This is I on Foxborough, the premier podcast for all things New England Patriots. Brought to you by MassLive. Welcome back to I'm Foxborough I'm Chris Mason here with Mark Daniels we're at Gillette Stadium day seven of Patriots training camp just wrapped and it was a nice bounce-back day for Drake May and Mark. Yeah, before practice we talked to Gerard May about Drake May and his struggles. And for those who don't know, Patriots start of the weekend pads Monday Tuesday and Drake probably I would argue Chris had his two worst practices of the offseason. On Monday he was three of 11 with an interception, really speaks for itself. And then the last day it was a little bit more misleading. It was like, I want to say he was like five of 11. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he was eight of 15. So he went three of 11 and then eight of 15 and really I thought he was a bit inaccurate. Throwing behind guys just didn't seem as poised or efficient in the pocket. So we asked Gerard Mayo about this before practice. We basically said, hey, listen, I remember what it was like to be a rookie and I remembered struggling, which sort of piqued my interest because Gerard Mayo actually won the defensive rookie of the year that year. And Gerard told the story about he got benched in week 10. He wasn't playing on third downs anymore because he kept messing up. So he just sort of said Chris, like he understood. Yeah, I had part of Gerard's quote here too, where he was talking, he acknowledged that like Drake's two practices before this, you know, they weren't great where he said he understands that it's not always going to be clean. I will say this, he's handled it very well. I know the players really enjoy working with him and he's a competitor. And I think he showed that competitiveness today when he got back out there. And he went seven for 10 competitive drills today, including five or six and 11 on 11. Yeah, and it just looked, he looked more comfortable today. One play that really jumped out to me was during a red zone drill, 11 on 11. He recognized pressure at the line of scrimmage. And like what had they've given him the freedom to audible there and he did. And he had a quick hit to his Jacob Warren was the tight end on the play who was wide open. It was a positive play. And it's one of those things that's never going to find the highlight reel, right? Like when you see the like the play of the day that the NFL will tweet out or the Patriots when there's like a 50 yard bomb, you know, those get a ton of attention. But this was a play that really showed me like, OK, he's getting more comfortable here. He's learning and he's progressing. Yeah, he had a couple of nice moments. Um, there was a touchdown throw. I'm looking over my notes as I'm talking to it was at the time. So I think it was 87 Mitchell Wilcox. It was his third three on three period. They were somewhere around guys into a lot of red zone work today. So Drake was inside the 10 yard line, but it's through this really nice pass. So the left back corner of the end zone, it was a type of pass that if you guys saw the preseason, well, I held the regular season, you'd be impressed. It was just, it was a good throw. And I'd say the red zone thing, the red zone stuff for me that I really watch for is can the offense actually score against the defense? Because earlier this spring when we saw the offense go up against the defense in red zone, Chris, it was really ugly. I don't remember. It was just one practice. I was like, man, the defense is just miles and miles ahead of the offense. So here today on day seven, a camp, Patriots really locked onto the red zone trails. And I thought it was noteworthy that Drake didn't prove. You went, as Chris said, five, a six and 11 on 11s. And then he was two of four and seven on sevens, but I would not read too much into that because one of those passes should have been caught. It was by Juju Smith Schuster and he came down with the ball and Marcus Jones smacked it out of his hand. So that was on Juju, not Drake, but overall solid day for Drake May. I think it showed some resolve. I think a one thing about a young player struggling is, okay, maybe you expect it to happen, but can he bounce back? And I thought Drake showed that. I agree. And a quick aside on Juju getting the ball rest of the way from him by Marcus Jones, who's five foot eight. It's just Juju needs to start stacking days at some point. Contract aside, obviously he has the contract and it's like a burden to move on from. But this, the wide receiver competition, it's really, really competitive right now. Taekwon Thornton had a great day today. He'd be Christian Gonzalez in one on once twice. He caught a touchdown pass from Jacobi Bursett in sevens. He caught another pass from him in 11s. And the fact that you're hearing these pastors coming from Bursett tells you that he's with the ones right now and he's really building momentum. Juju Smith, Juju had a good day on Tuesday, but hasn't been able to build on that. And that I think it's been his only really good day of camp thus far. Yeah, I would agree. Juju has not stuck out a lot. He did on Tuesday, the last time we saw him. And to go back to Taekwon Thornton real quick, the ways he beat Christian Gonzalez, I thought it was noteworthy guys because historically Taekwon Thornton has been the type of player who has straight line speed and he's beaten guys deep. These were red zone drill one on ones. We're talking five yards from the end zone. So you really need to move horizontally as opposed to vertically. And in the past, Taekwon Thornton has struggled to get open. I'd say horizontally, like side to side. He just didn't didn't have that wiggle this year. He's put on a lot more weight. He's over 190 pounds, which for him is great. And he showed today that he could get open in tight spaces. And that's something we