Hear that? Pumpkin. That's fall calling. And the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks from that first sweater to late autumn weather. It's all a fall in just one sip. Order ahead on the Starbucks app. Hey Applebee's, congrats on becoming the official grilling bar sponsor of the NFL. How does it feel? I'm glad we'll be able to bring some extra heat. Any plans to celebrate? Yeah, we got to serve up America's favorite bowling swings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Limited time price participation in this election may vary, tax number two to be excluded. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now, you're multitasking. But what if you could also be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers you save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. So multitask right now. Get your quote now at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, national average, 12 months savings of $744 by new customer surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. You right back to it, Bob, you know how he's sitting. How are you doing, Joe? Feet crossed. I'm telling you, I feel like an old man. Who grained out of you in? Then he got his hands the same. It ain't comfortable. It is. I ain't gonna lie to you, I ain't gonna lie to you. There's no way that goes. No, try it. Try it. I'm telling you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's impossible to get comfortable when you're in those pads. But apparently, guys have found a way. And they stick with it. Once you find something that works, you stick with it. We found something that works here. It's having a co-host every day. We would stick with it, but some days, especially now that one of the co-hosts has ditched me from four down to three down to one during football season. I've got to fly the plane by myself, but never fear. Never fear. I have some experience at doing that. For those of you who remember the old days of PFT Live, this is how it was every day with the ever-present possibility that Rob Stadt's Guerrero would swoop in from the side. We were having a conversation before the show if the spot where he sat still even exists at the NBC Sports studio, our current consensus is, it does not. I do miss, though, having the opportunity to have a split screen, have a little bit of a debate, make some interesting facial expressions, possibly get baited into saying something crazy. We won't have any of that today, although we have had our fill of it this week. And it's good to fill up on that than on, say, I'll move on. We do have some guests coming up today. Tom Curran, our good friend from NBC Sports Boston. He's one of the ones that we put on speed dial for occasions like this because I know him, well, we have a good rapport and we'll have a good conversation about one of the biggest surprises of week one, the New England Patriots, going into Pay Corps Stadium because they had to pay Joe Burrow, they finally sold the naming rights. And beating Joe Burrow and company, we'll talk about Joe Burrow coming up here in a second. Omar Kelly will be joining us. He covers the Miami Dolphins for the Miami Herald, I believe. I should have checked to make sure which publication he works for. All I know is I get to talk to Omar from time to time when he's in for Joe Rose or with Joe Rose because I'm on there every Friday morning. So Omar and I agree on a lot of things. And we definitely agree on the Tyree Kill situation in Miami. We'll be talking to him an hour from now. And then I can't fly solo without bringing in my good friend, sometimes Nemesis, Paul Allen, Voice of the Vikings. I've been doing his weekly show or his daily show once per week in Minneapolis for years now. It was just on with him yesterday. And even though he pays me a lot to do it, he never hesitates to come on here at no charge whenever I need him. So thank you, Paul. We'll talk to you in about an hour and a half. I mentioned Tyree Kill. And we're inching toward the point where any time we discuss Tyree Kill here or write about Tyree Kill at profootballtalk.com, we will inevitably get the emails from people saying, why do you keep talking about this? Well, because there are developments. That's kind of how this works. When you follow the news in a given industry, whatever it may be, politics, sports, whatever sport, entertainment, whatever, when there are developments to a story that has been around for a few days, if not longer, those developments become relevant because the people who have been following the story would like to know more about it. Yesterday was the first time Tyree Kill spoke to reporters since the aftermath of the game that was played by the dolphins. Following the detainment of Tyree Kill, we've learned a lot since that day. We've seen the video. You know what I think about the video. We've written about it. I've talked about it. We'll talk to O'Mourke Kelly about it coming up. One of the things that is encouraging to me, because we had a clip of Tyree Kill with NBC Nightly News earlier in the week. And it's set up a little bit of an alternate reality between how he characterized his initial interaction with the officers who pulled him over, believing he was going approximately 60 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone, and what we saw in that body cam footage. So Tyree Kill was asked a very specific question yesterday. Do you think your attitude could have been better towards the police? Here's what he had to say. My whole life is all about accountability. Like, how can I get better? So right now, I have family members who are cops. We've had conversations. Yes, I will say I could have been better. I could have let down my window in that instant. But the thing about me is, man, I don't want attention. I don't want to be cameras out, phones on you in that moment. But at