Patriots Dynasty Podcast - 2004 Week 1: Patriots vs Colts

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Another season, another banner ceremony, another rematch of an AFC Championship game. This time the Pats open up their Super Bowl title defense at home vs the same potent Colts offense they defeated in last year's playoffs. Can Peyton Manning solve the Belichick defense? How would Belichick utilize his newest offensive weapon in Corey Dillon? To help us kick off the 2004 season we welcome on Jeff Howe, and ask him a bunch of questions he expertly dodges. What a professional! Show Notes:This game's on Youtube if you want to watch it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIItLDH2vvI.It's weird to see Tom Brady as an awkward young man, but here's the proof that he was: https://muse.ai/vc/aeKJPt7Don't forget to text us your thoughts on the Dynasty Hotline! Let us know what you think about this game or anything else. [phone]Support 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. Welcome back to the Page Dynasties podcast. Yes, we're doing this again. 2004 season, we've done 01, 02 and 03 all the way through and we are now doing 2004 and to celebrate, we decided to bring, well, I decided to bring both the brothers back. Steve Brown, middle brother, how's it going?

Andy, I appreciate you paying me to do this 2004 season that money hit my bank account. So let's go. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't cost more because I don't think I can afford it. And also Greg Brown, baby brother, how's it going? Greg, I didn't get a paycheck. That was all this. He pays you in hugs and love, Greg. I pay Stephen dog treats for his new dogs. Don't worry about it. But to really celebrate, we thought we would actually get somebody who knows what they're talking about on the podcast. And so this episode, we have on, I don't know if infamous is the right word.

Give me a good, give me a good descriptor. Descriptor boys. All right, cool. The more famous than us. This is the worst script of all. Everybody's more famous than us. We're the mom. What's Patriots writer Jeff Howe from the athletic. So Jeff, thanks for coming on. Yeah, not famous at all, though. So thanks for having me in the very nice words. Yeah, no, I actually, I tried to do my research and and like introduce you with all the stuff that you've done and all the stuff that you're doing. But for somebody who writes articles online, there's not much out there about you.

Just how I like it. So I asked a whole bunch of people if they would give us some questions. So the first question I told them that I would ask, and this only really works on paper, but we're going to do it anyway, because that's kind of podcast we are. And it is Jeff. How's it going? I've never heard that one before. That's that's good. It's going great. It's fantastic. Oh, I didn't say it was a good question. I just said these are the questions we got. So when he says he asked people, he just thought of him in his head, like the other voices

in the back of his head. Oh, no, I would take credit for that if I came up with it. I ain't that quick. Nice, Andy. But yeah, so. So tell us a bit about yourself then, because I know you've been covering the page since 2009. But how did you kind of get into that? Well, I failed out of business school, and my father told me I had to make something of myself. So I somehow figured it out from there. I mean, I grew up in Lowell. I did fail out of business school at UNH. That took three semesters for us to realize that we

should mutually agree to part ways. I went back to Middlesex Community College, got into some journalism classes. I mean, I had like a little bit of a media background just from Lowell High, and it was something that I kind of wanted to get into. So to make a very long story as short as possible, then I went to UMass. I did the student paper there, the Daily Collegian, and graduated from UMass in 06, worked a bunch of different jobs in and around Boston for about three years. And I reached out to Nessin in 2009. I was working at the Boston Metro, which no longer exists. It was, you know, for people who don't know, that was the free paper that was passed out

in the trains. And I was so desperate to get out of there. I was just bypassed for a job that I deserved, but I'm glad I didn't get. And so I reached out to Nessin, and I was like, hey, you know, this was like when WEI and Comcast, and we're just sort of like, you know, doing up their websites. Nessin.com's website was basically like, hey, the Red Sox are playing tonight at 7.05 on our station, like two and in, like that was the extent of it. I was like, do you need somebody to cover the Celtics or the Red Sox? Like I've handled those things a couple of times, you know, I kind of know my way around both buildings. And, you know, I've been to Gillette like a handful of times on like Wednesdays and covered a couple of Tom Brady press

conferences. And the guy running the site was like, yeah, you know what, why don't you do a Patriot story a week and we'll give you 25 bucks. And I was like, sure, whatever. I remember the first story I wrote was after they traded Matt Castle and Mike Brable to the Chiefs for a second round pick. And I wrote a $25 call. And I'm telling you, it probably wasn't even worth that. So it was a, I joke that Bill Belichick got his start in the NFL in 1975, making $25 a week. I got my start in the NFL in 2009, making $25 a week. So just two birds of a feather there. But, you know, worked at Nessin, it was great. I learned a lot at Nessin. They started putting me on TV for who knows what reason.

Went to the Herald in 2012 when Ian Rapport got hired by NFL Network. I was at the Herald for six awesome years. I mean, loved it. Absolutely loved my time at the Herald had no intentions in leaving. But, you know, the Reaper started to come for everyone there. And at the same time, the Athletic was toying with the idea of coming to Boston. So I got, you know, very fortunate because this is the best job I've ever had other than like scooping ice cream in high school, which is awesome. Working for the Athletic has been just amazing. They just, they prioritize like the things that are great about journalism and, you know, taking your time to write a good story rather than rushing out something and then blogging three more things and then getting to,

you know, start working on a notebook for something else. I mean, it's just like, hey, take all the time you need to write something that you think is the best version of a story that you can put out there. And it's just been great. So that's my long-winded story. Yeah. I mean, I think that's how I got hooked on the Athletic was I was missing all that long form like deep dive writing about sports. You don't really get it many other places because it's now it just seems to be who's getting there first as opposed to like who's actually getting it right or getting the details. Yeah. And that's fine. I mean, I enjoyed doing that. And when I was at The Herald, and again, I loved my time at The Herald. You won't hear me say a bad word about that

