Patriots Dynasty Podcast - 2002 Week 1: Steelers at Patriots

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

The defending NFL champions open the season in a rematch of the AFC Championship game. Join Connor and the Brown brothers as we jump into the second season of the Patriots Dynasty Podcast.https://ratethispodcast.com/patspodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/patriots-dynasty-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 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. So welcome back to all of you loyal listeners. Because you keep listening, we keep doing this. And now we are doing a second season. This is the 2002 NFL season. And we're starting here week one Patriots banner night, opening their new stadium with a nice skip the preseason or what?

Did you watch a preseason? I watched every game, Rohan Davies, the future. Well, all right. Yeah, let's back up a little bit then because we could talk about some offseason stuff since this is week one. There were some there was some big changes in the offseason. The biggest one being Drew blood. So he is no longer a New England Patriot and has gotten traded to the bills. Light up going up north to Buffalo. Is that Orchard Park, New York? Yeah, wider pastures.

Yeah, there's not a lot of greenery happening up there, I don't think. But I'm sure we'll see him in a future episodes. But yeah, let's talk about offseason. What happened? There was some interesting. There wasn't really anybody else who got like I was very Glenn say, all right, off to the Packers, which we talked about in the office in our last season with the the by week deep dive of Terry Glenn, where he actually did not well on the Packers, I don't think, but then would get back to his normal productive self when he would reconnect with Bill Parcells on the Cowboys and Drew blood. So Drew blood as well. Yes, he would all get back together, getting the gang back together in Dallas. Yikes. Also a big loss

of Rod Rutledge. The was he the leading tight end in 2001? I think he may have been, but just by default, because he was the only tight end that actually caught any until playoffs. Well, true. Yeah. Then our boy would wiggie remain Wiggins. That's right. Yeah. What does he do Connor right now? Is he still on the radio? Yeah, he's on EI, I think. I don't think it's on the radio. I think he's on the wait, is wiggie on OMF? I thought he was on like one of those late night TV shows on Boston. I think he was on like a morning show. He took

over for who was the racist. Callahan. Yeah. Yeah. I think he took over for him. The racist talk show host in Boston. Yeah. They got well as him and whoever the other guy was who was always Menahan. Yeah. I liked Menahan. Me too. He got a little fast for me. He was a good interview. He was he was a really good interviewer, though. I mean, he did not pull any punches. It didn't matter who they were interviewing. He was he was pretty solid. Yeah. But he left to start his own podcast on Barstow. And so now it's they got the guys from AF, the morning show from AF, which is Greg Hill. Yeah. Greg Hill. I'll just keep doing your job for you, Andy. It's cool. This is this is what we're talking about. I haven't listened to I'm an

EEI guy. I just haven't listened to much EEI lately. You do sound like an EEI guy, then. I don't listen to bosses for a suck at all. It's the fucking worst. Yeah. It's awful. It's so much better. Everybody says that in North Carolina. It's hilarious. I feel like the hurricanes dropped another one, but, you know, they'll get them next game. All right. So it's not just because they're negative about a different team. They're just less negative in general. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're like negative across the board. They even like make fun of Boston sports or they have like a segment of like pissed off sports radio. It's hilarious. We should do that and just have Conor on bills. Bill's radio is pretty good, too.

You got Brendan, obviously, I have to hear it. You know, Ricochet bills radio from time to time and God, the depression in their voices and the lack of optimism. It's like watching the NFL draft. Tragedy born. I know we've joked about doing a Browns on Browns podcast, but I think that'd be really interesting just to hear how Cleveland sports. Is there Cleveland Sports Soc radio? Of course. I'm sure there is. Yeah. You think they haven't just like off themselves at this point? No, Browns is hardcore. It's probably just like Bill like Buffalo Sports Radio, you know, you know, sneaky, also depressed Detroit. I don't think that's very sneaky.

Detroit Cleveland right there, that little pocket. Oh, boy. Pocket of sadness. Little rust belt. All right. What else we got from the off season? The draft draft? Yeah. I know Conor has thoughts about this draft. Does he? What couldn't wait to share? What an incredible draft. I mean, take out Rohan Davy or Antoine Womack. And I mean, that's just looking at, you know, knowing what we know now and seeing their careers in completion, just like Daniel Graham, Jarvis Green, Dion Branch, and then David Givens in the seventh. Yeah, that's one of the old times. Yeah. He had so many big catches for us in the 2003 and 2004 season, but yeah, what a steal. He was just Mr. Reliable for Tom. He was the guy

that would move the chains every time. I had his jersey. Yeah. You had a David Givens jersey? I did. Yep. Yeah. And then he got hurt and was like never played again. That's your fault. Yeah. Yeah. And even like Jarvis Green, he was, he was never a superstar, but he was solid for years. And he was, you just, it was a really, really, really good draft, obviously. Dion being the highlight, Dion Branch being the highlight. That's true. But I think the newspapers were big on the patients drafting their Drew Bloods or replacement in Rohan Davy. They were big fucking Van Ham. Yeah. He had a rocket arm. Yeah, I remember people were gushing over him. He was Jamaican. He was born in Jamaica.

Really? Uh-huh. Wow. Got a roster quarterback. Arena League legend too. Was he? I think he played a couple of years. I'm surprised at how many people were discovering who spent time in the AFL. I know. We got to bring it back. Connor, have you heard of the LA kiss? Okay. So, Andy told me one of you guys is doing like a spotlight on it after your interview with Matt Chatham. How was it? Chatham? Chatham? Matt Chatham? Are you not from around here? It's fucking Chatham, dude. Fucking Chatham, kid. All right. Chatham. Sorry about that.

I'm sorry to accept that. No, I really, I have no idea, but I have no idea anything about it. I didn't even look into it. I figured one of you guys were going to talk about it. Well, you have to listen to the episode that comes out. We recap for two hours the entire season of the show. I watched 10 episodes of like a hard knocks version of for Arena Football League. I'm a team sponsored by a rock band. Is that is that what it is? Yeah. Is it like a scene? Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. I think I could get behind it. I think I could get behind this. Right. It's electric. Yeah. Highly recommend. Speaking of tight ends, I guess has some tight ends, I would say. Some other in free agency, the Patriots seem to want to address the tight end

position this year since they didn't have one year before, brought in Cam Cleland from the Saints and our old friend Christian Fourier from the Seahawks. I think you start on the Seahawks, didn't you? Backtrack. No, it's not worth it. Yeah. I remember looking at it briefly and he didn't do much. Oh, fucking hell. He played on the Seahawks for since 95 to 2001. Jesus Christ. I thought he was younger than that when he came to the Patriots, but I guess not. Yeah. And ironically, he's not Christian at all. He's Jewish. Seven years with the Seahawks. He caught seven touchdowns. Four years with the Patriots. He caught 13. So remember that time that he was suspended from EEI for making fun of Don Yee?

I do remember that. Speaking of EEI. I mean, that's kind of what happens. Is that the sports agent, right? Is it Don Yee? Sorry, I like Fourier. I have a trivia question for you guys. All right. Who caught more balls and yards? Cam Cleland in this year or Matt Lacoste in the past year? Oh, fuck. Cam Cleland. Probably in the first game. Yeah, I've already seen him catch like two balls in this first game. Yeah, he had six catches. I think this game ends up, he ends up with 16 grabs for 112 yards. Damn. That's about as much as all the Patriots, Titans this year combined.

