Patriots Dynasty Podcast - 2001 Week 5: Patriots vs Chargers
Episode Date: February 25, 2020Mike joins Andy for some Doug Flutie talk, as well as getting nerd boners over Brady's best game at this point in his young career. Want to hear two grown men discuss the heights of other grown men? T...his is the episode for you!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/patriots-dynasty-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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This is Christine Brown and while I have to listen to this podcast as my motherly duty,
you have the choice not to. My sons and of course Michael sometimes say some naughty things when
they're trying to be funny, but really they're just being stupid. You still want to listen?
Go right ahead. I am not your mother.
All right, let's let's kick this off. Welcome to the Patriots Dine-in-Sea podcast.
This is episode five, I think, right? It was more week five, 2001 season.
I mean, the beginning was a little murky. I mean, we may or may not have recorded a few
test runs. So I don't know. You're the boss. Yeah, no, I'm completely lost as well. And who
knows how this is going to actually end up? But yeah, we'll call it for now. Tentatively,
we'll pencil in as episode five. Love it. And obviously, with me again today is Mr. Mellow.
Mike, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing?
Good. Oh, I'm living the dream, as always. I'm sitting here in my bedroom,
talking to you about 2001 Patriots season. That's right. Fully closed this time.
For the most part, yes. That's beautiful. I even got socks on today. It's cold here because
it's officially winter in New England, and it is 27 degrees at the moment.
Oh, I was going to say, I think it's probably like 58.
Oh, so you're probably as bundled up as I am out of bed.
You know, I've got a nice button up for some reason. You got the heat on?
I don't actually know. Well, you have the wildfires that are probably keeping you warm.
They are. Love them. Just kidding. Just kidding. Goddamn it. You're already giving me trouble.
But yeah, I know things are fantastic, man. I was thinking about it, and I don't say it enough,
but it is a pleasure to be here with you. Yeah. I look forward to doing these every week.
But yeah, it is just the two of us again. The brothers are off gallivanting, as always.
I prefer frolicking. You can prefer whatever you'd like.
Thank you. Hey, Greg, he still never responded to my birthday wish from last week, so.
No. Oh, well, next time he's on, we'll have to give him a bunch of shit for that.
Yeah. I'm a little annoyed.
All right. So speaking of annoying, coming into town this week, week five, 2001 season,
we're the at the time San Diego Chargers, which they no longer are,
rest in peace. They could be the London Chargers at some point.
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Who do you think like a quick sidebar
top top three possibilities are to move to London? Well, franchises, I've given this
no thought whatsoever. So yeah, me neither. I just came up with this right.
So don't take anything I say as anything other than what I'm saying.
But it's gospel. It's on recording. So it's gospel now. We're going to hold you.
Well, I think I was thinking about this a lot recently, not about the London thing,
but just in general. Okay. We have multiple teams in California. Fine. Whatever. True.
We have multiple teams in New York. We have multiple teams in Florida. That all makes sense.
Texas. Why? Why Ohio?
Huh. You know what I'm saying?
Is that kind of the birthplace? Isn't the Hall of Fame in Ohio too?
Yeah. But do you need two teams in that area?
I mean, do you need one team in that area?
Well, that's what I'm saying. So should we move?
I mean, I like it. So you're going to move the Browns again.
Yes. You're going to move the Bengals.
Yes. Which one goes to England and which one goes to, well, I'll say Portugal.
China. That's where your family's from.
Yeah, that's right. I was just saying like, isn't that the plant?
I think that's problematic. But yeah, all right. I'm sure they pay for it.
Yeah, that too. And freedom and such. Oh, yeah. That whole thing.
Yeah. No, I think I feel like London deserves the Browns.
They could use a little bit of drama, but nothing too happy, nothing too exciting.
Yeah. I mean, this is a country where it rains 80% of the time. So they do enjoy themselves
some misery. Yeah. This is also a country that invented the game of soccer and hasn't won the
World Cup since 1966. So I think the Browns would be a fitting franchise for them,
but the Bengals aren't much better. I mean, they've never won as well.
Right. Well, I was going to say, if we ship them to Portugal, let's say, as you said,
my people from the same mother. Whatever I'm trying to say is the Bengals would be perfect
for the Portuguese because guess what? The Portuguese don't watch football. They don't
give a damn. And it would be perfect for the Bengals. It would, yeah. Because pretty much
status quo. Yeah, not much would change. Yeah. So I mean, are you on board? Do you have any thoughts
on this? Yeah. Well, I mean, my initial thought was Force Dan Snyder to sell the Redskins and then
just change them to the Washington Redcoats. Right. Okay. It still works out. I like that.
And then just ship them over. Problem solved. And you probably have to change the logo slightly,
but I think you could just make the guy on the helmet paler. Okay. And it would probably still
work. All right. So yeah, give them a little top hat or something. I don't know.
These are not bad ideas. If somebody could get on this and tweet whoever needs to be tweeted,
it would be great. Yeah. If somebody can get in contact with Roger Goodell, our DMs are always
open. He can hit us up and we'll sell them these ideas for small money. Yeah. I don't know if you
know, but he's currently meeting with Antonio Brown, I believe. Oh, that was today. Yes. Yeah.
I can't wait to see what comes out of that. Yeah. So for all of you listening to this
in the future, and this is old news, and I still haven't heard what happened to Antonio Brown,
please let me know. Yeah. Please tweet at Mike Mellon. Do you even have Twitter? I don't know.
No, I don't think I do. Although, my guess is your Twitter handle will be leave Mellon.
Mellon, what was it? What was your? That was, yeah, I was going through stuff.
But it was Mellon in the middle, but it was leave Mellon, which I thought was super clever. Yeah,
no, I'm a big fan of wordplay. And I was, I was, I was impressed with that one.
You know, but I, those are darker times and we're here for cat football. Yeah. Life couldn't be
better. Sunny, you know, warm, at least for imagination. Right. At least inside this conversation,
it's beautiful. It is. You know, it's beautiful. What else is beautiful? The New England Patriots.
Yes. Well, let's, yeah, let's talk about these charges, speaking of warm. All right, fine. So
this was, I thought an interesting group of, of players and in general, the head coach was Mike
Riley, who I had never heard of, still never heard of. I mean, it's not a name that I remember. I
don't know about you. I don't, not really. It doesn't really well. Not even a little bit. I saw a
picture of him. Like I looked him up and everything, not a fucking clue. I think he may have coached
Nebraska because he's wearing Nebraska stuff, even on his like football, like NFL, like profile,
but good for him. Apparently only coaching NFL for three years, all with the chargers from 99 to
2001. He went eight and eight the first year, one in 15, the second year, and then five and 11,
and he was never invited back. At least they had coached in the NFL. Chargers haven't done much
better since. I mean, they had a couple of good runs, but yeah, they have, but every time they
have a good run, they fire their coach. So I mean, those thoughts, the Marty Schottenheim year,
where didn't they go like 14 and two when he still got fired or whatever it was? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So I mean, I'm sure we'll get to that at some point in this, this podcast down the road,
because I think the Patriots had something to do with that. I think so as well. Yeah. But this,
this charges team led by the well renowned Mike Riley actually started the season three and oh,
um, before losing their game before this one to the Browns. I think it was
the three and one coming into this game and actually started the season five and two
and ended it five and 11. So I'm not quite sure what happened because, you know, I'm not a
charges fan. Thank God. But like, that's just the wheels falling the fuck on it. That's very
Buffalo Bills. Ask it felt right, which made sense because there are some ties here to the Buffalo
Bills. I think the biggest tie would be they're starting quarterback Doug Flutey.
Doug, the best box Flutey. Yeah. Of if you didn't know before watching this game, the announcers
would beat it over the fucking head for you that he is from Massachusetts. No, played at B.C.
Get the fuck out of here. Did you know that? Did you know that after the game? I did. Yeah.
Oh, it was nauseating. It was it was the 2001 version of did you know
this tight end played basketball on college sort of thing? You know, did you know Patrick Mahomes
used to play shortstop? Well, it's funny that you bring it up because I was actually thinking
correct me if I'm wrong. Is is Flutey the original Patrick Mahomes?
Oh, I think so. Okay. Because he's because he has a worm. Yeah, they have, I mean,
they have had mobile quarterbacks before him because with Randall, Randall Cunningham and
Warren Moon and that lot and Steve Young. Yeah. So maybe Steve Young may have been the first
Patrick Mahomes. Are you saying that because Flutey's short? I'm saying that because they're
all short. Yeah, they're all short and mobile. Is Steve Young short? He's not that big. I mean,
he's not Doug Flutey short. Doug Flutey's five nine. Yeah. And that's what I'm getting at.
That's why he can be Patrick Mahomes. Way to go, man. How tall is Patrick Mahomes? I have no idea.
Yeah. Steve Young is six two. See, it's taller than I am. So yeah, he's he's my height, which
wow. Okay. I just said taller than I am. You have to trump me by stating your height. Wonderful.