place. Working with Karen was amazing. It was just every, it was just such a good group of people. And I loved it. I can't stress that enough. But, you know, working on a main story every day, a notebook every single day, and then blogging everything that's happening. I mean, there's so much going on compared to now when basically, you know, right now I'm going through feature stories of the rookie draft class. And there are other things going on with the team. There's, you know, a transaction or two every day. And for the most part, they haven't been major transactions. So my bosses aren't sitting here saying, Hey, write 300 words on this or put up something on that or whatever. I mean, yeah, there's, you know, every now and then there's player availability

through a virtual press conference. But my boss is like, look, you got, you got features to write, just worry about those, do the best job you can with those. And that's why I take a lot of pride in writing these features and in telling these players stories the best way I possibly can, because they're getting introduced to a new fan base and a new readership. And I want the people who are reading these stories to realize, to know that like when they come away from that, they're going to know just about everything possible about this, this player. Hopefully we took pride in this podcast. I do a lot of work on this. This is long. Maybe if me and Greg took pride in it. I was going to say, sure, you don't do shit,

but I put hours of work on this. So do you, it sounds like you actually have a lot of, unlike us, a lot of access to these, these players over the years. I guess two part question one, how and is there a way for us to do that? And more seriously, do you have any like good, like favorite players, favorite stories, that sort of stuff? This is a three part question, Andy. Oh, three part question. What's the third part three? Do you know Troy Brown? And he's as awesome as we all know and love, right? I was told to bring a Troy Brown story. Yeah. Okay. Because of that first Troy Brown story. It was, I was doing a story on Julian Edelman, I don't know, a few years ago during the post

season, you know, probably like a playoff preview type of story. And it was, I was talking to Troy Brown and Troy was telling me it's 2009 training camp. So they had just drafted Edelman in the seventh round. And at that point, everybody, it's not the cliche. This guy was a college quarterback and now he's like a punt returner slash slot receiver and everybody thought he was going to be the next coming a Wes Welker, you know, best case scenario. So Troy Brown is sitting there, he just retired and he's at practice and, you know, he's not even close to getting into the coaching capacity yet. So he watches it and you know, Edelman's running around like, you know, with his hair on fire, like he usually does in Edelman was way, way, way more raw. I mean,

he was, he was a legitimate project, a guy who needed to go through a lot of bumps and bruises and really fine tune his game for a number of years before he became the outstanding player that he was for his career. Troy Brown goes down to the field and seeks out Belichick or he seeks out that was probably, you know, that's an extreme way to put it. When Troy Brown walks onto the field, he doesn't need to like go looking for Bill Belichick naturally come together. But Troy says to Bill, hey, it looks like you found the next Welker and Belichick goes, no, I found the next you. And it was, it's amazing because I want to say that it was like 2015 when Troy Brown, maybe 2016, because it was probably like, I'm thinking it was a playoff story,

it was probably after he like really made a name for himself and the Super Bowl run against the Seahawks and all that, it was probably like a returning to the playoffs type of deal. And he's, he was so much more of a Troy Brown type of player than he ever was a West Welker type of player. Not that's a bad thing or whatever, but it's just, and Belichick knew it right away before Julian Edelman was anywhere close to becoming the Julian Edelman that we've all gotten to know. To get to the first couple parts of the question, I don't know how you guys can get access. I mean, you can reach out to the fans. I don't care about the other players. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There was, there was the story of that guy who kind of held the sign

out on route one saying, you know, every single day, seeing if he can get some access to the team. I don't think that worked out. So maybe you don't want to do that one either. Yeah, the access, I mean, it's over the course of the years. I mean, I've been in the locker room since 2009. And during the season, it's three to five times a week, 45 minutes every day, made a lot of relationships. The thing I really enjoy about covering this team is the quality of human beings that Belichick brings into the locker room. I mean, these guys, more often than not, I mean, there's a lot of really good people who, for, I'm not sitting here saying like, you know, they know everything about me. I know everything

about them, but they will take the time to talk to you and they're not going to blow you off. And I've got friends who cover all their teams and they'll be like, yeah, you know, there are, there are 20 good guys in the locker room and the rest of them, you know, they get angry every time they see me. Whereas in at Gillette, you know, with very, very few exceptions over the last 12 plus years. I mean, it's, it's like 52, 53 guys on that roster who were just really good people to talk to. I've had, I've had a good run with the linebackers. I mean, I've always had a good rapport with guys like High Tower, you know, even Brandon Spikes and Gerard Mayo and, you know, guys who, I mean, this, this, this is just, Gronk was always great to deal with Edelman,

I mean, Brady to an extent, even though he's, he's just at a different caliber as to how available he always is. He was always very cordial. I mean, just a lot of good interactions with him. What about the staff? What's that? What about the staff and coaches? A little bit different. I mean, they're, they're much more reserved. The thing with the players is it's in their contracts that they have to be in the locker room every day during media access. And sometimes, you know, it's for 10 seconds. Sometimes those guys will hang around for a half hour or whatever. The coaches don't have that same. No, the coaches don't have that. Basically, the coaches have to be available,

like Belichick has to be available every day, not every day, but like most days of the week. The coordinators have to be available once a week. The assistant coaches once a month. And it's, because it's so rare to get that access, you're very rarely talking to these guys one-on-one. There have been some, you know, good ones who have come by and have taken the time and stuff like that. And, you know, I don't, I don't really want to get into names, but, you know, I've gotten to know some of them on a personal level, but it's just, it's harder because you just don't have that face-to-face time with them as often. So like Belichick has that media reputation of being like ornery and just dry, but everyone here is the other side of it where he's super funny and

witty. I don't know, where do you fall in that? We still don't get the witty funny side of it all that often. I mean, it's still different. I mean, he's, but I get it. What he is, what his approach to the media is everything he says to us, he expects is going to filter into the locker room in some capacity. So when he's relaying these dry messages, I mean, they're not, it's not too far from the things that he's saying to the team. And like, for example, the unpopular trades that he's made in the middle of the season, I mean, the Jamie Collins trade in 2016, you know, that was, that was not a popular move in that locker room. I mean, really, really not a popular move. Shades of Lloyd Malloy. Even that and Mike Rabel trade.