Now, Matt Lacoste had 131 yards in your face, Cam. Damn. You showed him. But he was supposed to be like legit, right? Like Cleland. I felt like I was Did he get hurt? Did he get hurt? He came out of the gate with six catches. I mean, it was only 40 yards, but he six targets, six receptions first game. I wonder if he got hurt or if they just, I have no idea. So he does get a touchdown. I actually had a note about this. He gets a touchdown in this game, I believe, right? I'm looking at his Wikipedia and it says, when he was a rookie with the Saints,

he was struck in the eye by a teammate with a sock filled with coins during a hazing incident. What? He nearly lost his eye in addition to suffering a broken eye socket and broken nose. The injury permanently affected his eyesight. What? Good Lord. Wow. Wow. All right. I think awesome. I might. He incognito. That's one of the reference articles. That's a wild, wild story. I mean, sock filled now compared compared to like PC culture now. I mean,

someone did that in today's game. I mean, they, you know, they didn't rape. It's not rape or beating up kids. So they'd probably like suspend them for a year. So he hit someone in the eye with sock filled with coins. Yeah, it's like, probably, was he joining a gang? Well, depends on how good the guy who hit him was probably. I'll do some research and let you know. All right. If you, if you could, that'd be great. We'll do a deep dive on that. There's a whole LA Times article on it. All right. So that's kind of the big changes for the off season. So there wasn't a ton of turnover really on this Patriots team other than Drewblood's own Terry

Glenn. Brian Cox is on the Saints, which you didn't play much down the street. I thought that was, did he not play much at the end of 2001? Not really. He broke his leg middle of the season and then came back and played on it, but was not the same guy. So couldn't really, couldn't really move much. So he was, he was like a, just a run stopper on short yardage down. So yeah, I liked, yeah, I liked old man. I think, what do you wear? A number 92 or 95 or something like that. I loved, I liked Brian Cox. For the Saints. So once I heard again, I don't, I don't, and then he got into coaching and coached Matt Chatham when he went to the Jets. They were, didn't see eye to eye when they're on the Patriots,

if I recall. And the opponent tonight was the Pittsburgh Steelers who also really hadn't changed much. Their team was basically the same as well. Yeah. And the commentators actually mentioned that where it was basically almost an exact rematch of the AFC championship game the year before, because both these teams were exactly the same, except even though the Steelers defense was the same, they struggled a lot for our Steelers defense, I would think. It was the same defense where they finished 16th and points allowed, which is like what, middle of the table. And seventh and yards allowed, which is not bad, but they gave a shit ton of passing yards and rushing touchdowns for some reason, which we actually saw kind of in this game where the

Patriots decided they weren't going to run the ball and just spread them out and just gas them to death. So they ranked actually 20th in passing yards allowed and 20th in rushing touchdowns allowed. So I think there was a blueprint that they came out early. Their secondary must have just been abysmal, because that's maybe the best linebacking core I've ever seen in my entire life. There's some big names on the Steelers. Jason Gilden, Ferrier, I don't know if you guys remember Kendra, Joey Porter, Kendra Bell. Yeah, Kendra Bell was so many. It's a second year. Yeah. James Harrison. I think this is Harrison's rookie year. No, was it really? Yeah, he's undrafted. He was undrafted. Yeah, they all first year.

Fucking hell. And they also had Larry Foote. Larry Foote was no slouch either. Larry Foote had some good years in the league as well. I mean, this was a linebacking crew that Mike Rabel couldn't crack. And now he's starting on the Patriots and winning Super Bowls. Gilden was a beast in this game again. Yeah, he was the only one that did anything in this game, I think. But I mean, having said all that, the Steelers could get almost no pass rush in this game whatsoever. The first two drives. All-time sack leader in the Steelers and still is. Who is Gilden? Gilden. Yeah, he was a monster. To be fair, he was also the only one still celebrating down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter when he makes a tackle for a loss.

They got a style that that Steelers did. Yeah, so the Pro Bowl is... Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say their D-line wasn't bad either. Casey Hampton. I remember all these names like Hagen's, Kimo. Kimo Van Alon. Oh, often? Yeah. I mean, do you think... It's classic football name right there. Oh, yeah. I wonder where he's from. Yeah. But yeah, so two of those linebackers, Gilden and Porter would actually make the Pro Bowl, along with Heinz Ward, who I still hate to this day, and Al Finnecker at their guard. Of course you do, because you're an asshole too. I like Heinz Ward.

Yeah, well, you're an asshole too, Steve. You got it right. I like Heinz Ward. I like his compete level. Yeah, because you're an asshole. Yeah, that's true on both counts. It's a transitive property. Yeah, I think that works. You'll recognize real. And the new face on this offense was Antoine Randallel, which is also fantastic. But he was mostly a return man this season. Well, he's a Swiss Army Knife. He was, yeah. He was there, Troy Brown, according to John Madden. He was a college quarterback, right? Was that him? Yeah, it wasn't... I almost said V-TAC, but that can't be right. I can't remember where he went to school.

I got you. Back to Indiana. Indiana? Yeah. Maybe not. I'll get back to you on that. There was a... Yeah, who was the stealers wide receiver that threw a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl? I'm almost positive it's Randallel. I guess it's the Seahawks. I thought it was... Yeah, it's like his fun fact. And then they talked... Right. And they talked about him playing quarterback in college. I swear to goodness. Yeah, he was the first player in division one history to pass for 40 career touchdowns and score 40 career rushing touchdowns. He also played for the Indiana basketball team,

which is no, like, middleing program. Wait, dual sported at Indiana? Under coach Bob Knight. What a monster. Yeah, that's impressive. That's pretty sick. God damn. See, him I like. Hands work and eat a dick, though. Yeah, he almost didn't get it. He had to sit out a year before we go to Indiana because of

low SAT scores, though. Fucking dummy. SATs don't translate to football, but what was that? A lot of community service, though. He's a well-rounded applicant. So we actually saw Cordell Stewart again in this game. He would not last long on the season. He got benched in week four because he couldn't stop throwing interceptions,

which he started doing from the get-go in this game if we want to actually get into it. Let's be real. He didn't stop doing it, right? He threw two picks to close out. The AOC championship game comes right back, goes 0-3-2-I-N-T. That's true. Yeah, he threw two picks on his first three passes. Both of those two were actually back-to-back. So he threw an interception, came right back, and decided one wasn't enough, and threw another one immediately.

To Mike Grable of all people, which is hard to do. Dude, he threw right into Grable's bed. He just didn't see him, and he's like, here you go. Yeah, that was bad. But I have to say, he can huck a football deep from any body position. Like, he's running sideways and diagonally backwards, and just slings it like he's skipping rocks, and it goes 60 yards down. Y'all remember his nickname, right?

Slash. Yeah. About him? Yeah. I don't know why. Didn't he play a bunch of positions, too? Quarterback and wide receiver. That's what I was, yeah. Running back and all that shit.

That's what I was about to get. Yeah. So Randall L, he got drafted, too, for Major League Baseball. What about Cordell Stewart? I don't know. I'm too deep into Randall L right now. So, but, yeah, I wanted to bring up, I wanted to touch on somebody who I found fascinating in this while I was doing my research, and that was the guy who took over for Cordell Stewart. And that was my boy Tommy Maddox.

Pittsburgh legend Tommy Maddox, apparently. He played in the AFL, just like everybody else, New Jersey Red Dogs. Um, did okay. And also played in the original XFL, if you remember that, but he hate me. And was the league MVP for that one season. Uh, he actually got drafted by the Broncos. He was supposed to be Elway's replacement. And then obviously wasn't.

He's a first round pick. Yeah. Tommy Maddox was a first round pick. By the Broncos though. So, you know, Elway had a hand in it. Dude, I, I always thought he was just like a journeyman. I never realized that he had, I mean, I felt career before. Like, I remember him coming there being like, Oh yeah, I played XFL.

This and that. I didn't realize that he already had an NFL career. Yeah. He had, he'd been around the game for a while because he was already a journeyman. He played for Denver for two years, the Rams and then the Giants. And then took what, six years off to play for the XFL and the AFL and then came back to the NFL because he was the XFL league MVP. The Steelers picked him up and now he was backing up Cornell Stewart.

And then he came in and all he did was, um, I don't know which game it was. It was one of his earlier games. He set the week 10 against the Falcons. He set the Steelers record for passing yards in a game. With 473 in a game that the Steelers would go on to tie 34, 34, which has, that's going to be like the worst tie in NFL history. That's probably worse than like a three, three, like a shootout that ends in a tie. Just that feeling like a blue ball sort of thing.

Yeah, come on. Right. And then the week after against the Titans, he got hit as he was throwing it. Like tripped over somebody and apparently the hit left him briefly paralyzed and he was taken to the hospital on a stretcher. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Right.

