What makes you believe that the #Patriots will spend in FA? Would Vrabel have not come here, unless he knew they'd spend?
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00:00Wiggy, text for you on the Subaru of New England text line, a little behind
00:05listening on the Odyssey app to Wiggy's lead, but why would Mike Rabel come here
00:10without an understanding that he could burn some cash? Good question.
00:15Wiggy's lead was this morning at 620, 630 when we did our leads, was you
00:22are growing concerned with the New England Patriots? And cash, ready to burn
00:27some cash. You're worried that it's gonna be business as usual over there? Yep, yeah
00:32and there hasn't been anything to suggest differently when you start to, we
00:38talked about Debo Samuel, I don't, you know, there was no like, oh Patriots went
00:43in on him, we've heard about Cooper Cup, I haven't liked Patriots in on him, other
00:47than the AJ Brown thing that you're talking about, I mean, and I don't know
00:51how much interest there is, Curtis brought it up, they're almost like the
00:55Red Sox, they're interested in everybody. I just, I'm a little concerned when it
01:00comes to that and knowing like who's really in control. They said they were
01:06gonna burn cash last year, that's what Mayo said and that got stymied, so what
01:10makes you believe they're gonna change who they are? Wouldn't it be a surprise
01:15if they were aggressive? Like even if they talk about it as much as they have,
01:19I will still be shocked if they get AJ Brown. Well it wouldn't be to me because
01:26there has been a suspicion that they would be aggressive the last couple of
01:30seasons because of the the room they had when it came to the salary cap. They
01:36weren't last offseason, so now you have the benefit of seeing actually,
01:42physically, what Drake May can be, right? Yeah. So should that not change your
01:49intention in the building if you're somebody who was wary of burning cash?
01:56No, because you drafted him at number three, so your
02:00expectations were he's gonna be a really good player.
02:04Yeah, but they didn't even want to play him. The only reason he even played as early as
02:07he did is because people realized that they were gonna lose their jobs at the end of the season.
02:10No, and I understand that, but if you know you're going after a
02:15quarterback like that, you would think like, all right, we got to make sure
02:17whenever he plays we put pieces around them. And I wouldn't be surprised if
02:21they're aggressive because I think Mike Vrabel only came here because he was
02:25promised something that he wouldn't have come here if otherwise wasn't.
02:31Don't you think Mayo was promised stuff last year? Yes, but I think
02:34Robert Kraft took advantage of Gerard Mayo. I don't think he can take advantage
02:38of Mike Vrabel because I think Mike Vrabel would go and tell everybody that
02:41Robert Kraft lied to him. I think Mike Vrabel coming in here only took the job
02:45because he was promised that they weren't gonna make him look like a fool.
02:47You think Vrabel is gonna go to everybody after year one and be like, or
02:52you know, after free agency passes and go, oh, Robert Kraft lied to me?
02:57No, he's not gonna do that. Here's a text from New Hampshire. Hello to our New Hampshire
03:01listeners. We are coming to you in July with a roadshow, a floating roadshow, at a
03:09place that we've never been. So hello to New Hampshire. Who gives an S about Debo
03:14Wiggy? There are at least 20 wide receivers that are better than him and
03:18with about half available via trade or free agency. That's such capital. Who are the 20 wide
03:24receivers? I'd love for him to know. I would say Devante Adams is better than
03:28Debo. I would say Chris Godwin's the number one free agent this year and
03:35he's coming off, what's he coming off, another ACL injury?
03:39The torn ACL or like a broken ankle, a leg injury. And so when you say, and I'm
03:43not saying Debo Samuel's gonna set the world on fire, but you could have got him
03:47for a fifth round pick. You could go to him for a fifth round pick. You could
03:50assign, you could sign the Devante Adams in free agency. You could then figure out
03:56if you wanted to draft the tight end with your pick, like Shyam said, maybe
04:00move down. There are a lot of things that you could do, but they just don't look
04:04like they're doing it. Or at least just from where I'm sitting, it doesn't
04:08seem like there's any real sense of urgency of like, all right, we need to be
04:14in on everybody. What makes you believe that they will spend, Greg?