So he got to the, the, or the front of the meeting room, the morning of that trade or whenever it happened to go down and he got in front of the locker room and he said, we made a transaction. It was my decision. It's final and it's time to move on. And then an hour later or whatever it is, he steps in front of the podium and he has his news conference with us. And, you know, everyone's asking questions and he's basically saying the same thing because he's not going to tell us anything that he's not going to tell the team. And there's, obviously he's, he's going to tell the team how they're going to game plan for the bills. He's going to tell us, let's, he's got an 0 and 16 team coming to town. He's going to tell the team,

they're the greatest team ever. He's going to tell us they're the greatest team ever. You know, it's not the same rule, the same standard for every single story. But I think I wanted to get across like the point with like the Collins thing to sort of give you a glimpse into how and why he handles certain situations. Were you there in person for the, uh, we're on to Cincinnati? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yep. How was that received by like the press? Cause like he said that stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's, again, this, it's so, it's so different because I'm just used to it.

Like I've been doing this for, for years at this over a decade. And at that point that was, that was 2014. So I'd been doing that for five years. I guess that was my sixth season. So he just, he didn't want to deal with, this was just after drafting Garoppolo, Brady didn't play well. Garoppolo came in, the team showed some life. I think he threw a touchdown past a Gronk at the end of that Kansas city game or whatever it was. Um, and he, he wasn't going to hear the quarterback, uh, controversy types of questions. And that was how he wanted to handle it. So clearly what do you do in that situation as, as somebody who has to ask him questions to find something to write about? Yeah. I mean, it's situation to situation. I mean,

there are sometimes when you're, you got to put yourself out there, you could ask a certain question. There are other times when you, you know, somebody else is going to do it, you know, sometimes. So do you know before you ask the question whether or not he's going to bite your head off? I mean, part of that, but it's like, do I want to ask, like some, if you have a well thought out question and this isn't like an off the cuff thing. Um, like if you bring a question to the table that you've thought about and you've, you know, whatever, he's going to give you more often than not a well thought out answer. Now, if you're, if you want to get into the hot take stuff, if you want to ask, I mean, if you want to just outright piss him off, like he's, he's not

going to take to that. And, uh, you know, different coaches handle things differently and there are certain, certainly there are times when you wish that he was more forthright or forthcoming with his answers. But at the other side of it, it's like, if somebody's asked the same question three different times, what are you going to do? Like, do you want to sit there and ask it a fourth time knowing that he's not going to like it? He's not going to give you a better answer. And then you're just starting to waste everybody's time. And then the other thing is like, if you just keep pissing them off with quite like, if you guys asked me the same question five times in a row here, I'd be like, all right guys, you know, we've had a good night. I'm going to go take care.

Like there are just, there's got to be some tax to it from both sides. So you've got to be professionally respectful of each other's times. Those situations are hilarious when like a third person asking the same question and like hearing them try and rephrase the same question a different way is always peak comedy. Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, look, I've, I've sat there trying not to laugh in the middle of something. To quote an old saying that I've heard once or twice, it is what it is. You're on it next week. So I got a question speaking of like other media members in New England. So

I grew up in New Hampshire listening to 98.5 WEI. And then I moved to North Carolina and it was like shocking how differently the media here treats local sports teams than back in New England. So I think it's, it's, it's fair to say that the new, the Boston sports talk media is like relatively like tough on their teams as far as like being critical. So specifically like Felgar and Maz is a good example where it seems like they're almost at a point where they're like trolling you as far as like hating on the Patriots. Do you think that that's kind of like a tactic that they use as far as like, yeah, we get a lot of listeners because we know we rile them up or do you think those are their legitimate like opinions?

That's a tough question for me to answer. Because I don't, I don't want to do what the thing that pisses me off about those guys. I don't want to talk about their jobs. Yeah. Like the way that they talk about my job that pisses me off. So I'm not going to answer like why. I mean, they have the number one rate shown the world in the country, whatever. They're, they're good at what they do. The ratings say they are. There are things that I wish they didn't do. I don't want them, you know, they don't need to be talking shit about what I do and the way I do my job. But I'm not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say, you know, I'm not going to flip this and do that about them when they don't have a chance to sit here and defend themselves. So I'm going to

respectfully pass on the rest. Yeah, but I mean, do you know why you said enough? Do you feel like, yeah, right? It's only mom. Listen, do you feel like there's, because from like an outsider's point of view people, some, the type of person who like takes in all this media, it feels like there's been for a long time an undercurrent of, I don't have negativities right where, but just kind of like waiting for the teams to do badly and kind of like for us growing up, it was always like eventually the sports media would be proven correctly eventually. You know, you get your bill buckners every year, whatever,

basically your red socks of every year up until 2004. And the pages were also lumped into that. And so it felt like from the outside, there was this waiting for the other shoe to drop in a lot of the content that was written. And even when the team started getting success, it felt like a lot of the, maybe the older media members were kind of like hanging onto that a bit. I don't know if you've seen that in like your interactions with like other media members or like players kind of like recognizing that and not necessarily opening up to you as quickly maybe. It's just, it's hard. I have such a different job because, you know, those guys, they, they have to have an opinion. You know, if you're on talk radio,

