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Join Taylor Kyles, Mike Kadlick, and John Zannis as they react to the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel as their head coach.  ************************************************ Patriots Content Brought to you by.... 💰 Prize Picks - https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CLNS Download the app today and use Code CLNS at PrizePicks.com/CLNS & Get $50 instantly when you play $5!  🎫 Gametime - https://gametime.co Take the guesswork out of buying NFL tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download Gametime today. Terms apply. What time is it? Gametime!

Transcript

00:00:00I am joined by Robert Griffin III, James White, Field, Yates, Mina Kimes.

00:00:08All right, so first play we're going to look at, second and two, one of the Patriots' first

00:00:12offensive plays.

00:00:14Okay, that's not the real start.

00:00:19We're live.

00:00:20It is.

00:00:21We're live.

00:00:22Hi, guys.

00:00:23We're live.

00:00:24We're just pretending to be the 24 Patriots to everybody.

00:00:27Don't worry.

00:00:28We got it.

00:00:30Guys, we're live.

00:00:31We didn't expect it.

00:00:32Well, we did, but we didn't expect it this early, and we are live.

00:00:36Snip, snap.

00:00:37We'll cut that out.

00:00:38Nobody will ever see it again.

00:00:40And that's that.

00:00:41But it happened.

00:00:42The thing everybody thought was going to happen happened.

00:00:44The Patriots hired Mike Vrabel in what, at the end of the day, turned out to be really

00:00:51kind of a shambolic interview process.

00:00:53Doesn't mean it's not going to result, you know, it might not end positively.

00:00:59So we'll talk a little bit about the process, the thought behind Vrabel, and whether or

00:01:05not, you know, we feel that he's the guy for the job.

00:01:08I will say, if you've watched us throughout the course of the week, the last year, whatever

00:01:14it is, we've all kind of planted our flags.

00:01:17You know, I've always been an offensive-minded head coach guy.

00:01:20Taylor, I think, you know, really started to warm to the idea of Ben Johnson in recent

00:01:25days.

00:01:26Mike Kadlik's been on the Mike Vrabel train since last year.

00:01:28So we're going to start with Mike, just on your reaction on the hire.

00:01:33Yeah.

00:01:34I mean, I tweeted it as simple as, I think, two words this morning.

00:01:37It was the right hire.

00:01:38And I think, realistically, this would have been the right hire last year as well, where

00:01:43they wanted to keep, you know, a semblance of continuity towards this Patriot way, which,

00:01:48as we know, feels kind of fabricated and was really the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady way.

00:01:52But, you know, long story short, it keeps some familiarity in the building, which, I

00:01:56mean, clearly we know that that's what the Crafts prioritize at this point.

00:02:00But I think just the way last year was rushed with Gerard Mayo, this brings a professional

00:02:08into the room, back into the room as somebody who's done this before, and done this before

00:02:12at a high level, at a successful level.

00:02:15He's been to AFC Championship Games.

00:02:17He's been to the playoffs.

00:02:18He went to three straight, led the Titans to three straight playoff appearances.

00:02:22And he's just a leader of men, and he's a culture builder.

00:02:26I love that phrase.

00:02:27But it's the truth.

00:02:28It's not a buzzword.

00:02:30That's what you need in this league.

00:02:32You really do.

00:02:33And that's why I leaned Brable the entire time.

00:02:36Now, when we did our crossover, me, Taylor, Alex, and Brian the other day, we sort of

00:02:40had a, it was me and Alex were on Team Brable, and him and Brian were on Team Ben Johnson.

00:02:45At the end of the day, the four of us agreed that either way it would have been a good

00:02:49hire, because again, they were the two top candidates on the market.

00:02:52It's not like either way would have been bad.

00:02:54Now, we can talk about the way the interview process went, which I know we'll get into

00:02:57here, and that sort of adds a little bit of a dark cloud over it.

00:03:01But at the end of the day, I still think they landed on the right decision.

00:03:05He's brought in offensive minds before that have had success.

00:03:08Matt LaFleur, head coach.

00:03:10Arthur Smith was a head coach.

00:03:11Now, granted, Pittsburgh wasn't great last night, but he's had success outside of that

00:03:16building.

00:03:17And so I look at this, and I think there's a lot more work to do.

00:03:21You need to bring in a support staff.

00:03:23You need to evolve.

00:03:24He needs to evolve from an analytics side of things from where he was in Tennessee.

00:03:28But at the end of the day, with the experience, someone who comes in and you know what he's

00:03:34going to bring to this team, I think it was a great hire, and I'm excited to see how it

00:03:38ultimately plays out.

00:03:40Taylor, I'm curious for you, because as I said, you kind of moved to the Ben Johnson

00:03:44stuff.

00:03:45That doesn't mean Vrabel's a bad choice.

00:03:47We kind of had a preferred choice.

00:03:49So I think the Ben Johnson stands, myself among them, weren't sure whether he would

00:03:54be a head coach.

00:03:55We were really excited about the possibility of an offensive genius being paired with

00:04:00Drake May.

00:04:01But you still have to feel generally good directionally with the hire.

00:04:06Yeah, and I spoke to Paul Kowarski, who has been with the Titans for a very long time,

00:04:11covered Vrabel for his entire tenure, and he shed a lot of light on what Vrabel was

00:04:15like as a head coach.

00:04:16Now, the positive things, you know, Vrabel, obviously, honestly, we already know all the

00:04:20positives.

00:04:21He instills the culture.

00:04:22He's going to bring toughness.

00:04:23You're going to have an identity, which the Patriots didn't have last year.

00:04:26And there's also the element of he's going to, you know, I know it's kind of gone

00:04:29wrong that he might ruffle some feathers or, you know, some people are going to have to

00:04:33eat some humble pie because he's going to have a certain standard, and he's going to

00:04:36tell some people, no.

00:04:37You know, last year, the collaboration, I think a lot of us were more open-minded to

00:04:40it, knowing that Bill Belichick, having overruled so many of his scouts for so many years,

00:04:45having people leave because they were underpaid and not being listened to and all those

00:04:49things.

00:04:50It's like, yeah, you would like for people to feel like their opinions matter, but it

00:04:53felt like they swung too far in the other direction.

00:04:55And now it's kind of got to be, all right, more middle ground, not even middle ground,

00:04:58maybe more swayed towards, no, I'm the guy with the vision for the franchise.

00:05:02I'm going to do it this way.

00:05:03Some of the negatives and the things that worried me, just so people have a full picture,

00:05:06because I do agree, Mike Frabel is the hire they probably should have made.

00:05:10And I will not deny that for a team that was disorganized, that was dysfunctional, that

00:05:14really lacked any level of credibility, not only last season, but really the season, the

00:05:18two seasons before that, when you talk about the offense, last year became the defense

00:05:22of the entire team.

00:05:23But what kind of concerned me was one, you mentioned Arthur Smith, Mike LaFleur, they

00:05:28were already on the Titans staff.

00:05:30Frabel didn't actually hire those guys.

00:05:32So that's one concern.

00:05:33And then after them, his hire was Todd Downing, who was a complete disaster.

00:05:37Todd Downing ended up getting a DUI.

00:05:39We talked about this on our crossover, but he got a DUI.

00:05:43You can't put Todd Downing's DUI on Mike Frabel.

00:05:46No, I'm not.

00:05:47But I'm saying as a coordinator, he wasn't good.

00:05:49He's with the Jets now.

00:05:50He's their quarterbacks coaching something else.

00:05:52He ended up taking over.

00:05:53He took over play calling when they stripped it from Nathaniel Hackett this year.

00:05:57Yeah, it's not been very good.

00:05:59So Todd Downing was not a good hire.

00:06:01Shane Bowen.

00:06:02There were people that were really back and forth because they didn't really love.

00:06:05I know there was a lot of vanilla play calling people say for their defense and

00:06:09the fronts and things like that.

00:06:10So when it comes to the hires, I'm going to be very curious where Frabel goes.

00:06:14And also the forward thinking element where Albert Breer has been very open

00:06:17about the fact that Patriots are so behind right now with their analytics

00:06:20department, with their scouting department.

00:06:22Can Mike Frabel's time in Cleveland, I'm sure we'll get into this later,

00:06:25actually help him move them forward in that direction.

00:06:28And also, can he fill out the coaching staff with guys who are going to bring

00:06:31the best out of players the way that he does as a head coach?

00:06:34I'll add two things to that quickly is one, according to reports,

00:06:38he did take in and learn a lot in Cleveland.

00:06:41Now we also know Mike Frabel can be stubborn and stuck in his ways,

00:06:45might be strong, but he's Mike Frabel.

00:06:47He has that ambiance about him.

00:06:48So did he actually take it?

00:06:50Is he going to take it all and learn from it?

00:06:52The other thing is that staff Taylor.

00:06:54I think that is where we turn here.

00:06:56That's the massive, massive thing.

00:06:59We have to look at where Ben Johnson's support staff,

00:07:02if all hit the ones you've talked about, the Darren Rizzi's,

00:07:05the Louie and Ramos, that would have been money.

00:07:07Same with Mike Frabel.

00:07:08He brings the culture.

00:07:09He brings the experience that Johnson would have brought.

00:07:14Now you just worry about again,

00:07:16which is the most important part of the team,

00:07:18Drake may and how they fill out the rest of the staff.

00:07:20That's the most important part here.

00:07:22So, and again, I'm going to piggyback on this as well is it's, it's.

00:07:27It's myth versus man regards to Vrabel here in terms of what's real and

00:07:32what's not like, I believe the, the no nonsense leader of men sort of stuff.

00:07:37For sure.

00:07:38The I learned analytics in one year as a, as a kind of consultant.

00:07:44I don't think so.

00:07:45I think that that was very much a rehabilitation sort of stint.

00:07:50And also just kind of putting that information out there, which is okay.

00:07:54Spent it, spent some time with the foremost, you know, kind of, you know,

00:07:57thinking analytical department, you know, in the league right now.

00:08:01So I can kind of put that beside me because again,

00:08:04it's not really clear exactly why he was fired, but part of it was, you know,

00:08:09some personal differences with ownership.

00:08:12Another was simply stuck in his way is a little bit antiquated,

00:08:15bit of a dinosaur conservative play calling style.

00:08:17How much of that, you know, conservative approach smash mouth football or

00:08:21in a time where things have moved forward.

00:08:23So how much did he learn?

00:08:25I don't know.