04:18I think I'm hopeful. I just, I believe that Mike Rabel would not have come
04:24here if he didn't have some kind of- Well he's making 15 million a year guaranteed.
04:29Okay, but he had other options. I don't know, I mean maybe, but my guess is
04:34that, like, I just feel like we keep saying the same thing, myself included,
04:39because I want it to be true, because I'm desperate to have a football team that's
04:44worthy of the fan support. But I just, if you weren't gonna spend last year, when
04:50Bill Belichick just got fired, and you had already had the Dynasty docuseries
04:54in the can, what better chance to say, look, we're spending now, I've reclaimed
04:59control of the organization, and they did nothing. And who do you think Robert
05:03Kraft, honestly, like, just personally, you know, if you were to say, hey, Gerard
05:10Mayo or Rabel, who do you think, personally, before anything, you would say,
05:15oh, he probably likes him a little bit better? Likes him better? Yeah. Personally?
05:19Yeah. I would say Mayo. You would? Yeah, because remember, Rabel had some of
05:25those things to say when he left out of here. But that's what I'm saying, like,
05:28he's not gonna hold his tongue like Gerard Mayo. No, no, like, when he was a
05:31player, like, so he had a little thing, and not that I'm saying they don't like
05:35Rabel, but you lie to Mayo. So if you can lie to Mayo, what makes you think that
05:40they can't lie to Rabel? And say, oh, yeah, Mike, we're gonna give you
05:43everything you want, don't worry about it. Because Mike Rabel's not a guy who,
05:48he's not coming in here in the position that he has to suffer fools
05:53gladly. Like, he, they needed him. He held the cards. But didn't you believe your
06:00side, Greg? And you might be right. Didn't Robert Kraft lie to Bill Belichick
06:05about the spending? And if you believe that Kraft was in charge of the spending,
06:08yeah, then he lied to Belichick. So if you can lie to Belichick, why couldn't you lie to Rabel?
06:13Right. So you lied to Bill, you lied to Mayo. I mean, Curtis is right. You can,
06:18and not that they're like, like, bull-faced lying, but maybe they're making him believe
06:24they're willing to go a little bit further when it comes to spending. And then as he gets into it,
06:31we want this guy, we want to spend X, then they're like, well,
06:34Mike, maybe try to look at another direction. This is Walter from Boston. Hey, Walter.
06:41Wiggy, the part that I don't understand with you is, so you're saying that the Patriots can
06:46force them guys to take the money. Like, if you're a free agent and you're looking at the Patriots,
06:50you see Gonzalez and you see the quarterback. There's nothing else that makes you want to go
06:55there. What I think is going to happen this year, they might end up with Cam Robinson,
06:59a couple of other good players. Teams are going to have to see them win at least
07:02eight games or something. Guys, I mean, who want to go there. It's like the Devo thing,
07:06I can understand a little bit, but he is a little bit chubby, but I still would have got him.
07:11But you can't force it like these dudes, like to take this money. You heard what Metcalf said,
07:16he doesn't want to go there. So people are going to want to see them be at least a little good
07:20before. Why would you take money that you can get close to from somewhere else that's going to win
07:25to go to the Patriots and win five games next year? Well, because I agree they need to spend,
07:33but, but you can't force guys to come here. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying you can force guys
07:38to come here, but if Devante Adams, and I think it was Tommy Curran who might've said this,
07:43if you said, all right, we're going to give you two years, 60 million fully guaranteed.