you have to have an opinion. Whereas it's my job to just relay information. And sometimes I do it differently. Sometimes I'll do it in an entertaining way. Sometimes I'll do it in a column fashion. But ultimately my goal is to just relay information. So I, I just pride myself on being accurate, being credible, you know, my having my reputation as just somebody that I just, I want people to appreciate and respect my work. And I'm not ever going to put something out there just to get attention. Whereas that's just, it's just totally like an old school columnist for, you know, any of the big papers in the city. And I'm not going to mention any names because I don't want anywhere to think I'm talking about them. But you know what their job is or was and it's very

similar to what it is on talk radio. I mean, that's just, I've got great friends on radio in town. I mean, I went to college with Mark Bertrand. I wrote a book with Zolac. So I've got, I've got that show monopolized there. I'm good there. But like they, they just, their job is just so different. And sometimes when I come out and I bore them with just middle of the road facts with objects, it, you know, just being objective because that's what they can't do anything with, right? Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, sometimes I bore those guys and sometimes they take shots of me for it. And as long as it's playful than, or like, I'm there to defend myself, I'm cool with that. Like that's, that's totally fine. It's just, but as opposed to, it's just,

we just have such different jobs. So like, who are they rooting for negativity? I'm not going to speak for them. All I can say is I just try to tell you what's happening and why it's happening. You know, if something's not working, like the quarterback situation last year, I'm going to tell you why it's not happening or what they need to do from here. Like there was, there was a time last year when I wrote that, you know, through three games, Cam Newton was playing so well. What is he looking at for a contract extension? And I started comparing it like this guy was looking at a deal worth like 25 million annually after week three. And then they became so one dimensional and so easy to defend after that Rams game, I was like, all right, and now it's time to

put in stitum. But like neither of those things were me just saying, Hey, you know what, I got to get myself some attention. It's just like, all right, the quarterback, the quarterback topic is, is the topic with this team right now until they find somebody to handle this thing for a long time. So how can you at least extrapolate on that and to push it forward after, you know, certain situations? So who's starting week one then? I think it's going to be Cam. Yeah, me too. I think, I mean, Belichick with how strongly he said Cam was their quarterback the night that they drafted Mac Jones. I mean, I have to believe it will be. I'm not saying Mac Jones has 0% chance or whatever. I mean, if I know that they do believe the team does believe that like he had his

shortcomings last season, I mean, just look at the contract they gave him just judge them by their actions. Cam Newton had accuracy issues. He had mechanical issues. They were very predictable in the in the red zone. Now, they went on a shopping spree this off season. They are well built to handle or they are much more much better equipped to throw the ball now just with the talent around them. And they want to see if adding John Smith and Hunter Henry and Nelson Aguilar and Kendrick Bourne is going to have an impact on Cam Newton. And if who knows how much of that the COVID how much of that truly impacting? We don't know yet. We'll see if all of these things help Cam Newton become a better quarterback and training camp. The great thing that they have

going for them right now, you know, last year, they had they had a two week training camp and Jared Stidham was bad and then hurt by the end of the fourth practice. And at that point, Cam Newton had established himself as the number one guy and it was good like Cam Newton was good enough in practice to have that. Now they're going to have a normal training camp. They're going to have three preseason games. They're going to have upwards of six weeks before the opener to figure out whether or not Cam Newton is going to be a better version of himself than he was last year. And if they find out over those six weeks that he's the same guy despite all the additions around him and Mac Jones comes in and plays well and he I'm not saying he's going to look

like he did last year at Alabama, but if he's a facilitator of the offense, if he's accurate, if he didn't think about it, the way that they're built, they're built to throw the ball over the middle of the field. You have to be accurate. That's what Mac Jones does. If that accuracy starts to pop and Cam Newton doesn't progress the way that they hope, then Mac Jones, I think, has a very realistic chance to start. But those are two big ifs. So what's this book you wrote with Zolak? Oh, yes. Oh, you mean the one right there? There it is. Right above the Mickey Ward glove. Yeah, if these walls could talk, it was just a fun book that we did just 25 years of Patriots stories between him showing up in Foxborough and his overlap

with me and the time that we've covered the theme in various capacities together. So it was just editing process work. Can't Zolak not read? It's a coloring book. No, I read the first half and I'm going to I'm going to guess that the way it went down is somebody recorded Scott Zolak just talking probably hours. And then Jeff probably did the heavy lifting on the writing of the book. What I like to tell people was we just alternated words. So I would just one word and then zo would come in and he typed the next word and then we just we alternated until we got to 80,000. And it was like, we're actually we're actually trying to write a book like that because we did a we did a review of a Cam Newton themed erotic novel. And it was so

badly written. We thought we can do better than that. So we're we're alternating chapters without telling the other person what we're writing. So I'm writing the first chapter and I'm going to hand it off to one of the brothers and then to Bill Belichick erotic. We don't even know. We don't know where it's going to go. So I know where it's going to go. It's going to end a graphic penetration. Okay, I know where it's going. Yeah, well, there you go. At some point, I have to make sure I'm invited back to the locker room. So maybe no one's going to read this book. Yeah, we won't put your name on it. You're good, buddy. You can just tell you guys how to live your lives. We're not even invited to the locker room already. So I mean, no skin off our back, right?