00:08:26How much are, is he going to be reliant on the offensive coordinator?

00:08:30Too much.

00:08:31In my opinion, I hate the idea of, well, I'm not doing the offense,

00:08:35but I'll find someone good who, cause I don't like that.

00:08:38I really did.

00:08:39I thought that was the most appealing aspect of Ben Johnson or an

00:08:42offensive minded coach in general.

00:08:44It's just, it doesn't leave with them,

00:08:45but also this idea of turning organizations around and,

00:08:48or the hires as you guys said,

00:08:50he inherited some of the people who went on to continue on and do other

00:08:54things.

00:08:55He also inherited a nine and seven team and turned them into a nine and

00:08:59seven team.

00:09:00And then just for good measure came back and they were nine and seven again

00:09:04the following year.

00:09:05So we're like a tick above Jeff Fisher land here when it comes to overall.

00:09:09And I know he took them to a AFC title game,

00:09:11uh, you know, uh, the, the, the, you know, the following year,

00:09:14but it's not like wizardry, you know, like there's not,

00:09:19there's nothing on the resume here that jumps hugely off the page other

00:09:23than he's going to clean up that mess from before, which is fine.

00:09:27But I wonder, is that enough?

00:09:30And one thing I think is important to note is that he did not have a

00:09:33quarterback when he was in Tennessee.

00:09:35Right.

00:09:36For sure.

00:09:37But Derrick Henry,

00:09:38like I know people get really maxed like all the first down runs,

00:09:41you're just running it.

00:09:42I mean, Derrick Henry's entire style is yes.

00:09:44You run when he has two yards per carry going into halftime because you

00:09:47know, at some point the defense is going to break down by a thousand times.

00:09:50Exactly.

00:09:51And it's proven like, yes, it didn't work a hundred percent of the time,

00:09:54but when you have Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill, I'm sorry.

00:09:57Yeah.

00:09:58You're going to lead on Derrick Henry to break the defense's back before

00:10:01you start saying, Hey, Tannehill,

00:10:03we're going to give you the ball.

00:10:04And we saw with even someone as great as Bill Belichick,

00:10:07when you don't have a quarterback,

00:10:08obviously it's not a one-to-one situation,

00:10:10but we saw how Belichick struggled really mightily when he didn't have a

00:10:13good enough quarterback to make, not even make up for the defense.

00:10:16Defense was fine, but the offense was putrid.

00:10:18So when we have this discussion about Mike Vrabel and the conservative

00:10:21play calling, when he was in Tennessee, we have to also remember,

00:10:24he didn't have anything close to Drake May and we'll talk about the

00:10:27offensive coordinator,

00:10:28Candidates after, but I really do feel like obviously, you know,

00:10:31critical situations, Vrabel is going to have a say,

00:10:33but I do think that he's going to have more of an,

00:10:36he'll lean more towards aggressiveness.

00:10:38I would at least hope with someone like Drake,

00:10:40who can be so when you have that quarterback, you have to.

00:10:43And I think that his sort of CEO, like we're again,

00:10:46we're back to the former Patriots linebacker,

00:10:49CEO head coach, who's going to lean on his assistants.

00:10:52And I think that he's going to have more of a,

00:10:55Coach who's going to lean on his assistants and for better,

00:10:58for worse, that's what we sit on, but Vrabel's done it before.

00:11:01And that's what I keep going back to.

00:11:02And I feel like a broken record because I've said it since,

00:11:05you know, the last, the last week since they fired Mayo, but.

00:11:08The, the issues here were so much more than just like the offense or

00:11:12just the defense.

00:11:13It was a, a crippling culture.

00:11:16And we, we found out this week from the,

00:11:18from the story in the Boston Herald.

00:11:20And so I think that Vrabel brings that back into the offensive point.

00:11:23I know he's a defensive head coach and I know he only did spend a year

00:11:26in Cleveland, but he, he worked with the tight ends.

00:11:30He works with the offensive line.

00:11:31He works with those guys in Tennessee as well.

00:11:33So I think that he's going to have at least some say in like the game

00:11:37management aspect of that.

00:11:38But if they bring in Josh McDaniels,

00:11:40which we'll get to it and all the sides sort of point to that.

00:11:43That's somebody who you can give the offense as an offensive head

00:11:46coach.

00:11:47And you're not giving it to Alex Van Pelt,

00:11:49like you did last year where he's never had that kind of experience.

00:11:51Josh has done this before.

00:11:53So I think the upside here, again,

00:11:56the nine and 17 to a nine and seven with Drake may with an experienced

00:12:00head coach with an experienced OC.

00:12:02I don't want to say this can turn around quickly because the roster is

00:12:05still the roster and there's still a lot of work to do.

00:12:07This is only step one, but I,

00:12:09we talk about ceiling and floor with these guys.

00:12:12I still think there's a high ceiling depending on what you put around Mike

00:12:15Vrabel.

00:12:16Sure.

00:12:17I mean, it's again, I think we,

00:12:19I definitely don't want to jumble the what can Vrabel do for you?

00:12:23I I'm not convinced yet any more than professionalism,

00:12:29accountability, and the ability to lead an organization,

00:12:32which is really freaking hard.

00:12:35And I think a lot of first year coaches don't come into their own for a

00:12:38while. I think that that's the.

00:12:40And I wonder if that's what made the crafts hesitant on Ben Johnson.

00:12:44Yeah. And that's, and maybe that did.

00:12:46I think, I don't think all first year head coaches are made equal.

00:12:49Gerard Mayo had five years as a positional assistant.

00:12:51Most guys have six,

00:12:53seven years doing that plus several years as a coordinator or assistant

00:12:57head coach before they even get a whisper of a head coaching job.

00:13:00So most of these other.

00:13:02Hot OC hot DC candidates have been doing this for a lot,

00:13:06much longer time, but again,

00:13:08being in charge of an offense and being in charge of the team and being

00:13:11the voice of the organization and the leader and the person that sets the

00:13:15tone, that's different. And again, we talked about Mayo a lot.

00:13:18Like I really do feel it was like, you know,

00:13:21when I'm going to be a parent, I'm going to let my kids do whatever I want.

00:13:24And then they do. And you lose control of the house.

00:13:26Exactly. Yeah.

00:13:28It's like, Oh,

00:13:29I'm going to let them jump on the bed and they're going to eat chocolate

00:13:31cake and it's going to be amazing. And then it's like, Oh shit,

00:13:33I can't get them to do anything.

00:13:35And that's why I get this chocolate stain out of the comforter.

00:13:38That's what happened. That's what happened there.

00:13:41So again, I don't know what Vrabel can do yet,

00:13:46but I think it's obviously an upgrade over where they were.

00:13:51And you said it at the very top of the show, Mike, and even Robert Kraft,

00:13:56I believe kind of alluded to it in his statement.

00:14:00If you read between the lines a little bit and I'll, I'll pull it up,

00:14:03you know, just, just to, just to play around here. But the thing with the,

00:14:08the thing, the thing with this statement that really stood in my mind was how

00:14:12he kind of said,

00:14:14Gerard was kind of a hot name and I felt I had to do it and I had to promise

00:14:18him all of that stuff.

00:14:19And I had to bring them on because I was afraid other people were going to,

00:14:23I feared I would lose him. I'm looking at it now.

00:14:27Committed to making him our next coach. And that to me reads as two things.

00:14:31And again, part of it is, you know,

00:14:35I kind of had to do it because I wrote it into his contract.

00:14:38So we had no choice last year.

00:14:40I really believed you said Vrabel should have been the coach.

00:14:44I believe if this was not written into Gerard Mayo's contract Vrabel,

00:14:49what the hell are we doing here?

00:14:53Never seen that in my life. There we go. I didn't know we could do circles.

00:14:57I believe Vrabel if in a straight search, if he had,

00:15:00if he knew Vrabel was available and Mayo wasn't promised it,

00:15:03even if Mayo had been given assurances without it being written into the

00:15:06contract, I think Vrabel's the coach last year.

00:15:08I think Kraft had buyer's remorse.

00:15:10I think he knew he left a candidate on the table he slightly preferred,

00:15:13but I think he had to go through with Mayo as a leap of faith.

00:15:16So that's why I think this was such an easy shift for them to make.

00:15:22And again, this is us speculating and reading between the lines,

00:15:25but it is what it is. They interviewed four guys.

00:15:28One of them was virtual.

00:15:29They can't hire him until after the Superbowl possibly.

00:15:33And then the two other interviews, we, we, we, we, we,

00:15:36we have a good idea what those were about.

00:15:38So the process was a bit of a sham. So I'm going to ask you right now.

00:15:43Are you upset? They didn't re like,

00:15:46even if the two obvious candidates were Ben Johnson and Mike Vrabel,

00:15:52are you at least annoyed that they didn't go through the full process and,

00:15:56and, and, and, and do this whole thing?

00:15:58Like properly talk to a bunch of different people,

00:16:01get outside perspectives, take time to make the choice,

00:16:04or do you think they had to rush into it?

00:16:06Lock in Vrabel before they ended up with their seventh choice.

00:16:10Cause there's there. I understand both sides of it.

00:16:12You rush into it. You're the first to fire first to hire.

00:16:15You at least get a guy you like you wait, Vrabel gets impatient.

00:16:19He goes somewhere else.

00:16:20Johnson spurns you and you're in no man's land.

00:16:24I was disappointed that it wasn't more thorough.

00:16:26And I don't think that mean meant that you had to cast a wide bet.

00:16:29Like, I'm not saying you interview every single person. I think that, yeah,

00:16:32that's kind of a waste of time, but I do think with the serious candidates,

00:16:36like one, I think the whole Rooney role part just looks terrible,

00:16:40disgusting, really bad. Like you are.

00:16:42They took it to another level teams do this all the time.

00:16:45They made it worse.

00:16:47You had two people that had been out of football for two years,

00:16:50didn't have experience as a head coach, at least at the NFL level.

00:16:53So it's like, we know obviously you're doing this.

00:16:56You can get it done as quickly as possible because they're not in the league.

00:16:59They're not in the playoffs or anything.

00:17:00So you can get them in very quickly. So that felt really shady,

00:17:04especially if there's no spot for them necessarily on the roster.

00:17:09Cause it's one thing if it's an Adrian Clem situation where I kind of

00:17:11understand, cause you're interviewing for a potential role,

00:17:14but if it literally was just get these guys in the building,

00:17:16we're done with the rule. Like Aaron Glenn declined the interview.