But then came back in time for the playoffs and the playoffs to the Ravens. No, sorry to the, uh, the Titans actually went and lost the Titans again in a shootout, 31, 34, lost in overtime. So he is one of the more fascinating stories that I had no idea about because the only reason I recognize the name Tommy Maddox is because I'm pretty sure I had his rookie card, his football card back in the day. In 1992. Yeah.

Oh yeah. We were collecting football cards back then when I was nine. That was like peak football cards. But uh, wasn't Greg just a twinkle in your father's eye in 1992? I was three years old, four years old. That sounds about right. Yeah. I was five.

I don't remember shit from 1992. I was nine. I barely remember it except for my Tommy Maddox UCLA rookie card. Apparently that would have been worth money now if I knew it was going to be an XFL MVP. I would have kept it, but you know, easy come easy go. The New Jersey Red Dogs is a pretty sick name. I wonder if that's related to the beer. Uh, if it wasn't, they missed a great opportunity.

Oh yeah, dude. Talk about branding like free giveaways at the game. Yeah. All the beers cost money except for Red Dogs. Yeah. Which you can get as many as you want for free. The mask costs just shit face the whole time. There's a lot you can do there.

He's got the t-shirt gun, but he's just shooting out cans of Red Dog. Apparently there was another LA, uh, oh wait, LA Extreme is the XFL, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Did he have a nickname? Tommy Maddox?

Yeah. Yeah. He's putting nicknames on the back of their jerseys. They did. Yeah. He calls himself TM12. Yeah. I mean, he is pretty white, so he probably just went with Maddox.

He probably went with Tommy. That's the other thing. The guy is, don't go by Tommy. If you're a grown man, like Andy. I'm Andrew, thank you very much. How dare you call me Andy. It's reserved for my mother. Stop it.

What about Gregory? Even Greg don't do it. What about Gregory? It ends in a Y. That's pretty terrible. That's bad parenting is what that is. Thomas Alfred Maddox. And it goes by Tommy.

That is the whitest human ever. Go by Tom, but Alfred, though. Alfred. Tommy. Yeah. You sure he's gone by T.A. Maddox? That's saying. T.A.

Yeah. That's right. T.A. Maddox. It sounds like he's a fucking writer of short stories. But luckily we didn't have to see T.A. Maddox play in this game. It was all Cordell. And he was generous, I thought. Even starting from his first drive,

he threw an interception by our old friend Terrell Buckley. Who was one of my favorites back in the day. Before we get too far, should we talk about the banner raising, the opening ceremonies, Gillette's first game? Yes. I have notes about that. Well, I don't want to go.

I mean, did everyone get to watch any of it? Do you guys see the Dennis Hopper opener? Yeah, dude. What was that? Yeah, it run us through that. It was it. So Dennis Hopper, I think, like usual, it was the first game of the NFL season.

I think it was the first televised game of, or was that right? Wasn't that the first televised game of that season? No, it was a Sunday night game. So it was the first Sunday night game. Yeah, prime time game. Yeah. It was a Monday night.

It was a Monday night game. Oh, Monday night. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, it was a Monday night game. And Dennis Hopper is just like, you know,

recapping the Patriots' miracle season from the year before, talking about the young kid, Tom Brady. And then he gets into the snowball game with the tuck fool, and he like is dressed like the abominable snowman with like white paper confetti, fake snow. Like it was the corniest. It was the corniest thing I've ever seen. It was the corniest thing I've ever seen.

And I thought that was going to be the thing that pissed me off the most. But no, Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, being passed on the shoulder to sing the national anthem for the fucking banner-raising night for the Patriots pissed me off so bad. Nick Carter, I was disgusted. Yeah, I was like, I loved it.

It's like I like the Backstreet Boys kind of, but I was just appalled seeing that. That was an odd choice. But they also coming back from commercial, one of the coming back Intuit things, they had a Nickelback song on too. If you caught that, I think it was Nickelback. Maybe getting Nick Carter to sing the national anthem

in 2002 is like a huge deal. And I just don't realize it, but hey. Is he even from around here, Nick Carter? He's a local boy. I get Nick Carter. I feel like you'd want somebody who's like from around here. No, he's not. I mean, it's nationally televised game.

The Boston Globe was pretty pissed off about it too. Jeff Wagenheim, one of his best simulars was a Backstreet Boy singing in quotations, the anthem. And then in parentheses, wasn't it past bedtime for teeny boppers? Question? Oh, shit. Oh, okay. Jeff, not coming.

I'm tired. That's old man yells a crowd. I mean, I'm going to throw Connor in that category too. Oh, shit. I mean, it's a song. We can't have like a singer sing a song before a game. What's wrong with that? I don't know if I, you would just think that they could find someone

more impressive. Oh, like Beethoven or something? The Patriots' Banner Knight. Just to dig them up. Beethoven. Nick Carter is from New York. I don't know. It just, again, it is old man that yells at cloud.

I was watching the game fucking 18 years later today, and I was just like, what is this? I can see both sides of it. On one hand, I get, you know, Nick Carter 2002 pretty fucking famous. Yep. Probably. But flip side is you have this guy with Frosted Tips that also matched Lonnie Paxton's newly

And like, is that really the tone you want to be setting with your football team for the season? John Madden was all about giving Lonnie Paxton shit for what happened to his hair. It's like something fell into his hair. It was ridiculous. We should probably talk about John Madden too, because this was his first game on the ABC. And his first game with Al, right? Doing Al Michaels. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was, it wasn't bad. It was the first time since 1979 that he had, there wasn't an NFC team involved in the game he was calling. Holy shit. Wow. Yeah. That's the longest time. Yeah.

Because he used to be on Fox. And we only did NFC. Exactly. So. He did have one mess up. Well, one of many. Like it was the beginning of the second quarter. He was like replaying a screen, and there's three defenders on the screen.

He's like, this guy right here, he circles the wrong one. And then he circles the two of them. Yeah. He circles the other guy. So you don't end up not circling the guy you're supposed to watch. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was the play where they were replaying Troy Brown's toe tap catch.

And it was going to replay. And first they called it a catch. So Bill Cower tried to challenge it. And then they overruled it and called it incomplete. So Belichick challenged it. And Madden seemed to think it was blatantly not a catch. So he decided to go on a tangent while they kept replaying that it was obviously a catch. And it was going to get overturned and ruled a catch.

And it took him a good five minutes, like of a couple of different stories before somebody must have tapped him on the shoulder and be like, Hey, by the way, you should probably talk about this because it's going to be a catch. He's like, Oh, oh, actually look at this. You guys see what I'm saying? Yeah. I was like, we've been seeing it. Yep.

Jeff Wagenheim from Boston Globe had a comment on that as well. He seems to have some opinions. Let's hear it. Apparently the ref said that Brown drug his other foot inbounds rather than dragged. So Jeff said that that was the worst drug test of the game. Jeff. Oh my God. Jeff.

This guy's like Greg Easterbrook before the internet. Typical Jeff Wagenheim. Am I right? I wonder if he's still doing his thing. No, I doesn't seem racist enough. Jeff Wagenheim. There's a Jeff Wagenheim on Twitter. He doesn't know how to use it.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yeah, that's, that's his quote is by Yogi Bear, I assume. Oh man. What's your favorite Yogi Bear quote? Nobody goes anymore. It's too crowded. Yeah, that's my favorite too. No, it gets laid out there early.

That's a good one too. But speaking of early, if we're talking about the crowd in this game, there was a thing in the Boston Globe about how great the traffic flow was. Yeah, this is fucking right. No way. At exactly, and their only praise was that they were planning on opening the stadium an extra hour early at 4 p.m. for this, what, 9 o'clock game? No time has started.

They started at 9 o'clock. But because people had arrived so early, the traffic was starting back up, so they opened it at 3.30 just so they could let everybody in early enough to get super fucking drunk. And they felt drunk to me. Well, they haven't gone to a few games over the years. Like this, this crowd was fucking rowdy. They started a madden chance at the end, like at him. Monday night football, you just come off a Super Bowl, raising a banner, brand new stadium, hell yeah.

First banner. Absolutely. Well, they didn't know that. It's like the first battle of Little Big Horn. They don't fucking know, do they? Yeah, could be the last one. I think you better make all the end of it. And crawl a World War I until the second one happened.