I only go to I only want to go to the locker room if Troy Brown's there. Yeah, well, he's a coach. So I got another question about the media landscape. So I think with like the invention of like YouTube and basically, I mean, like three random brothers can have a podcast, you've seen like the, the old guard like media being like, okay, we need to be objective. We can't be fans or we can't like, you know, step over that line. But now you're seeing like more and more like like the bar stool guys, a lot of them are like openly fans of the teams that they cover and you're like, you know, go to YouTube and it's all like fan journalism, pseudo kind of thing. What do you, what do you think as far as like where that's heading? And do you ever like

struggle with that yourself as far as like, okay, I have to remain objective, even though I grew up in Lowell and, you know, no, I mean, believe it or not, like that, that fades really quickly. Because, you know, I'm there to do a job and I'm not going to do it. Well, if I'm a fan, it's just that's not going to happen. Now, I can't hide the fact that, you know, I have family members who are seasoned ticket holders and, you know, like this, my daughters are growing up in the area, like they're going to like the Patriots. Like there's, there are parts of your life that you just can't, I can't erase the fact that I grew up in Lowell and, you know, the fact that who I grew up and sharing for. But once I get it, once you get into it, it really is pretty

easy to push that stuff aside. In, I mean, 2009, like the whole media landscape changed with just the way that the websites were, you didn't need to be a traditional media outlet. I mean, again, with WEI.com really blew up and like, I think it was 2008 and Comcast.com or whatever they were at the time, Comcast, New England, whatever, whatever that they were branded at that point, you know, they were starting to blow up and Nessun.com was just a little bit behind them. But then they started to move. So the traditional media landscape changed big time around that, like really, right? When I started, I got my first break. And you, like at the same time, there was, I mean, there was no Twitter at that point, I don't think. I mean, I know I started

Twitter in 2009, but it was probably after I started covering the Patriots. And there was, is another random story. I broke, believe it or not, I broke the story that Ovechkin signed his like, I don't know, 13 year, 125 million dollar contract with the capitals back in, I want to say 2008. And I put it on the Metro's website, which I mean, my mom maybe read like, no, I was calling people being like, can we understand? We know that. Did you guys get this onto like the news tonight? Because like, I just broke this massive story. But like the tree fell in the woods and there is nobody within miles to hit the ground. How did you get the, how'd you get the info? I had a very well placed source.

Works worked out. But I didn't cover hockey. I will say I live in D.C. and the sports media here is also very negative for the Redskins, but rightfully so. Yeah, deservedly, deservedly so. But to bar stool, like they do things their own way and they do a great job of it. Like it makes it in a different sort of comparison. Like, do you remember when Bill Simmons was the Boston sports guy? When he was going in the early 2000s, I mean, he was a blast to read. That's true. He probably set that standard there. He did. But in every kid, I mean, when I got to the student paper at UMass, I had great mentors there. And these guys were like, they said it to

me, they said it with every new kid there. You are not going to try to write like Bill Simmons. Bill Simmons is great. Boston sports guy is great at what he does because he's funny. He knows how to write. He knows how to tell stories and he knows how to do it in a way that keeps people engaged for thousands of words at a time. You are a slappy, you know, 19, 20-year-old college kid. You can't write worth a damn. You're not nearly as funny as you think you are. And it takes me four hours to edit your crap that you hand in every night to stick to covering the lacrosse game. Someone needs to tell Greg that. So it was like, people can try to replicate the barstool stuff, but they're not going to be as

funny. They're not going to be as innovative. Like, those, Courtney is a millionaire because he does what nobody else can do as good as him. And, you know, people who try will more likely than not fail. So like, I've always just taken it like, think about what you're good at. Focus on that stuff. Don't try to be who you're not. Write whatever, you know, say whatever you feel. Write whatever you feel. Don't try to like have a personality that isn't yours. You know, when I'm on with Toucher and Rich, like, I don't know, I think I'm like, I have some dry humor and I might sneak in here from time to time or whatever. Those guys are like way funnier than me. So I'm not going to go on Toucher and Rich and try to match those guys joke for joke and make an ass out of myself.

So I just like stay in my own lane. I just, you know, be who you are. And don't try to force it, because when you start forcing stuff, you get exposed way too quickly, especially. We should keep doing this podcast where we rewatch every single Patriots game. That's what we're going to start to finish all 286 and spend 90 minutes talking about each one. It's like 300. That's what you guys can do. And nobody else can do it the way. Tell us the truth. When you heard that, you were like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever know. I like the idea. I really do. Execution wise. Yeah, I mean, hey, it's a, it's a cool idea. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's a really cool idea to go back and look at all this stuff,

because think of how many people have watched 95% of Patriots games that every Patriots game over the last two decades. And I mean, I know I have. But how many do you remember from? You forget it was season. Yeah, I can't remember 95% of the games. Even this first game of the 04 seasons. Yeah, it's interesting what you do remember and what you don't remember. Yeah, that's odd things that are like clear as day. Remember at like multiple plays from this game. And the other game was like, not a clue. You could even take the score. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if I went through the box score that season opener in 2004, I'm sure things would start to come back to me. But I think that was, you know, I want to say,

I might even be thinking of the, the, the banner raising against the Raiders more than, you know, the, the braiding manning season opener than anything. So it's, and those things start to run together. Yeah. That'd be fun though, to kind of sit back and rewatch all those games from 15 plus years ago. Yeah. It's better the longer you watch it. Yeah. It's, it's finding games that you can actually make out who the players are. Yeah. I mean, I talked to, I love doing stories like oral histories of games that happened 15 years ago, whatever, 10 years ago. And I'll talk to guys who played in those games and they'll, you know, some of them are like, yeah, I don't remember what happened. Oh yeah. It's a, it's, it's a fun exercise. It's got to be a fun exercise.

Yeah. No, it has been so far. Yeah. The good games are awesome. But then like the slogs against Buffalo in December and you're like, oh, why am I watching this? You don't even watch those. Exactly. Why? It's the nine, six, uh, Brown's game that almost burns me. There's even, even like now, like when they were, you know, a juggernaut in the middle of winning three Super Bowls and in five years or whatever, um, you know, recently show up on the road in Buffalo, no, a Jets game or whatever. And the Jets wouldn't be good. And it'd be a one o'clock game. And you're, I'm going to the stadium like, this is just going to be a boring like 35 to 10 game. But I'll write my game. I'll be out of the building by six or something like that. It's just

yeah. There's always like some of those gems that you like remembered it at the time. Like those one Jets game that ended with like a huge brawl that I think met light started off of a, I think it was a Gino Smith interceptions on the end it. And I'm like, I don't even remember this game. This is amazing. How do I, how did I forget that this game ended in a brawl? And so that was actually what got me to start this podcast was like, we need to go back and watch some of these games because what else have I forgotten? And yeah, it's a shit ton. And then you rewatch him and forget him again. Oh yeah. But we can always re listen to our podcast and remember it again. That's true.