Sorry. Well, I mean, you're not exactly, I mean, what are you six feet? Yeah. Well,
I think I'm like a quarter of an inch off. Whatever. We'll call six feet. I don't mind
rounding up. I'm like six one and seven eight. So six two and you're six feet. All right, Patrick.
What do you think? How tall do you think Patrick Mahomes is comparatively?
I don't know. He seems tall and lanky. So I got to think he's like,
I want to say, well, I think he's probably like six feet. He's six three. Damn. Right.
See, that guy was built for this. I guess so. What about and Tom Brady's actually six four. So
he's actually about Tom Brady's size, which I always felt like he was much shorter.
Interesting. Yeah. But yeah, Floody, I don't know. I mean, I say that because he had a rocket arm.
He was, you know, he was pretty good at scrambling running. Yeah. I mean, I guess he didn't do the
cross body stuff. I don't really know who does that other than maybe Farve. But yeah, that's right.
But you know, I'm saying it right here. Doug Floody, the original Patrick Mahomes.
Yeah. No, I think there's a lot of structure. Right. Yeah. And I think he was a bit before
his time for this. I agree. But he did. You didn't have a good year this year,
even though they went five and 11, because the whole controversy like that's why I was
bringing up the bills was that the bills had Doug Floody and whoever they went with Todd Collins,
maybe. Wait, where are the bills? Was that Rob Johnson? That's who it was. Yeah. I knew it was
one of those. I don't even know. I don't even know what to call them anymore, just the plethora of
fucking awful bills, quarterbacks. But yeah, it was Rob Johnson. So they had both of those
in the prior year when they were like switching back and forth between them.
And let's see. I have it here. Rob Johnson started 11 games, went four and seven.
Doug Floody started five games and went four and one. Well, and it's funny because Tom Donahue,
I think, was the bills GM at that time. Yeah. And he said that they decided to get because
for salary cap reasons, they couldn't keep both of them or whatever. Right. So they picked Rob
Johnson because he is more talented. That is a quote. Yeah. No, it's 100% correct. And yeah,
because they basically, I think Rob Johnson struggled. So they ended up putting Floody
in at the end of the year and he won as many games as Rob Johnson did in half as many starts.
Because that's kind of what Floody did. It was never particularly pretty, but he always found a
way to do it and he had that like fourth quarter magic that the commentator in this game were
gushing all over them. But they, yeah, because there was even a thing in the Boston Globe talking
about how basically the bills had made the wrong choice. Stick with Rob Johnson because
he went in 2001 because the charges who were 115 the year before
got Floody and started off the season five and two. And Rob Johnson, on the other hand,
started the season one and seven before he was benched for Alex Van Pelt of all people.
Oh, nice. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And he finished season two and six. So he was one game better
than Rob Johnson who they paid a bunch of money for. Why? Because he is more talented.
Apparently, just barely.
It's a disaster. Yeah. So Floody had like an age thing though.
I mean, I think Floody was getting up in age at that point. Rob Johnson was 28 in 2001.
And let's see how old Floody was. He was probably significantly older. He was 39.
Yeah. I mean, so the GM could have just basically said, you know, it's an age thing.
We're trying to groom Rob Johnson, but instead he went with the talent.
Yeah. And that came to backers to bite him a little bit.
But yeah, so Floody had a decent year. He threw for almost 3,500 yards,
15 touchdowns, but he also threw 18 picks. So kind of up and down, which I think we saw a little
bit of in this game. He was actually pretty good in this game, but not as effective in the red zone.
He also finished with... Yeah. He was 12-1 all the time before this game at Foxborough.
That's true. Yeah. But most of those games were well-playing for BC.
Okay. Well, it counts.
But he had already done a stint with the Patriots before this, which was interesting.
Because I remember when he came back, when he was like in his 40s...
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And he had the drop kick for the extra point.
Exactly.
But I didn't realize he kind of...
Yeah, he started in Chicago back in the 80s, came to New England for a couple of years,
didn't really play much. Well, he started a few games actually. In 88, he actually started nine
games and went six and three.
Yep.
But they didn't stick with him. Then he went to Buffalo and then San Diego and then back to
New England for that one year.
Well, and I mean, Belichick had a lot of respect for him. Because I mean,
at the end of the game, he sought him out, gave him a hug.
Yeah.
Again, that was before he sold his soul, which we established was circa 2004.
Right. Right, right, right. Well, did you catch when...
And just jumping ahead a little bit, but when Brady threw his last touchdown right at the end,
he... They showed a shot of him celebrating.
Yeah.
And his face, like, no smile, nothing. He just threw his hands up in the touchdown celebration.
Yeah.
That was it. That he was done.
Yeah.
That's good.
Yeah. But the one other thing that they didn't actually mention at all in this game,
but I found when I was doing research on the Chargers, was the backup to Doug Flutey,
and was sitting on the bench, was a rookie Drew Brees.
That's right.
Yeah. Who didn't see the game at all.
And would... I think he... I think from what I remember, Drew Brees actually kind of struggled
a bit at San Diego.
Yeah.
And then he got hurt, and then...
He did, yeah.
And then they moved on, and we all know what happened.
I will say, though, one of my notes about Doug Flutey was,
I haven't seen anybody put as much effort into throwing a football
in Drew Brees as Doug Flutey.
He puts 120% effort in throwing that football.
It looks like he's going to tear his top half of his body off his bottom half.
Yeah. He does zip them in there, though.
Oh, he does.
But even like any sort of... It doesn't matter what it is.
He's just slinging it. It's amazing.
So what you're saying is he's not the original Patrick Mahomes.
He is the top of the family tree.
You know, almost like a coaching tree, but with quarterbacks.
He's the top, and coming off of him at one side is Patrick Mahomes,
and the other side is Drew Brees.
Wow. So it all starts with Flutey. I love it.
It does, yeah. That is the beginning of both of those guys' careers.
Doug Flutey paved that way.
Yeah. But he threw a Hail Mary pass at Boston College.
It was complete.
That sounds familiar.
Yeah, to beat like an undefeated Miami team or something like that, right?
That's right.
The number one ranked team at the time.
Yeah, I don't know who it was.
But I just remember the celebration videos.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Where is wearing the cutoff shirt?
Yeah. Hell, yeah. The cutoff, yeah.
Oh, God. Speaking of rookies on this Chargers team, they're running back.
You may have heard of them.
Lydany and Tomlinson. This was his rookie season.
Hell of a rookie season.
Yeah. He ran for 1200 yards and 10 touchdowns this year.
And at this point, the season was actually the leading rusher going into this game.
Well, it was insane, too, because they were pointing out that at this point,
week five, he had seven touchdowns.
And the previous year, the Tigers had seven Russian touchdowns total.
He already had a week five.
Yeah. It was a pretty big upgrade.
Although now that we talk about it, though, week five, he had seven touchdowns.
He finished the year with 10 touchdowns.
Yeah. So my guess is that either teams figured him out or they just figured that off and out.
Because I mean, they stopped winning games.
So my guess is they got behind and had to just start chucking the ball and go away from actually
running it. Because even this game, they they tried to stick with the run.
But LT finished 24 carries 74 yards.
So it's not great.
He had a touchdown.
But as long as Ron was 14, it's not like he was blowing things up in this game.
I mean, he looked good.
And he had some pretty strong runs.
Yeah.
But the pages actually kept him surprisingly bottled up.
For how much the commentators were talking him up.
I thought it was going to be a bigger deal.
He also made me think of you because I'm correct me if I'm wrong,
but wasn't he one of your favorite players of all time?
No, no.
He was exactly opposite.
I think you're right about that one.
Exactly. I've hated him ever since he came out.
I'm pretty sure he had a jersey, didn't you?
No, not me.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
You don't want to admit it to the public?
I don't I don't buy non-patriot.
Actually, well, I do buy non-patriot jerseys, but they're of usually failures.
My favorite is Maurice Clorat jersey.
That's a sore subject.
Hey, it was a cheap jersey.
I'll tell you that.
I got it for like 15 bucks.
And like whatever that marshals is in Lawrence.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It sounds like yeah, all the jerseys with like I've got a couple of ones.
I think I have ones like Tim Couch.
I've got one that.
Are they like legit though, or are they like slightly wonky?
No, well, these ones are actually pretty legit.
I have one that's I can't remember who was some bill's receiver,
but the name was put on upside down.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I had a David Megan where the numbers were off center.
Like quite a bit.
Yeah, so we probably shopped at the same place then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I had who was the the Raiders quarterback?
Aaron Brooks was it?
Oh, Aaron Brooks, yeah.
So I got one of those.
So I was giving those away as a Christmas gift back in college.
So I don't actually have them anymore, but they're out there.
Well, all right.
If you don't want to admit to being the hugest,
not hugest, but top five biggest fans of Ladinian, then you can move on.
All right, not I think I don't know.
I think I think you may be confusing me with one of my brothers.