the end of the day, I'm human. I've got to follow rules. I've got to do what everyone else would do. So now, does that give them the right to literally beat the dog out of me? Absolutely not. But at the end of the day, I wish I could go back and do things a bit differently. He's getting there. He's getting there. And we have been discussing all week that it's impossible for the two sides to come to a true understanding and move forward in a cooperative and productive way if they're going to be in their separate corners pointing fingers at each other. Tyree Kill understood the police union is going to come out and say things to support the officers. The dolphins will say things to support Tyree Kill and the other two players who were coming to his aid and were treated poorly by police, Kaleis Campbell and John Newsmith. But until we get to, and I think we're getting there, the understanding that there's blame to go around. And I've got the emails from people like, how can you defend Tyree Kill? I'm not defending Tyree Kill. The reaction to what he said and did was extreme. He shouldn't have rolled his window up. That is a very real safety protocol when a police officer is making a stop. You put up the window, the window is tended. You don't know what the guy is getting out of his glove box or from under his seat. You don't know what he's doing in there. You leave the windows down, period. His attitude was basically Homer Simpson, just give me a ticket. I pay my taxes, my taxes pay your salary. Just give me a ticket. He didn't say that, but that was the attitude. Just give me a ticket, man, I'm late. That's not cooperative. That's not helpful. But, but the answer isn't to punish the guy. I'll show you to not be cooperative. We're gonna drag you out of the car. We're gonna throw you down on the ground. Even though you've gotten the message, even though everything changed the moment he knew that he was in trouble, that wasn't good enough for the police officers or at least for the one who was the ringleader, who's been on administrative duties. That's where the other fault lies. The reaction to Tyree Kills' initial lack of cooperation was uncalled for, was extreme. And that's where I've come down on it from the get-go. And I hope, I hope that that's where Tyree Kills is arriving himself. Based upon the clip we just saw and heard, the answer is maybe. Now, he had more to say. And there's a little contradiction in what we're about to show you next. Listen very carefully to Tyree Kills' messages of moving forward, but then his very strong indication of what he would like to see happen to the officer who was basically the ringleader of the punitive action taken against Tyree Kills after they decided he was not cooperating. Here is what Tyree Kills had to say on those two points. - Right now, I'm in the process of putting together a good plan so that way I can work with those guys. 'Cause I think it's good, man. I think we should lean on each other, you know? Like, we have influence on the community. And I don't think that we should use this as a moment to separate people or divide people or, you know, make it a battle or anything like that, man. 'Cause I still love cops, you know? I wanna be a cop. I've been staying on the table for the cops. I think this can be a learning tool for everybody. Everybody, you know? Civilians, officers around the world, like how to do conduct when they pull people over. Like, we all can learn, man. You know, we in this thing together. Like, we live in this thing. Like, we on earth together. So, the only way we get better is, you know? A, we hold ourselves accountable and we get better from it. And my whole thing around this whole thing is to not go backwards. Like, I don't want us to go backwards. Like, I want us to be able to move forward in this moment. You know? All right, I had so many people like, oh, let's rally. I'm like, nah, like chill. Let's relax. Like, let's put our minds together and let's think. Let's think of better ways that we can, you know, get better, like, let's not do that, bro. Like, we smarter than that. - Your lawyer has come out and said that he's looking for the dismissal of the officer. Do you, what does that mean? - Gone. - So you want the officer to be-- - Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. He gotta go, man. 'Cause in that incident right there, like, not only did he do treat me bad, you know what I'm saying? I treated my teammates with disrespect. You know, he had some crazy words towards them and they ain't even do nothing. Like, what do they do to you? They just walking on the sidewalk. So, I don't know, bro. Like, he got to go, man. Like, I, it's not too many times that Jesus said people got to go, but you. Ow, what are they saying while they're not? Gone. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, no co-brindy. - Yes, slight disconnect between the two messages sent there by Tyree Kiel first, one of reconciliation, understanding, coming together, learning from the situation, moving forward, helping people, and then, hey, that guy's got to be fired. Now, maybe there's a way to thread that needle. Maybe there's a way to say, yes, as an organization, as an institution, we must understand the way that these things happen, the things that we mutually can do as citizens and officers to avoid similar outcomes in the future. It's just a hard right turn to then say, "Oh, but the guy's still got to be fired." I mean, yeah, we need to work together. We need to come together. We need to go hand in hand into the community and help people understand how to deal with matters of this nature, but that guy's got to go. But before we can start our walk, hand in hand, he's got to go. I'll walk hand in hand with everybody at the Miami-Dade Police Department, except him, he's got to go. And I don't know that that's going to solve