Eclipse notes. Yeah, they're long. So all right, well, we should probably let you go because I know you have other stuff to do. You're on to bigger and better than this. But before we go, we ask everybody this, who is your favorite Patriot? And why is it Troy Brown? I don't know. It's hard for me to say I have a favorite Patriot just because again, it gets to the job aspect of it. I mean, like, yeah, growing up there as a fan and stuff like that. But like, I don't want to put myself out there and be like, yeah, you know, because I've gotten to know some of those guys, like even guys that I didn't cover like had been long

been retired or whatever. I think recently I've stuck and this isn't like a favorite or whatever or recent calling of mine has been to figure out why the hell Stanley Morgan isn't in the Hall of Fame. I think I've gone on more than my share of social media rants over over that topic in the last couple months. So I mean, if I have to give a shout out to an old school Patriot, I'm going to go with Stanley Morgan because his numbers in his first six seasons are absolutely absurd. They're better than some guys who were in the Hall of Fame who played in the same era. I mean, 20, 20 plus yards of catch for six consecutive seasons to start his career. Second fastest guy to 10,000 yards. And he did it for bad teams. I mean,

yeah, like who's thrown on the football. Right. I mean, Grogan was great. But for parts of that, he was hurt for large parts of that. So it's a Stanley Morgan should be in the Hall of Fame and I will not rest until it happens. That's why I wanted to have you on here, Jeff. You hear a Stanley Morgan Hall of Fame, man. That's what I like to fucking listen to. That's not long. I'm expecting that one. Hell yeah. Yeah. Also, in honor of having Jeff on, we've decided that we're going to give away a year subscription to the athletic to a listener. So I think what do we land on? We landed on if you got to leave a review of the podcast doesn't have to be good. We understand we're human. But yeah, so just leave a review

anywhere, iTunes or Podchase or whatever app you use and then text the Dianese hotline to let us know that it's you and we're going to pick one at random. And if you don't text us, we won't know because they don't actually tell you who leaves these reviews. So you got to leave review and then you got to text the hotline. Steve, what's the number? 603. Yeah. 505. Yeah. Troy Brown for three. That's right. 8043. 603. 505. 8043. So I appreciate you guys doing that. Absolutely. Supporting the athletic and I hope whoever gets that free subscription truly enjoys it. I mean, I can't say I love the work that they let us do at the athletic. Yeah, it's so good. We do everything we can to make sure like we understand especially like it's a little easier now than it was three

years ago when I joined the company and you know, the thought of paying a subscription fee for online content, you know, it was it was not common whatsoever three years ago. No, it wasn't. And it's tough to get people to I mean, I know what it was like, you know, downloading free music 20 years ago and now having people like I get it. I know. Right. So I work my ass off. I know everybody else at the company does to make sure that when you are, you know, putting a few bucks a month into our products, we want to make sure that you not only enjoy it, but like you are willing to keep coming back. So everything I write for the most part, so almost everything I write is my aim to have unique content. I try to give my access to the readers as much as possible.

Like I know that people are paying money to read our stuff and we want to make it worth it. So thank you again for for supporting it. And again, whoever gets the subscription, I hope you can see the work and the effort that we put into this stuff. Anybody listening to this podcast where we're going way deep on a Patriots game. Yeah, it's tailor made for people like yeah, I love the athletic content for sure. For sure. Yeah. Because it's like what we're doing, but like for stuff that's happening now. Oh, no, I was going to say actually good. Well, that's you. Doesn't have Greg in it. But we're doing by yet. All right. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on, bud.

Take care. Wait, wait, wait. All right. That's gotta be tough to follow that with. I like Jeff. Yeah. Super show. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, but he didn't shit on Colby. Damn it. Oh, yeah. So Colby, if you're listening, go fuck yourself. Yeah. Get out of his driveway. Yeah. Right. What the fuck you fucking stuck in your own house, buddy? Jesus, right? Oh, but he's my neighbor. I can look through his windows. It's cool. It's not. It's not Colby fucking knocking off. Put the binoculars down Colby. All right. So speaking of football, there was some football that happened back in 2004. And I think we should probably talk about it, Steve. What do you think?

Yeah. I mean, it was nice. It was like a rematch. Yeah. AOC Championship. Everyone remembers that AOC Championship game. No one remembers a rematch week one season opener. So the only reason that I remember this game was because Madden, that year's Madden had just come out like not too far before it. And I just played this game in Madden and it came down to a last second field goal. And I was like, this is so realistic, which back in 2004, I don't think it was, but I sure felt it. Did you hit a fucking duck, squib, kick wide, right? No, I hit the game winning without a military because he doesn't miss. But the controller was vibrating as like a

heartbeat because it was clutch. I knew that year too. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is so fucking my adrenaline is racing. And it was great. And it was probably, as we've talked about before, on rookie because I like to beat the piss out of things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Still came down. How did it come down to a last minute field goal? It's the Colts, man. It's fucking Peyton Manning. And it's the first game I've ever played on that man. You know, it happens. What's that? That may have been the year with the fucking like the vision cone and shit. Oh, man. I don't know. I'm not a big Madden guy. I'm terrible at video games. Yeah, I know. That's why I played on easy, Steve. Who was favored in this game?