00:17:19I don't know how much of it had to do with them.

00:17:21Screwing the Rooney rules so fast and that leaving a bad taste in his mouth

00:17:24or him just knowing that Vrabel was the candidate,

00:17:26like how Vrabel was telling, told Tom Brady,

00:17:29I'm not going to interview with the Raiders because I'm probably going to New

00:17:32England. So my bigger issue was one,

00:17:35you screwed yourself with even getting the chance to get Aaron Glenn in the

00:17:37door. Probably would have been a disingenuous interview anyway,

00:17:40but I think there's still value, especially when you have guys from the Lions,

00:17:43one of the best cultures and most places with some level of sustained success

00:17:48in recent history.

00:17:49You don't even get them in for an in-person interview to really dig in and

00:17:52see, you know, what makes that organization go,

00:17:54what they think about where the league is trending and all these things.

00:17:57Like you haven't done a head coaching search as the owner of the Patriots.

00:18:00It's just, or at least in a couple of decades.

00:18:02So I just thought it was a huge missed opportunity.

00:18:04You don't have to interview everybody who wants a head coaching job,

00:18:07but at least take it seriously beyond just one candidate.

00:18:10And I thought as the top place to go,

00:18:12I think that's been said by multiple people.

00:18:14It's not like there's a whole lot of debate.

00:18:16It's the Patriots and it's the bears.

00:18:17The Patriots probably have a better situation overall because of the

00:18:20resources.

00:18:21I just don't think they needed to rush into it,

00:18:23but I also don't know.

00:18:24Maybe this was the kind of thing where Vrabel would have been shakier if

00:18:27there was more time.

00:18:28I don't know.

00:18:29I just felt that the process was just as important.

00:18:30It's possible.

00:18:31In addition to the sham nature of the interview,

00:18:34one of the things I thought was honestly the worst part of the whole thing.

00:18:37Just ridiculous.

00:18:38Yep.

00:18:39Is that they literally grouped the two,

00:18:42the two head coaches that didn't have a chance,

00:18:46who again,

00:18:47speculation was to satisfy and check the box on the Rooney rule.

00:18:51The first two interviews,

00:18:52people out and they lumped them together into one tweet.

00:18:55I think the handling of it is so freaking bad.

00:19:01It's embarrassing.

00:19:02And then reaching out with the Glenn.

00:19:05So again,

00:19:06it's strange to me that people don't,

00:19:09Ultimately it,

00:19:10none,

00:19:11none of this might matter if labels the guy,

00:19:13but again,

00:19:14the process is wrong here.

00:19:17You have not conducted a legitimate head coaching search since 1996 or

00:19:21whenever you hired Pete Carroll,

00:19:23you know,

00:19:24everyone else you've brought in,

00:19:25including bill Belichick,

00:19:26when he came in,

00:19:27you had familiarity with Belichick had worked with parcels and he'd been

00:19:31part of the staff here.

00:19:32And craft even said,

00:19:34I kind of lamented not going in that direction the first time,

00:19:37but I couldn't get there with it,

00:19:38you know,

00:19:39and he was doing whatever.

00:19:41And then you go from that to Mayo on a gut,

00:19:44on a whim,

00:19:45on a trip to Israel,

00:19:46you know,

00:19:47and then you go with Frabel again with whom you have a relationship of

00:19:50familiarity.

00:19:51I,

00:19:52I mean,

00:19:53this institutional thinking isn't great.

00:19:56You know,

00:19:57it's,

00:19:58it's really not the way to do it after messing it up as badly as you did

00:20:02last year.

00:20:03And just handing the keys to an inexperienced head coach without talking to

00:20:06anybody else to not talk to people again,

00:20:08this year,

00:20:09I don't really fully understand it.

00:20:12And to the right.

00:20:13So they,

00:20:14so they bring in pep Hamilton.

00:20:15They bring in Byron left,

00:20:16which they loved them into the tweet.

00:20:17That's a bunch of crap and embarrassing and not the way to do it and not

00:20:22the way other teams do it.

00:20:23There are other teams who come in and have their head coaching search and

00:20:27have multiple searches in a day and still have the decency to give the guys

00:20:31their own damn announcement tweet.

00:20:33Like the way they did that was pathetic.

00:20:35And everybody knows it.

00:20:36And again,

00:20:37none of this has,

00:20:38I know people are in here like,

00:20:39Hey guys,

00:20:40Brable's good.

00:20:41He is good.

00:20:42We're not,

00:20:43no one's arguing.

00:20:44No one's arguing.

00:20:45The Brable was a good choice and likely an upgrade in terms of what needs

00:20:49fixing from last year,

00:20:50which is,

00:20:51it was a complete show top to bottom in terms of direction and organization

00:20:56and discipline and accountability.

00:20:58And so no,

00:20:59they just quickly,

00:21:00they get the backlash for skirting the Rudy rule with the two really fast

00:21:05non,

00:21:06uh,

00:21:07currently unemployed minority candidates.

00:21:10And so then they hear all that and then they miss out on asking Aaron Glenn

00:21:14at the same time as Ben Johnson.

00:21:16And then they try and get that one under the rug to make it look like

00:21:19they're doing a bigger search.

00:21:21And Glenn basically says,

00:21:22F you,

00:21:23I know exactly what you're doing again.

00:21:24That's all speculation.

00:21:25But if you know,

00:21:26like if you go into this thing last week,

00:21:28Sunday,

00:21:29and you look at your list of candidates,

00:21:31you thought you saw Ben Johnson and you requested him and you,

00:21:36you knew Aaron Glenn's there and you said,

00:21:38no,

00:21:39we don't want to talk to him right now.

00:21:40And then all of a sudden,

00:21:41three days later,

00:21:42you think that he is a guy that we want to speak to.

00:21:44Now it just smells.

00:21:45It doesn't add up.

00:21:46It looks shady.

00:21:47Now,

00:21:48again,

00:21:49I do think they brought in Ben Johnson and I do believe that they probably

00:21:52sat in that virtual zoom meeting with him and listened to everything he had

00:21:56to say and were open-minded to the fact that they could be wooed by him.

00:22:00Yeah,

00:22:01literally though.

00:22:02And I,

00:22:03I said,

00:22:04especially Elliot,

00:22:05maybe Jonathan.

00:22:06There's just,

00:22:07there's,

00:22:08but there's behind the scenes stuff too,

00:22:09in terms of who's coming in with people and different people,

00:22:11what that,

00:22:12well,

00:22:13how that might affect,

00:22:14you know,

00:22:15you know,

00:22:16the decision-making apparatus in Foxborough right now,

00:22:18we'll talk about that as well.

00:22:20We'll talk about the Ben Johnson thing.

00:22:21And we'll also talk about now that variable is the guy looking forward,

00:22:24potential offensive coordinator candidates and what have you and all of these

00:22:28things.

00:22:29We'll also put up your comments and we're happy to,

00:22:31you know,

00:22:32entertain a lot of questions here.

00:22:34And again,

00:22:35I know people's favorite thing in the world isn't talking about necessarily

00:22:38the process,

00:22:39but it's part of the story and it's unavoidable.

00:22:41And,

00:22:42and yeah.

00:22:43What do you think about the process?

00:22:44Like,

00:22:45I don't know if we want to keep going on this because maybe just tie a bow

00:22:47on it here,

00:22:48but the reason this matters and the reason I'm upset that they didn't have a

00:22:51more thorough search is you heard last year.

00:22:53People were saying for the offensive coordinator searches and all that they

00:22:56were not impressed by the Patriots interview process.

00:22:59That's a big part of this.

00:23:00So it's not like they have it down to a science.

00:23:03They know what they want.

00:23:04Like people came in last year and we're like,

00:23:06I don't know what that was.

00:23:07So you need to get better.

00:23:08You need more ideas.

00:23:10And that was the whole thing with the OC.

00:23:11So I want to get as many ideas as possible.

00:23:13And I can learn.

00:23:14Why would you not want to do that?

00:23:16When you have a chance to learn from one of the best organizations in football

00:23:20right now,

00:23:21again,

00:23:22it's not a made up problem.

00:23:23It's been reported.

00:23:24There's even reports.

00:23:25I, you know,

00:23:26I want Ellie Wolf to get at least one more off season to show what he can

00:23:28do.

00:23:29People even said that maybe he's too soft and he isn't as hard.

00:23:32He's,

00:23:33I think admitted that he's not as hard on the front office people as he

00:23:35should be.

00:23:36So that's why this isn't just like talking heads.

00:23:39Oh,

00:23:40you're complaining about the process.

00:23:41The process needs to improve people who come in the building from other

00:23:43places,

00:23:44told you that,

00:23:45or at least told reporters that,

00:23:46and they don't care.

00:23:47And that's the part that's really disappointed.

00:23:48And also again,

00:23:49down the road,

00:23:50if you're getting the reputation of a non-serious organization,

00:23:53God forbid,

00:23:54something doesn't go great here.

00:23:55And the variable ends up not being the higher you're you're in Jets land

00:23:59in the next round of interviews.

00:24:01That's a horrible place to be.

00:24:02So again,

00:24:03short term,

00:24:04I don't think anybody would have had an issue.

00:24:06Certainly.

00:24:07If rebel was a head coach last year,

00:24:08the way you've gone about the process for two years will have impact.

00:24:12You know,

00:24:13on the,

00:24:14on the franchise moving forward,

00:24:15if there's issues or you got to hire new people and this is how they get

00:24:20things done.

00:24:21So again,

00:24:22it does matter.

00:24:23Some we'll talk more about it.

00:24:25As we said,

00:24:26variables,

00:24:27the guy,

00:24:28and we're going to look forward into other things.

00:24:29We'll talk about the Ben Johnson thing and whether or not we wanted to.

00:24:31And because Taylor Kyle's is not a man to make excuses for himself.

00:24:34I'm going to do it for him.

00:24:35He's not feeling well.

00:24:37He's been on the shelf for a couple of days.

00:24:39This is,

00:24:40I don't even think he cleared the protocol to be able to be on the show,

00:24:44but I called him up and said,

00:24:45we got to do this,

00:24:46babe.

00:24:47I need your take.

00:24:48You got to jump in here,

00:24:49but he is under self quarantine.

00:24:51He's a little banged up and he's soldiering through.

00:24:53So thank you,

00:24:54Taylor.