any problem here. At some point, if you truly want to work together, there needs to be a little bit of forgiven forget, maybe not forget, but at least forgive. It's just kind of hard to pull off what he wants to do on one hand and what he wants on the other hand. And look, again, maybe there is a way to balance it. It's just not easy. It's just not easy. And that's for the Miami-Dade Police Department to decide what the appropriate consequence would be based upon the footage that we've all seen by now. And there will be protocols and standards and the individual involved will have rights and there's a union and there's a process. But that's separate from the message that moving forward, there is much to be learned, what we should do when we're pulled over, what officers should do. And the bottom line is there are going to be officers who are attracted to that job because it gives them a badge, it gives them a gun and it gives them permission to periodically kick someone's ass who might not be cooperative. And that's just the reality. There's folks like that out there. And I think we saw it in that body cam footage. Again, it's not defending Tyree Kill. He allowed the situation to escalate, but then when it escalated, it went too far out of control. By the way, the dolphins play the bills tonight. That's part of what we'll talk to Omar Kelly about, but I do want to get Omar's views on what's been one of the biggest stories in the National Football League over the past three days. Another big story, this one came out of nowhere on Monday, the new lawsuit filed against Deshawn Watson. When I first heard about it, I thought, oh no, there's an allegation against him for something that's happened since he's come to Cleveland as it turns out. This is an incident that allegedly occurred in October 10 of 2020, because of the allegation of sexual assault, Texas law, applies a five-year statute of limitations, so the window was still open for the case to be filed. It took a couple of days, but his attorney, Rusty Hardin, who has been representing him since the first lawsuit was filed in March of 2021 issued a statement yesterday, strongly denying the allegations made. We've asked him not to comment further while this matter works its way through the courts, but we are comfortable, he will ultimately be vindicated. We will be ready to defend this case in court at the appropriate time, but we don't intend to conduct our defense in the media, but ask the people to be patient while the legal process runs its course. In the meantime, Deshawn is going to focus his energy and concentration on football, and that is predictable. That is what I would advise a client to do. We have a process for working this out, the civil justice system. There will be a court date, there will be depositions taken of the individual making the accusations of Deshawn Watson, of others who might or might not be witnesses, it'll be an effort to corroborate the story. Was he even there that day? Can you put together a timeline to put him in that apartment? How believable is the accuser, how believable is he? That will be for a jury to ultimately decide. One jury might be rid differently than another jury, that's just the way it works. But until we get there, there's nothing to be gained by saying anything about it, let's just move forward. Easier said than done, especially when Deshawn Watson yesterday had his weekly press conference, and he was asked a few questions in creative ways to try to get him to talk about it. Here's just some of what Watson had to say, specifically as it relates to his thoughts on the statement that was issued by his lawyer on Wednesday. - The statement is the response that we talked about, and everything that he put in that statement is exactly how I'm filling in and what we're going through this process with. - How do you not let this become a distraction as you prepare for Jackson? - I focus on football, I focus on keeping the main thing in the main thing, and that's when I walk into this building, focusing on being the best quarterback I can be on the game plan and trying to be better than we were last week, so we can get a double. - Do you have any idea that this lawsuit was coming when you were playing Sunday? - No, sir, I found out exactly whenever everyone else found out. - It's been a discrepancy as to how aggressively Tony Busby, who represents this plaintiff and represented many of the others, tried to settle the case before filing it. Was it a surprise to the lawyers involved? Did they truly negotiate to impasse before the lawsuit was filed? Usually what happens, not usually, but if there are going to be pre lawsuit negotiations, usually the lawsuit isn't filed until the negotiations have run their course and we've come to the conclusion that there's no deal to be negotiated and finalized before the lawsuit is filed. There is, like I said, a disagreement as to whether Tony Busby let the negotiations play out to the point where he impasse was reached. There's no obligation to do it. You don't have to do it, but in a situation like this, and this is something I struggle with because people will throw around the word extortion, there is nothing improper about a lawyer contacting another lawyer who represents a potential defendant before the lawsuit is filed and saying, here's what I have, here's a copy of what I'm going to file. We're giving you an opportunity to try to settle this before we get into a process that is expensive and time consuming and it makes things public that maybe you wouldn't want to be made public. It's one thing to do that with an eye toward affixing a fair financial value to the case, negotiating it to a proper point. It's not really a science, but there are some objective characteristics that come into play. In a case like this though, when you consider the football side of