actually haven't seen a lot. So I'm really encouraged by Taekwon Thornton. I put that on Twitter, however, and people sort of freak out, just basically saying, you know, don't do this to me again, Mark, why are you doing this? We're going to it's going to happen again. But I'll say this, if Taekwon Thornton stays healthy, guys, I think he's making this team because he's just, he's been really solid for the Patriots. You're telling me people on Twitter are freaking out about something that doesn't seem right. Stay ending and why. Yeah. Yeah. He's definitely building momentum, but I think the biggest storyline of today was Matthew Judon returning. And honestly, you did a much more in depth story on this. So you could probably speak to it even better when you were tracking this whole day. But honestly, I was watching him from drill to drill. And I wouldn't have known that Monday happened if I hadn't seen Monday happen. And then he was absent on Tuesday, obviously. Um, but today it seemed like business as usual other than his game of pregame catch that he usually has with the fans. He came up the back way later. Yeah, so the only thing unusual as Chris just mentioned was his beginning camp. Historically, Matthew Judon comes up the concrete staircase, which is the main entrance for the players to go from the locker room to their panel to the practice fields, usually comes up that way. And he usually comes up pretty early. And Matthew Judon comes to training camp early to play catch with fans. He goes around the entire sort of side of the field and there are fans and bleachers. And they'll come down. He plays catch with kids and he plays catch with kids. He does that before games too, but Judon is clearly a fan favorite today. His return after, you know, being absent on Tuesday. The biggest difference was that beginning. He didn't come up the concrete staircase and said he came up the backside avoiding the cameras and he didn't play catches with fans. He didn't play catch with fans. He just came up in a red sweatshirt. He kind of took his time, put his jersey on, took his helmet on, talked to the team's equipment manager, and then he got going. But as Chris said, as soon as it started and period one was essentially sprints and agility drills, Judon was full go. He did everything. There wasn't like pouting. He was out there so much. And now this also includes seven on sevens. And I thought this was noteworthy, Chris. Matthew Judon was out there for all 15 snaps. And that included reps from should be percent, Drake May and Joe Milton. And what made that unusual is historically he would be out there for like the first or second team reps. You don't really see him on there with like the third or fourth stringers. But I don't know what was going on. Maybe that was the plan to get him extra work because he missed on Tuesday. But Judon was out there for every single seven on seven rep, which I found interesting. That is definitely interesting. And I wondered now, what comes next? Like, right? That's the big question here. And is him actively participating going to help him moving forward? Where Devont Dacha, obviously, just got his two year extension before practice it, I asked her, I may have him being a full participant during this training camp, which he has been. I don't know why some people reported that he hadn't been because he's been wearing sweatpants over football pants. But like, he does that all the time. That's not a thing. Like he's been a full participant the whole time. I asked Gerard, like, did that play into extending him at all? And he said, it definitely helps. Like that definitely helps. So that is something I don't know if that's going to work in Matthew Judon's favor moving forward. But how do you think the team should proceed here? It's actually, it's a great question. I think it makes for a great subject for a podcast because Matthew Judon for two years was the Patriots best player, you know, 12 and a half sacks his first year and then 15 and a half sacks in 2022. I mean, he was an absolute beast. He got, you know, votes for a defensive player of the year that year. And he clearly deserves more money. Um, however, he's about to turn 32. He played four games last year and really didn't play all four games because he got hurt week four in Dallas and suffered a season ending injury. So again, 32 coming off a season ending injury. He doesn't have the leverage. It'd be different if he's coming off that 15 and a half sacks season. Or it's like, yeah, obviously he deserves more than six and a half million base salary with another million and per game roster bonuses. So if I'm the Patriots, I try to sort of meet him in the middle and give him some type of pay raise just for this year. I think clearly, for me, it seems like reading the tea leaves, like, there's not going to be a long term solution that both parties agree on. So can they come to some type of, you know, pay bump here or even incentive type deal? Like, listen, Matthew, if you can show us, you can go out there and get 12 plus sacks again. Maybe you learn, you know, X amount of dollars. And that's not always popular for players. However, I think, again, when you're about to be 32 and you only played in four games the year before, maybe that is the best possible outcome. Although I imagine that's not what Matthew Judon wants, Chris. No, and I think the biggest variable here is that we don't know what he actually wants now. You know, is he looking for an extension? Because I don't think it makes sense to sign up to an extension right now. I think for both parties, the thing that would make the most sense is to just give him like a substantial bump this year. You're like, Hey, if you go and you ball out, like you, you're going to kill it in free agency then next year. And the Patriots are protected then too, where they're not signing a soon to be 32 rolled