00:24:55Now,

00:24:56if he disappears or mutes from time to time,

00:24:57it's because he's hacking up parts of his lungs.

00:24:59If my eyes are red,

00:25:00it's because I'm coughing.

00:25:02But real quick message from our,

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00:26:21smashed yesterday's games.

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00:26:51So let's,

00:26:52let's get into the other guy.

00:26:53We understand why it didn't necessarily happen,

00:26:55but,

00:26:56um,

00:26:57do you think Ben Johnson had a shot or you think it was literally a,

00:27:00I like this guy.

00:27:01I just can't wait.

00:27:02Like you could have done three sham interviews.

00:27:05You could have done and,

00:27:06and not had Johnson.

00:27:07Johnson seemed legitimate and was viewed as a one a,

00:27:11but a distant one to Vrabel.

00:27:13Where,

00:27:14what do you think the thought process here is?

00:27:16Do you think that they were interested?

00:27:19Um,

00:27:20but not blown away interested,

00:27:22but knowing that like,

00:27:23I'm not going to get a commitment from this guy.

00:27:25And I don't know if I could commit to him until we meet.

00:27:27And it's the process flawed in terms of how you have to interview

00:27:30coordinators while you're able to hire other people kind of creating this

00:27:33weird vibe.

00:27:34Cause it's possible.

00:27:35This was a legit dead heat,

00:27:38but you'll never know because the,

00:27:40the,

00:27:41because of the way things are set up in the NFL restricting active

00:27:44coordinators,

00:27:45whose teams are in the playoffs or,

00:27:46you know,

00:27:47employees of other teams from really kind of pushing the process forward.

00:27:50Everyone else is kind of stuck here.

00:27:52You got a lot of people who want Johnson and who want Glenn,

00:27:54who are going to try to wait it out.

00:27:56And when you wait,

00:27:57you sometimes miss,

00:27:58but did they make a mistake here?

00:28:00Not giving this a more serious shake.

00:28:03I'll say quickly.

00:28:06I do.

00:28:07But like I said a little bit before,

00:28:08I do believe that they probably took that Johnson conversation on Friday

00:28:13and listened.

00:28:14And we talk about this fact finding mission that they have to go on where

00:28:17it's not Ness.

00:28:18Like,

00:28:19do I think they took left,

00:28:20which in Hamilton,

00:28:21seriously,

00:28:22unfortunately I don't,

00:28:23and that's too bad for them.

00:28:24And it's a sham and it's the,

00:28:25that's why the rule stinks.

00:28:27And that's why it stinks when guys skirt the rule and then teams take it

00:28:30to another level.

00:28:31Like the Patriots did to skirt the rule.

00:28:32I do think they probably at least took the Johnson interview relatively

00:28:36seriously,

00:28:37as far as,

00:28:38Hey,

00:28:39what do you do?

00:28:40What would you do if you were here?

00:28:41And so then they can take those facts and kind of turn them into what

00:28:44they want to see with Mike Bray,

00:28:46but where you expand the analytics analytics department you know,

00:28:50even just offensive philosophies in the way that you know,

00:28:53you would treat the franchise quarterback.

00:28:55Like I would trust Ben Johnson over what Mike variable is going to do

00:28:58with Drake may,

00:28:59but ultimately there's more than just the quarterback.

00:29:02So do I think he had a chance?

00:29:04It's,

00:29:05it's really hard to say,

00:29:07I think probably not,

00:29:08but I don't think they took the interview and,

00:29:11you know,

00:29:12we're looking at the time and looking at their watch and watching the

00:29:14flies on the wall and say,

00:29:15all right,

00:29:16we got to get these through these three hours just so we can start

00:29:18negotiating with Mike.

00:29:19I do think they truly listened,

00:29:20but I do think that it was probably pretty much in the bag after

00:29:24Thursday's meeting in Boston that Mike variable was going to be the head

00:29:27coach.

00:29:28Yeah.

00:29:29And I,

00:29:30I think there was legitimate interest.

00:29:31Cause I think Elliot Wolf had the incentive to want Ben Johnson,

00:29:33the building that seemed like his.

00:29:35Surest path to maintaining some high ranking position inside the front

00:29:39office with Frabel that gets a little shakier.

00:29:41You might not want to keep Elliot Wolf around maybe just this off season

00:29:45because obviously there's a lot of hay already in the barn,

00:29:47but moving forward.

00:29:49Also,

00:29:50I wonder if Robert and Jonathan were on the same page again,

00:29:52this is purely speculation,

00:29:54but I wonder if Robert wanted to go with the safe thing where he'd

00:29:56already been burned.

00:29:57Let's go with the guy we know who's proven.

00:29:59It makes the most sense versus Jonathan,

00:30:01where he's thinking,

00:30:02well,

00:30:03I'm probably going to be head of this team pretty soon for quite some

00:30:06time.

00:30:07So I'd rather look ahead and what's going to happen.

00:30:09You know,

00:30:10everyone wants to win in May's first contract,

00:30:12but realistically,

00:30:13you know,

00:30:14winning in the rookie contract is not always one,

00:30:17like the best move to plan for,

00:30:19because this is a guy you want to have sustained success with.

00:30:21But I really believe the reports because everything that was reported is

00:30:24pretty much how it went.

00:30:25Ben Johnson was seen as like a high level backup plan that he had to

00:30:29blow them away for it,

00:30:31not to be brave.

00:30:32And that tells me that there had to have been something that maybe they

00:30:34weren't expecting,

00:30:35or that Frabel didn't kind of give to them where it's,

00:30:37Oh man.

00:30:38All right.

00:30:39Well,

00:30:40this kind of adds something new that,

00:30:41you know,

00:30:42Frabel,

00:30:43what can you counter with it?

00:30:44That's kind of where I leaned with it,

00:30:45where it had to be something that just like,

00:30:47again,

00:30:48completely blew them away.

00:30:49And we got the report that it went great.

00:30:51And that barely,

00:30:52that wasn't enough because they were writing on with process for Frabel.

00:30:54Exactly.

00:30:55So I'm going to,

00:30:56I'll give my two cents and then we'll move on forward looking because

00:30:59again,

00:31:00I don't think anybody is upset with the hire.

00:31:02I,

00:31:03again,

00:31:04those of us,

00:31:05there is a,

00:31:06there is a segment of Patriot Twitter that does not want Mike Frabel to

00:31:08be.

00:31:09I don't not want Frabel.

00:31:10I really wanted,

00:31:11I understand the Johnson argument.

00:31:13Well,

00:31:14you have no idea.

00:31:15He's unproven.

00:31:16That's fine.

00:31:17You have no idea what a proven guy is going to do either.

00:31:19You don't know.

00:31:20You ultimately don't know coaches who have track records somewhere else.

00:31:23Don't always go elsewhere and succeed.

00:31:25It's not guaranteed,

00:31:26but it's a nice thing,

00:31:28you know,

00:31:29coming off of last year,

00:31:30but the Johnson reasons I've,

00:31:31you know,

00:31:32put them out there and made clear my own thoughts.

00:31:34The,

00:31:35the,

00:31:36the,

00:31:37the,

00:31:38the,

00:31:39the,

00:31:40the modern game you want,

00:31:41you offense is King.

00:31:42Everyone's chasing their next McVay and their Shanahan and their Kevin

00:31:44O'Connor,

00:31:45you know,

00:31:46and,

00:31:47and,

00:31:48and,

00:31:49and,

00:31:50and,

00:31:51and,

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00:31:53and,

00:31:54and,

00:31:55and,

00:31:56and,

00:31:57and,

00:31:58and,

00:31:59and,

00:32:00and,

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00:41:29to the conversation, but something happens and he's flipping out in the press box,

00:41:33like slamming his play sheet. I just, I, there's something to those types of guys,

00:41:37but, uh, and that's why I wonder about him at his own. See if he's a little bit too much there,

00:41:42but again, a head coaching candidate in the past for college and OC candidate here. So,

00:41:47um, he, he has the familiarity with Rabel. I think that's massive. If there's some gloss over

00:41:51there with what Josh can do, I mean, that's all the power to them. I think having him in as at

00:41:56least a candidate is solid. Let me ask you guys this question. I, you know, because every, like

00:42:03you might only be as good as your quarterback, obviously, you know, when, when you're talking

00:42:07about not only a head coach, but certainly an offensive coordinator, how now I can't figure

00:42:13out where I land on this. And I'm curious what you guys think is new England, a good destination

00:42:19for an offensive coordinator because they have Drake may or a bad one because you have Drake

00:42:25may and nothing else in the world. And of course you can get more, but if T Higgins doesn't sign

00:42:32you're into what the second round of your draft and you're going to hope for the next, you know,

00:42:37McConkie to not pass up on, but like the helps not coming in terms of weapons, unless you land

00:42:44a huge fish. And right now there's really only one, there might be some incremental improvements,

00:42:49which I would expect. I think the offensive line, you you're going to expect a little bit

00:42:53more out of those. And, or you might even go out there and get your, you know, your hope,

00:42:57your tackle of the future, and you'll find ways to bolster that, but it might not be immediate.

00:43:02So you're walking in here and you want to show what you've got as an offensive coordinator.

00:43:08All you've got is Drake may, is that enough to lure people here? Or is that like, I don't want

00:43:12to go there and flounder around with this, with this team. I mean, we saw them at times like be

00:43:18a top red zone offense at times, be a top offense everywhere, but the red zone, like

00:43:22there were times where you saw, Oh, this offense can actually move the ball pretty well.

00:43:26And that was largely because of Drake may. And then when it comes to solving all the other

00:43:30problems, like that's going to come at some point, like obviously you hope that the offense that

00:43:35Drake may have this off season is the worst that he will ever have in his career. And they were

00:43:39still pretty damn good relative to what people expected them to be. So I think it's attractive

00:43:44because of Drake may, cause you can get an offensive line. Like they've got a few pieces,

00:43:48but if you get yourself a left tackle, you get yourself a couple of explosive pass,

00:43:51catching threats. Most offense coordinators are going to say, yeah, I can figure like a really

00:43:55good one is going to say, I can make this work because I have the quarterback. He's going to

00:43:58make up for a lot of the deficiencies elsewhere versus a team. Like, all right, if you have the

00:44:02Vikings, but then the quarterback is like Bailey's happy. Do you want that job? I don't know. I want

00:44:07that job because if you're going to be good enough, like in that Steelers area where you're

00:44:10not bad enough to draft a good quarterback, but you're not good enough to actually make a push in

00:44:16the playoffs and all these things, because you don't have the quarterback, that's like the worst

00:44:19place you can be in the league. So yeah, I would definitely lean towards the quarterback. And it

00:44:23sounds like that as well as the resources and the ability that they had to potentially fix the

00:44:27offense this off season in a lot of ways is the reason that they were seen as the top.