it, the NFL side of it, the brown side of it, man, there's a lot of value potentially in writing a very large check to make this case go away. More so than whatever, even if everything that's alleged is true, there's a certain value that the civil justice system would apply to that, that's how it works. The jury decides how much must be paid to rectify the thing that happened. When you put $92 million in guaranteed salary on top of that, it takes on a different vibe. And that's what's going on here. And the one thing I've been trying to find out and I think the lack of a clear answer tells me what the answer is. We talked about the Deshawn Watson contract. Paragraph 42 is the key language. I've had it since he signed it because I wanted to know, how do they navigate this coming suspension? He had an 11-game suspension in 2022. Does that wipe out all these guarantees? Well, no, there are certain things that are carved out from the language that could nullify his guarantees. And it all comes down to this. There was a list provided of claims to the Browns. It's not part of the contract, it's a separate document. A list of claimants, plaintiffs, individuals who might accuse or who have accused of Sean Watson of wrongdoing. All those names on the list, if he's punished, if he's in any trouble of any kind, suspended, charged, whatever, Browns can't do anything about it. But for anyone not on that list, that's when the language of the contract activates. That's when Deshawn Watson potentially has $92 million in salary from 2025 and 2026, now fully guaranteed, voided, released and gone. This is the silver bullet that the Browns might have been. I know Browns fans are hoping for it. They'd like to get out from under this contract. So that adds extra value to the settlement before the lawsuit is filed. It adds extra value now because folks, the NFL's investigation goes nowhere without the cooperation of the accuser, nowhere. And it's perfectly appropriate for Deshawn Watson to reach an agreement with the accuser, part of which is she agrees in exchange for the money that she would get as part of this arm's length contractual negotiation. She's not talking to anybody about this without being subpoenaed. Well, you know what, the NFL has no power to subpoena her. That's the biggest flaw in the NFL's in-house justice system. You can't force people who aren't employed by the NFL or one of the teams to talk. So look, from a business standpoint, setting aside, I mean, if what he did is true, it's horrific and there should be a consequence. And maybe the plaintiff here, the attitude is, I'm not settling for anything. I want the world to know about this. I want justice in a court of law and that's her right if she chooses to do it. But from Watson's perspective, when you get 92 million tied up in this and you're going to spend money on top of that to defend yourself and you don't know what's going to happen when it goes to trial, this is the time to make a smart business decision. It's a business decision. The entire civil justice system sets up a series of potential business decisions. The business decision is we need to resolve this to the satisfaction of the accuser. We need as part of that. Even if we have to pay extra, we need a commitment, she's not going to cooperate, she's not going to talk, she's not going to do anything because the entire NFL internal process short circuits, if that happens. And that's just the way it is. That is legal analysis of the situation. It's not right or wrong, it's just the way it is and it's the way things work. So we'll see how that plays out because one of the things I'm trying to find out, I've been trying to find out two things in the past day or so number one is this accuser on that list. I have a feeling she's not on that list, which allows the Browns to potentially based upon whether or not he's suspended in his language and they didn't get into a big legal fight. If he's not suspended, they could still try to invalidate the guarantees. I think it would be a big legal fight with the union. If they did, the easier path is he gets suspended, you avoid the guarantees and you move on. The other question is, will she cooperate with the NFL? Because I remember from some of the press conferences that were done three years ago when Tony Busby was representing more than 20 of these individuals, there was some concern, some hesitation about how the league's investigators were treating these individuals when questioning them. So will she cooperate with the league and is this name on the list of exempt claims that would not jeopardize the 92 million? And again, this is coming at it from a legal and business perspective and ultimately got a lot of Browns fans. And it's, look, it's just reality. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just trying to give you the reality of the situation. There's a lot of Browns fans hoping they can find their way out of this contract and you just wonder, what do the Browns really want in all this? Do they want to have a way to get out from under the remaining two years of the contract? And I don't think you have a final decision on that until you play the next 16 games of the 2024 regular season. How healthy is he, how effective is he? And I'm not going to make broad brush proclamations about where DeShawn Watson should be in the future based upon one game against a defense that looked pretty. - With the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card, you can earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases you want and purchases you need. That means you earn 2% cash rewards on what you want, like season tickets to watch your favorite team and 2% cash rewards on what you need, like paying for parking. That's the beauty of the Active Cash Credit Card. It's ready when you are with unlimited 2% cash