Surprisingly, they were underdogs, the Pats going in. Yeah, they were. Three point dogs, which I found surprising. They showed us that it was the first time since 83 that the Super Bowl champs were underdogs in their season opener. Yeah. Shit stomped them. Bullshit.

I'll teach you. Yeah, we should say the final score. What was it? Oh, yeah. 30 to 14. Which we'll get to. And it wasn't even that close. Wasn't even near that because way worse than that.

It was 37, really. But we'll get to that. Do you guys want to talk about Ellie in this game? This is officially Gillette by this point, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, it was no longer. We don't know what happened.

Like nobody ever said what happened from CMGI field to Gillette, but they announced it as Gillette field. Well, I read an article in the Hartford current about it. As you do. Yeah. CMGI's stock was like the hottest thing in the streets. Yeah. As recently as January 2000, it was at $163 a share.

And then by August 2000 happened. Yeah. Well, it was that in 9-11, I guess. Oh, yeah. I think 9-11 kind of like the dot com bubble happened and then 9-11 happened and just kind of like crushed any anything that was left of. Right. They're really dependent on the stock market.

So like when everything there was no money out there for them. Yeah. But it went from $163 a share to $0.40 a share in like a year and a half. God. So I think some people lost a shit load of money. God damn, that's brutal. Well, that explains why I don't have the rights to the naming of the stadium, I guess. Yep.

Do you take stock? They were paying $10 million a year for the rights. That seems reasonable. Yeah, this day and age. Like from a business perspective, yeah. Yeah. I wonder if you have to sign like a multi-year thing though, like a half a day. It was 114 for 15 years.

Wow. But then the stadium itself only costs $325. Yeah. So you're getting a good chunk of money back. I wonder if all that has to be paid in front. Like isn't the new Raider Stadium like or the Ram Stadium in Billion? Probably. Yeah.

But I mean all that money is like all inflated and everything anyway nowadays. Yeah, it's fake money. At the time, it was at the time, it was a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a stadium on top of the money that he spent on the team itself. Right. We'll maybe we'll do a deep dive on that one day because that's what we got. What were you guys talking about? I had to feed my dog.

Thanks for putting the effort. To that stadium. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I cool, Brad. I remember when it first went, it wasn't a brag. I'm sorry.

He was bitching. Anyways. You guys like that open concept. I want it first. Yeah, I do. I don't know if it's still the allure from when I was younger and like the that big archway with the open concept seemed like it was pretty cutting edge, not cutting edge, but like a new

a new design at that time. Yeah. We're going on what 18 years now of that thing being what it is. So for an 18 year old stadium. Do you like to let Greg? Pretty much. I don't know. I go back and forth like I like it because of like the memories I have there.

But I don't think it has anything to do with like how the stadium is designed. To me, it's kind of like meh. I think the stadium is fine. The whole experience with the Route 1 really hurts. Right. And you go to other stadiums around the country and you're like, this stadium is like way better like whole process of everything. Yeah.

Reskins games are great. You know, no time. Hinesfield is sweet. We're like Seattle stadium. Do you think it's because the Do you think it's because our tailgate is so blah that you walk into the stadium not feeling inspired because after Bill's tailgate, I don't walk in and I know it's a shithole.

I don't walk in and I'm like, God, this place is a shithole. I'm all pumped because it was just like the best tailgate of my life. Whereas Gillette, everyone is just kind of like, I don't know, maybe in 2001 or 2002, people were had a little more pep in their step. But going back in recent, these past, these past couple of years, it's just people are just sitting around like we're the best. Like I don't, you know, I'll maybe, you know, exactly. Well, I think even just watching, I remember the feeling watching games

back then compared to now. And I felt it again recently when Brady was suspended for the first four games of whatever season I was with 2018. And you would go into the game. His first game back. No, no, those first four games. Oh, right. Yeah.

And you go into them and it had a completely different feeling because I realized that over the years, you'd go into the game expecting the Patriots to win. And now you have this, this stress of them living up to your expectations. And if they didn't, you get all piss, well, I got all pissy because they're not playing like, I know that they can sort of thing. Whereas when you had Jimmy G in there, it was like, Hey, maybe they'll win this, maybe they won't, but at least it's exciting. Let's find out.

And I think that part of it, I think is probably what's missing from Patriots tailgating these days. Yeah. I mean, you don't really even care. I don't want to say you don't care about, you don't really even care about the games until the playoffs, these past like, yeah, the wins, the wins don't mean I don't know when that started. I would say probably from like the 2007 season on.

Yeah. Right. I think when we won those first three, we're still kind of spunky, you know, spunky fan base. Like we still have like, you know, we're finally starting to see success with the socks. You know, we're like the miserable Boston fan. It's just, it was, it was groomed in red socks misery. So we brought that like chip on it.

We brought that chip on our shoulder, like over into football season and with our Patriots fans. Um, and then we just became like just cocky and didn't really get up for games. Probably I like felt like as soon as, as soon as Brady took over this offense and became elite at what he was doing, like you said, probably 2000, maybe even 2006, he was dragging the team along with him. And so you just never felt like you're actually out of any game and you kind of expected him to win it every time. So it came with this expectation of if they don't do it, you're disappointed in Tom Brady

because he didn't do what he normally does, you know, you're like, I hope they win this game in like a unique way that I remember. Yeah, exactly. You know how many lions in browns and Bill's fans you're pissing off right now? None because not a fucking pages podcast. Literally earlier today, I had my lions friend try to tell me he was talking himself into Matt Stafford as league MVP because it's odd to like six, six thousand, you know, plus six thousand.

He's like, yeah, man, it's actually not a bad bet. I was like, okay, let me tell you how. Who are they throwing to? Who like, that's even, jeez, let's get Megatron out of retirement like Ron did. But like that's his, he's like, this is my cycle. You know, I'm at the point right now where like, shit, man, anything's possible. Exactly. What's most possible that they're like 25 year like playoff street continues.

Yeah, I think that is most possible. You know what part of Gillette is really nice though, is their drunk tank. Oh, really? Yeah. Explain to me. It's under the seat. Well, I actually don't know where it is. Or you don't remember where.

That's correct. It's very cavernous though. So I thought it was under the stadium, but I'm not positive. So it's very roomy is what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

That's that's nice. Any, any accoutrement? I was in there with another kid. He didn't, he didn't like me. No, why is that? I don't know. Don't remember. Was the game on?

I was banging on the window. I was like, tell me the score. And they were like, no. Oh, Jesus Christ. And then Kelly's learning about your brothers. He picked me up. You were with here in Los? That's correct.

Oh, okay. Those are early days still. God bless me. God, unless still stuck around. Yep. I mean, in, in Gillette, security's defense, you are insufferable. Yes, especially black. Once you get past that level, you are, you're pretty insufferable.

In terms of, I mean, I personally love it because it's usually directed at Bill's fans. We go to Bill's games together. So, and that's always fun. But you've certainly gotten some RV tires slashed due to your, oh yeah. Yep. It could have been any of us. Rocks thrown at us.

Rocks thrown at us. Yeah. Greg had beers thrown at you, didn't you? When you're sitting on top of the RV with inflatable penis? That's a given. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's annual.

That's commonplace. Yeah. Just like snow. Yeah. Dear Jesus. And we, we, we're going to get into this game. I, I want to talk about. Well, I was just going to say while we've been talking,

Cordell Stewart just threw another inception. We were probably going to talk about that. So. Yeah. I was going to talk about, you want to talk about Cordell? Go ahead. You have the floor. I was just going to, I was just going to say that

what's all the off season talk about like, you know, is Tom Brady, was this just a fluke? Is Rohan Davy going to, you know, upset, you know, take the starting job at some point? And defense is going to figure out Tom Brady. And yeah. Big Dick Tommy had himself a game. I mean, I want to, he 67% completion percentage, a sea hair under 300 yards,

no picks, three TDs just came out there and was just slanging. Yeah. Obviously, you know, our tenant to run the ball. No, no, our defense granted put us in great spots all throughout the game. There's just a ton of turnovers. What a statement from Tom. I thought he's a bunch of new faces too. I mean, Dion Branch had a huge game.

