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00:00From NBC Sports Boston, our pal, the great, almighty, and powerful Tom E. Curran joining WEEI Afternoons.
00:07Tommy, how are you, guy?
00:09What a tremendous introduction, Fitchy. I appreciate you. How's everybody?
00:13Least I could do my friend.
00:15Tommy, side note, I know you don't want to ever do too much grab-assery at the top,
00:19but knowing how much you love golfing, knowing about the simulator and everything else,
00:25how much do you love Masters Weekend?
00:26I adore it, and, you know, got myself into a nice little pool where you pick seven golfers.
00:34They're all in different tiers. Five of their scores count, and I was rocking steady.
00:39I taught the leaderboard yesterday because I had Scheffler, I had Rose, and I had my guy, Corey Connors,
00:48and I also had Maverick McNeely. No one needs to hear all this, but we've taken on water a little bit on day two,
00:54but we're going to bounce back.
00:55Very nicely done. And, of course, everybody, Tom E. Curran is kind enough to join us.
00:58Thanks to sponsorship from Drains by James.
01:01Drains by James is Eastern Mass's leader in residential and commercial drain cleaning
01:05and pipelining at drainsbyjames.com.
01:08At Drains by James, they give a poop about your pipes.
01:12Tom, one thing I know everyone around here gives a poop about, there you go, killer segue, no worries,
01:17is the draft that's coming up, mercifully, in but 13 days' time.
01:23And I know all of us can't wait to get there, but I, as we get tired of, like, the mock drafts,
01:30I saw something earlier today.
01:31I just want to see if you could get a little, maybe a little intel on this one.
01:35And somebody tweeted at Bedard and said, hey, you keep alluding to a blockbuster trade the Patriots could make.
01:40Is it something you're speculating on, or do you know for a fact that they're big game hunting?
01:44And Bedard actually tweeted back at him a couple hours ago and said, I know.
01:49So I ask you, Tommy Caron, you're a pretty plugged-in type of guy down there in Foxborough.
01:53Do you know anything or, you know, get an idea of maybe a big trade?
01:59I know that they're anxious to make moves still, and they have a ton of cap space.
02:03No one has said to me, hey, we're looking to make a giant trade here.
02:07But in my experience, that's not really how it works.
02:10But given the landscape and given the fact that they have stated publicly numerous times
02:15that we're going to try and explore everything to get our team better,
02:19then I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
02:21So I would brace for that.
02:22And, I mean, the bottom line, though, is do you want to make a trade to make a team better in 2025,
02:28or do you want to have the fourth overall pick and make a team better in 2025 through 2030?
02:35You know, I mean, honestly, if it's a trade that involves the first-round pick
02:40and doesn't involve a whole hell of a lot coming back except another first-round pick and a player,
02:45where, you know, I can see it, and I'm just, you know, spitballing here
02:49because I didn't expect to be talking trade off the top.
02:52But I just think you need to find really good players who are young and on their rookie contracts.
02:59So trades are awesome.
03:00That's great.
03:01But don't piss around with the fourth overall pick.
03:05Get a good player who you can plug next to Drake May, hopefully, whether it be a tackle, tight end, running back,
03:14wherever you want to stick them, and just say, you guys are good for the next six years, okay?
03:18Good. Bye.
03:20So, Tom, you've been exploring the possibility, as you mentioned, tight end there,
03:24of the Penn State tight end, Tyler Warren,
03:27and whether that's something that the Patriots might be interested in adding, whether he's somebody.
03:31What's your sense of that as we sit here a couple weeks out from the draft,
03:35and what kind of fit do you think he would be with the Patriots?
03:39The reason I keep coming back to this, Meggo, is they went bananas on defense.
03:43Carlton Davis, Robert Spillane, Milton Williams.
03:46They still haven't done very much on offense.
03:49Obviously, we all know that.
03:50So what are they going to face on draft night?
03:54If Abdul Carter's there, it seems as if you almost positively have to take him
03:58because he and Hunter are the two best players in the draft.
04:02But if you're looking at, say, Walker, the edge player from Georgia,
04:07and Will Campbell and Tyler Warren, the best player among those three,
04:13generally on every big board, is Tyler Warren.
04:16Now, he's mocked to 8, 9, 10, 7.
04:20But I'm looking at it as, okay, you don't have necessarily a wide receiver
04:25that draws coverage.
04:27You do have Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper, and that's terrific.
04:30They're both 31.