rewards. The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card, that's real life ready. Terms apply. Learn more at Wells Fargo dot com slash active cash. Hear that? Pumpkin. That's fall calling. And the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks from that first sweater to late autumn weather. It's all a fall in just one sip. Order ahead on the Starbucks app. - I will be elderly. - First of all, congratulations on becoming the official grill and bar sponsor of the National Football League. How does it feel to serve up the NFL? Man, it's a real dream come true. I'm glad we'll be able to serve up some extra heat this season. - Do you have any plans to celebrate? - Absolutely. We're gonna serve up America's favorite bonus wings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Any of our sources, whether it's in restaurant or to go, it don't matter. It's all 50 cents all the time. - Are you worried at all about any competition this season? - What competition? Limited time price, participation in selection may vary tax and gratuity excluded. - Damn good. Okay. One quarterback who did not look pretty damn good on Sunday and who has lingering injury questions because he missed the back half of the 2023 season with a bad wrist after he had it injured on a Thursday night against the Ravens. Remember, there were questions. Was it already injured? He had that sleeve on his hand when he was traveling to Baltimore. They didn't have him on the injury report. Well, they did have him on the injury report last week with the right wrist injury, dating back to the surgery from last year. Joe Barrow was asked, very simple question, because one of the things he's developed now is this habit of constantly messing with that wrist. We've seen the video. If you've seen it on social media, constant. Oh, there it is. You don't have to go. You don't have to open the app on your phone. There it is. And he's constantly messing with the wrist, the thumb, the wrist, something doesn't feel normal because it's not normal to constantly be doing those things to test out. Does it feel like it should? Here he is talking to reporters yesterday on why he keeps flexing his wrist and his thoughts on fans. Micro analyzing how he picked up a water bottle during the game. - Yeah, I'm doing that all the time. And when you come back from injury, you're always trying to keep the joint loose. That's part of ligament injuries. If you don't move it, you're gonna lose it. So, I'm always moving around, keeping it loose, keeping my mobility the way that it's supposed to be. So, you know, it's gonna continue to happen. I do it at home. I do it here. I do it a lot of time. - When you fly the wrist, it's how to come up through the loop. How does it feel when after the play on the Andy and Finn, or do you feel like that's out right now? - Yeah, it feels great. It feels better this week than it did last week than it did the week before. So I was continually getting better. - Your wrist isn't preventing you from throwing and any throws that you throw in the past. - No, absolutely not. - You can't wait and follow me on a water bottle discussion. - I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna be able to do. - What did I do? - I don't know. It's just the way he picked it out. And then they said the line was up the moment and worse than this one. - Oh, I picked it up weird? - Yes. - Do you feel like you're filling it in? - I don't know. I don't know. I drink water. I don't. I can't say I've seen that or know what anybody's talking about. - Yeah, at the end, he was being asked about the video of him picking up the water bottle that fans thought that that. I don't need to see the water bottle. I see this all the time. And look, the whole idea of getting something surgically repaired is after the surgery, you're normal again. There's nothing normal about constantly. Oh, there's the water bottle. I guess it kind of like picked it up from the top instead of gripping it, picked it up from the top instead of putting his hand around it like he normally would. So I look at all of this and I say, that's not the way it should be if you've had the surgery and now you're fine. When you're fine, you conduct yourself the way you ordinarily do. All the parts are working like they used to. The idea that he's constantly performing physical therapy everywhere he goes. And we had heard about this before we saw it week one. Hey, he's constantly around Joe Burrow. He's constantly doing this. He's constantly messing with that wrist messing with that thumb. And I guess at a certain point, it becomes almost like a habit, a tick, just like you're just so used to it, you keep doing it. I don't want to keep doing it because I don't want to be walking around doing this all the time. My wrist fortunately is fine. But there's something there. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And yeah, maybe he can make all the throws, but maybe it hurts to make those throws. Maybe it takes more effort. Maybe it's not comfortable to get the ball out the way that he always did. And it just bears watching. It bears watching. Maybe it's nothing, but it would be foolish to just say, ah, it's nothing. Nothing to see here. We're getting back into that phase of the calendar where there's a lot of teams, a lot of coaches, a lot of players who would just like to say nothing to see here, even if there's something to see here. There was definitely something to see when it came to Christian McCaffrey, or do we need to go? We have Tom Curran. All right, well, we would have had an update about Christian McCaffrey. There may be a chance to do that later in the show if not, we'll be talking about that tomorrow. But that mystery continues to unfold. There is no mystery about our next guest. He covers the Patriots like no one else. We'll talk to him about the unexpected week one win. And can they keep it going? Host Bella Chek as they get ready to host the Seattle Seahawks for a rematch of Super Bowl 49. Tom Curran next year on PFT5. - The girl with harbor time, and she works. A laying whiskey down, it's a brand day. - Are you intoxicated right now? - Another round, sure to whiskey and wine. ♪ See the same brandy, you're a fine girl ♪ ♪ But a good wife you would be ♪ ♪ It's at your fine ♪ (laughing) - Ow, ow, ow, my leg. - I know. - March of 2019, 2019. 