07:47And if he can't get that nowhere else, then I think there's a good chance that you're able to
07:53get a guy like that. Like you're, you're able to be in the market like that, or whether it's
07:57Chris, your concern is that they're not going to do that. They're not just going to write a blank
08:02check to somebody like Devante Adams to overcome whatever the negative is about where this team is
08:09right now. They can never just level with the fan base last year. Instead of saying who went to the
08:14Titans, uh, instead of just saying, you know, we didn't, we didn't want to go to pass a certain
08:20point. They blamed the fiance. Like it's expensive to win when you don't have a historically great
08:28quarterback, you have to spend at the wide receiver position and they didn't do it when
08:32they had the guy. Now we believe that they're going to approach this free agency. Like it's,
08:37you know, like they're just spending money like Courtney online. I mean, I don't know.
08:42And especially with Chimes mock draft spending spree like right now. So yeah, that's pretty bad.
08:47Really? Yeah. Is that a report or is that spring? Is it like spring wardrobe? No,
08:53I just have these like blackout moments where I just like, yeah.
08:57On clothes or just like household products or everything. Like it's bad. It's bad. Yeah.
09:03It's really bad. You get caught up in the Amazon too. Yeah. Yeah. You can get lost.
09:08But like, but, but Chimes if he, so now we have to really watch, right. Cause Chimes mock draft,
09:14you had the Patriots traded down and taken home.
09:17Ted McMillan wide receiver. So if they take him, they maybe feel like, well,
09:22we're not really in a market for a veteran wide receiver. Or if we are, it might be a guy like
09:29Steph Diggs who's coming off a knee injury or somebody that, you know, is a lower level type
09:35of player. And then you're just right back to where you were last year. And you're not going
09:40after the top of the market free agents or trade plus players that are available.
09:47Well, what gives you an indication that they aren't? Cause I mean, the texter says that this
09:54is the time right now where you should be hearing that they are really in on all of these guys.
10:00Perfect example, Cooper cup. You saw what Debo went for Cooper cup wants out of the Rams and
10:09the Rams are like, all right, well, we're willing to trade with somebody. Why are you not like,
10:13Hey, we'll give you a fifth round pick for Cooper cup. And I'm not saying he's going to change the
10:18world, but at least you bring start. Yeah. It's a start and make us better. And then if you want
10:23to go the Shimer and you want to, you want to draft Ted McMillan and you have Cooper cup and
10:28you know, hopefully some of the guys that you drafted last year could take that next step.
10:33At least you could say, all right, here's what Drake may has.
10:36And the way that these excuses come into the text line, Greg, up in Maine, your favorite continent.
10:41Yeah. This gentleman says that they wanted to hire Brable last year, but they couldn't get
10:46him out of his obligations with Cleveland. Rabel was not the head coach of Cleveland.
10:51I think he was hired in Cleveland after Mayo was hired here and he wasn't the head coach.
10:55So you could have hired him, right? Just to stop making excuses for them, please.
11:00So that's why I, I, and listen, I think Vrabel is the, uh, a great choice. And I think he's
11:07going to bring a lot to the team, but if you're not giving him the full, um, option or full,
11:15like if you're not giving him every chance to be successful, it's going to be extremely difficult.
11:22We call that when you allow somebody to spend whatever they want to spend, we call that a Santo.
11:28True. Give him a Santo because if you want him to be success, he's a great coach.
11:34But even if he's coaching here last year, what did he win? Five games, six games, maybe.
11:40Yeah. I just don't think that that crafts would have their hands in it as much with
11:45Rabel being the head coach as they did with Gerard Mayo. Like you listened to how craft explains
11:49how last season went. They say that he didn't, they didn't set him up for success. You can't
11:53do that with Mike Rabel having a first year head coach and having Mike Rabel is vastly different.
11:58But why, why can't you do that? If you don't give him the ability,
12:00because I don't think that you can count on Gerard Mayo just bowing down to you and saying,
12:05okay, whatever you want. I think Mike Rabel is going to bite back. You're paying him 15 million.
12:09What's he going to do? I don't think Mike Rabel cares. I think Mike Rabel cares more about his
12:13image. And this is not a knock against him in like his career. Then he does about $15 million.
12:18Did Bill ever bite back? I will. I would assume behind closed doors.
12:22Yeah. He came out immediately and said we're 28th or 29th and spending the last.