So we'll have to ask them when maybe I don't know.
We're going on the record that we're a Ladinian fan, the biggest.
All right.
Yeah.
A Ladinian Stan, if you will.
Yeah.
Oh, boy.
No, he sucks.
He was really good.
He was just a patriot.
Well, yeah, he wasn't such a blowhard.
Actually, he wasn't even blowharding anything.
He was a kind of a pansy and he whined a lot.
But anyways, he has it in him and Marshall Fox.
They hate the Patriots of the past and I'm sick of it.
Oh, they do.
And Mark Brinell of all people.
Mark Brinell.
Yeah, he was crying over the flight gate.
I don't know if you've heard of that.
Yeah, like legitimately crying on television.
Come on.
Some people.
Jerry Rice.
He's mad because he lost the AC championship against them.
Yep.
Yep.
Jerry Rice.
Yeah.
Mr. Stickham loved the guy, but he admits to cheating himself,
which I would say deflated or not, intention or not.
Who gives a crap about one PS tie.
But if you have glue in your hands,
that probably has a good contribution to certain parts of the game.
You would think, wouldn't you?
Wide receiver.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But hey, who am I?
Yeah.
Can we get Jerry Rice on here?
A guarantee he'd come on right now to defend his honor.
Yeah.
So let's do that.
Because.
All right.
Yeah, I'll have our people talk to his people,
see what we can set up.
Make it happen, man, because I'm furious.
All right.
Speaking of wide receivers, though,
had you heard of any of these Chargers wide receivers?
Because here's the list that I have.
I have Curtis Conway, who was their leading receiver.
I don't remember him.
I didn't.
Jeff Graham, who, if you had told me the name Jeff Graham,
I would have thought he was like a stand-up comedian.
He is.
He's fucking hilarious.
His stand-up special came out two months ago.
I highly recommend you watch it.
I think it's on Netflix.
I'm not sure.
OK, all right.
I'll keep an eye out for that when I'm browsing Netflix.
Yeah, he's really good.
And then the only name I actually did recognize
was Tim Dwight.
Tim Dwight was good.
Solid.
Because he eventually played for the Patriots.
When was that?
I vaguely remember that.
I don't remember.
It was like the end of his career.
And he didn't last very long.
I think he was just there to do punt returns in.
I think he was supposed to spell either Welker
or Edelman at punt returns.
And he did very well.
But he was good in this game.
The Pages couldn't stop a wide receiver slant
or they just didn't want to.
And they apparently forgot how to tackle on special teams.
Oh, yeah, kick-offs were an adventure to say the least.
For both sides, I feel like.
Yeah, look, I mean, I've been a champion of Lee Johnson.
Oh, we'll get to Lee Johnson.
Just you wait.
Oh, I got a big old section on Lee Johnson to talk about.
Okay, I'll laugh.
Championing this guy.
And that's the problem with putting yourself out there.
Yeah, you shouldn't have done it.
But the defense actually has some even bigger names,
I thought.
Some names that Pat's fans will also recognize.
Because both Rodney Harrison and Junius Seo,
who made the Pro Bowl this year,
ended up playing for the Patriots.
Junius Seo made the Pro Bowl this year?
Mm-hmm.
Like, 2019?
No, 2001, this year that we're talking about.
Oh, okay.
The reason for this podcast, Mr. Mello.
I thought you were saying, okay.
Keep up.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't even make any Pro Bowls this year.
Right.
I thought you were being insensitive.
No.
Oh, okay.
Junius Seo, rest in peace, bud.
Yeah, exactly.
He was awesome.
Yeah, he was the heart and soul of the team.
It was.
Yeah, so between it was those two and also Marcellus Wiley
on the defensive line.
And I guess Ryan McNeil, the cornerback,
went to the Pro Bowl this year as well.
Those four were all Pro Bowls on the defense.
Yeah.
So, set in the stage there.
I think talking about how good this defense was,
we should actually start talking about the Patriots offense.
Because, and especially Tom Brady,
because this to me was the first game that Brady actually
was the reason the Patriots won in his career.
Well, way to bring that up so quickly before we even talk about it.
Give it a little suspense, man.
Now, no one remembers the outcome of these games.
We've given this game 20 years of suspense.
No, no.
We got to, all right, fine.
They won, guys.
They won this game.
No, I actually, I think this is me being serious here.
I think that this game, outside of any championship or playoff games,
it's probably, and it's one that you don't even think about,
but it's probably like one of the top 20 regular season games of the dynasty.
And it's definitely worth a rewatch if anyone has access to it.
Yeah, I 100%, because I was, I was watching the game today,
and it got like, I think it was eight minutes left in the fourth quarter.
I knew what the outcome was.
Yeah.
I'm still sitting there.
I had a moment of doubt of like, wait, they, they do win this game, right?
Like how, I'm not quite sure how it's going to happen,
because they're down 10 points with eight minutes left and going against this ridiculous defense.
Right.
And I had to like not knowing the results going in.
I didn't.
And I was like, well, this is pretty cool.
I feel like I'm reliving like everything all over again.
See that, because that's how you've been watching these, but I knew,
because, you know, I've been, for my website, I've like been in this,
like all these stats and everything and the results and all that for a while now.
So I, yeah, I've kind of like, I know, like from numbers wise and win loss wise,
like how the season went on.
But I don't actually remember watching this game.
Like I don't remember any, like, I remember, I remember Brady throwing his first touchdown,
like that, that plays is in my mind.
And then the game, we're going to dig through to Wiggins.
You know, it's sad about this.
I think I didn't miss a Patriots game for, I think until like 2007, to be honest.
Yeah, me too.
So it was probably like, you know, I don't know, 15, 20 years, you know,
15 years of like straight football.
And I didn't want to miss a game.
It was very important to me.
And I, you know, love watching the Patriots.
It's a good time.
But looking back, I'm like, I don't remember a damn thing about anything that I watched.
I made sure to watch every one of them.
So maybe they're all bleeding together, but I feel like looking back, I'm like,
man, I shouldn't have tried to catch every single one.
But no, I just feel like because it's, it's also been 20 years.
I know, I know.
And at the moment, you're, you know, you're experiencing it, you know, as it happened.
So it's one thing, but I'm like, I do not remember most of this.
So it's great to watch it again.
It really is.
Yeah.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
It's like this for like how, like the, all the, the feelings that I remember this season,
like the bits and pieces that I remember, I, I thought I remembered more than I actually did.
Because all of these games that I watched with the exception of the Jets one where,
where Bledsoe went down, I remembered almost nothing of any of these games.
And so it is almost like part of it is watching it for the first time.
But you know how it's going to end up, which is kind of cool.
And you, and there's also that added thing of like getting to see Tom Brady, like,
you know, as a young foal taking his first steps.
Oh yeah.
Being born, knowing what that's going to turn into.
And like just, just hearing all the, the commentators talking about like, oh,
this young kid might be something one day.
Right.
Right.
Like, oh, you knew, but it was fascinating because, you know, the game itself was awesome to watch,
but, but the game before, you know, he's already got crapped on by, by Miami.
So they, they, everyone was just writing them off, like we talked about.
And they're like, oh, what controversy, whatever.
And after this game, it's sort of like reinvigorated everything.
I think it did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think this was the beginning of the, the actual quarterback controversy for the pages in this year.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
But yeah, because like you said, like the pages, it felt like they had been written off
because they were one and three at this point.
And when I was putting together all like the Boston Globes, like sports pages for the day of,
and then the day after, like pre and post game, the, the front page of the sports section,
the day of the game, didn't have anything about the Patriots on it.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Just, just wasn't there.
And it wasn't like the Red Sox, I think the Red Sox had been eliminated from the playoffs.
So just talking about like, it was all just baseball playoffs, basically,
and some hockey stuff, but there was no mention of the Patriots.
I mean, that's pretty interesting though.
It's, it's been what almost 20 years since they were an afterthought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause it wouldn't happen again.
Cause this is when they kind of started winning and it didn't really stop for the next 19 years.
The other incredible thing about this is like,
and I don't know if I mentioned this last, last week, but
watching this team kind of grow from the 2000 season until now, and then eventually what they became,
it's almost as if like you were watching like the Bengals, right?
So the Bengals, you know, they, they crap themselves every year.
And then one year there's this kid, you know, like the men's shoe guy or all these kids.
Yeah.
And they take the team by storm.
They never let it up, right?
So, you know, they don't lose their job.
They were, and it just continues from that point on.
So imagine the Bengals just becoming a powerhouse for the next 20 years tomorrow.
That's what happened basically.
Yeah.
When they're, when they're a hundred million dollar starting, like franchise starting quarterback
goes down and they're like, you know what, fuck, we're going to start this random dude
who nobody's ever heard of.
Yeah.
Like a gardener men shoe.
Yeah.
If you, if you had just taken them and just won the rest of the games and won the Super Bowl
and then stuck around for the next 20 years.