Six receptions that came. Cleveland, I mean, he was thrown it all over the field. Pretty sweet drops in the bucket. They started off poor because the first Steelers pick, they turned it into nothing. I think they went three and out. They did. They went back to one field. Yeah.

They got a touchdown on. Yep. I think that was the first ever points scored in the New Gillette Stadium. A little trivia thing. Yeah. Brady to Christian for you. And then, but even that drive was only because the Steelers kept committing penalties on third down, like defensive holding and jumping off sides and all sorts of bullshit.

And if Steelers got some, they got it going, right? They had that bullshit pass interference on tie law. Tie law. Greg, it's a good job. You don't watch this game because tie law, this is, and you know what? I'm actually a little pissed that you didn't get to see this game because this, I thought you were going to actually join me on the dark side because the reason the pass interference calls were getting called on tie law was because Heinz Ward was flopping all over the place.

Anytime he wasn't going to catch the ball, he was kind of like flopped over onto the ground and tie law kept getting called for pass interference. It happened twice once in the end zone. Dude, he was the, that's literally Heinz Ward. He was the best in the league at that. He was known for that. So he's doing that. Yeah.

He's like starting fights after, after turnovers and stuff. And he's just like, you know, he's obviously known for his, his, uh, we'll call them generously, his borderline blocks, his crackback blocks on people who he's injured and stuff. Just not a fan of him, although to be fair, Money is not in a team. Love and money is. Oh yeah. And, and in his defense, there was a lot of people looking to get their shots in on him.

So even if he caught the ball, went to ground, nobody like tagged him down. They fucking jumped on him like helmet first. And especially Laurie Malloy, who was just going into heavy literally every time he was even close to the ball. And he was like, pop back up. He's like, yeah, I get it. You know, gave the guy a pat on the button to the next fight. That was like elite tie law years too.

And he still had a game. He did. Yeah. He had like 10 tackles. He had a back hindsight of that one touchdown on him. He got him pretty good ball was easy getting over on the defense on the motion. And he beat him pretty clean. Yep.

But that PI on that first drive, the second half or second quarter, where they called two PIs on tie, both were pretty bullshit. So let's see who's gonna get the ball first and go from the one. This is the man. And then they fall the fuck apart. Well, yeah. The ref's called a false start, which was also bullshit, which wasn't there. Yeah, that was a bad call.

And then like Chris Fumatou Mahfala, like had the ball knocked away from him by a lawyer or someone after the play. It's a personal foul. So then they kick in a field goal, then they have a false start. He's gonna name their field goal. And then it cuts our space. Oh, baby. It was love it.

It was like, yeah, it was the Bill Cower face is up there. I think we're on the pantheon of annoyed faces. Yeah, yeah, manning brothers. Yeah. He's definitely like that kind of that. That jaw, where his mouth almost becomes like non-existent and it's all bottom chin. Yeah. His leg extends past his nose.

It's ridiculous. It's fantastic. Yeah. And that was that was peak because yeah, they did. I actually wrote this down because they get a first down. First, like you said, first and go from the one and then they get backed up on penalties and then they complete a pass on third down to Fumatou Mahfala. One bad Mahfala.

Exactly. So he gets tackled at the one or the two, right? So chip shot field goal. But then lawyer Maloy does his bullshit like because Fumatou Mahfala tries to reach it out. So he just like knocks it out of his hand. And so he gets up and like pushes Maloy in the chest and gets a 15 yard penalty. So now they're kicking it from the 15, which still makeable field goal. But then they do a false start, which moves them back another even further back.

And then they miss the field goal. Why is left for the pages? Take the ball back down and hit the exact same field goal from monetary. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff, Jeff Wagenheim said that that was the best bus stop. There was a lot of bus stops in this.

I don't know if that's the best one. There was one that I think it was William McGinnis just came off the edge and the bus tried to do it. He was like, it wasn't even a sweep. It was just like out off tackle sort of thing. And just ran him over like he was. It was like us playing football back in the day where I was like a foot taller than all of you. And I could just tackle you at will is like whatever angle.

It didn't matter if you had the momentum or anything like you just hit me and you just fall over and it looked just like that. I don't remember this at all. I don't remember that either. Of course you don't. It's all the concussions I gave you. So that's open up half two with a Donald Hayes touchdown. It was actually a really nice turn after you get the ball and an awesome block by Dion.

Donald Hayes who we saw at the end of last season regular season playing for the Panthers. And he's the one that had a couple of footballs come off his hands that were returned for touchdowns. And they were like, I like what I see there. Let's sign this guy. Exactly. I this like sparked my thought this in Cam Cleveland. I was like, what are like the skill position players that we've got in that haven't kind of touchdown because you all know that list of Brady touchdown passes.

Yeah, it's on the website. Donald Hayes and Cam Clelander on it like who couldn't crack that group. I couldn't find up people who played more than eight games of Brady and still couldn't catch a TD. Well, actually, let's do, you know, you know, it was a weird one. Steven Ridley. That's true. Yeah. He never caught a Tom Brady touchdown pass.

Yeah. He didn't really catch the ball too much though. Still, I mean, you got to think, I mean, at like four years as a starting tail bag, you get one in there at some point. You would think stuff, the screen or something. Yeah. So can you guys name the top five? Um, receivers in terms of

Bronx, Moss, Branch, Welker. Bronx, Moss, Welker, so far. Branch, Edelman, Edelman. Uh, yeah. So it's Gronk, Edelman, Moss, Welker. James White. See, told ya. And then Dionne Branch is six.

Number seven. Theoretical question for Connor. Who's a bigger Patriot, David Patton or Branch? Who was what? Who's like more legendary Patriots player? Branch or Patton? Oh, God. The only huge branch.

I remember more legendary David Patton catches. The one in the back of the end zone. Was that the one from Drew Bledsoe in the back of the end zone? Drew had the step in. Then you did it again in the Super Bowl. Yeah, but Branch also won a Super Bowl MVP. That's a tough one. I remember more legendary catches probably in those,

especially the first, well, Branch wasn't there, 2001. David Patton had a bunch of catches throughout the playoffs. Yeah, in Snow Bowl, he had a time. I think Branch was better. Patton, I don't know. Sticks out more in terms of catches. Yeah, that was our analysis, too. Yeah, I think it was Patton had the more memorable catches

because he also had that game where he ran past and caught a touchdown, too. Yeah, but Dion's best receiver we've ever drafted and developed. There's a hot take. I mean, it's Emerettleman, right? Yeah. Yeah, probably. Belchak era, yeah. Either way, they're like 1A1B, right?

No, James White. Yeah, you can put him on there. He's fit on this team in touchdown catches in the Brady era. Jimmy Blanco. That's fascinating though. He's going to move to wide receiver this year. I'm calling it right now. Interesting.

Where though? Where are you going to put him in the slot? Yeah, they play him out wide receiver all the time. Anyway, so they play everybody at wide receiver though. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the Patriots aren't afraid to throw a tight end out there, not tight end, a fullback out there. Yep.

All the way back to the Mark Edward days. I know this game, actually. Trust me, I've done the film review. I don't trust that. We have a top three fullback this year. Danny Vitale can catch. Yeah, he's. What do you think about him?

I was reading articles. Oh, boy. Justin Roarwasser. Yeah, I guess he can, I guess he can kick at a country mile. I think it was one of those classic like he knew exactly what tattoo it was and was just coasting until it came up post draft and now he's crying on social media saying he's getting it covered up. It's a classic.

The story is all this time. He's his name translates to Justin pipe water. Yeah, it does. They passed on Rodrigo Blankenship for fucking tap water. Yeah. I just I can't believe I wanted hot. I wanted hot rod so bad. That would be great.

Yeah. He's just a fucking legend. Those glasses, man. The kid from Georgia. Yeah, with the with the rex specs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like a rapper. He like hangs out with all the.

Oh, God, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's awesome. And his name is Rodrigo Blankenship. Like, come on, dude. As a kicker, you got you have to sign that guy. Yeah. Yeah, the Colts got him, right?