2019, owners meetings. You might have been intoxicated then because the booze is kind of like prevalent at those events, but March of 2019, that looked like Arizona to me. Was that Arizona? - Yeah, I think that was it. - Over to Bill Moore, over to Bill Moore, Michael. - Yeah, yeah. - Those were the days we have a lot of laughs. - Pete reminds me fewer grace. Hey Pete, go yourself. All right, (laughing) Yes, that's the concept. Five years have passed, we're five years older. But we just keep plugging away. And Tom, we appreciate you getting up earlier than you ordinarily would. You're a late riser. You're an early riser today. You're an early bird, you're getting your worm, and we're gonna talk about the New England Patriots. I'm surprised, were you, that the Patriots went into Cincinnati and pulled off a victory in the first post-Bella check game of the franchise's existence. - Stunned, stunned, gobsmacked. I figured early in the game, oftentimes teams are taken lightly. The Patriots would come out with some emotion. They might jump to a little bit of a lead, but they would eventually be reeled in by a team that was just going to overwhelm them and their offensive line, which had been so bad in the preseason. But really what ended up happening, Mike, and in many ways it validated the Patriots decision to hire Alex Van Pelt to allow him to have free reign over the offense, to bring in Jacobi Percet, because when you look back at it and I tell you like, well, Van Pelt knows sincey. Percet's had success against sincey. They knew to get the ball out. They knew to try and run the ball more than anything else, and they forced the turnovers and came up with plays like you're showing right now on PFT live that created points until it points off the board for sincey. So, but still it was a stunning development. Defense, opportunistic, turnovers, run the ball, and you know, that's kind of always been the formula. Well, except when you have Tom Brady throwing it all over the place. My big question, Tom, how different is Gerard Mayo than Bill Belichick? 'Cause a lot of times what we'll see is team fires coach and hires somebody exactly the opposite. Mayo's not exactly the opposite, but he is different. How different is he? How different is the vibe with him than it was with Bill? It's amazingly different in terms of the moment to moment, angst and walking on pins and needles all day. It's just not that way. But I would say this, Mike. The interesting thing about the Patriots training camp was it was much harder than it's been in about five years. They were out of practice for two hours, two, 10 frequently. They were tackling to the ground. They were in pads, an incredible amount. And it was day after day after day. And the Patriots had in the past few years, taken their foot off the gas a little bit with the intensity of the summer. And I think some of the logic behind that was, we don't wanna burn these guys out early because the Patriots would oftentimes when you include preseason and playoffs would have a 22 game season. Well, they would and Bill Belichick would say this, which reading September is an extension of training camp. And he meant in terms of figuring things out, but it also took some time seemed in terms of conditioning because they turned into a fairly slow starting team. This team was conditioned and they talked about it on Sunday and into this week. We took Cincinnati into deep water and we took them quote unquote to the Hill, which is what the Patriots have been running up after every practice virtually running up at an incline at the stadium. So they're getting punished physically, but the mental angst is not as present as it was previously. - That's an interesting contrast. Your bodies are being beaten down, but your psyche is intact, but it's not that constant fear of when you're gonna get ripped, when you're gonna get chastised, when you're gonna get embarrassed in front of your teammates. And there had to be something that was different, but is it still the same basic DNA of the team or is that changed too? - No, it's the same DNA and it's interesting. Belichick and Matt Patricia both alluded into this recently on one of their multiple shows that Bill is doing Patricia go, well, they resigned a lot of these players. They really liked them. Yes, they did, you know why? 'Cause some of them, especially on the defensive side of the ball were really good. The DNA that Kyle Duggar and Jibrill Peppers, Jwan Bentley, Dietrich Wise, these guys who are, you know, C and B lists, NFL names are really good players. And they play with an intensity that, and physicality that is kind of throwback to the early part of this century where guys would get after it. So that DNA remains the same. It's just you hate to say more fun. It's more relaxed in terms of an atmosphere. It's more relaxed, that's the best way to put it. But the intensity to do your job remains. - You mentioned Belichick's media career, which I think has surprised all of us with the number of different outlets that he has for whatever it is he's going to say. I think he's doing too much. I think the goal is to lay the foundation, to have a fan base, want him next year, want to be 73, and we saw what happened this year, seven non-patriots openings, one interview, no offer. There was some reporting on Sunday that he's going to be choosy. I don't know that he's going to