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Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linkedin, the place to be. To be. America's favorite place to watch football is stadium swim, located at circa resort and casino in Las Vegas. Catch all the biggest games and a viewing experience built for sports fans. Chill in one of their six pools on three different levels for a perfect view of their massive screen. Plenty of seating options from cozy day beds to private, temperature controlled cabanas. Stadium swim. Book your spot today at circalossveg.com. This is Megan Onalini with six rings and football things down at Gillette Stadium. And today I'm joined by Nicole Yang of the Boston Globe. When I first met Nicole, she was working for Boston.com and we were both doing some Celtics games in addition to Patriots. But she's been on Patriots for a long time now. So, Nicole, I guess the question that we have to start off with is, are you very surprised by the outcome on Sunday? Or has it got closer? And we found out who was going to be out with T Higgins and the question marks around Jamar Chase. Did it feel more and more like, okay, this is at least going to be a close loss? Yeah, I would say that the latter is probably true. I think it would be a lie to say that I'm not surprised at all. But I think as kickoff near and you think about Zach Taylor, I want to say is one in nine in weeks, one in two, Joe Burroughs, one in three, the Bengals get off to a slow start. Historically, T Higgins isn't playing. Jamar Chase is on a limited snap count. You could kind of see how the Patriots could pull off the upset. But even as the game was going down, they were never far and away ahead. So you think, okay, they're going to turn it on. They're going to kind of collapse, might be a little dramatic. But the fact that they held on, I think everyone was surprised. How much do you think from their offense is going to be able to be applied to what they're seeing with the Seahawks? These are two teams, when you look at them, just on a surface level, they both want to run the ball. And they're both counting their running backs as being super underrated, either by the Madden ratings or fantasy onlookers or anyone else. Yeah, I think Sunday was the blueprint for the Patriots, that they want to be a run heavy team. And I think Ramondre showed that that is executable. But I think it's also important to note that of Ramondre's 120 rushing yards, 118 were after contact. And the Patriots also surrendered like the highest pressure rate. So I think Ramondre and Jacoby percent sort of masked the offensive line issues that still remain. So if Seattle can attack that, I would be interested to see how effective their strategy is. Yeah, can you put that into more context? Because that's something that I know is being thrown around a lot. So the 118 yards after contact. Why is that important for fans who are going? Yeah, he had 120 rushing yards. That's the best he's had since 2022. Why is that an important note? Yeah, so I mean, basically he only rushed for two yards before getting touched. So all of the bulk of his yards came from him fighting through contact, from breaking tackles. I think he was tied for a second in the league and forced missed tackles on Sunday. So a lot of that is just from Ramondre's agility and physicality. And depending on how Seattle responds to that, like if the Patriots themselves were one of the better tackling teams on Sunday, so if Seattle responds in that same way, then maybe his effectiveness will be a little bit more limited. So something that jumped out to me when Demargis Covington was talking in the coordinator's availability yesterday, he said that Christian Gonzalez had four or five interceptions in the week of practice leading up to that Bengals game. So it was no surprise that he was as solid as he was on Demargis. Do you feel like as somebody who was down here every day for training camp, are you kind of surprised that he had that great a week of practice leading up to the game? There was a lot in the second half of training camp in preseason. There were a lot of day-to-day reports coming out saying, he's a little more up and down than people maybe expected for how good he was last year, all along roundabout way to ask like, can we expect this kind of performance from him week to week, or what do you think is the sophomore year for Gonzalez going to look like? Yeah, so that's a question that I've had. I should say that I wasn't here for every training camp practice because I was away. You were at the Olympics, so you were working every day. Yeah, so I did miss some of it, but I think that was a valid concern. I was a little bit nervous that we had anointed Gonzalez as this like, defensive player of the year after three and a half games last year. Like that's just a little early, but in practice he showed that he was vulnerable and like could be exposed at points. So I think Sunday will be a good test. DK Metcalf is obviously a very talented, very physical, big-bodied receiver. And Jamar Chase I don't think was at 100% both physically and just like chemistry wise with the rest of the Bengals offense. So I think each week is like a test and a data point for Gonzalez, because again, like now we only have four and a half games. Like that's still not a huge sample size. And I think that position for the Patriots is particularly weak depth wise. So I think his performance is like very important to like the strength of the defense. I would not describe you and I as film girlies. I don't think, I mean, I don't think we do our individual film breakdowns on Mondays, maybe in the future, but I was kind of interested to hear drawn mayo say that in doing their film review of the Cincinnati game, there were a lot of receivers that he noted were open. And so he's like, hey, there are opportunities there. We left some plays on the field. Who do you think really needs to emerge more from what you saw in the game yesterday? Or sorry, Sunday, because thought it was interesting how much percent spread the ball around. Personally, I was expecting more to Mario Douglas as kind of a security