02at all to Kansas City going 17-0, going undefeated? And if you're not yet, at what
14:07point do you look at it and go, okay, this is really something we need to watch?
14:13It's funny. Somebody made the comp. I can't remember. I was on Twitter last night watching
14:17that game. And they said that Kansas City kind of has that 2019 Patriots feel to them.
14:23And I don't disagree. Although the Patriots did not add DeAndre Hopkins at the deadline,
14:28who still could be here. But I'm sure he'd be long gone by now, but he could have been here.
14:36But they do. They just, they're very close to the bone. It's just that,
14:42you know, who are the other teams out there who are going to take them down? Do they have
14:45Buffalo on the schedule? Yes. Two weeks from now, they're at Buffalo, I believe.
14:50They also have Houston later on in the year as well. Okay. So you're going against Keith.
14:55Keith says they're going undefeated. You think there's a game that could take them down?
15:00This is all knee-jerk. I haven't spent my time, obviously, because I don't even know if they're
15:03playing Buffalo, but I think they're going to lose. Okay. Yeah. All right. Tommy Curran,
15:07you can check him out on Quick Slants. You can check out his latest. It's up now at NBC Sports,
15:11Boston Patriots in disarray with one all-important exception. I think you know who we're talking
15:15about. He joins us every Tuesday here on Tommy Tuesdays on Jones and Keith. He'll be with WEI
15:21Afternoons on Thursday. Check him out there. Tommy Curran, we appreciate the time. Thanks so much.
15:26All right, guys. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you, Tom. Tom E. Curran
15:29says the Chiefs will not be going in your face. Keith says they won't be going undefeated.