00:44:31Oh, and I think, and I think the resources you just mentioned, Taylor is, is the kicker here

00:44:35where you have break may, but it's not like you have Drake may and are hamstrung against the cap

00:44:40and can't make a ton of moves. It's not like he is the end all be all making 50, 60 million,

00:44:46like some of the top quarterbacks are right now. I kind of like to shy away from the, well,

00:44:50you got to capitalize on a quarterback's rookie contract because nobody's really done it since

00:44:56the Seahawks did with Russell Wilson. I guess Patrick Mahone, but that's an anomaly, but

00:45:00regardless, you have the tools to build the roster around Drake may.

00:45:04It's not like you can't do anything and it's just Drake. It's not like you're Justin Herbert and the

00:45:09chargers where they can't really do much because Harvard's making so much money and you can only

00:45:13rely on one guy, Lad McConkey. You can make significant, significant moves this off season

00:45:18through free agency, through the draft. Now that's why everything else outside the higher,

00:45:23the front office, the roster building is so massive. Um, but I think it's attractive,

00:45:28obviously Drake may, but then you have the tools to really build it out here.

00:45:31Uh, another thing I want to talk about, and again, the OC is going to be the

00:45:35next really interesting conversation, uh, that's had, and we, we, we might hear some

00:45:39names start to trickle in a, you know, likely candidate sort of way sooner than later, which

00:45:45is, which is great. Cause we'll have a clearer picture. Um, uh, soon we also have a defensive

00:45:50coordinator, uh, which we get to the defense really, really quick. I'm not, I'm going to

00:45:56skip right over it. I'm going to literally say the words defensive coordinator, and then I'm

00:46:00moving on to the next thing. But if you want to stick and move one more time here on, on OC,

00:46:04you can just really quick. Brian Harline is another name that we should watch out for.

00:46:08He is the, uh, it was the, um, I have it right here. He is the conference coordinator and wide

00:46:12receivers coach for Ohio state. Obviously Mike Frabel, Ohio state connections there

00:46:16wouldn't come in as the offensive coordinator, most likely, but at least joining the staff,

00:46:20that could be huge for the receivers to build on that capacity.

00:46:23Mick Daniels worked with Ohio state this year as well. So there's a connection on that end as well.

00:46:27Ooh, yeah, there is no doubt about it. And Wes just got fired.

00:46:30Wes Walker and Joe and Mike Frabel worked together in Houston as well.

00:46:34I like Wes with no bill here, Wes is possible, but anyway,

00:46:40for sure. Anyway, um, unless he joins Rex in New York, but we'll see. Um,

00:46:47another thing that I think is super important is how things are handled, uh, in the locker room

00:46:52as well, because I think this is, you know, we believe the strength of Rabel and something that

00:46:57really, uh, did not go great. What's did not go great for this team. Uh, we're going to talk

00:47:04about that in a second, but first off, we want to tell you a little bit about what time is it, Mike?

00:47:09It's game time, baby. It's brave. Episode is also powered by game time. The best place to

00:47:14get tickets to anything, concerts, games, and more. They have the game time picks feature

00:47:20that makes getting tickets even easier. It filters out the fluff and only shows you incredible deals

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00:47:39today to take the guesswork out of buying tickets, download the app, create an account and use code

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00:47:59Throwing this up there. Taylor's still there. Mike might've, Mike might've taken a powder,

00:48:03but that's okay. This, this right now is, um, you know, we're talking about things you can get to,

00:48:09at least in town here. This is the Celtics, uh, for today, uh, and some pretty good seats

00:48:15still available. This is Sunday. So you tend to get these kinds of like, uh, you know, families

00:48:21outings, but it's also coming off a really embarrassing loss and it's NFL playoff Sunday.

00:48:26So this might be a game you could sneak into. I would keep an eye on game time. If you're

00:48:30interested in checking out the Celtics later, of course, whether you go to the game or not,

00:48:34you should watch the Celtics post game show coming up immediately after the game also here on CLNS.

00:48:39But if you want to go check it out, there's some really good seats. Very, very close to the action

00:48:45at pretty reasonable prices. I'm looking at, and that's, I mean, one 84, really close to the court.

00:48:52Um, one 92, these are incredible seats at pretty reasonable prices. So check out game time,

00:48:58download that code, use the CLNS for new users. Use this CLNS code, download the app, rather use

00:49:03the code CLNS $20 off your first purchase, uh, terms to apply guys. We're jumping back in here.

00:49:09Uh, with, uh, the, the, the, you know, Mike Vrabel situation catching people up. I mean,

00:49:15if you're here, you know why the Patriots hired Mike Vrabel to be the next head coach replacing

00:49:19Gerard Mayo, who was fired after one year in a foreign 13 season. Mike's been in the middle.

00:49:23So we'll stay with some continuity here. Um, Vrabel again, part of the appeal part,

00:49:29you know, there's two things Mayo didn't bring to the table. Um, and one of them was a level

00:49:36of accountability. One was a vision of what are they beyond rah, rah, we were going to run the

00:49:41hill and outwork you and be prepared, which they weren't. Um, and so that didn't manifest on the

00:49:46field, but the stuff off the field started extremely early with the Patriots and definitely

00:49:51raised concerns like, Oh, who's, uh, who's in charge and who's going to do anything about this.

00:49:58And this goes from every single receiver popping off at one time or another. Um, you know, people

00:50:04constantly talking about being disappointed with their roles or what was going on when they

00:50:08weren't in a, where they weren't even performing well themselves. And then you have situ all the

00:50:13way down to the end with like a benching of a player who ended up not getting benched. It's

00:50:18really weird stuff. And not being able to get Jelani to buy, to shut the F up near the last

00:50:22week of the season after he stepped in it, insulted the fans, Mayo confirms that they

00:50:28spoke and the guy goes back out there and does it again. So it was weird. So I'll ask you this,

00:50:33how is variable going to handle the locker room? Is anybody in there right now? Got to be a little

00:50:37bit worried that like, Oh shit, this isn't going to fly anymore because you, you come in as rabble.

00:50:44You want to be like, Hey, I'm going to clean slate. Right. I'll treat everybody the way they

00:50:48are, but he's got to know. I got a few problems in here or some, some, it's not bad apples.

00:50:54Some that are maybe starting to, you know, starting to turn. Like I don't love this.

00:50:58And he might have to kind of kick some early to, to get this thing in order. But how do you think

00:51:05that's going to play here? And who, who on the Patriots might be like, Oh, you know, like I'm,

00:51:12I'm in trouble here. So I'll quickly just say that I think he sort of blends the happy medium

00:51:18between the hard-ass bill Belichick and the locker room players, coach and Gerard Mayo,

00:51:24where our, our colleague, Mike Giardi, all 32 podcasts here. I like that comment down there.

00:51:30Mike Giardi, BSJ all 32 podcasts on CLNS, where he spoke with Ben Jones, the former Titan center.

00:51:37And he wrote a really good piece on it for BSJ where basically Ben Jones explains Mike

00:51:42rabble as he comes in, in the morning, he sends Ben Jones a picture of his Peloton stats and says,

00:51:49Hey, fat ass, I'm working harder than you. Let's go like pick it up. And he's, you know,

00:51:53he's hard on the guy and he wants to be better and he wants them to work hard.

00:51:55But on the flip side, you know, if Ben Jones has to, for example, bring, bring his kid to

00:52:01daycare that morning and shit gets caught up at home for able, we'll be like, Nope,

00:52:04that's all you go do your thing. We'll make sure that we're going to figure it out on our end.

00:52:08And so he, he gets it. And I think that that's the huge thing in, in just sort of,

00:52:13I call it research, but watching, you know, these, um, Mike variable press conferences

00:52:18and interviews over the last couple of days to try and garner what he's like.

00:52:21I feel like he just tows the line of being a hard ass, but can reel you in right at the right

00:52:27time to work hard. He's not going to alienate anybody. He cares for you. Now, a guy like

00:52:32Joe Lonnie to buy, who says that nonsense, he's going to rip him a new one. And it's going to be,

00:52:36this is why you can't do this, but guys should be on their toes, but they should also be ready

00:52:42for a coach who still does care about them. And it's going to get the most out of them

00:52:46on the football field. Yeah. That Jelani to buy a thing would never have happened.

00:52:50If rabble was the head coach, that's just like point blank period. But I think you're

00:52:54a hundred percent right on him blending both cultures. Cause you do have the hard ass things

00:52:58where he wants to make sure guys are getting treatment when they need it. I know Paul Kowarski

00:53:02said, he's not going to put up a lot of dumb shit, or if you're not going to take care of

00:53:05yourself and he preaches it from a player's perspective. And I think that's why Mayo

00:53:09connected with the players so well was because he really didn't know what they were going through

00:53:13as somebody who played one of the hardest positions in the game, a very physical,

00:53:16very demanding position where if you didn't take care of your body, you weren't gonna be able to

00:53:19play. So he says, Hey, I want to get the best out of you so you can make the most money you can.

00:53:25Like he doesn't try to fool them like rah, rah. Oh, we're a family. You know, we're going to get

00:53:29this done. Yeah. You want that camaraderie, but at the end of the day, like in a losing season,

00:53:33what are you going to tell a guy? Oh, you got to fight for your brother. You're being really

00:53:36honest. Are you going to say, Hey, and like, put some good tape on here and make some good

00:53:39money with your next team. If you're not going to be here or, you know, at least make some more

00:53:43money here and maybe we can pay you whatever it is. So I think he understands how to connect

00:53:48with them, but it's going to be very demanding. He's going to be a hard ass, but he's also going

00:53:52to know everybody's families in the building. He's going to have relationships like Rand

00:53:56Carthon. We always talk about how he and Rand Carthon or Rand Carthon was the reason,

00:54:00one of the reasons, at least he got fired. They didn't really get along all that.

00:54:03Rand Carthon said his daughter had a picture of herself and Mike Frabel as her phone background.