Yep.
Like that's, that's, that's really hard to imagine.
Even if you want to put like Patrick Holmes in that list, it's like, yeah,
they got rid of a solid quarterback in Alex Smith.
And now all of a sudden this kid that nobody really knew about, even though he was drafting
the first round.
Right.
Taking the world by storm.
But even he's like struggling.
And he didn't, he didn't even win a Super Bowl for us.
He was like, what the fuck?
Right, right.
MVP.
Yeah.
But the one thing I noticed about the Patriots offensive game plan this was that it seemed
like they were going to be trusting Tom Brady in the game, even against this defense.
Right.
I mean, that's interesting.
You think that they have that going in because the run game was not working from the beginning.
That's true.
But I mean, like they, they started the second drive, like inside their own 10 yard line.
The first play was, yeah.
Yeah, five wide, zero running back, like empty backfield and letting Tom Brady throw out of
his own end zone.
Like.
Yeah, you're right.
I mean, I also like, so he threw for over 50 passes in this game, which is insane.
He did.
This is actually, I was looking it up.
It's the kind of 11th most passes I've ever thrown.
That's crazy.
Yeah, right off the bat.
But I was also wondering, because I mean, that defense was like brutal.
I mean, it was, you know, they're fast, they're big and they blitz a lot,
especially with Rodney and Junior.
So do you think that part of it was, especially when the run game just crapped itself,
do you think that Bellacheck was like, you know what?
We're going to give this kid experience and whatever happens, happens,
or do you think it was more of a, we're going to win this by doing it this way?
I mean, I think I, I don't know.
It felt like they were like, yeah, no, this kid can do what we ask of him.
And I don't think they were asking a ton because there was a whole lot of like
bubble screens and basically it seemed like they told them, you know,
if one of your wide receivers, if the defensive backpain against them is often for 10 yards,
just like catch the ball and chuck it at them and let them get that eight, nine yards,
you know, before the guy can get to them because they did that a bunch of times.
So what you're saying is that the top ready game plan hasn't changed for 20 years.
Well, I mean, he was still throwing down the ball. He could throw a beautiful out route.
He could, but his deep ball, man, like I wrote that that was like one of the weaker,
you know, the weaker spots in his game was his, and I know he's never been like a
perfect deep ball guy anyway, but in this game, it looked like it needed to be worked on.
Like, yeah, he was precisely accurate. His decision making was great.
But like, yeah, his deep balls were a little off.
I thought he had a couple that were like right in the money, but they were dropped.
I can remember one specifically from Patton down the sideline, but yeah,
it was, it was surprising to see him overthrowing deep balls.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously you need timing down with those guys.
Yeah, you know, he didn't want to work, but you don't ever really see him overthrow anybody
anymore. Like that's not he can't just kidding.
But yeah, so this game, he did throw his first ever touchdown pass
to the vaunted Terry Glenn, who had a what I felt was a very Terry Glenn game.
Yeah, I mean, I agree. And before we even get into that, like, do you find it odd
compared to maybe now even do you find it odd that Belichick after suspending from a year,
then he got reduced to four games and then he was forced to come back. He didn't have to play him.
So didn't you find that it was odd that once the suspicion got reduced,
that he was this active in the first game that he was back?
No, for a couple reasons. One, the main reason is because
Belichick always says, I'm doing what's best for the team. And what's best for team is to have
that talent on the field. And especially because it was this defense, because they knew I'm guessing
they knew they were going to have to throw it. And so to give Brady that option, because
I don't remember how many catches he had in the first half, Terry Glenn, but
I think it was like nine. Yeah. And he went for like 97 yards in a touchdown.
Or maybe it was like six, actually. But yeah, it was up there. Something like that. Yeah. But he
was kind of the the main option for Brady throwing balls kind of at the sideline that Terry Glenn
would make these diving toe tap catches. Amazing, which I mean, if social media was like prominent
around that time, that would be he might be like the the next Odell Beckham based on
catches alone. Yeah, he was he was making a ton of them. I mean, he I think he had one catch in
the second half. But so it's very, very, very like disappeared immediately when the game actually
starts. How about dude, he had, I think, three back to back sideline grabs and they were all like
one of them. He went dead leg. He based the ball as he was flying out of bounds, his legs drop.
And I don't know how this is humanly possible, but they drop. He did another one that was very
similar than the third time. He definitely caught a sideline catch and they called it incomplete.
And, you know, oh, that's right. Yeah, anywhere, whatever. But that was a beautiful catch as well.
So yeah, it was incredible to watch. But yeah, he felt he disappeared in the second half or whatever
reason. Yep. Yeah, yes. It's just typical Terry Glenn. Like I mean, we were talking before we
his entire career with the Patriots, he never had multiple touchdowns in a game. Right.
Which is mind blowing for how good of a player he was.
Well, did I say that really last number had one? I believe you made that claim.
Yeah. So I mean, I believe it was debunked. But yeah, if you want to stick with that,
you're more than welcome. Okay. I'm just saying that, you know, great players don't necessarily
have that. Yeah. But no, I was correlating this to things like, like, remember what Wes Walker
was like, you know, making a couple of foot jokes with what's his face. Right. Yeah. So
that would check, even though it wasn't the greatest thing for the team, he benched them for
the first quarter of that game and they lost. So true. Yeah. I'm like, why? Where's the double
standard unless he just didn't like Wes, which I know that that is sort of rumored anyway. But
yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wonder if we would know more if this, like you said,
this was happening today in the age of social media. And, you know, if it would be more along
the lines of seeing what Antonio Brown has been putting out there, it would have been similar
to that. Yeah, I don't know. But Wes was like such a quiet dude anyway. Except for that one moment
he got punished. I thought fairly severely. I mean, wasn't that a playoff game?
I think it was. Was that the playoff game? I don't remember. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was
a playoff game when he was benched for the first quarter. It may have been. Yeah. That was just
a bad game all around. So I don't know. Now, here's a, you know, maybe it's an out there
question. I don't know. You can tell me. But do you think that we could get Bella check on here
at some point and have him discuss that after he retires? Yes. Oh, you think so? I think that would
yeah, because by the time we've actually caught up to modern day patriots in 19 years or however
long it'll take us to do that, you will hopefully have eventually retired at that point if he's
still alive. And then we will have him on because we will be the preeminent Patriots podcast.
In like 20 years, I'm going to hold you to this. Okay. All right. If I remember.
If either of us is still alive in 20 years, let's be honest. It's a long time. Yeah.
All right. So going back to Brady, though, one other note I had on here was a couple, but the one
that I want to talk about next is I noticed that there was a whole lot of heart counts from Tom Brady.
And I think that was in direct correlation to what the Chargers defense was doing.
Because it felt like every single play, at least juniors say, if not both middle linebackers,
would run up and pretend to try tying the snap count. And both of them kind of like jumped on
either side of the center there. And I think even on the first drive, they had it written down
somewhere, but I think it was the first drive, they had two offsides penalties trying to time that
jump. And at least one of them was on juniors. And then again, like towards the end of the game,
even Rodney Harrison got into it was like trying to time that would like jump over. And they actually
on occasion actually managed to get back on size before the ball was actually snapped. But
it was very like... That was sort of a knock on them at that time in their careers as well,
though, because I think they were very sharp and aggressive. But then at the same time,
they're also very emotional. And so, if one or two things goes awry or you hurt your team,
I mean, they might be overcompensating. And that sort of creates a whole different issue
with the defense. Oh, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, I think they had... I know the chargers
ended this game with like twice as many penalties as the Patriots had. The vast majority of those
were on the defense for things like jumping off sides or just getting a bit too, like you said,
emotional. Right. Well, and I also thought it was interesting in what Brady was doing. And I think
it was foreshadowing the rest of his career. But I mean, this kid's a young kid. He's third
game in and the defense was aggressive. And he was willing to... You could already see him throwing
footballs at people's feet on screens. Yes. So, he was willing to give up that play,
which he never lost. But that's pretty unique for a young kid. And I don't necessarily remember
thinking about that back then. Right. But yeah, looking back, I mean, he was pretty good at avoiding
that kind of stuff and being aware of what was happening with the defense. Yeah. It was like
the antithesis of Drew Bledsoe. Yeah, it really was, man. I know. I was trying to chuck that ball,
like no look pass over the ovaries' shoulders. He's getting sacked, which is usually picked off
for a turn for a touchdown. Yeah, no. So, and I also like, you know, Belichick was already
throwing out different types of defense and whatnot on the other side of it. So,
they were... You could see little bits of both of them kind of coming together, which was...
I thought pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, let's talk about the pages even. That's a good segue.
Because I thought they balled out in this game. This was the prototypical Ben Don't Break defensive
showcase. Because the Chargers were, I think, the best team in the red zone. I think they
showed a stat early on. Yeah. Or like top three or whatever it was, like in scoring red zone
touchdowns, which I'm assuming most of those were Lydany and Tomlinson runs because he already had
seven up to that point in the season. But the Patriots' defense held the Chargers to, I think,
it was at least two, maybe three red zone stops, where the Chargers had, I think,
first and goal from the one or the two and couldn't score in the first...