Yeah. Oh, did they? Yeah, he went undrafted and they signed him. Oh, no shit. Well, all right. Speaking of kickers, though. Connors boy out of military. Had himself some kickoff problems in this game.

Oh, yeah. Decided to write the end of the third quarter, kick it out of bounds on the kickoff. Fucking idiot. Time to time to hit the panic button. What do you think? Connors. I think so.

Oh, yeah. I think we should probably cut him and draft. Draft a kicker in the third round. Maybe someone more accurate. Yeah, preferably somebody more accurate would be good. Yeah, statistically speaking. So well, Connard. I wanted to bring this up to you because just to hammer my point of,

like you just, you have selective memory. We were watching the AFC championship game from last year against these Steelers, right? The Patriots are up seven and they're driving with like, I don't know what, two minutes left, something like that. Yeah. And they get a 45 yard field goal to basically win the game. It's going to make a 10 point game. Pushed it.

Gave the Steelers another chance. Steelers throw an interception, but if the Steelers go down and score there, that's a whole different, there's a whole different perception on what Adam Vinitieri's career is. It was really, yeah. Okay, that's fair to say. That's for sure to cut a wood up. It was the only field goal he missed.

Like I said, from 14 on. Yep. But guess what? We won the game. So no one remembers that. You remember exactly the point. The defense won the game. So no one gives a shit about what the kicker did.

It only matters when like people remember it. When your team loses. Yes. Oh my. All right. I have, I have the answer to my question. He had one of them. Close your question.

Which, which player has like the most catches but no touchdowns from Tom Brady? Oh, okay. What era? Like what? You think we can guess it? Maybe probably not. Play 2007 to 2010, 47 games. What position did he play?

Running back. Ben Jarvis Green Ellis. No, he's on here though. He did not catch one. Ben Jarvis had 26 catches. Let's see. This guy had 49. 49 catches and no touchdowns from the running back spot.

No, Woodhead, right? Nope. No, he's not. The Garrett one. No, look, there must have one. He's on the system. Damn. Yeah, I think he does actually.

Ridley for reference had 23 catches. Wow. Double that almost. Fucking hell. He really has the most games. 52 games. That makes sense. Tell us 49 catches.

No, no, no, I don't know. Don't tell us just yet. He needs more time to Google. No, no, no. I need some hints. Say it. Yeah, give me some hints. Connor got it.

Yeah, say more. Damn, dude. Google really is a fucking wonder. Just give me two more seconds. I thought I heard Alex in the background. Okay. Well, there was there was other running back to choose from on there besides Tim Morris.

Wow. Yeah. I almost asked if you were going to like, if you were being coy and it was like actually a full back, but he's called him a running back just to throw us off. Because I almost said Heath Evans, but that would have been a lie. I think he's caught one.

James Devlin never did. He did, but it was in the playoffs. James Devlin. Chris, he has won. It was like it was one of those blows against the. Yeah, this is just regular season. Like our blundering has one though. Against the course, of course.

Jacobi Myers is on this list. Jacobi Myers. Well, yeah. Okay. I mean, that's Devlin, Sony, Michelle. Yep. There's really not a lot. There's a lot of people that have won though.

Hollister, 23 games. Antonio Brown. He's got one. Mr. Big Chest himself. He's got as many touchdowns as Matt Mulligan does. I miss them for that matter. I miss him too. I wish he was still.

Antonio Brown. This would have been a whole different season if we had had Antonio Brown. Yep. Could have masked a lot. I mean, not that we probably had what? The worst production from the tight end position in the history, maybe in league history this year.

Which is 2001 Patriots will probably argue. They probably give that a run for the money. We just determined Cam Cleveland was worse. But he wasn't the starter though. I know. He was Daniel Graham who, for all intents and purposes, looks like a fucking wagon. Yeah.

I don't know how he didn't work out because that's a big man who moves quick. He played a while in the league. He did not work out. I mean, he wasn't the Gronkowski that he looks like he should be. He looks like he has that same speed and smoothness to his route running and stuff, but... Played 10 years.

Yeah. Did he play? Where'd he go to the Saints? Denver. Watson went to the Saints. Denver. That's what it was, yeah. Watson, yeah.

Yeah, Watson was good. So maybe one of these new draft picks will be a good one. Watson could have, he was a specimen coming out of college. I thought he was going to be... I thought he was going to be dominant. I remember when we... I think it was 2004 when we drafted Watson. I thought he was going to be dominant.

He was so fast. He was kind of like... He's the one that ran down champions before Vernon did. Yeah, he did run that. That was an incredible play. That's an all time. I'll never forget that play. Yeah, that was super underrated.

So speaking of underrated, should we talk about this fourth quarter? This fourth quarter is not underrated, by the way. It's overrated. Because at this point, it's 37 Patriots and the Steelers have given up, literally. What? This has my best play in this.

Does it? Yes. Okay. Let's hear it. It actually didn't count. Oh, good. This is going to be my best, actually. My boy, Roman Pfeiffer.

No, it was Willie. Oh, no, the other one, Willie McGinnis. Oh, Willie. Just being a grown-ass man and wrecking plays. Bodies, Cordell Stewart. Yeah, Cordell Stewart rolls out and decides to pump fake to give himself some more time. And Willie McGinnis just doesn't take that bait.

And just lights him the fuck up. The perfectly clean tackle. And like in review, it wasn't a fumble, right? Cordell kind of held it until he met the ground. He met the ground. Like it immediately shot out. Yeah. So it looked like a fumble in real time.

He's talking about. So yeah, Roman Pfeiffer returned it to the house. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you watch the replay of that, Willie McGinnis gets up to go to recover the fumble.

And I think realizes that Pfeiffer probably has the better angle. So he peels off and blocks whoever the running back or the whether the stealer is running after. Yeah. And that's what sprung him for the touchdown. But like you said, it got overturned. It was the body absolutely bodied him. That was peak Willie McGinnis.

It ended up at 38. We scored. We should have another six, seven on top of that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that it did also set up a third and 34, which the steals couldn't convert after that. Roman Pfeiffer was so good.

Oh yeah. Underrated for sure. Great name too. And a pH and a Pfeiffer, you know. Yeah. Also way late in this, when they're like scraping for content, they cut to this guy in the Patriots booth called Bucco Kilroy, which absolutely an amazing name who had spent like 60 years in the league or something.

Yeah. I went, I did a little research on him because like what an amazing name and why is he in the pages booth and I've never heard of this guy. Nope. He was the founder of the draft. Whoa. Bucco. Holy shit.

He shaped the modern Super Bowl as we know it now. He's, he's generally know like the, like the game, because remember you used to be the NFL championship. Oh, right, right, right. That's how old this guy was. He's generally known as the dirtiest player ever. Even John Matt on the broadcast calls him that. He, he was a Patriots scouting assistant.

And the only reason he stopped is because he died. Holy shit. He was RGM in the 80s. And he's out in the 2000s when we drafted like Brady and Richard Seymour and all these guys. Fucking hell, dude. Bucco, Bucco Kilroy. Yeah. God damn.

This guy's a legend. He was instrumental in drafting Roger Stabak. Yeah. He played for the Philadelphia Stiegels. Yes. Which was the World War II team that they made when they combined the Steelers and the Eagles. Yeah.

Yeah. I caught that name. I'm like, there's got to be some story behind why is the Steelers and the Eagles combined? That's awesome. Fucking Kilroy. How about that? The Beanie Steelers. I need, I need a fucking Kilroy Stiegels jersey.

We could probably make it happen. Who's that? I just know when the dirtiest player in NFL history. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, they were, they were definitely grasping at straws in terms of like content because they were focusing in on the, like the, the tray of all the medical equipment. Yeah.

Yeah. And they were talking about how they didn't know what any of it was. And John Madden made a joke, something about what was it? Thermometer airlines or thermometer airways is what it said. Which sounds like a terrible box to have to open, but uh. Which I didn't know he was afraid of flying. Clearly he must be. And that's why they had always had like that stupid trailer.

At all the games that he would do. Right. Right. And they'd eat the turkey after Thanksgiving from that trailer. Yeah. And they put the player of the game on the side of the trailer. He had a fear of flying. He did.