So the New England Patriots favor by three, which basically means it was a push because you got three points of playing at home. So it was even. Because I feel like this is back when the Patriots were still underrated because Madden is in there talking about how he thinks Brady is better than people give him credit for. Yeah, no. I'm back to being a Madden stan. I love the dude. I've been a Madden guy. That's what I mean. But like, since we started this podcast, I'm all in on John Madden. I throw that down. I'm all in. I love early 2000s. I love him. So good. His quote was, to me, Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in all of football. Week one 2004. You can already see. He already knows. He's made those comments before about him

joking about him giving Brady shit in that Super Bowl. Yeah. Calling it completely wrong on that last drive. He's like, I would have, but not with Tom Brady anymore. I'm never going to say that about him. Here's another quote, Madden quote. A fumble is a fumble is a fumble. And you know what? I can't agree with that more. No. Yeah. Everyone's getting way too, you know, yeah, because you got out of here like that. You look at it at live speed. That's a fumble. And then we slow it super duper, duper, duper, duper slow. Like, Oh, baby. I don't know. Oh, was was able to touch that blade of grass before the ball started to slightly move for one frame. Yeah. Madden hates that. Yeah. And I, yeah, I think he had a point because if you look at the game

now, it's gotten a little out of hand with all the reviews. It slows it down. Oh my God. And year two of instant replay. I mean, I guess we're just going straight in on the commentators. But John Madden also said that the, because this is the first game of the new, what am I trying to say? The new emphasis on the, touching the wide receivers of defensive holding and whatever, which they call the good five times in this game. Yeah. Best part was though, the first time they called it this season on the Colts, but that's like the only time they called in the Colts. Yeah. But, but Madden said that the Colts holding claims for last year's AFC championship team were over or championship game was over exaggerated. Yeah. Like they weren't,

they were fine. Madden was on team. Fuck those receivers up. Yeah. I mean, as he should be. Let's talk about the new guys. I was going to say, before we get into the game, let's, let's talk a bit about the off season, because this off season was the greatest all-timer history. Yeah. Yeah. I think you could probably make until, until the past off season, the 2021. No, that's fair. 2007, pre-2007 too, with the Welker and the Moss. Yeah. That's pretty dope too. But this one, yeah, talk to me, talk to me about, because the Patriots came in, they had basically one weakness, right? And that was no running game. And also, I think if you had a second weakness, it would be that the, the defensive line and not

being able to stop the run, right? So what are the Patriots do, Steve? Well, yeah, we had two first round picks, right? Right. So, oh, that's the other thing. Yeah. So we had, because we had our own first round pick, which was 32, obviously, because you know, fucking, which was Ben Watson. Yeah. But we also had number 21, which we got from Baltimore the year before. I think Baltimore traded up into the first, so they traded for the New England first round pick. And then they gave us their first round pick in 2004 as well. Which VW? Yeah. Was only Vince Wolfork. No big deal. One of the greatest picks of the Patriots all time.

Yes. Just from not only their production, but also a personality standpoint. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And just like a great human being. Oh, yeah. Two is amazing. What did they trade for Corey Dillon? It wasn't a lot. Yeah, it was. I won't say it's a second round pick. Yeah. Second round and like something else, I think, but yeah. And he was, I mean, he was already like one of the best backs in the league by far, right? He was.

Dillon's awesome, but he's just, this is pre Marvin Lewis, or Marvin Lewis got hired the year before, maybe. Yeah. And before Carson Palmer, he must have come next year or this year. He is, is pre the Bengals actually becoming mediocre, where they're mediocre forever. Yeah. So Corey Dillon was Cincinnati from 97 to 2003. And let's see. Six years. Cincinnati. Let's just go through there. So from 97, they were seven and nine, and then three and 13, four and 12, four and 12, six and 10, two and 14.

And then 2003, they were eight and eight. And that eight and eight was the first year with Marvin Lewis. But let's see the quarterbacks. Jeff Blake, Neil O'Donnell at the end of his career, Jeff Blake again. This is Achilles Smith and then John Kittner. Tough. Yeah. And all he did was run for, let's see, 1100, 1100, 1200, 1400, 1300, 1300. And then in 2003, he ran for 541. I think he got injured.

But there was some bad blood at the end of that 2003, like the end of the run with the Bengals, which is why Pater's got him for cheap because he was, you know, a quote, unquote, mal-content. And I was trying to find the quote, but I couldn't really find it anywhere. There's just like mentions of it. But apparently, and they mentioned it, the commentators mentioned in this game, where the Bengals offensive line basically told Corey Dillon, we don't want to block for you. We'll want to block for somebody else. Yeah. Which is crazy if that he puts up all that production. Right.

That's tough. Yeah. And like two and 14 teams. Yeah. And he's fucking like he is the offense. We saw them in 2001. That was the first game we watched, remember? Yeah. And he crushed us. And he just, it was just the Corey Dillon show. I think it was Achilles Smith back then. And the Achilles Smith didn't do shit because all you had to do was hand it off to Corey Dillon

and watch him run for in four or five yards a game. Yeah. Don't listen to that episode. That's a terrible episode of this podcast. Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't start with that. I wouldn't go back on that one. But yeah. Well, I like the start for the Patriots in this game because they get Corey Dillon, who's by far with those names you listed, everyone else in retrospect. Vince Wilford is sick. Yeah.

But, you know, back then he's a rookie, he's a fresh team, right? Yeah. A shiny new toy on offense. Yeah. So they come out two tight ends and spread the field and don't even put Corey Dillon out there and just throw the shit out of the ball. Yeah. They started the game, no huddle, five wide, drove immediately down the field, throwing at every play. Two tight ends.