Right. And that was in the first quarter. Yeah. So, it was three-three at that point.
But I think that was a major turning point just to kind of prove what they could do.
Exactly. And then they did it again at the end of the half, too.
Yep.
And I think that actually ended in a miss field goal.
Right. Yeah. Well, no, the...
Wasn't that the end of the half a miss by Venetieri, actually?
Oh, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, it was...
Yeah. It was actually to begin the second quarter.
Right. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah. Because then the Chargers drove all the way down
and then kind of went three and out in the, like, inside the 10-yard line, like,
first and goal. Missed the field goal. And then the Patriots actually, like,
from there marched all the way down the field and Brady scored his first touchdown.
Well, and to piggyback off of that, I know we're talking defense, but
it was funny because Tom Brady throws his first touchdown.
Yeah. Venetieri misses the extra point.
Yes.
And then they're running the two-minute drill. The Pats are in the second quarter.
Terry Glenn, another beautiful sideline catch. Brady driving it, like, pretty,
pretty well-executed two-minute drill. And then Venetieri misses the field goal.
So, that could be an off to just crush a team right there.
Yeah. And just, you don't ever remember Venetieri ever missing field goals.
And apparently these were the first that he ever even missed this season, too.
Oh, yeah. He was, like, six for six, and he always had extra points.
Yeah. But he would always have won these games every once in a while.
So, remember, he had one of these against the Texans, where the commentators kept saying,
oh, he's never missed a kick in doors in his however many years of playing, and he missed,
like, four in that game before he kicked the game winner in overtime against the team they
should have blown the doors off. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it was, I mean,
they had a lot of different things working against them, but we could go back to the defense and
tackle those. Yeah. Well, I mean, no, I mean, that's fine. We can keep talking about Tom Brady.
I'll talk about Tom Brady for days because that two-minute offense, I think, should be called out
as well because it was a whole, I think two-minute Tom Brady was still there, but the offense itself,
it was like a slow mo version of what they do now. And he was still trying to trickery,
but he wasn't good at it because you can see him like the fake spike play. Yeah.
Well, you can see he's calling routes to the receivers, but then he's doing like, oh,
I'm going to spike. I'm going to spike. And like, nobody fall for that except for the
commentators like, oh, I can't believe you threw them all there. I look like a fake spike.
Like, he was calling a play before he said he was going to do his fake spike. It took him like
45 seconds to get it off too. Yeah. And the awareness of just like timeouts and things like
that. Like, I made a note towards the end of the game as well. You know, he executed the way he
was supposed to, but I think he left like 30 seconds on the clock. And I just know that
at some point, Brady would never let that happen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I bet he looks back on that now
and be like, oh, what the fuck was I thinking? Right. And it almost came back to haunt them too.
So it's a pretty big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We now I want to make sure we talk about that.
But you know, so let's go back to the Patriots defense. Right. Because there was one stat at
the beginning of the game that I thought felt a little bit like this season kind of where
they mentioned that the Patriots defensive backs had scored more touchdowns
than Patriots wide receivers by a margin of two to one. Yeah, that's
which is brutal. It is very reminiscent of today though. A little bit. I mean, not quite to the
same extent. No, no. But yeah, that was I mean, to your point, I mean, that's sort of why Terry
Glenn was brought back, I guess. Exactly. Yeah, because it had been what I think a lot of commentators
favorite word is when talking about offense like this, it had been anemic. Right. It had yeah,
it hadn't been much. I mean, if we're going to do a bit of a crossover, Brian Cox, who's been,
I think probably the defensive player of this season so far up until this point.
Yeah, playing like an animal. Yeah. You know, he's the energy behind that defense too. So I mean,
oh my God, guys are just throwing their bodies around. Yeah. And they're feeding off of him.
You can you can feel it from from watching the game. But I think his big play of this game
actually came on offense when he lined up his full back on a third and one, you know, and then
they threw it to him and he caught it and got a first down. That was pretty awesome. That was
beautiful. And like, oh my God, a linebacker catching passes from Tom Brady. This is this is
some trickery. And like, oh, just you wait. Vrables Vrables time is coming.
I mean, I mean, yeah, yeah, we don't need to touch on that now. But man, his number is as a
tight end or phenomenal. They really are out of control. The other the other quote I had related
to the offense actually here. I'm jumping over the place was tight end has been really absent
from the passing game. This is where they miss a player like Ben Coates, which you could replace
Ben Coates with Rob Gronkowski this year. And it feels again, very familiar in the red zone.
Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, there was talk of like, you know, the present day Patriots sort
of resembling the 2003 and 2004 Patriots, whereas solid defense, you know, the sort of shorter plays
relying on passing backs or receiving backs. So you might be right. I don't know if that has to
do with Brady's age. I don't think so, because I don't think his play has fallen that much. I
think it's just a structure of the team at this point. Yeah, I think this year it's mostly just
injuries to all the the big beef, right side of the ball. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, in 2001,
I guess it was just building a foundation that this, well, I mean, I was going to say
Brady can kind of build off of and, you know, have a security blanket. But I guess with a guy like
Bledsoe, you probably would want a security blanket if he could pick up that concept as well.
And I don't think he ever did, obviously, but yeah, no, I don't think so either.
I think one of the bright spots I noticed on defense was every time Lawyer Maloy blitzed,
because his timing was impeccable. Yeah, I wish that we could show this play, but
which one? There's a couple. Well, there's one that he blasted Flutie and he was like,
it was just Maloy and him and Flutie to his credit. I mean, he tried to kind of get away,
but he did not. He did not have a chance. Yeah. But yeah, because it was one of those ones where
he came from his safe position and just timed it perfectly. So he hit the line and just came
through unblocked and he did it once on a running play too and caught LT in the backfield and just
lit him up. That man could, he could lay the wood like no other. Right. Or deliver the wood,
as we learned last week on football. Yes, that is correct. Yes. Speaking of football or not
football, let's get to your boy Lee Johnson, because what could be considered either football or not
football? Did you like that? That was a segue right there, bud. It was great. And you're absolutely
right. I don't know what the hell is going on with this guy. You know, it's funny too before we even
get into what happened in this game with this guy. At the end of the game, they interviewed him and
they were basically like, you know, what if, what if you get caught? What happened? And he basically
said, I've killed us enough. It's a direct quote. I've killed us enough. If it happens, it happens.
He was 40 years old. Yeah, he was 40 years old. We finished the game because of like one of his
plays with negative 19 rushing yards. So all in all, I don't know. Maybe this was his last game.
We'll find out. I'm not sure actually. He admitted that he has been sucking and he was okay with
being caught, essentially. I mean, this was bad. His first punt was awful. And his second punt was
really bad, but he got a good bounce off it. But the last punt, it felt like your typical Patriots
way of losing the game where he got, he got the, I think he got, he was standing on his own 10 yard
line, got the ball and went to go punt it was taken forever and a free rusher came in. So he
tried to like take the ball and like put it around his back because I think he was going to try to
size up the guy and then kick it. But the guy caught him. So he kind of had it in his like,
he was holding on to the end of the ball with his fingers and he was getting spun around and the
ball just like flew out of his hand backwards. So now the ball sitting on the five yard line,
the guy that tackled him gets up, picks up the ball, Lee Johnson gets up and just kind of like
watches him and then realize, oh, fuck, this place still going and goes to try to tackle him.
He gets lit up by some other guy who's come and knocked his head off all the other guy who
recovered the fumble, just waltzes in for a touchdown who was a backup fullback. He wasn't
even like some sort of role player on this team. Right. Well, you know, and you know why he did
that, which doesn't make any sense to me, but he has been in the league for so long at this point
that he said he'd seen this, you know, he's been rushed by a million guys. And so he feels that
like because they're all full steam ahead, you could sort of like, you know, fake them out and
then get the ball off. But he said that even when he was in the grasp of the defender, he felt confident
that he could still get the kickoff. If anybody didn't see this play, he is holding it out like,
I can't even like give it a proper analogy of this, but he's basically holding it out so that
anybody can grab it. Yeah, I fit. I'm going to see if I can cap that play and we'll put it online
and if that happens nowadays, that guy is cut tomorrow. Oh my God. And it's, it's, it's on
sports centers, not top 10 for weeks as well because it was brutal. And this was to put the
Patriots down by 10 points with eight minutes left in the game. Yeah. And at this point,
because again, I didn't know the score or anything going into it. So I was just like, oh, wow,
wow, they blew it. Go ahead. No, this is exactly the point where I thought, wait, they, they win
this one, right? Like, they're, they're running out of time real fucking fast here. That's funny.