00:54:08Yeah. And his kids were like, why the hell are you firing Mike? That's kind of crazy. Cause given

00:54:13what it's reported, like the relationship has been, I don't know that it's necessarily that

00:54:16it's bad. They just didn't work well together. And to hear that, and that his kids love Rabel

00:54:20so much, like that's the kind of guy you're getting where as demanding as he is, he's not

00:54:24going to go more of the bill route where you're a player, it's a professional relationship and

00:54:28that's it. He also does have that investment in you as a person, which you have to give Mayo

00:54:33credit. He maintained buy-in because people thought that he was being sincere and looked

00:54:36out for them. He just didn't have the disciplinary aspect of it where it's like, yeah, no, I love

00:54:41you, but seriously, I'm going to work you to the bone and you're going to be mentally fried by

00:54:45Sunday night. There's, and there's a couple other things to throw in here. One, I can't remember

00:54:49who it was. It was a great Mike variable clip coming off the field with an offensive lineman

00:54:53from a few years ago during his time at Tennessee, where the guy had played hurt and you could see

00:54:57Jones. Oh, it was Jones saying like, you've like, I I I'm awestruck by what you did. Like I I've

00:55:05never seen anything like that, the level of sacrifice. So again, that appreciation, I think

00:55:09that's always the stuff that like, I've never quite understood a players coach, a player, a, a, a, a, a, a

00:55:15teacher that's soft on students, a parent, like you have to be, here's my expectation first. And if you

00:55:23meet it, oh boy, is it going to be great for you? But if you don't, it's going to be really, really bad.

00:55:30And this whole like second chance is making it up as you go. You know, not really kind of having

00:55:35an order or a way, not having kind of a leadership message trickled down. It doomed Mayo extremely

00:55:42early in this season where, I mean, again, the re the reporting done this week, you could see

00:55:47things starting to come apart after week one, which we thought was like, oh, wow, this could

00:55:54be different. And then, you know, these loose strands that you could pull on also, not just

00:55:59the discipline part, you have multiple people coming out here regarding variable. And yes,

00:56:03maybe he's not an offensive genius, but you have multiple people saying that he's one of the

00:56:08smartest players they've ever played with. You've, you've heard it from, you know, I think

00:56:14Brewski recently, Bill Belichick has said this as well. I remember he, you know, he pants, he pants

00:56:20Bill Belichick a couple of times, strategically, there was that great loophole about the, what was

00:56:27it at the end of the game with the timeout or running time off the clock and taking a penalty

00:56:31and eating the clock when the page and no, what Vrabel thought of that. And Bill was frustrated,

00:56:36but he got the better of him there. So like he, you know, he, he got, he doesn't like that.

00:56:42No, it was even funnier than Tom Brady's career. It was out of his control. Like

00:56:48Brable was doing it. And then a Patriot actually did something wrong without being tempted. It's

00:56:53like, damn, he really got in there and toyed with him. So like, that stuff's great. Like you really

00:56:58want a guy to be a couple of steps ahead in terms of like the game managing and the strategy. And

00:57:03that's the big knock on Mayo is what are you doing now? Like the adjustments weren't necessarily

00:57:08made. They didn't just appear to be prepared for a lot of situations. They kind of went in

00:57:14thinking they were going to do one thing or another team would do another. And if it didn't

00:57:17go that way, well, shoulder shrug too bad. So there was definitely issues along the way

00:57:23there that I think for Abel cleans up right away.

00:57:26Also, one other thing, I kind of got to throw a damn towel on something.

00:57:30One other element that Paul Quarcy told me about with a not accepting BS is he doesn't

00:57:34Brable is not a fan of soft tissue injuries because they're usually nagging they'll pop

00:57:39up. And you know, who has nagging soft tissue injuries. That was one thing when he told me,

00:57:45I was like, Oh God, no, because we've talked about it. It feels like if you don't get tea,

00:57:49it puts you in a bad spot offensively. I think they can survive,

00:57:52but it still is much less than ideal. And I don't know if Mike variable is going to throw

00:57:58$32 million at a receiver who might miss three or four games a year because of soft tissue thing.

00:58:03And that's where you look at this, this deal with Brable, where it kind of sounds or seems like

00:58:09he wanted it with the idea that he had full personnel control, where he's going to have a

00:58:13major say within the front office. And if that's the case, then it doesn't sound like to you would

00:58:17be here for that reason alone, where I don't want guys who can sit out for this long because of

00:58:22this. I want guys who are going to be healthy. It is kind of, thanks for the damn towel Taylor.

00:58:26Now I'm pissed off, but I mean, remember when David long, we were talking about him when he

00:58:31was a free agent and kind of like, why would they not want to bring David long back? He's awesome.

00:58:35It was because of course he told me of the soft tissue injuries. They just didn't want to get to

00:58:39him. And then apparently when Brable was gone, they actually tried to bring him back. And

00:58:42ironically, you know why he couldn't come back. He failed his physical.

00:58:45Nice. So I'll ask you, this is, is the philosophy that, Hey guys who have them have histories of

00:58:51them and there's nothing you can do, or guys who have them don't train hard enough, prepare their

00:58:56bodies. And that's never going to change. Cause they'll always be that way. And he views that

00:59:00as like soft, you know that you're, that, that, you know, you're one of those guys who's just

00:59:05always going to be pulling stuff because you, you don't get your body. Right.

00:59:09I think it's part of it because one reason you get soft tissue injuries and why,

00:59:13when I, you tell that one reason people really worried about how he was actually going to play.

00:59:17And the reason he didn't do very well, even before he got hurt was because he missed so much time,

00:59:21like training camp, all these practices, they matter because it attunes your body to taking

00:59:26the physical hits you're going to. And if you miss out on a lot of time and you just go right back

00:59:30in there full speed, like everybody else, that's how these soft tissue injuries happen. And I know

00:59:34T did go to training camp. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to throw him under the

00:59:38bus. I believe he was there. It was Jamar who actually sat out, but I think that's one part

00:59:42of it is a lot of the reason that you get those sometimes is poor preparation.

00:59:47Uh, yeah, yeah. And that would be a damper. Um, so I, again,

00:59:55I think this is kind of where I wanted to pivot, um, the idea that, you know, it's interesting.

01:00:01You can have a structure where you have a general manager or somebody who's in charge of personnel,

01:00:07who is the leader or of the organization and they determine everything. The Patriots have

01:00:12gone in the opposite direction where last year they took on a collaborative approach.

01:00:16I think while the company line might be collaboration and craft even hinted,

01:00:21even said it in his press conference the day, the day after Gerard Mayo was fired. Um,

01:00:27he did say that Elliot Wolf is going to be back. There's been reports that Elliot Wolf is still

01:00:32going to be back as the top personnel guy, but there's been speculation that someone like

01:00:37is going to have either. He's going to demand a much greater say in personnel decisions and,

01:00:44or come in tandem with somebody who, uh, is going to do that alongside with him.

01:00:51What do you guys think of the likelihood of that? Where Vrabel brings his guy in here and they're

01:00:57kind of running the show here. Like Wolf remains. And I think he has to, and I think you need the

01:01:01infrastructure currently to head into the draft, but you almost wonder whether Vrabel and, or

01:01:06anybody he had, he walks through the door with on the personnel side are the veto power. Like

01:01:12the information's been gathered, but we're going to kind of make the calls here. And I don't know.

01:01:17I don't know how it goes. It's going to be fascinating because

01:01:22you don't want there to be a rift between front office and person. I mean, front office and

01:01:26coaching, excuse me. And if again, right, exactly. It's yeah, literally for, for almost

01:01:32feels like years now where even bill was head of personnel, but he would not listen to the

01:01:37front office on, on some decisions, which has been come become sort of widely known now.

01:01:41And so there needs to be a semblance of understanding if they do keep Wolf in place,

01:01:47that these are the types of players that might, I might variable want and why,

01:01:52and your task is essentially to go out and find those puzzle pieces for us.

01:01:57And if Wolf doesn't want to do that, then maybe he sticks around in a lesser capacity. I find it

01:02:04hard to, I find it hard to believe that he's going to take a demotion, but maybe he doesn't have a

01:02:08job elsewhere to kind of fall into. And so there's a, I feel like there's a good chance variable

01:02:12brings in sort of his guy to co coexist in the front office and Ryan Cowden. I see it in the

01:02:19chat now from, from Anthony, I'll pull that out. And so, you know, you hope and pray that there can

01:02:24be sort of an, an understanding that Wolf and, and variable are on the same page. I just find

01:02:28that hard to believe. And so I want to tap into giants goodness by bringing in a, you know,

01:02:36but I, so, and I, I believe they also, they work together in Tennessee too.

01:02:41I mean, the giants just drafted Brian Thomas jr. Tyro Tracy, like it ain't a pretty good draft.

01:02:45I think Malik Malik Malik neighbors. Oh, Malik neighbors. I'm sorry. Oh my God. I get the LSU

01:02:50receivers. No, that's cool. But so, yeah, I mean, I, you hope that he can, you hope that they can

01:02:55work together. I think that the crafts like him, I think they like him as sort of a mole slash

01:02:59ear in the front office anywhere where I worked for the crafts and this guy works for a variable

01:03:03and we kind of mend the fence and work together. It's, it remains to be seen, but I don't think

01:03:08he'll remain in charge. I don't think he'll continue to have final say over personnel to

01:03:11answer the question on the long term. Yeah. I think it's going to be my

01:03:14Grable. Like you bring him in. I'm sure the contract he signed was pretty hefty.

01:03:19And that showed me that you're committing to Mike Vrabel. You are not committing to Elliot

01:03:22Wolf. And I also just, I find it hard to believe that for able was Wolf specific guy.

01:03:27I think maybe he wanted, you know, like the idea, but he has the connection with Johnson,

01:03:31not really with Mike. And I think Mike, because of what happened in Tennessee,

01:03:35because you've committed him so much, he's going to want a lot of say. And I think he is.

01:03:39I think a lot of that is going to be the final say, because it is the team that he's trying to

01:03:43build in his image because he's the one with a proven track record of success, not Elliot Wolf.

01:03:48So, uh, do you like that? I do. I wish they could just be normal and have it be like general

01:03:56manager, head coach, shared vision. But that's also why I don't think Elliot Wolf is long for

01:04:00this team, at least in the role that he's in now. I cannot see this time next year,

01:04:04him being the, uh, uh, executive VP of a player personnel.

01:04:07There needs to be the shared vision. And that's why GM and head coach need to come in at the

01:04:11same time and essentially be on the same, on the same playing field where Taylor, I saw you go like

01:04:16this and like this, it really shouldn't be GM overhead coach. They should be hiring process.