04:31If you can get a tight end who, you know, had 104 catches to 1,200 yards last year
04:36in college, 6'6", 250 is a factor in the blocking game, runs after the catch,
04:41wouldn't say poof if he has a mouthful in terms of an individual.
04:45It doesn't even have social media.
04:46He has such a way with words, Tom.
04:50That was one of my mother's old sayings.
04:52So, I would say that is the kind of fit that you want to surround.
04:58If it's important for the Patriots guys to surround Drake May with players that
05:04they can rely on, that they know what they're getting, and they need to do that
05:08at four, why don't you take a stable guy who can help him, not just this year,
05:12but in years going forward as well?
05:14And that's why I think Tyler Warren, I mean, he is the fourth, him and Jente are the fourth
05:18and fifth best players on virtually every big board in terms of best player available.
05:22So, take the best player.
05:24I sign off on that as well, Tom.
05:28Vrabel, you know, the off-season workouts started this past week, and Vrabel made a speech
05:32to the team.
05:33And, you know, a lot of people have just kind of weighed in on the tone and tenor of that
05:36speech.
05:37You, I'm sure, have heard it by now.
05:39So, any thoughts on just what his message was to the players and overall, you know,
05:45your thoughts on how he addressed the team in that video?
05:49I think it's interesting, Ted.
05:50He just keeps circling back to the point of putting the team first.
05:55And that sense that we got, even when Teddy Bruschi talked months ago before they made
06:00the moves, we're going to remove, the Patriots need to remove that sense of entitlement in
06:03the building.
06:04And that's something that Vrabel said, and that's something we've seen a number of moves
06:07that the team has made to move on from people.
06:09Whether it be a trade or release.
06:12So, even if you're a good player, and even if you've been a big contributor and somebody
06:16who was a great leader here in previous years, they might be looking at it and saying, you're
06:22a very good leader.
06:23You've been a good player.
06:24The team is 8-26 over its last 34 games.
06:29So, if you believe that your position is safe here because you're one of the five best
06:35or 10 best players on an 8-26 team, sorry, that's not the case.
06:41I really think that he wants everybody on a clean slate, regardless of who you are, improve
06:47yourself.
06:47As Bill used to tell you guys, establish your level every single year, regardless of who
06:51you are.
06:51Tom E. Kern from NBC Sports Boston joining us here on WEI Afternoons.
06:58Tom, I ran into a tweet somebody posted a couple hours ago, Dan Kelly.
07:01In 89, speaking to the BPA principal here, Packers took Tony Mandarich 2 overall.
07:07Next three picks were Sanders, Derek Thomas, Deion Sanders.
07:092004, Raiders reached and took Robert Gallery at 2 overall.
07:13Next three picks, Larry Fitzgerald, Phillip Rivers, and Sean Taylor.
07:16Point of this tweet, get the best player available.
07:19So, I couldn't agree with you more on that front.
07:21Like, you have to stick this pick.
07:23You can't futz around with this one.
07:25Don't play with your food.
07:27And speaking to doing whatever the team can do to make Drake May as happy as possible,
07:32do we feel now that the Joe Milton dust has settled, that the deck and runway are appropriately
07:39cleared for him?
07:40Are everything good back in the wide world of developing Drake and him taking over?
07:45Yeah.
07:45And I think that there was a lot of air and energy expended on a guy who was a sixth-round
07:52pick who was freighted to return a fifth, and he had to give up a seventh to even do
07:57that.
07:58So, I'm all set on Joe.
08:01I mean, God bless him.
08:02I hope he does well and realizes everything that he wants.
08:06Tom, looking ahead to the draft again, do you feel any level of concern that they have
08:12left so much of the offense seemingly up to the draft, unless there's a dramatic trade
08:16that happens in the time in between or after that, or they pick somebody up that becomes
08:21a free agent?
08:22You're really looking at filling especially the left tackle spot in that draft, and it's
08:28an area that they've futzed around with for the last couple off-seasons.
08:34That's where the trade, perhaps, can come in.
08:37You know, do you give up your second-round pick for a younger left tackle?
08:42And again, spitballing.
08:43I don't have a candidate in mind, but we started out talking about conceivable trades.
08:49If you're going to look at Will Campbell at number four overall, and most people look
08:55at him as a little bit better, maybe worse than Membu, still a top-12 prospect, but with
09:03some mitigating circumstances regarding arm length, brilliant character, tremendous production,
09:08but that mitigating circumstance, do you look at that and say, you know what?