12:27Yeah. But that took what? 22 years. So like the whole thing of like, and I get it, I know
12:32Vrabel's personality, but he's still working for Robert. So he's not going to like just completely
12:39go off tilt and be like, I can't believe they did this. He's still gonna told a company line
12:44and say the things that he knows are politically correct. When it comes to that,
12:49the excuse is you're right, Curtis. Here's somebody suggesting maybe they have a cash
12:53flow problem over there. Yeah. I think that's the case. I mean, they have, they have a ton of money
12:59more about the fund in Mayoral race. How do you expect them to not have a cash problem?
13:04Those are different funds. That's a different account. But they got additional money also
13:12from the NFL. Right. So when it comes to cash, like before they sell a ticket,
13:18a t-shirt or a parking spot, they have $400 million in shared revenue from the TV deal.
13:24The total payroll of the team is less than 300 million. Do you think they're watching and paying
13:30attention to the vibe change that the Red Sox got when they signed Bregman? That was my hope.
13:38I thought the best thing that happened this off season with the Red Sox was that it might
13:42incentivize the Patriots to wake up, but I'm probably wrong again. So let me ask you this,
13:46Greg, because you brought up Ronnie Staley, right? Yeah. And the projected
13:50give him as many trumps as he wants. Right. So they're saying four years,
13:53a hundred million dollars, 65 million, a 70 million in guaranteed money. You think the
13:58Patriots 650,000 trumps? Well, you think the Patriots are in on that? I would hope that they
14:04were. Why wouldn't they not Ronnie Staley necessarily, but why wouldn't you have been in
14:10if you know, you had offensive offensive line issues last year. Why wouldn't you,
14:15they've been saying insiders saying that on when you is like the only person on that line,
14:20it was essentially guaranteed a job back. Who reported that?
14:25I would say him and David. And it was Gladys Friedman, Elliot's wife.
14:29I like her podcast. And then I just repeated it. Embarrassing. Yeah. Verbatim. Take the show away.
14:36Embarrassing. What? And then, and then I said, I said, David Andrews is probably the other one
14:41that I would say. I think you would barring illness and whatever. I just, like I said,
14:46I'm a little concerned because I would think that we would hear more. Like you said,
14:50we would hear more about the Patriots being in on guys. Gladys Freeman is such an old man.
14:59She's got some good stuff though. I don't know if you follow her on Facebook.
15:03I love her marketplace. This is Brett from Dorchester. Hello, Brett.
15:08Hey, good morning. Good morning. First time, long time. Thank you, Brett. What I wanted to say is
15:16that two years ago, Washington wasn't a destination, right? Two years later, look, everybody, it is the
15:23destination. I don't know what y'all mean by Debo is what Debo is going to make Washington even a
15:30better team. He does everything runs catches. He's a little chubby, but he does everything.
15:37They're going to be even better with him. So the Patriots have a quarterback. They can do the same
15:42thing. They just need to win some. It's cold here, but winning makes you warm. So they'll be able to
15:48get it through. They just got to add a couple of pieces and people will start wanting to come here,
15:53just like Washington. Nobody wanted to go to Washington. No, I mean, it is jarring when you
16:00think that just a season ago, you were in the exact same spot that the commanders were.
16:06Yeah. But you think of the commanders, I mean, they had to do a complete overhaul of their
16:10ownership, like for the commanders to switch things up and make it a destination. That wasn't
16:15just adding a few pieces. That was a complete rebrand. But they also had good building blocks.
16:20They had Terry McLaurin, right? They had Brian Robinson. So they had good building blocks.
16:27And then they got the quarterback and they said, all right, you know what? We're going to play this
16:31guy and we're going to see what we have in him. And Jaden Daniels ends up being really good.
16:36And now they're able to, you know, even build around them even more. So I just, I don't know
16:42what the Patriots are waiting for. We've seen Drake May, you know, he's good. So, all right,
16:47let's be in on early trades before free agency.