It was definitely a full-fledged, like diagnosed phobia. Oh yeah. Yeah. That or he wouldn't fit in the seat. I mean, you remember that? He's gonna get the plane off the ground. You remember that bus and the little giants? Remember when he made his cameo and the little giants?

So like Bruce Smith and a. That's that's a fucking deep cut right there. God damn. Which there's actually content on the field too. Like we had Willie bodying people. And then the Steelers scored a last second. Absolute garbage time TD. Oh my God.

This was fucking brutal. This was shades of when the Patriots were blowing out the the Colts last year. And the Colts kept calling time out so they get the ball back. And then they threw in their backup quarterback. That's kind of what this felt like. Oh yeah. There was literally no reason score. They're down 30 to seven under two minutes left.

And they're just like pulling out all the stops. They're running trick plays. They're running no huddle. They're like desperate to get in the end zone. And then Cordell barely scores a touchdown because he can't figure out to put the ball across the plane instead of his feet. And Teddy Bruce. He was fucking livid about it.

Like he had to get pulled off of the referee by multiple players. It was kind of like that. Bill's game with 31 nothing bookend year. You know, yeah, those are kind of driving their down. Yeah, yeah. But like on that game, I totally understood the bill's motivation there. I was like, yeah. Right.

You don't want to get a shout out. You don't want to lose that same score you beat us on week one. Like I was not like, what are you doing, Bill? So you're just wasting your time. This would felt a lot more like, what are you doing, Steelers? You're just wasting everyone's time. Yeah, they were. And so to the point where they scored one second left and the referee is just like,

you know what, we're just going to run the clock off. It's not what I was doing the kickoff. Yeah. We're just done. We'll go home. Don't worry about that last second. We'll just. Yeah, it's it's fine.

No big deal. So I think that brings us to best and worst. Greg, did you did you have any best and worst from your boy, Jeff Wagenheim? Yeah, he's got he's got a ton of them here. Well, give me Wagenheim's best of his best. Yeah. I'll just give you the two corneas ones he's got left on here. The the worst impression, impersonation of Terry Glenn, Christian Fourier number 88 in

your program actually made it onto the field, caught a TD pass and didn't get hurt. Shit. That's a fucking fire. God damn. Yeah. And then worst superiority complex. The Steelers have claimed their AFC championship game lost as a fluke and that they were the better football team based upon their tackling last night.

Maybe they meant best touch football team. Dude, Jeff Wagenheim. Fireflames just rose. More like touch football. How many more of these do you have, Greg? He has like 12 15. You have the whole season here. I bet we can find them.

Yeah, I definitely have. I'll keep an eye on some Jeff Wagenheim. Yeah, I got more of them for future games. All right, Connor, let's hear your best and worst from this game. Okay, I'll be I got some good ones here. So best here's a here's a fun stat for you. Tom Brady was incredible. He had three touchdown passes, which matched his total for the last eight games of the 2001 season.

So the last regular eight in the last eight regular season games, which we won all of, Tom Brady had a total of three touchdowns across those eight games. So he came out, I think he shut up a lot of the media pundits. He probably shut up a lot of fans who were wondering if it was a fluke. He was awesome. It was Terrell Buckley. Terrell Buckley was so underrated, you know, being in that secondary with lawyer Merloy and Ty Law, Terrell Buckley, and even to Bucky Jones, he was just really solid.

And I think he had a five or six, maybe seven interceptions this year, maybe five or six. He only had three the season before. So he had two, two picks this game. And my third star, I'm just going to do losers and winners. My third star probably goes, it's tough to say. I'd have to go give it to Dion. First game as a rookie coming out, I think he had like seven or eight catches, 85 yards. It was the exact kind of like long player.

And by long, I mean just like the stretches of the field runs a lot on those like deep posts and fade routes. I think it was just what the offense was needed. So that was sweet. Biggest losers, bums or things that sucked. Kendra Bell, I think getting injured in the first, I think it was the first quarter. He was defensive rookie of the year last year. He was supposed to be a stud.

I'm not going to say they would have won. I do think it kind of changed the trajectory of the game. Jerome Buttes stinks. What a big fat load. All he did was, I think he had like 600 rushing yards this season. He just stunk. I mean, granted, he punched it in nine times, but Jerome Buttes, blah. Excellent.

And then obviously, and he had a fumble. Yeah, which led, I think it led to the branch TD. And then the third biggest loser is, I got to go back to Bill Cowher's face. And then honorable mention is, honorable mention is what's his face, the quarterback, Corderl Stewart. Corderl Stewart. After being offensive player of the year in 2001, all pro, he was like, he was, I think he was the AFC MVP, or offensive player of the year, the year before he came out

and showed he still had the yips from the AFC championship, the AFC game. And he would last two and a half more games after this. So, yeah, yeah, slash, yeah. Oh, bad. All right, Steve Brown. See your best and worst, bud. All right. My worst, I have the every run as a hold note in all caps.

Yeah. Because I don't think the beaches couldn't run the ball. It's just like, literally every time they did, they had a hold in the county. I mean, they didn't exactly try. They had four runs in the first half. That's like four quarter runs. They had like four holding penalty to every single run would. That's true.

But most of the, most of the, they had 23 consecutive passing plays between the. Yeah. Because the after ball check was like, well, if you can't run a ball about goddamn holding, I'm going to throw it anyways. Yeah. But they just went five wide as a, you know, fuck it, five wide. Let's just, let's just gas his defense. So I had a couple of Belichick bests.

Oh, good. They talked about the t-shirt he gave everybody in the organization. Yes. It's like all the standings are at zero. Yeah. And everybody's standing on the back and everybody was at zero. Yeah. Fucking Belichick move.

Can confirm that he's been keeping the replay sock or the replay flag in his sock since 02. Yep. Yeah. I didn't see that in the first year. I think they had buzzers last year. They did. And because that was so unreliable, they've now got the, the flag. Yeah.

So he's like, that's always been his spot in his sock. Which is, I've always found hilariously endearing. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm curious why the sock and why not just a pocket? And then they were talking about Scott Pugley. They called him the son-in-law and how he's married to Bill's daughter. And I was like, what? I didn't know that.

Like Belichick and Scott Pugley, like that. And I Googled it and it's not, they were talking about Bill Parcells. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do not know Scott Pugley is Bill Parcell's son-in-law. It's very incestuous.

Same with, what's his name? And Tom Brady's sister. Euclis. Euclis and Brady's sister. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all sorts of cross pollination like that.

All right. My best, that was his butt chin in the post game. Oh, I have that. That's pretty fun. We just like spread it out and threw the ball. I hope we get to do more of that. I have the audio here. Let me see if I can actually, I want to see if I can, because I have it.

I also like Plexigal Burst and we didn't lose this one. We got whipped after the game as it should be. I love that. The final and let's check in with Melissa. All right. Well, when we talked to Tom Brady yesterday or actually on Saturday, he said, we are going to kick their butts. Tom, how'd you know that?

Yeah. We, you know, I think we had a good game plan. I think we're all confident. And you know what? It's real time for me is we had a good week of practice. So good to come out in our own stay and play that way. It's a good way to open this thing up, you know, a good way to defend our title. This Steelers defense was ranked number one in the NFL last season.

How were you able to exploit them so well? Oh, you're right. They do have a great defense. And, you know, it was just, you know, Charlie Weiss came over the great plan. And I think when, you know, we come out here in the first game, we run a lot of, a lot of the no huddle stuff. It's tough on the defense, you know, conditioning wise. And, you know, we kind of got on their heels on the guys.

Guys, Donald Hayes made an awesome play on the curl route when he, you know, kind of hooked and they ran and Dion Branch and Christian. I mean, the three guys we didn't have last year make him up big. So it was a great win. How does anyone not love Tom Brady? Yeah. He's the fucking dead. God, I love him.

But he's so fucking goofy back in these days. I didn't even realize. Sticks out on that interview is like he didn't say hi mom. That's where he did this whole. We always had my parents. They're like, yeah. But he sounded just like one. He sounds like nitpicking a little bit here.