09:12That's too much of a dice roll.
09:14If it doesn't work out, he's a guard, and we're still back where we were.
09:16So maybe you do go best player available, whether that be Jalen Walker, whether it be
09:20Tyler Warren.
09:21I don't think anybody's going to be trading down.
09:23I just don't.
09:24I think you can throw a blanket over those teams, over those players from about four to
09:3020, and say, whatever you want, you should take it, because they're all pretty much the
09:35same level.
09:36But if you go ahead and take the best player available at four, and you don't feel comfortable
09:42about how you're going to fill left tackle, whether it be the kid Josh Carnally from Oregon,
09:47or whether it's Josh Simmons from Ohio State, who had an injury the Patriots could try and
09:51angle to get him late in the first, then maybe a trade would make the most sense.
09:56But you can't come out of the draft without those two positions addressed, in my opinion,
10:02and probably in the opinion of everybody sitting in front of a radio right now, you three
10:06included.
10:07Hey, Tom, just one more question from us.
10:10I don't know if you've read Shaughnessy's article today, but he just talks about, he
10:14read Bill Belichick's book that comes out soon, The Art of Winning, and he just kind
10:19of mentions in there, in the 80,000-word book, that Bill Belichick never mentions Robert
10:24Kraft, never, not once.
10:26And I just think that's, you know, ridiculously unfair.
10:30Do you have any thoughts on that subject at all?
10:34On Bill not mentioning Robert or on the book?
10:36Yeah, on Bill not mentioning Robert, I guess, yeah.
10:38Yeah, I think that Bill's way of operating is, Ted, you know it better than me.
10:47I mean, there are days where he's going to be engaging.
10:50There are days he's going to act as if you are not even on the planet, the same planet
10:54with him if you were in an elevator.
10:58And that's for a normal person.
11:00For somebody for whom he probably has some animosity at this point, Robert, then, and I
11:07think it's animosity certainly built up since last January when they parted ways.
11:12I do think that Bill probably would have gone off into that good night last January, but
11:18that was unrealistic to expect that to happen, I think, as time evolved and the chess pieces
11:27kept getting moved as to that we had to fire him.
11:30You know, Robert using that term and just all that has transpired since where, you know,
11:38the Patriots and Robert Kraft, they really didn't let sleeping dogs lie, which I don't blame them.
11:42There's a reason the team has gone 8-26.
11:44And a lot of it, I would say 78% to 85% of it rests at the feet of Bill from, you know,
11:522017 to 2023 and where the team went under his guidance.
11:58But I'm not surprised that Bill kind of looks at Robert as persona non grata, which will
12:04be fascinating if and when it comes time to put him into the Patriots all the same.
12:09Oh, yeah.
12:10And what the mood will be then.
12:12That will be a dead fish handshake if you have anything.
12:14Oh, boy.
12:15I'm already uncomfortable thinking about it.
12:18Tommy, appreciate the time as always.
12:19I know Ted said last question, but I'll just throw you a singular answer one.
12:25Obviously, this week, Patriots Pro Patriots Hall of Fame nominees came out.
12:28Mankins, Edelman, Vinatieri.
12:31Do you like the class and who you got?
12:33Oh, yeah.
12:34I love the class.
12:35And I think that Adam deserves it more than anyone because of what he represents, what he
12:43accomplished, the fact that he is the greatest kicker in NFL history, even though a large portion
12:49of his time was spent elsewhere.
12:50I remember in 2005, I was in the Kansas City Chiefs press box talking to some of their
12:58writers because there was only one kicker.
13:00I don't know if Stennerud was in the Hall of Fame yet or not, but I was doing a story
13:04in 05 as to if Stennerud gets in, would Adam Vinatieri be the next guy?
13:10That was 2005.
13:11He went on to play for however many years afterwards.
13:13So, to me, I think Vinatieri would be the really easy choice, but you get three guys
13:19who are eminently deserving and all will get in at some point.
13:24Absolutely.
13:25Hopefully, they'll save a red jacket for you as well one day, my friend.
13:28Yeah.
13:29At Tom E. Curran on the socials if you want to follow him, NBC Sports Boston, on the TV
13:33and NBC Sports Boston.com.
13:34Patriots Talk Podcast.
13:35Tommy, have a great weekend.
13:36Good luck with your master's pool.
13:38We'll talk to you soon, buddy.
13:39Oh, thank you.
13:40Take care, guys.
13:40Have a good weekend.
13:41Cheers.
13:41You too.