Well, I was thinking, man, like, this is going through my head a lot where, and again, I didn't
know what the score was going to be. So I was like, man, are they going to start off the season
like one and four? Like this is insane. And then I was thinking, you know, you see this, it's like
the butterfly effect, right? So you see one, Bledsoe is like coaching up Brady. They're all like
best friends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We hold in hands and like, you know, sharing secrets. And then,
and then, you know, he's also riding high. Belichick is, you know, giving him opportunities.
And of course, you know, he wins this game and things change as the season goes on, right? Maybe
Bledsoe's demeanor changes a little bit. Belichick stands by him, whatever. But if they lose this
game coming at it, of course, it was a Brady's fault. But if they lose this game after Miami,
so now they're one and four, one and four, right? And then eventually Bledsoe within a week or two
comes back, it could definitely change the course of everything. I mean, Belichick might at that
point decide to go with the backup anyway to see what he has. But it's true. Everything could be
different. And remember how he said, with these rules nowadays, and if Bledsoe stayed with the
greatest coach of all time, he could very well be the goat. Okay. Let's be honest. He could be the
goat. Yes, he could. Just be honest with yourself. No, he would have been good. I don't know if he
would have been the goat. He would have been the goat. He just, just remember, we're talking about
Drew Bledsoe in fourth quarters of games here. He would have put up numbers. Yeah. But he would
learn how to dink a dunk, right? Belichick would beat it into him. And we would be talking about
Bledsoe potentially having 12 Super Bowls right now. But instead, Brady, which I think potentially
with like six at the moment, but potentially seven, who knows, but he might get 12. We might,
I'm not saying we might be better off with Bledsoe, but things would have been different.
Yes, I think so. Oh, thank God. And thank God for Lee Johnson,
because Brady can thank him probably for a spot because he became the hero. Without Lee Johnson,
maybe there's no heroics at the end. Maybe not this level of heroics. You know what, though?
I'm going to retract my statement on Lee Johnson. Fuck it. I like him. Yeah, I agree. He was, he was
the character that this team needed. Definitely a gloom guy. Is that like a Batman reference?
Like it was the villain that the hero needed? Sure. All right. We'll go with that. Anyways,
yeah, he was the villain that the Patriots needed, man. I hope he sticks around for the rest of the
year. I don't know what happened. Yeah, me too. Yeah. So yeah, so I mean, that sets up the pages
down by 10 with eight minutes left. Right. Obviously. That's great. But they get the ball back. They
drive down the field and get inside the 10, but then kick a field goal because they ran out of time
or they ran out of like they got a fourth down and they decided to kick a field goal instead.
So now is right, which I thought it was funny because the announcers again, fantastic. They're
going, look, what do you think? What do you think happens? I think you got to go for a touchdown.
You're this close. Fourth down, you got to go for a touchdown. And then when they bring out the
field goal unit, they're like, this is a smart play. You got to kick the field goal here. You're
down by two anyway. You're down by two scores anyway. But they were also saying that they're
like, oh, they definitely should go for it here. It's like they, I'm not surprised they're leaving
the offense on the field. They should be going for a touchdown. It makes sense because it was third
down. So it didn't get it then. And Brady's running completion. And then the fourth down comes
and they, they shot the field goal. Like, oh, actually, yeah, no, the field goal here makes a
lot of sense. So yeah, so they, they kick the field goal. And there's like four minutes left in this
game with Lydane Tomlinson and Doug Flutey and his fourth quarter magic, which we had heard about
pretty much for the previous three hours, I'd say. But the page is holding the three and out
barely. The first, the first player that drive was an eight yard run by LT to get in the second
and two. And we're, we're getting towards the two minute warring. I'm like, they, no, they, they do
win this, right? That was, that was the second one. But then they, they held them two more runs,
held them, got to the, I think the two minute warning or something like that, called a couple
timeouts. Get the ball back and Troy Brown, Troy Brown has a ridiculous punt return.
He does. And even before that, they, it was before the two minute warning. It was after that,
that eight yard run, it was the second and two and a third and one with bow. Yes. I think it was
like two 23 last. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. So yeah, Troy Brown gets the punt return. And even
with that penalty that gets called, it's still a sizeable return. Yeah. Cause he has his return
brings it to like the San Diego, San Diego, 40. Yeah. Like he was ridiculous returns. Like your
typical Troy Brown return, but then got called back for holding, put them back on their own 40,
which is still great field position. Yeah. And then Brady, Brady, from this point forward in the
rest of the game, it was like, and I'm talking defense, offense, everything. It was probably
one of the better games I've watched in a long time. It was, yeah, it was like, I was, I was super
excited. I'm sitting or yelling at my, my TV, even though I know what happens at the end. Right.
I'm like, there's no way he caught that. Cause it was, you know, your typical, it was basically
Brady and Troy Brown at the end of the game on that last drive. It felt like. Yeah. Although
they have a 20, 60 yards yard line. Yeah. That's true. So it was 40 seconds left when they're
on the three. And this is what I'm talking about. They had one time out. Yes. I'm basically like
Brady burns it with 30 seconds left. There's no way they do that now. They probably wait about
25 seconds, maybe 17. Yeah. Yeah. Enough to run three plays. And that's it. Exactly. That's what
you're going to, you're going to keep running plays until you either run out of time or,
well, you're going to run four plays and you're going to do as quickly as possible. So
yeah, leave yourself just enough time to do that. And that's it. But yeah, you're right. And then
the, the commentators were gushing over the play, which is basically just a play action,
like a heavy run play action passing to Jermaine Wiggins in the back corner of the end zone,
who was a lot bigger than I remember him being. Yeah. And he's a hefty boy, that one.
But also like pretty like shifty too. He's, uh, you know, he had a little bit of agility to him,
but I thought he was definitely not a receiving option that the charges were at all worried
about because he was wide the fuck open. Yeah. But I feel like this was foreshadowing basically
the whole playoff run. Yeah, I agree. We'll talk about, but Jermaine Wiggins wasn't a household name,
but I mean, he's nearing the gear to my heart. Yeah. So yeah, so that ties it up with a few
seconds left, like 30 something seconds left, pages, kick it off. And the charges had a ridiculous
return again on a kickoff. Like they basically start the 40 yard line every drive. Right.
And then, but wasn't that the one that Tabaki Jones laid out the returner, which was, oh,
that's right. Yeah. No, that one was. Yeah. Yeah. That, and that was a, that was a little
lawyer Maloya's kit. He just put his shoulder and knocked his ass over.
The tackling and the kickoffs and all that from that point on, everything was just
spectacular. It was like almost like too much. Oh, yeah. It was, oh, yeah. Everything was perfect.
So yeah, obviously the charges don't score. They almost got into field goal range and
there was some like fuckery with, uh, Doug Flutie tried to spike the ball.
Stop the clock. I don't think I've ever seen this before. No, but he, so when I was watching
this game original. Yeah. So he pulled the ball up to, to like pull his arm back to spike it and
the ball fell out of his hand and then he like tried to spike it, but missed and the pages
recovered it. But the ref said, because they blew the whistle when he, when the ball hit the ground,
they still got the ball back, but it moved the field, go back five yards. Yeah. Who said it
being like a 52 yards, a 57 yarder and the kicker came up like three yards short.
Well, and that was a big controversy not in that game, but like for a couple of years,
where it was that whole thing where can you challenge something that has been whistled down
and there were enough of these plays that they eventually turned it over to what it is today,
where you can pretty much challenge everything and overturn it. But yeah, because the whistle blew,
there's nothing that Belichick could do about it. Right. Cause that was the rule back in that time.
Right. But yeah, so I mean, even that, cause if you saw the replay, you could see a bunch of
the sideline for the charges wrong to the field thinking the guy hit the field because it was
straight down the middle. He just missed it short by a couple of yards. Right. So then I think the,
the kickoff that you were talking about was the, the one in overtime. Yes. Yes. You're right. I
got the mix up because the charges actually won the toss. Right. Yeah. And returned the ball
to the 40 yard line. So they didn't need many yards. You know, you go 20 yards and you're
within field goal range now. Vinitary could never kick into the end zone. No, not until they move
the, uh, funny. Yeah. Not until they move the, the kickoff up. Right. And it's not even like the,
um, Gostowski thing where like you get like booted high up in the year and traveled that far.
Put it at the one. No, he's putting it like the 13 yard line. Yeah, man.
I'm like, what's going on? Yeah. It was, it was not a position of strength for this team at this
point. Right. Um, but yeah. So the charges get the ball at their own 40 need basically
what 20, 25 yards to go. Yeah. Um, and they had actually been driving like late in the second half
of this game that the Patriots defense felt like they were kind of wearing down a bit, but
in this particular instance, they, they held, they, the charges went three and out,
had to punt the ball back to the Patriots. Uh, first play from scrimmage, Brady froze a bomb
down the right side of the field to, uh, Patton, I believe it was. David Patton. Yeah. But the crazy
thing about this play is that it was an all out blitz by San Diego and he stood in the pocket.