I'm just using that as an example to show how awesome a guy Tom Brady is when my thought is like, man, he's also usually very gracious to his parents as well. I miss him already. God, I miss him. I miss him so, so much. You'll never not miss him. Who's that? You're worse, Steve Brown.

The fact that you miss Tom Brady. Sure. Did you have a word? It's the worst. I mean, every run being a holding penalty was my worst. All right. What the hell is going on over there, Connor?

Dogs still hungry. My roommates are talking in the kitchen. My audio has been fantastic. I'll tell you what, Andy, your audio is cut out a couple of times. You got to, you know, hear a little ricochet noise to my roommate telling a shitty story. I'm sorry. How did it sound like a good story? Sorry, guys.

Yeah, maybe we'll get him on the podcast instead. What are yours? What are yours, Andy? All right. My best was the referee camp. Yeah. Cameras on the middle referee, the guy behind like in the middle of the defense, like behind the linebackers.

Which I've seen in college. Fuck, they don't still have that. Yeah. Because I see it in college, for sure. And I can see the rest not wanting that. Well, they already had it and they already had in 2002. I could see it. They'd never done it before, but you did it.

It was so good. It was just looks like chaos when you're in the middle of it. Like the fact that anybody understands what they're supposed to be doing is beyond me. When you look at it from that angle, it was fantastic. I'm 100 percent. And like the college version is cool as shit. The NFL version will only be cooler because it will only be quicker and faster. Right.

Yeah. It'd be great. So that was one of my best. My other best was the fullback from the Steelers when they're doing introductions. Dan Kreeter, UNH alum. How about that? Possibly the most famous UNH football player. No.

Can we say that? Give me another one. Jerry Azuma. Oh, yeah. All right. All right. Yeah. I'll give you that.

Also, he's got to play for the Reigns. There's a cornerback. Yeah. And Kyle, yeah. Kyle, what's his name? Kyle, the Bears, too. He picked off Manning in a big game, I remember. Jimmy, Jimmy, something.

Ravens. Yeah. Jimmy Smith. Oh, now it's not him. I got it. One second. I thought it was definitely, yeah. Azuma was one of them.

You're right. But I don't know who this new guy is talking about. Corey Graham. Was it Corey Graham? Corey Graham. Oh, nice. Yeah. I knew Kyle Corey.

I knew. I didn't even have to use Google. I don't believe that. I mean, that's what we're all talking about. Was Azuma the wide receiver? I don't know. You tell me. You're on Google.

No, I don't think so. He's a DB. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. He's a back two. I'm not.

No, there's David Ball who was a... He broke Jerry Rice's touchdown record, touchdown catch record, when I was there. And then who broke that record? In the Chip Kelly days. I don't know who broke that record. He's in the NFL right now. He's a white receiver.

James White. White record. White. Cooper Cup. Oh, no shit. Yep. Cooper Cup. Set the college football touchdown receiving record.

Yeah, one of those yards. Maybe catches. He was an undrafted free agent who played for the Bears. Well, signed by the Bears. I don't think he did. Corey Graham played 12 years in the league. Yeah. He's really good.

Yeah. I recognize his name. Didn't know he was a UNH guy. How about that? Represent. How about that? Wow, cats. UNH had a third round pick in 1982.

There you go. And my worst was basically the Steelers. They had six turnovers and 13 penalties in their season opener when they had an entire offseason to prepare for the team that knocked them out of the playoffs the year before. That's just a hot fucking mess. And off of that, my favorite quote was because this is the beginning of the new division alignments.

So it's the first year of the AFC North that the season is in. And even with this loss, they were still tied for first place. And Madden, his quote, was luckily there in a bad division. Because it was the Browns and the Ravens were falling apart, too. And Wilson, that division. Redskins. Oh, never mind. The Bengals.

They were like, because again, they were scraping for content and they're talking about the NFC East for some reason. Because that's what John Madden knows best. That's like the John Kitna Bengals. It was, yeah, it was the dark time for the Bengals. And the Browns, no matter because it's the Browns. But yeah, and basically the Steelers would get their doors blown off here, finish 10, 5 and 1 and still win them.

For all those people talking shit about the AFC East and sit on it. For the Steelers being recognized as one of the greatest franchises, teams and franchises. We have an incredible win-loss record against them. I think we've beat them like, we've won 12, they've won 13. I mean, it's some preposterous number. We've always had their number. Bill has, I mean, it was an easy game plan.

It's like, oh, you have all these big, huge linebackers. Okay, we'll just go no huddle and catch you in the wrong scheme and just wear you the fuck out. It was, Bill Cowher was always out coached by Belichick, that's for sure. So the Patriots against the Steelers in the Belichick era are 12 and 4. All of his information is available on PatriotsDynasty.info. That's exactly where I'm getting from. 454 to 338.

And if you want to talk, actually I had a quick, before we end this, a quick trivia question because I know how much you boys like that. So the Patriots have played the Steelers three times to open the season. They're never lost. They're 3-0 and they actually average a score of 30 to 13, which is very close to this one. But there's one team that they've played more times to open the season. Do you guys know who that is? Dolphins.

No. Baltimore or the Chiefs. Nope. As soon as an AFC team. Yes, they played the Bills four times. They have lost once and I can guarantee you all remember. I guarantee you don't remember any of the wins though because I sure don't. I'm looking forward to re-watching that game.

I don't know if I am, but I don't know. Yeah, I believe it is. Only because I know how the season ends, you know. That's true. If this was like that game, any easier to watch though. I'll be mad. So yeah. Oh, and we have a new thing before we go.

You can actually now leave reviews for our podcast. Don't tell them that. Yeah, no, I want to get some feedback. So, and I think maybe we'll put together for the second season, we'll put together something where the best or our favorite review gets, I don't know, a free t-shirt or something. If you go to raidthispodcast.com slash Pat's Pod, you can rate it on your podcast listener of choice.

What are you going to say, Connor? And you should probably give that, you should give that pitch in the first 15 seconds when people are still listening instead of, you know, the last minute of it. Okay. No, I want to know what they really think. I want them to have suffered all the way through this. I want to, I want to go to leave a fucking comment about this.

Well, that's the thing. You need someone to listen, listen all the way to this point. You might not get any ratings. So, yeah, we'll get, we'll be like, wow, I didn't know that much about Bucco Kilroy. Speaking of which, well, mom, you can, which when they ended their partnership, the Steelers and the Eagles, the Steelers then merged with the Chicago Cardinals, forming a team known as the Carpets. It says pronounced Carpets and they went, oh, and 10.

No shit they did. They were fucking Carpet. Dude, I found an article on this. It's awesome. It's all about like the players from back then, like smoke and cigarettes on the practice field. Dude, their coach was greasy, Neil. Fall in the 40s must have been so sick. It was a part-time job, wasn't it?

Yeah, oh, yeah. All right, boys, was their full-time job, right? And on that note, I think we will bring this to a merciful end. And again, rate us. Leave us some feedback if you dare. And if we get any good ones, well, let me just swag. What's the, what is it? It's ratethispodcast.com slash Pat's pod, P-A-T-S-P-O-D.

And it'll be in the show notes too. So look in the show notes, it'll be there. If your comment is to put the ratings thing, it's the beginning of the episode, you can go fuck yourself, okay? If your comment is that Connor needs to come back on, we'll know it's you, Connor. And stop leaving us that feedback. Okay, ratings and reviews. Yep, got it.

I'm gonna juice up our reviews, so. Love it. Yeah, and if you want to add some positivity to this, you're more than welcome to balance out all the negativity we're about to get. Feel free. But this has been. You're gonna leave a really good review. Yep, all right, sorry, Andy.

No, it's all right. This has been a joy, as always, gentlemen. Appreciate you joining us. And we'll see you next week on the Patriots Dinesie podcast. What is next week? I mean, I've never prepared for this. It's week two. They're playing.

This is true. According to the Boston Globe, it's route two. Route two? Like route route. Send out a Boston Globe pun. Giving it away, all right, yeah. For the giant stadium, the New York football Jets, yes. And we will.

And we'll see you then. Take it easy, guys. See ya. See ya.