have the choice to be choosy. Do you think he will be back next year? And if so, where do you think he'll be? - I would put the likelihood. I mean, tell me where it is and tell me what happens. I kind of expected this, you know, we started conversing in our market, probably in November. How many teams would be lined up? And I said, there won't be many teams that are looking to have a 72-year-old coach come in who's going to cost $25 million a year. One, his entire staff involved, has just ruined a first round quarterback, swung and missed desperately in free agency in 2021, has drafted poorly for the better part of a decade. Teams aren't going to line up for that. And in the end, they didn't. And I said in January, before there was a, you know, the parting of the ways, Bill should go and bounce his grandchildren on his knee for a year, show people who he is on television, give a buff and shine to his reputation, and then see what's out there. And I think that these myriad opportunities might be so satisfying to him, rewarding for him, and the dearth of job opportunities, he might never come back, Mike. And I'm sure that this is not eye-opening to you. Bill Cowder never came back. There's a lot of guys who would have liked to have come back who never came back. And if Bill doesn't get a, you know, turnkey operation, I don't think he'll come back. - Well, and that notion of he's going to be choosy, that gives him a way to save face if his phone's not ringing when the inevitable job openings come, he can just say, I don't like any of these jobs. I didn't run any of them anyway. I think the one to watch. There's two to watch. And it's a little uncomfortable to speculate on whether or not coaches are going to be fired. We know it's going to happen. We know it's going to happen. If the Giants job comes up, and if John Merrick cleans house and says, Bill, come home to the place where you've won two Super Bowls at Defense Coordinator, I feel like that's always been on his radar screen. I remember when there was that dysfunction with Jimmy Garoppolo, Tom Brady, RKK, and Bill. Gary Myers floated the idea that he'd like to go to the Giants. The Giants have always kind of been there. And the other one too that you start to hear some wheels turning about, if Buffalo would move on. And there's no reason to think they will. But if they would, hey, there's an opportunity to go in the division with one of the best quarterbacks in football. Yeah, I'll sign up for that. Those are the two that would stand out to me. And everywhere else, who knows what he would do. And one of the big factors is, are they going to throw you the keys of the car? And do you have enough there that you don't need five years to go out and completely rebuild the roster? Yeah, to me, Philadelphia is the most intriguing. Now we're talking about a team that was in the Super Bowl and should have won the Super Bowl just two seasons ago. Last season was in a playoff team. But when you look at the opportunity to be in the NFC East where he's comfortable, be on the East Coast where he's comfortable and work with a GM in Howie Roseman, who he has a ton of respect for. And an owner in Jeffrey Lorry, who I think would be the kind of owner he would get along well with. Not wishing ill to Nick Siriani, not wishing ill to legions of Eagles fans who would say, well, if he gets hired, that means we miss the playoffs, because that has to be what would happen. But I would think that that would probably be the most comfortable landing spot for him in terms of a franchise. If you said, where would be the best spot for Bill to go? I would guess Philadelphia. But even Washington didn't. Even Washington didn't want him, Bill, last year. But there were some in the organization that did. The problem is his approach didn't fit with what they were trying to put together. And the concern is we can't just hire him to be a coach. I think Josh Harris was interested in him as a coach. But the concern is you can't just hire him as a coach, because Adam Peters is running the show. Well, when Adam Peters wants to take receiver from Colorado State in round four, and Bill rolls his eyes or grunts or harumps, Adam Peters is like, maybe I shouldn't take that guy. 'Cause I eventually surrender him to the coach, and if the coach doesn't like him, coach might not develop him. Coach might try to prove that he was right and that I was wrong. It's just a dynamic you don't want, especially when you have new ownership. If you knew you were getting the game day coach, and none of the other stuff, you're rushed to hire Bill Belichick. And here's my take on the Eagles and the Cowboys as well. Because how Jerry Jones came out and said how much he likes Bill Belichick. And when you look at the press conferences, anytime the Patriots are gonna play the Cowboys, Bill goes on and on and on about Jerry and Stephen Jones. I think if those teams were gonna do it, they just would have done it. You're not gonna, you'll wait a year. There's no guarantee you're gonna have a clear shot at the guy. You got a clear shot at the guy. And both teams had reason to do it. Both teams got embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs with teams that had higher expectations. So I'm looking at what I'm saying. I understand why Jerry would talk about it because hey, talk about my team, no matter what. Oh, you want to talk about Bill Belichick? Fine, as long as you're talking about my team. I don't care. And I think the Eagles quietly, far more quietly than the Cowboys considered it. And I don't think they decided, we're not gonna do it this year. And I don't know anything to support this. I'm just applying common sense here. I think it was a speak now or forever hold your peace moment. If we're ever gonna hire him, we're doing it now. And we don't hire him now, we're never gonna hire him. - Yeah, and