01:04:21Really? It's supposed to be general manager of that. And he coached both really wanted to make

01:04:26the decision of going with. I get what you're saying, but they do need to be on the same page

01:04:30where it's like you said, it's a shared vision. We don't see wide receivers differently. Why do

01:04:36you know? I like this about wide receivers, but I like this. And this is the most important trait.

01:04:39No, this is the most important trait. No, that has to be the same page. And that's why this

01:04:43Cowden thing, I don't know if it's going to be riding Cowden, but somebody who shares the same

01:04:47vision for a football team with Mike variable has to be in charge of personnel for this thing to

01:04:51work. There's no other way around it. That's the only way it will work moving forward.

01:04:55And it's not going to be perfect. There's going to be disagreements. There's going to be times

01:04:59where even with the traits, they don't really see things the same way, but that's where you need the

01:05:02variable or heat the buck stops with him. And he says, yeah, like I forget what story it was. I

01:05:07was reading before we got on there, but, um, Oh, it was Bruce. He, he was saying like, yeah,

01:05:11I'm sorry. Your opinion doesn't matter in this. And it's like, yeah, at some point that asked

01:05:15bill did it didn't make him popular. And he went way too far. Once I read, just wasn't listening to

01:05:19people at all, but the buck does have to stop with somebody who can be like, yeah, but this is my

01:05:23football team. And with the way it's currently structured, that's going to be Mike. So again,

01:05:27that's why him and Elliot Wolf, it just seems kind of funky because they didn't choose to come

01:05:31in together. I think he is going to want someone where he disagrees with him less often than not,

01:05:35especially with the reports that Elliot wasn't really as, um, as what's the word.

01:05:40Um, as I guess, firm as he should have been with his, uh, with his foreign office members.

01:05:45Yeah. Those who care about this kind of stuff, uh, variable press conference is scheduled for

01:05:49tomorrow, Monday at 12 PM Eastern from Gillette stadium. We'll be there naturally. We will be

01:05:56there. Patriots. As we said, tomorrow at noon, we'll be there, hang out, um, and do some more

01:06:01reporting from down there, uh, where the Patriots are, uh, announcing Mike Rabel replacing, uh,

01:06:08replacing Gerard Mayo. I'll tell you reporters, I mean, tomorrow's going to be day one and you'll

01:06:16get him to say some stuff and then he's never going to talk to you again. Um, and he's, he's,

01:06:22he's, he's got a lot of Belichick, but he's actually better at it. Uh, because he really is,

01:06:30he has no problems shutting it down. So if media is going to, you know,

01:06:38if it's variable, you gotta be careful. I was like, I liked bill. I liked covering someone

01:06:43who I could ask football questions and they would give me insightful answers and not force me to

01:06:47have to talk about bullcrap every single week in some random drama that didn't need to exist.

01:06:52So I'm excited. Vrabel has the double whammy of being an enormous human in general. Who's,

01:07:00you know, one of the toughest guys in the room at all times, but also being extremely intelligent

01:07:05and having no patience for anything that you have to say. Um, so it's going to be an interesting

01:07:08combination here. Uh, where he walks off, there's like, there's all the best moments. There's two,

01:07:14where he just gets sick because he tells somebody like, I'm not going to answer that.

01:07:17They keep going building, usually walk off the podium. He would just kind of give you the death

01:07:21glare or go nonverbal. Rainbow's not going to put up with it. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

01:07:26Yeah. So again, uh, you know, a good reasons to, uh, you know, to be excited if you're a Patriots

01:07:31fan, uh, and a lot of things are going to shake out here as we go. Um, we talked about a little

01:07:37bit the process, whether we liked it again, I, I don't think it matters at this point.

01:07:42You're you're pot committed. They were headed down the road here the entire time. This is

01:07:46speculative, but how quickly do you think that this, like, I I'm wondering everyone, I, I, the

01:07:56whole way through the, the reporting on Mayo, he's safe, he's safe, he's safe. And the crafts never

01:08:01came out and said it. I believe me. I believe rebels been on the back burner for half the

01:08:07season. Like I, it wouldn't be stunning to me. You can't technically talk to him. He was an

01:08:13employee somewhere else, but there's no question that they had a really, really, really good idea

01:08:19that not only did they want him, but they could get him, uh, which again, speaks to, I think they

01:08:25might've wanted them last year too. Um, and realized it fairly quickly. And we're prepared

01:08:31to pivot. If that happened, any other leftovers here, we've talked about defensive coaches,

01:08:36new candidates coming in briefly, any new personnel. I don't know what that's going to

01:08:40shake out, but who survives on the Patriots coaching staff? Who do you think has a chance

01:08:44to take a role or remain in a role here? I've seen quite a few people talking about

01:08:49van Pelt being instrumental in Drake may. You don't want to go through the multiple OCs in

01:08:55multiple years and take away a pro take away somebody who's been there. Would van Pelt be a

01:09:00guy you would keep around as a quarterback's coach or in the same vein that he was here was,

01:09:03you're not the play caller, but we'll give you a position of authority or might he move on.

01:09:09I would quickly Taylor, I'll let you kind of dive into the meat of it. I'd quickly say,

01:09:14I don't know how often guys would want to take it to motion, but it's different now that

01:09:19everybody else got fired. Right. And so it would be one thing if Mayo stayed and then they asked

01:09:23him, Hey, we want to bring in a new OC, but will you still stick around? He might've told you to

01:09:27pound sand to there where if he doesn't have a job lined up right now and you could break, say,

01:09:33Hey, we'll give you a senior offensive assistant quarterbacks coach. And you're essentially going

01:09:37to be holding Drake Mays hand alongside our OC for the foreseeable future. I would, I would like

01:09:43it. I think that's a money higher. And if Alex may have held us for it, I'm all for it. I just

01:09:47wonder if you would sort of take that, you know, take that to motion and kind of be knocked down

01:09:52the pedestal while still knowing full well, he was an instrumental part of Drake Mays development

01:09:58this year. Yeah, that's my thing where I think he's going to be named that other teams, especially

01:10:03ones that are going to draft or bring in, or even already have the young quarterback without good

01:10:07leadership would want. I'm sure teams are going to call him, but are they going to call him to be a

01:10:12coordinator? That's the thing. If it's just an offer to be a quarterbacks coach and he and Josh,

01:10:17cause it's same like left foot up footwork, a lot of West coast principles, but it's obviously the

01:10:21Aaron Hart Perkins where the terminology is a lot different. The protections can be kind of

01:10:25different. I think if McDaniels thinks that Van Pelt, Van Pelt's got his own thing.

01:10:30Like these, another thing we need to remember is like, these coaches have egos,

01:10:34Alex St. Pelt's a nice guy, all that stuff. He's got an ego. He knows he teaches his footwork a

01:10:39certain type of way. He's been doing it forever. I don't know how much overlap there's going to be.

01:10:44So if they're, if they think they can work together and the only other offers Alex St.

01:10:48Pelt is getting is to be a quarterbacks coach. I think it makes sense for him to stick with

01:10:52Drake May because that's a way to maybe elevate your status. But if he's getting another offensive

01:10:56coordinator offer, which I'm not sure he will, there's no, not no reason, obviously Drake,

01:11:01but I don't see why he would stay here as someone who wants to be a head coach in the future.

01:11:05Um, well, how about, um, Covington and again, you know, coming to screwed,

01:11:11he's already, um, he's already, uh, interviewed for a, for a vacant, you know, DC job. Um, but

01:11:17he did the years before too. And again, I don't know whether you think that that's, uh, you know,

01:11:21a dubious, um, you know, uh, you know, interview situation. I do wonder whether people are judged

01:11:26more going forward on who they were prior to last year, as opposed to who they were last year,

01:11:31which is Covington was considered kind of an up and comer. Um, and somebody, people were excited

01:11:36about what they may or may not be able to do. Uh, the defense did not go well. And I don't know how

01:11:42much of the blame, uh, necessarily there, but it, would it be unreasonable to think that the entire,

01:11:49like almost the entirety of the coaching staff gets cleaned out?

01:11:53I don't think it's crazy. Cause defensively, the two coaches you like the most are Mike Pellegrino

01:11:57and the Steve Belichick there are Brian. Jeez Louise. They're probably both out. Everybody

01:12:03else was brought in by Wolf. So their jobs are not safe offensively, maybe Scott Peters and his guys.

01:12:11And obviously we've already talked about Dan Pelt, but like on that, oh, Bob Bicknell,

01:12:15he actually did work with Mike Vrabel at one point. They Alex, I think it was Kansas city

01:12:21when Mike was in Kansas city. No, it was the tight ends coach. I think Bravo was playing there.

01:12:25So Bicknell's job could be safer. Like Taylor Embry, Tyler Hughes, Taekwon Underwood, Jerry

01:12:31Montgomery, Drew Wilkins, Dante Hightower, who really struggled in his first year as a coach.

01:12:36I think those guys are gone. Cause I don't really see unless Brable doesn't have guys in mind and

01:12:41he's open to it. Like, I don't know what those guys necessarily brought. That was so compelling.

01:12:45Here's the thing. Oh, I got to keep you, especially with Jerry. It seemed like Montgomery

01:12:48and Covington were on the same page when it came to the defensive line and how they wanted to attack.

01:12:53Like Covington mentioned a few times when I asked him about line games towards the end of the season,

01:12:57we have to do it the way the Patriots do it. And I was like, Hmm, that's an interesting

01:13:01quote coming from someone who was in the Packer system forever. So, well, one of the good things

01:13:05about moving fast first to fire first to hire is maybe first to start plucking up, you know, some,

01:13:11some of the assistant coach positions here. So again, I'm hoping that not only there's quite,

01:13:18if Rabel has known for a while, he was, has had a good, good idea that he's coming here for a while

01:13:24stands to reason. He's had several conversations with people saying,

01:13:28I'm ending up over here. You, you down, you know, you, you, you good with this?