He kind of did his little dance in there and threw it up for classic like PI. Yeah. And it was like,
it was a blatant past affairs. It was. Yeah. Yeah. So Patton got dragged down by a Molden
who had a whole section in the next day's paper talking about how he didn't think it was an
actual legit call. But, uh, he obviously didn't watch the replay because it was pretty blatant.
He got the, the ball was thrown a little bit too inside and he was playing inside technique.
And so Patton tried to cut back inside to him and then he just fucking straight up tackled his ass.
Yeah. And, uh, I've never seen anybody celebrate harder for getting a pass interference called
than David Patton on that play. He was dancing like a mother. He was doing like a legitimate jig.
Well, and it's funny because their, uh, their celebration after this game was reminiscent of
every team that I think we hate. Like, do you remember when like the Broncos was like with
Daniels? Yes. Yes. The pass. He's like freaking, it was like the Super Bowl for them. This was
Super Bowl at that time. Yeah. It's like the, even the Ravens beating
the Patriots this year with Lamar Jackson, where they're taking the team photo after the game.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Come on. It's like, this is, this is the Patriots Super Bowl at this point.
Yeah. So funny, but of course it ends on a
Venetary field goal. No, hang on a second. I gotta relocate for a second. Oh boy.
Well, this is embarrassing. Um, I apologize. No, you leave it in. Don't be a bitch.
Did you tell him how to live my life?
There's nothing wrong with technical difficulties. I don't know if you're grabbing a snack or
something. What you're doing. I mean, I don't know where your hands are right now. I can't really see
them. I'm shifting to the living. Shifting what? My whole setup to the living room so I can go to bed.
No, but I'll make sure that's probably good. We got to keep this. We got to keep some of this.
You can't cut it out because it's BS. You got to listen back to it. If it's too aggressive,
cut it, but some of it could be good. All right. Well, I just didn't want to
skip over the fact that you were trying to just like end this game without talking about
Brady on the next third down because I think this was probably, I don't want to say the biggest Brady
play, but it was kind of very, I don't know how to put it. This was kind of like the third down.
It's like third and three or something like after the pass interference and the
charges brought pressure from both sides. There's a guy coming unblocked right in
a Brady's face. Another guy coming on his blindside who caught him like below the knees
and then the other guy like chopped him over the top and he just like floated the ball over the
rush or two of them and hit. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. It was a nice touch pass. Yeah,
because they were like right on the border of field goal range and Brady just like stood there and
just waited to the last possible second, just like lofted it over the guy so that fault could get
the first down and now they're like well within like middle of field goal range. It's like a 40
something yard instead of like a 50, like a long 50 yarder. You are correct. And so that was just like
that beginning inkling of, oh, this Brady kid, like he doesn't get rattled at all. Like that,
just imagining like watching Drew Bledsoe in those situations for all these years.
Yeah. He would have handled that. Yeah. How he would have handled that versus this kid who's
what is this his second official start in the third game. Yeah. So it's just that kind of like
this was I think it's just those little plays like that where you think,
oh, this kid might be all right. But yes, that ended up not being so bad. There's that whole 10
year gap where we didn't win anything. And I'm really pissed off about that, which maybe Bledsoe
closed the gap. Yeah, I don't know. He's all right. But yes, that does lead to the field goal
you so desperately wanted to get to. Yeah, man, Vinitieri all the way redeems himself money.
And they also kicked the field goal on third down. If you remember, they did. Yeah. Just in case
there's another tactic by Bill and the announcers were crapping themselves over there. They had no
idea what to do about it. They're like, Oh, he's kicking on third down. Oh, what is going on here?
Then they didn't obviously understand why. Well, you know, it's funny. Like in the, you know,
those those newspaper columns where they would have like sort of like who's better on what side
of the ball for every game. The Patriots are always negative on everything except for coaching.
And it was always patriots. And I feel like his other time, Belichick was an outside of
being a defensive guy for the Giants. I mean, he was okay. Yeah. But he always won the edge.
And now I'm realizing it's because nobody knew what the hell he was ever doing. So it must be
so true. Yeah. Hey, I was coming up to this like one like bullshit thing that everybody was like,
What, what was he doing here? Oh my God. It's the genius of Belichick again. Cause he like,
he really hadn't proven himself at this point. He had that stint with the Browns where he'd done
okay. And then he had his defensive game plan for the Super Bowl when he was on the Giants
as the defensive coordinator in the football hall of fame. But as a head coach, he wasn't like this.
He didn't, I don't think you had that genius label yet. No. And I mean, he went, yeah,
the five and 11. I mean, shouldn't really garner that much. But yeah, he definitely,
he always edged them out according to the announcers in the media, which I guess was
smart for once. They actually got that right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know it was a hell of a game,
man. I enjoyed it. And it was also weird that going into the game, and I guess after this game,
so that going into the game, they had a nine game winning streak versus the Chargers dating
back to 70. Chargers of all teams. I know it's so funny. And they, they kept it going. So 10
straight. So that was pretty great. Yeah. Eat that San Diego. Yeah. San Diego is you've got your
weather, but we've got our 10 game winning streak. Yeah, fuckers. All right. Yeah. I mean,
it's a toss up. Now, you know, we've reached the end of the game here, and we did not really
talk about, I mean, we talked a little bit about it, but we haven't really pointed out the announcers,
as opposed to previous games. And I thought they were so professionally boring, that yeah,
they were tolerable, but I was annoyed that I couldn't get anything out of them.
Yeah. I had one quote. Now is it, but the one thing I'd like to start off by saying is buddy,
your name is Ian, not iron. I know. I wrote it as I, because I, you know, I want to be accurate
here. No, but it's spelled Ian. It is spelled Ian. Ian Eagle and Solomon Wilcotts. Yes.
Which is Solomon Wilcotts is a fantastic name. For some reason, every time I see that name,
I think apricots, and I don't know why, but I feel like, I picture apricots.
Apricots, huh? How do you pronounce it? It's a bold. Apricots. I go with apricots. Do you?
Yeah. That sounds a little pretentious. Well, growing up, because, you know, my parents from
England, so they always pronounce things funny. So, all right, like it was, it was yoghurt instead
of yogurt, and I got a whole bunch of shit for that at school. Oh, yeah. Apricots is like,
at least reasonable. That's what I, I, yeah, I got to go with the long A's and the long Vals,
because that's usually more American. So, I don't actually know. I legit don't know if you're fucking
with me or not. I think I very well, maybe apricots. I don't know. Yeah. My parents are Portuguese,
so, I mean, I'm not doing it much better. That's fair. But apricots sounds too like,
this is how the English pronounce it, and you're going to get shit on in third grade
for saying it incorrectly. So, I'm going with apricots. Okay. Fair enough. Go on. But I had one
comments from them. They were talking about meeting Lydainian Tomlinson for the first time.
I don't know which one it was that said it. But he said, I was very surprised with the
size of his lower body. Oh, yeah. I feel like that can be a football term. But I do know what
that one means. So, it wouldn't be a question for you. But bring that up. I think he did eventually
clarify that he was talking about his thighs. Yes. Yes. Yeah. His like groin region. Yeah.
Just the lower body in general. It was all very big. Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. So, that was football.
I thought he meant it the other way, which is kind of weird because the other guy was laughing too.
I don't know. But that does bring me to the next thing where I didn't think I was going to have
enough terms that I didn't understand. But I got a couple. Oh, you did. Okay. For a little bit of,
and I'm assuming we're going to run out of these things that I don't know because I usually know
a lot. Because you're learning. Yeah. So, you'll know them from here on out. So, I don't know if
this is ever going to come back. But for now, we got another football or not football going on here.
All right. And let me, you know, like I said, I'm going to throw out a couple of things that I
don't quite get. I did get the lower body thing. Well, I thought that I did until you clarified.
But if you could just clarify these things for me, explain it to the people out there.
Absolutely. Typical terms. But so, the first one is carrying the load.
Carrying the football or not football. That is technically football. Yes.
Okay. So, what does that mean? I think it's oftentimes when running backs tend to get a higher
workload and the team is kind of running through them and they're getting into a rhythm,
the running back is said to be carrying the load. Oh, I see. Okay. Carrying the team on their back
sort of thing. Gotcha. Oh, so wait, could a quarterback carry the load as well or does that
not apply? It probably could, but it tends to be used in, with running backs for some reason. Okay.
Probably because they're dragging people around on their backs as well. Oh, okay. So, it's also
like a physical carrying of the load. Gotcha. All right. So, that makes sense. Next one here is
taking it right up in there. Oh. I can see how that could be confused as a football term.
Okay. Wait, do you think it's not football on this one?
I'm more on the fence with this one. Taking it right up in there.
I think there's some context around that that would probably be pretty valuable.