it's funny because there's still the DNA within that franchise from the 2017 Super Bowl and the post period in which so many players would say, "Hey, you can have fun and win." Chris Long even having been a former patriot from I think with Lane Johnson's comment. But I wouldn't wonder what the reaction in the locker room would be. Yes, he's a Hall of Fame coach, he's got six rings, but we played against him. We put up 41 on a defense in Tom Brady's through 500 yards and they still couldn't beat us. Why? Because they started cornerback on the bench for the entire day. For what reason no one knows. I mean, the Chiefs are right now chasing their third Super Bowl winner in a row. The Patriots should have won in 16, 17, and 18. That Malcolm Butler Super Bowl stuck in the middle kinda gets forgotten how close the Patriots were. They were on the field. All they had to do was put number 21 in the freaking game and you probably win it. Anyway. - Well, it's going to hover over football all year long. We're gonna see in here from Bill Belichick all year long. First, you gotta get a fan base that wants him. Second, you gotta get an owner that's comfortable hiring him and a structure that can absorb him. And you mentioned that whole locker room dynamic. I think of the other Belichick assistants who go elsewhere and they say we're gonna be different than Bill. They don't realize how much they've picked up of his personality by osmosis. And they go in and they start making these changes and they start treating guys the way Bill treats him in New England and that doesn't go over well. See, that's the problem. You walk into a new locker room with guys who aren't used to that. Man, that's gonna be a hard sell right out of the gates. They're hypersensitive to what they perceive is going to be the approach. I think that happened in virtually every one of those situations, whether it was McDaniel's, whether it was Patricia, whether it was you name it. And that's why it's very easy for Mayo to be the head coach here now because they already know him. Say Mayo had gotten hired in Carolina and people said, oh, he's a Belichick disciple. Well, they'd be hypersensitive to his two-hour practices. Say, oh, he's real hard-ass. Yeah, he's making us practice at two hours. He might be smiling at the podium, but he's killing us. Here, they're already used to working in a particular way and it's an easy transition to Mayo. That is such an excellent point. And I can't think of a better way to put this, but you almost need to have a locker room full of players that are already beaten down. The way Bill would beat them down, right? And this feels like a breeze. Hey, here comes a Belichick disciple, but he's not constantly harping on us and dropping F-bombs and why didn't you do that? And all the stuff that causes the pins and needles approach. Where else in the NFL is, they're a team where you could just plug in Bill Belichick and it would be a relief to be dealing with him in comparison to what they've already endured. I think that makes it even harder to sell Bill Belichick as that you have to have a team that is ready to be beaten down, a locker room that is ready to be beaten down. - In this day and age, I don't think there are many locker rooms out there where the players are collectively so intent on winning that they're ready to be beaten down the way he beat down Patriots players mentally. - But there's a functionality and an organization to the way Belichick does things that can be embraced as well. He has tapered off the beating down and he has tried to make himself more cuddly over the last few years. But eventually the nature of the losing, when they're losing, it gets harder and harder and harder. And they did an awful lot of that and Bill's tenure here in the last few years. And so much of it was tied to the coaching staff and Bill's belief that, what's the worst that can happen? I'm Bill Belichick, what's the worst that can happen? I know what I'm doing here. I'll hire Matt Patricia, I'll take care of the offensive line. You know, we can plug and play a quarterback. It's not that big a deal. You know, Brady was unbelievable, but you know, it was Garoppolo, we could have done it, we did it with Castle. I mean, what's the big deal? And there became an overestimation of the brilliance of himself and the stupidity of everybody else. I think that that was a big part of it. - I remember sitting in this seat two years ago when it became abundantly clear Matt Patricia was gonna call the offensive plays. If anybody else was doing this, we would be saying that coach has lost his mind. And Belichick got the benefit of the doubt because of all the Super Bowl rings. But I think that became the tipping point. That became the thing that so many fans would look at and say time has come. And I think that becomes something that a new owner is gonna have to process and understand and work through and get a real explanation from Bill Belichick. Not just word salad or I know best, but almost contrition and acknowledgement that that was one of the most colossal decisions that went awry that we've seen in the modern NFL. And I'm not exaggerating in saying that. - What do we want? - How about chicken wings? - Why do we want them? - They're the official wing of watching football. - At 599, four, six-piece. When do we want them? - When we're watching the game. - That's right, game, time is winged, time. (upbeat music) - And participating US restaurants, prices may vary. - Hey Applebee's, congrats on becoming the official grilling bar sponsor of the NFL. How does it feel? I'm glad we'll be able to bring some extra heat. Any plans to celebrate? Yeah, we gonna serve up America's favorite bowling swings for the 50 cents each to kick off the season. - Limited time, price participation in selection may vary, tax number two would be excluded.