01:13:32I'm pretty sure that was reported by Jeff. How, like the, the second they fired Mayo was

01:13:38Mike Vrabel is ready, able, and has a team and has his off has his not offensive staff,

01:13:44has his entire staff assistant sort of picked out, which he's had all year long to do where

01:13:50he's been in Cleveland. And he sort of probably took that as the main, his main focus. But once

01:13:56he left, he sort of probably started to put this whole thing together as soon as they let him out

01:14:00of that contract. And in Cleveland, he had a press conference where he was like, Oh, I've had the

01:14:04opportunity to work with so many bright young coaches. I was like, ding, ding, ding. I know

01:14:08Tommy Reese is at least one of those guys. Right? Yeah. We'll see. We'll see where that goes. And

01:14:12I do wonder whether that's somebody that might potentially challenge McDaniel's as the, as the

01:14:18presumptive favorite to be the offensive coordinator candidate guys, we're going to wrap.

01:14:24But I want to quickly ask whether you have any remaining thoughts. I also want to tell people

01:14:28here in the chat, watching there's quite a bit more Patriots coverage of the Gerard Mayo. I'm

01:14:36sorry, of the micro variable hiring coming up here on CLNS throughout the day. Mike Giardi

01:14:42dropping an all 32. That's coming up shortly. Greg Bedard is going to jump in and give you his

01:14:48take later on in the day as well. We might be back as well, talking some football, but there's going

01:14:53to be a ton of stuff. So if you haven't already, please subscribe to the channel. Give us a like,

01:14:57tell your friends about it, hang out, turn on your notifications. You'll know when we go live or when

01:15:02new videos post, but lots and lots of stuff. And as the day goes on, more details will shake out.

01:15:07So we're going to have people who are going to be addressing those as they happen. We wanted to jump

01:15:11out here right when the news was, you know, came out, which is around 10 30 AM that the Patriots

01:15:17had done what everybody expected to do. Hired Mike Vrabel as their next head coach. The news

01:15:22first reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter guys, last little nuggets, anything you want to pick up

01:15:27here before we wrap Taylor. I got one. We kind of talked about Mayo's firing and all that. And I

01:15:34feel like we need to bring up the fact that Chantel Mayo, Gerard Mayo's wife took to Twitter or

01:15:41Instagram and was not very happy. She had some choice words to say where it kind of sounded like

01:15:45there was more to Gerard's firing. And maybe we knew about publicly, no one's heard Gerard Mayo

01:15:50side of the story yet or it is. It never even crossed our minds to tell the truth, but I couldn't

01:15:54even fathom all the lies we've read that are being told to save base. What happened to the class

01:15:59believe? Oh, we've been taking the high road and letting everyone do their things. And Sunday

01:16:04playing with someone's name won't be tolerated. I bet the fake stories will stop before the real

01:16:08ones start. There were also reports that players were questioning why Gerard Mayo was fired so

01:16:15quickly after the game players didn't really seem too happy talking about, you know, the meeting

01:16:20they had with ownership, uh, the day that they were cleaning out their lockers. So I wonder if

01:16:24we get some kind of story coming out about this because did Mayo deserve another year? I'm sorry.

01:16:29No. Did the craps handle it? Well, no, they fired him. Wait, like we were even saying it, Mike,

01:16:36when, after it happened, obviously we were kind of excited because we thought it needed to happen.

01:16:39They needed a clean break, but it was also like his family's probably still here, right?

01:16:44Like, cause conference, we found out 15, 20 minutes later. So the guy's family was still

01:16:50in the building. He probably went downstairs and told them he was fired for an organization that

01:16:55wants to be all about class. That was a nasty, nasty move. You have no idea what's going to

01:17:00happen as a result of that. I didn't like it. And I do hope that drives able to give

01:17:03his side of the story because like, I don't know if he can defend himself as a head coach,

01:17:07but the way it was handled in the way he was fired, considering how bad crap felt about it

01:17:11and all that, that was some nasty, nasty work. Yeah. And the way they propped him up from the

01:17:16start, like they, they set him up to fail guys. Like, and we know this and it's been

01:17:22well-documented where he was only a five-year assistant and he never really

01:17:27garnered a room. And I know he, you know, he led the defensive meetings and whatnot,

01:17:31but it was just way too early craft knew it, craft admitted it. And so for that,

01:17:36for, for it to happen the way it did was just shitty on, on all parts.

01:17:40And again, hopefully they learn the mistake. Hopefully they give their next coach and

01:17:44variable some, some leeway again, because he's done it before. I think that's the,

01:17:49the real, uh, the real factor here, but no, you're right. I'm curious to hear

01:17:52Mayo side of the story, what happens. And, you know, if, if he thinks that

01:17:57the only reason he was even given the year was because that he put it in his contract

01:18:01and they had to give him a year. And that's the part that sucks too. Like,

01:18:03did he ever really have a chance? Maybe if they went, you know, six, seven, eight,

01:18:07nine wins and were, were better and made improvements, but he might, and probably

01:18:12should feel like, you know, he was never really, this was never really going to be

01:18:16his job long-term to start. Yeah. I agree with all of you guys. It's a nuanced conversation

01:18:22because, you know, you hear a lot like, well, the roster was bad. What else could he have done?

01:18:27And, and, uh, you know, he deserves a second chance, but the only real reason behind

01:18:33saying he deserved it was, you know, because it's not cool. It's not fair to fire a guy in

01:18:40the first year. You knew he would, all of it is right. It's not cool. He was brought in with the

01:18:44understanding. He has no experience. He was brought in with the understanding that there's

01:18:48no expectation for this team and it's a multi-year rebuild. He was brought in being told that he'd

01:18:52be allowed to grow on the job and that they believed in something he had inside him,

01:18:57which eventually would come out as a head coach. None of that should change because

01:19:03they're supposed to be bad and they were bad, but it also doesn't mean he should have saved his job.

01:19:10Um, because you have to, at that point, inspect whether you thought improvement was possible,

01:19:16seeing what you saw. And based off of that, I think the determination was that it was definitely

01:19:22too soon. And you do get the feeling, Mike, as you said, that craft might've been pretty worried

01:19:27about it even to start, like, cause it was supposed to be a year later, uh, succeeding

01:19:32Bill. So Bill was supposed to help him and the opposite happened to the point that a lot of the

01:19:38reporting around Mayo was he's walking around the room, like knowing he's the next guy, Bill knew it

01:19:44too and resented it. And they were completely isolated. There was, it was a rancorous relationship.

01:19:50And so he didn't get the prep that year or for the two years he was supposed to, to get there,

01:19:56it was written in, felt a little hasty, felt like craft might've had a buyer's remorse almost right

01:20:02out of the gate with it. And, and that, as you said, he was doomed to fail. So that's what it is.

01:20:10The future now is Mike Vrabel and we'll see where that goes. Expect some other news to drop quickly

01:20:17in terms of people who are going to be coming in with him, which is great. And once that does

01:20:20happen, we will react. Taylor wants to jump in one more time before we wrap. Go ahead.

01:20:24Report from Charles Robinson. Uh, he's hearing that Giants personnel advisor,

01:20:28Ryan Cowden is expected to be added to the Patriots, uh, personnel mix, but not with the GM

01:20:32title. He believes Elliott Wolfe will retain personnel power. However, Cowden's addition

01:20:37to the front office is Vrabel's preference. Dynamics will be interested. So, okay,

01:20:43there it is. Uh, as you guys speculated, uh, he's coming in with a guy and they're coming in with

01:20:48potentially a bit of a mandate in terms of how this is going to go. Here's my concern here.

01:20:54Craft test the crafts have to, um, uh, and who reported that? Oh, that was Charles Robinson

01:21:01from Yahoo. Okay. Okay. Um, here's my concern. This idea of two different factions, my guys,

01:21:10your guys, the danger in it is a knives out situation, which happened late. I don't know

01:21:16whether Gerard Mayo's wife is upset with ownership or upset with the Wolf camp of who he had there.

01:21:23And they circled the wagons and didn't want, you know, blame placed on them. You've heard Wolf say

01:21:31the players I drafted didn't develop as we had hoped that was clearly a shot towards Mayo and

01:21:36the coaches for, I got them good guys. They weren't necessarily good. And you have others,

01:21:41uh, you know, saying they weren't ready to play. They weren't like good players to begin with it.

01:21:46We were really working with some difficult stuff here that we were, we were handed a bag of shit.

01:21:51You can't start this with factions, um, at all. And so while they're silos, like they said last

01:22:00year, silos can't do that right now. And I I'm sorry. I don't know how much credit or blame

01:22:09Elliott Wolf, uh, deserves, but I will say at this point, you got to go with Brable and his guy

01:22:17and just hope for the best because this won't work. It will not work when you've got a team in

01:22:24place and a team coming in and trying to make decisions that are going to have shaped the

01:22:30franchise for the next several years. Cannot do it. This is a big cash year. This is a big draft

01:22:36year. They already kind of messed up last year. You can't do it again. Cause you're going to

01:22:42piss away. Drake may his entire rookie contract on four and five win teams without any forward

01:22:48momentum until you have to dump. What's probably going to be $75 million a year on him by the time

01:22:53it's ready for time for him to get paid or more. So get organized, get moving, get on the same

01:23:01page now. And if that means clean house, you got a clean house. I don't love the reports that

01:23:06we'll still stays and we'll still stays in power. That doesn't make sense to me. If you're going to

01:23:11give Rabel a lot of say in the personnel. So again, let's see how that stuff comes about in the

01:23:17coming days. And again, so much more to react to here, you know, and again, we might even have it

01:23:25later. So again, keep it here, subscribe, like do all of that stuff. We really do appreciate you

01:23:30guys hanging out with us here. Enjoy your NFL games. If you haven't already sign up, check out

01:23:35Mike, he's got some of his prize picks up on the site. You know, Oh, sorry. I put up a different

01:23:41one. Prize picks, promo code CLNS, new users play five, get 50 instantly. You don't even have to win.

01:23:49And those of you who want to get in, whether to see a Celtics game later this afternoon

01:23:52or any other hot show, hot ticket, download the game time app, create an account, use code CLNS

01:23:59for $20 off your first purchase. Once again, Taylor Kyle's under the weather, but putting in

01:24:05a Herculean effort, jumping in here on the stream, Mike Kadlik as well. He'll have more.

01:24:11You can also catch all of Mike's stuff over on si.com and something else breaks, something else

01:24:17happens. Hey, you might see all three of our ugly faces here. Well, these guys are pretty, but you

01:24:21might see us pop up a little bit later and talk about that. But as we said, much more stuff coming

01:24:27out on the channel throughout the day, which should be great. We are going to say goodbye

01:24:31as soon as I can find this outro. And there it is.

LIVE: Patriots Hire Mike Vrabel As Head Coach | Patriots Daily

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