to a lengthy extension. So I think that makes a lot of sense, kind of like a prove it type deal, where, you know, you give the player more money, he's happy for now. And then you both move forward this off season. And if he's great, maybe sign to extension in the off season, you can still do that. But I think that makes the most sense, but we, we don't know what Judon's asking for. Yeah, and it's funny, because I can play sort of both sides to this. We're like, you think of all the players, what's it now? It's what's the 10 players the Patriots have extended or resigned, you know, this off season. And you can argue that Judon is more important in the short term than most of them. You know, he's, especially with Christian Barmore, maybe being out for the foreseeable future due to the blood clot situation. They really need Matthew Judon. However, the other side of that is since his age is 32 and the Patriots are in a rebelled Chris, I don't think Matthew Judon be here when, you know, the Patriots really turn it around. So they want to win this year, obviously they don't want to lose, but I don't see Matthew Judon here in four years. You know what I mean? So it's like they need Matthew Judon this year, but you know, next year when he's 33, I understand why you don't want to give him 15, 20 million per season. And as I just said, I don't exactly think Judon would be here unless he hits that Tom Brady, you know, stride and plays into his mid to late thirties. But like, I think we're looking at a long term rebuild here, especially when we see this product out in the field. Yeah. And one thing that's been consistent with Extension Fest is that outside of David Andrews, who's going to be a patriot lifer captain, like he's going to be here forever. All the guys that have signed these extensions have been in their twenties. You know, Judon's not only 30, he's going to be 32 next month. So there's like some serious wear and tear on that body. And I mean, you saw it with a season ending injury last year. So ultimately, it just come back to like, I think the bump this year makes sense. Keep him happy and move on because our colleague, Karen Geregian, talked to an exec earlier this week and he ballparked Judon's trade value right now as a fifth rounder or like a mid round pick swap, right? Like at that point, you might as well just give him, you know, a pay bump. But that again, guys, that's if he would accept a pay raise or a pay bump or sometimes above of like incentive laid in short term deal. Like on the Patriots, I'm trying to push him for like, hey, you think you're the guy still. All right, if you play like that, you can earn this amount of money as opposed to just giving him $20 million coming off a four game season. I think there's some risk in there. So I guess it is. I'm happy that I'm not a GM because I'm not entirely sure what I would do. Honestly, I might do what the Patriots are doing and not give into the demands because again, at 32 season ending injury, you're in a rebuild. I don't think it's the wisest thing to take cap from a future years for Matthew Judon. And that's what we've talked about on this podcast. I think you enter next year free agency. You're looking to spend still the Patriots have a ton of cap space. What it's somewhere in the around the 40 30 40 million. You can roll that over to 2025 and the Patriots have to be crossing their fingers at a Brandon IU, because CD lamb or a T Higgins actually hits free agency because that way they could go and get nuts and offer something ridiculous over the 30 million, you know, a year range for a number one receiver. I would say that's more important than, you know, retaining an older pass rusher. The one other element in this whole thing is that whatever John Mayo does right now, it's going to be precedent setting, right? Like he's a first year head coach. This is the first time that something like this has happened where Judon like shows up first day, no pads and then makes a big commotion to it. It's not like he had just stayed away or anything. Then he's not there Tuesday. The entire locker room is going to be watching to see how he handles this and, you know, how it's going to be handled moving forward. So he needs to think long and hard about like what is the best precedent to set moving forward. Yeah. I mean, John said something today along lines of, you know, my first practice as a head coach in pads, you know, you have this thing go on with Matthew Judon. So I'm always going to remember that. And, you know, dried is green. He's in experience. Joe, let's, let's be really here. I mean, I think Robert Kraft's long term plan ahead coach was probably to have Bill Belichick back this year. Have him, you know, beat that record and have drawed takeover. But that's not the cards we redelt and drawed is in charge. And we have a little bit of drama unfolding. Now things are a lot different now, you know, in New England, players feel more open to speak. Um, it would be interesting to see what would have happened if Bill Belichick was still in the fold, Chris, because like, I don't think we would have seen that outburst by Matthew Judon. But I also don't think we would have seen all these different extensions to different players in the house. I agree with that. And, but it's also not like Matthew Judon never did anything like this with Bill Belichick, where he was holding in last year, which is different than what he did Monday, obviously, but like he was still going down to the lower fields and doing his conditioning thing. And he was definitely handling it more quietly than he is now. So, I mean, we'll, we'll see how that plays out moving forward. But that's our pod for today, guys. Thanks for following along. We'll catch you further on down the trail. This has been I on Foxborough, brought to you by Mass Live. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