Well, that's true. I didn't write down what came before after, so I'm not really sure. It just
kind of threw me off because I hadn't heard that term before. I'm wondering if you had the wrong
tab open for that one. Oh, no, no. What do you mean by that? I mean, I think that you may have been
on a site that was black background with some yellow. Yes, I was. Yeah. But I don't know. So,
we're going to say not football on that one. That's a gray area. I think we're going to put that somewhere
in the middle. Okay. This one, I'm pretty certain of what it is, but the next one was getting excited
every time he touches the ball. And like, I think that's football. Well, who are they talking about?
Again, I don't know. I have to do a better job about this. Because I think that would
greatly explain whether it was or wasn't football. Because if we're talking about,
let's say, Doug Flutie, then that's probably football. But if we're talking about
Drew Bledsoe in this case, then maybe not. Oh, I see. Yeah. I got to do it better with the
context because I'm not sure on that one. So, well, I don't know. That's iffy.
That is iffy. I got two more on this one. One of them is about what Danny and I wrote.
So, we do that. Oh, nice. Okay.
Tomlinson only has one goal. Oh, sorry. I fucked that up. One hole to go through. Tomlinson only
has one hole to go through. And I think we were talking about last week, what was it, gaping
holes and whatnot? Gaping holes and squeezing through them into something. The tight holes
or something. So, I'm guessing, and this is like you said, just learning as we go,
he only has one hole to go through is when the linemen aren't doing that great of a job or
something. And like, you walked me through this one. I think it's up. Yeah. No, I think you're
on the right track. And it might even be like a play call specific as well, where there's only
one specified hole that's trying to be blocked open. Oh, okay. So, it was designed that way.
Yes. And I don't think it's anything to do with whoever he's is or isn't dating as well.
And how she feels about that sort of stuff. Oh, in this case, what do you think he's into?
Like in that respect, if we're talking about that, I don't know. I don't know if you've ever
talked to my guess is probably humiliation sort of things. So, just just a wild guess.
What? He's on the receiving end of this.
I could see that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. I don't know. That's no one here nor there,
but I think it's an issue thing. Yeah. And then finally, this one, the announcer said,
and again, I don't have context on what the hell he was talking about. So, I apologize.
Well, we'll try to figure it out anyway. All right. He says, I want to be one of the eight men in
the box. Oh, boy. That one really like perked my ears up a little bit. So, is that football or not
football? You listen to these games different than most people. I'm just curious. There is a box in
football. Okay. And there do happen to be men in that box. So, I think in this case, there can be
up to eight. Yes. Okay. It's usually how many defenders are in that box, which is within a few
yards of the line of scrimmage. Oh, I got you. Okay. So, towards the lineman again. Yes. Yeah. Oh,
yeah. A lot of these are trenches as they call it. Yes, exactly. Okay. No, that makes sense. So,
that's all I got. I'll try to have more context if any of these things pop up in the future.
That'd be beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great segment. I love it. Well, thank you. I'm learning
a lot. Good. That's what we're here for. We want to share our knowledge of football and our love
of football with the greater population. So, I appreciate you bringing these things and being
so vulnerable and saying that you don't know things and bringing that to the forefront. Yeah,
it's not my forte, but I'm trying to work on it. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that as well.
All right. So, with that being said, how about we get into our best and worst to wrap this up?
All right. That sounds good to me. Did you want to go first?
Well, I also wanted to talk a little bit about just the little thing that I found out about
Troy Brown and Terry Glenn before we get into that. Okay. Sure. And it was basically, well,
Terry Glenn, I don't know if he says things to be abrasive or not, but it was just interesting
to the little sound bites that like I found. But when after the game, he was talking about braiding
and they're like, you know, how do you think he did or whatever? And he said he's young and wants
to prove himself. That's an advantage for us. He might not have tried some of the plays that he
did if he was eight or nine years in. I was wondering, is that a shot at Drew? I don't know.
I mean, I don't think he would say that, but it just kind of came off as like,
you're kind of throwing him on the bus a little bit. I think it was more is like,
he's too stupid to know better is what it feels like. Okay. Yeah. I think he was trying to say
the right thing and it came off a little bit weird. Yeah. And then the other thing that I
thought was funny was that apparently Terry Glenn threw his, you know, Tom Brady's first
touchdown pass the football into the stands. Oh, really? After the game, so that he was actually
a little bit annoyed by that he would have given the football to Brady. So of course he would.
Right. So it's you both personalities there. But yeah, that's the worst year. Yeah. I mean,
we've talked quite a bit about everything. But I would say one thing that we did not talk about
is Antoine Smith didn't have a great game. I think he had like 30 or 40 yards rushing
whatever, but he didn't have a touchdown. It was in the third was on the goal line. And,
you know, he was running up the middle basically. And Junior say out, it was one of those that he
timed perfectly like you were talking about. Yeah. And he just pops Antoine Smith. He took his
fucking head off. Yeah. And he falls back like two or three yards. And then somehow ducks under
a couple of people flying and then dives for the touchdown. Yeah. It doesn't fall over on that
sale hit, which I don't ever have. But like, did you see sales reaction? It's like, how the hell
did that guy knock? Yeah. He was celebrating that he tackled up for two yard loss and he
ended up scoring touchdown from it. Yeah. No, that was pretty badass.
That was actually going to be my best as well, just so you know. Oh, really?
And then the, well, I mean, that I guess that my second best was a LaDanian's fumble recovered by
Brian Cox. It's because fuck them. And my worst is, and I'm going to have to change this one
because it was everything that Lee Johnson did. But now that we used that,
he made Brady the hero that he is. I'm going to, I got no worst.
I love it. I always look on the bright side. That's beautiful. Right. All right. My best was,
well, I guess I'm going to switch it up to an observation that I noticed that
Doug Flutie throwing a football to Tim Dwight. That has got to be the shortest connection in
the history of football. Correct? Do you mean height wise? Yes. They're both 5'9". And I don't,
I can't think of, unless Drew Brees is, but no, we already just sat at Drew Brees is super tall.
Kyler Murray may be throwing to some. Russell Wilson is what? 5'11", I think. Yeah. Yeah. He's
closing on six feet. So I mean, I mean, two 5'9", two 5'9", white guys
connecting on a successful forward pass in the NFL in 2001, I think is a highlight in anybody's
book. I have no commentary. I don't know what, what, I mean, I don't even know what to say about
that. But I, you know, I have no comment on height. I have no comment on, you know, I just, I,
yeah. It's just something that you don't see very often. You don't see it. We, we, we got
it. It is an anomaly. We can agree, we can agree that it is an employee. I, okay. Well, I'll take
that. I like that. Okay. That was my best just being able to see that. And my worst is
watching the Chargers kickoff team celebrating as if they've won the game, making a tackle on a
kickoff that got returned back to the 35 year old line. It's just so typical Chargers. And I
was like getting pissed off that the Patriots are doing sack dance on your field at the end of the
game after beating you when they should live. Oh yeah. That is a classic. It's just, you know,
it wasn't any game that he was also like riding the bike for like half the game. I feel like
that was 2007 where he went in and him in the quarterback. Well, I think it was Philip Rivers
at the time, wasn't it? It was Philip. Yeah. And both of them were injured and had one rush and
then sat the rest of the game out like under his like big jacket because it's too cold. That's
right. Yeah. Yeah. So different. But yeah, they're all every, you know, ladenian Thomas in game
with the Chargers and the Patriots ended pretty much the same way. It sure did. That's right. So
yeah, but I think this is a quality game so far on our list of games to watch. This is probably
number one for me of the ones we've watched so far. I would definitely recommend viewing it.
Yeah. So I think this goes on the board of should watch. Hey, put it up. But you know,
if you find a copy even with commercials, just sit through the early 2000s.
They were interesting, weren't they? They're fantastic.
So drinking the entertainer, baby. Someone butler. Yeah. By shaking them up by dancing
because he's got a girl in his living room. And then once she opens it, it sprays in her face.
That's right. I mean, I remember a few other Cedric commercials. So hopefully we get to see those
too. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that about wraps it up for week five of the 2001 season.
Thanks for being here, Mike. It was a joy to share this with you.
Yeah, it was really fun. Like I said, I'm trying to be more vulnerable and open up and just say,
you know what, man, I appreciate you as a human being. And while my time could be used for other
things, it's not the worst thing in the world. I agree. Yeah. And it's always a pleasure to be able
to to shoot the shit with you. So. All right. See, you win genuine. I was kind of I feared awful
about working on it. But yeah, I disagree. It felt genuine to me. So I'll take it. Okay.
All right. Well, until next week, what is next week? I don't even know. And what are we looking
forward to? Do you want to know? I don't want to know. You know, I'll get off and you can tell
them, but I'm done. The pages go visit the Indianapolis Colts. God, that's what you got to look
forward to. The Colts that they blew the doors off recently. That's true.
I mean, is Pete Manning playing?
Do you want me to tell you? No, I don't. You passed the test, buddy.
I got you. Yes, he is playing.
All right, that'll do it for this episode. We'll see everybody next week if you're still with us.
All right. Sounds good. See you later, man. Bye.