blanket, but it kind of looked like he was going to Osborne a lot and then spreading it completely around. Yeah, I was expecting more to Mario Douglas as well. And even in the few passes that he did catch, you could kind of see his dynamic ability on the field. But I actually think that the fact that the Patriots don't necessarily have a number one wide receiver, like their strength is in their collective. So I wouldn't be surprised if Jacobi does just continue to spread the ball around and just find the open man. Like, I don't know if necessarily there's going to be a consistent receiver each week that's at the top of the statistical charts. Because I think he targeted seven or eight guys, obviously Austin Hooper and Hunter Henry are big parts of the offense too. So I feel like their strength is in numbers and just finding the open man. So I don't know if there's necessarily a player that I would say that has to step up, but I think if there is going to be a go-to guy, I'd agree it's to Mario. So one thing that jumped out to me in a great win on Sunday was how slim that margin of error is for not just the offense, the team overall, because you look at the final score at 16-10, the defense does a tremendous job overall, and the offense does what it has to do, but you walked away with one touchdown. Do you think that how long can the Patriots write out that kind of margin of error against the better teams that they're going to be seeing? We all saw the 49ers Jets game, and that's terrifying to think that that's going to be here or that they're going to be out there against them week four. What can they do to, I guess, increase that margin of error other than put Drake May on the field at some point? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think they just have to stay disciplined. Something that stood out to me was that they didn't get flagged for a whole number of a whole lot of consequential penalties, and that was obviously an issue in the last pre-season game, and they just were a disciplined team. Obviously, Jacobi only taking one sack for a loss of one yard is huge, and I just think they're not going to be an explosive team. I don't think there was one play for over 20 yards. I think they're the longest play both in the air and on the ground of 17 yards, so they just need to move the chains and be consistent. They just need to stick to their identity. I don't think they all of a sudden need to start pushing the ball down field. Obviously, it's nice to have that as a threat to open up other things in the offense, but also that's just not their strength right now. So we're not buying the Taekwondoorton. Yeah, it's fixing everything. It's nice to, like, they should obviously do it, and if he's open, and he's shown actually that that might be a possibility this year, but they just don't have the weapons to make that core part of their offense. So I think if they just stick to their identity and play discipline-sound football, it puts them in a position. They just don't want to shoot themselves in the foot, I think, by turning the ball over penalties, things like that. Final question. With J-Von Baker being a scratch on Sunday, did you ask me whether this was a disciplinary? It might have been Sophie Weller. I can't remember. It was Sophie Weller. For the backstory in case anyone didn't see it, he got pulled over, and basically went on some kind of livestream about being pulled over, and the Patriots were clearly not pleased with that and putting it out there. But he had really been falling down that depth chart at the end of the preseason. Do you think that there's maybe something brewing here with him, or is it just a matter of getting the rookies on the same page, and particularly this rookie, and understanding like, "Hey, you're in the pros now," and the expectations may be a little different, both on the field and off the field. Yeah, I mean, I think what's concerning is that the problems on the field were just dropped passes and things like that. Those were an issue in college, too. So it's not necessarily something that's cropping up as a part of the adjustment. No, this is a tendency he also had in college, and same with the livestream. After he didn't get drafted, I think as high as he maybe thought he should have gone, he also went on Instagram live and was going on sort of a profane rant. So the problem, I think, is the fact that these are repeated issues. It's not necessarily something that's just popping up now as he's making the adjustment. So I wouldn't necessarily think that the benching or the healthy scratch on Sunday was a disciplinary measure because he wasn't ready to play anyway, even if the traffic incident hadn't happened. But as Ron said, it's their job to develop the players. They've drafted him for a reason. They clearly think that there's potential that they can do something, but he's clearly not in a place where the team feels as though he's ready to contribute. Okay, that's Nicole Yang from the Boston Globe. Where can everyone find your incredible coverage of the Patriots? BostonGoab.com, or in the physical copy, if anybody still goes and gets those. And on Twitter, I'm not very active, but you can find that Nicole C. Yang. What's better than watching your team win, winning money while you do it. I'm Jim Costa, and I'm Cash the Ticket. Mike Vellini and I give you the edge to make every game playable. College Football, NFL, we're breaking it all down, game by game, your podcast feed is going to be filled and you're going to love it. You can click on the games you care about. We do it all. With our analysis, we're fighting games that other people aren't talking about. We're turning every Saturday and every Sunday in the days where you got a chance to win. Don't you sit on the sidelines, cash the ticket with us, follow Cash the Ticket in the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
WEEI’s Meghan Ottolini sits down with Nicole Yang of The Boston Globe to discuss what we learned from Week 1, pinpoint areas for the Patriots to improve, and preview Sunday’s home opener against Seattle.
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