It was like six of eight or something. That's, that's what Belichick, that's what his like, his blankie is, you know, the two tight ends set wide. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which he would perfect in like 2011. Yeah. Those are challenge, but, and it looks like he's trying to do again. I mean, he's been doing that two tight end set for,

I think, longer than we know. I think he tried to do it in Cleveland as well. Yeah. Let's just do a whole do a Cleveland Browns podcast where we watch every Cleveland game. We'll find out. Yeah. I don't know if you're going to be able to find those games. I think they've been burned the tape of them. Nobody saved those. They know we're trying to watch that again.

No, I don't think so. Yeah. So before we get in the game, I just want to touch on the draft a little bit, too, because this draft was bananas, the 2004. This was well known for the first two picks, which was the Chargers drafting Eli Manning, number one, and then Eli being like, I ain't playing for you. So then the Chargers traded Eli Manning to Giants, who had the fourth pick for Phillip Rivers, which fucking ridiculous.

But also other records were set where the most wide receivers were selected in the first round was seven. There's a lot of fucking wide receivers in the first round, which you've never seen anymore. Yeah. In like two this year. Like a quarter almost. Right. And the most trades in the first round ever with 28.

There were 28 trades. Like this first round was an absolute shit show. Do the pages trade at all? No. I mean, technically, they got the trade for Baltimore. So that counts. But like 28 trades involved in that first round. Where was Rothesberger picked because he's the same draft class? That's a good question.

He was pretty early, I feel. Wasn't he like three? Let's see. Rothesberger, no. He was picked at 11. Wow. List them off. Let's hear the. All right. So I'm just going to give you the players that made a pro bowl.

Eli Manning, number one, obviously. Pick number three, Arizona Cardinals. Larry Fitzgerald. Oh, good pick. And then Phillip Rivers, who swapped. Pick number five, Washington Redskins. Sean Taylor. Kellan Winslow, the second.

Roy Williams. D'Angelo Hall. Ben Rothesberger. Jonathan Vilma. Chicago Bears. Defensive tackle. Tommy Harris. Eagles guard.

Sean Andrews. Saints. Defensive end. Will Smith. Number 21. Vince Wilfork. Nose tackle. Miami.

The U. Rams picked Steven Jackson at 24. Texans picked Jason Babin. Defensive end at 27. Benjamin Watson never went to a pro. Never went to a pro. That makes sense. He's not. He was always solid, but never spectacular.

Colts picked at number 44. In the second round, Bob Sanders. They're pretty solid draft. However, I have a friend. Oh, wait, wait. We just listed a bunch of people. He said seven wide receivers are drafted. Only Fitzy made the problem.

Yeah. Heesh. Here, I'll give you some other names. Jags picked Reggie Williams. Bills. Buffalo Bills legend Lee Evans. He's okay. Bucks picked Michael Clayton.

Who is, I remember his name. Bills also picked JP Losman. Let's see. Michael Jenkins for the Falcons. Rashawn Woods for the Niners. None of us. The Bills must have come out of that draft field. Pretty.

They were. Yeah. They're like our offense. Yeah. With the Evans. Fix the offense. What's next? But yeah.

So I have a friend who's almost as big. A nerd as we are. Or I am, I guess. Yeah. Don't love me in the field. And he put together all the players who are still left in drafts since Tom Brady got drafted. So Brady got drafted in 2000, right?

So he's obviously the last person left in the 2000 draft. Nobody left in 2001 drafts now that Drew Brees retired. Nobody left in 2002 drafts since Josh McCann retired two years ago. Nobody left in 2003 since Jason Witt retired this year. Again, I think. Teddy. Yeah. From 2004, there are three players left.

One of them is Andy Lea, the punter. Can you name the other two? Fitsy. Yeah. Rossensberger. That's right. Although Larry Fitzgerald, not technically currently on a team right now. Straight as another team right now.

So it might be down to two. And then 2005, Aaron Rodgers, Mike Nugent, Frank Gore, Rich Yonka, Incognito, Dan Colquitt, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. So Brady might outlast one, two, three, four, five. That's definitely full drafts. Yeah. A lot of those guys already did hang it up. That's insane.

So shout out to Brian from Pat's Chat for putting that together, because that's fucking crazy shit. But yes. All right. So that was a draft. Batshit crazy. And this Colts team is one of. Because I think like you always see a lot of people talking about the

premier offense of the day. And it was like, oh, Patrick Mahomes is the second best quarterback ever behind Tom Brady. And I think people forget about how terrifying Peyton Manning was as a quarterback. Do you think Mahomes is a plan of man? I don't know. Not yet. That's what I'm saying. But people are like, oh, I mean, it's Tom Brady.

Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. The only people you hear about. And I think people forget. Well, it's because they're also playing Andy. No, I agree. But like this, especially like this, like 2004 is kind of. The team was so stacked. Well, that's the thing.

I mean, their receivers are good through five. Brandon Stokely was like their fifth receiver, right? Something like that. Yeah. And Brandon Stokely is a household name. Everyone knows who he is. So when I was doing the research on this, I found that this season. The Colts had three wide receivers, over a thousand receiving yards.

Three. I'm like, I mean, yeah, if you throw 4000 yards in a season, you're doing good as a quarterback. Right. And he's thrown three just to wide receivers. So Harrison, Reggie Wayne. Yeah. Who's the third?

Brandon Stokely. Stokely. Dallas Clark is on that team. Who was the other receiver? They had another good receiver. I mean, that was kind of it, really. Is that it? Yeah.

But so I'm like, how many times has this happened? Like teams having three players get over a thousand receiving yards in one year. And since 2000, as far back as I went, because, you know, fuck it, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times. Right. And I did it like regular season and playoffs, just because otherwise it would be two times. This 2004 Colts was the one, one of the two teams that did it in the regular season. So all three guys had over a thousand yards going into the playoffs.

Which is insane. Before that, it was the 2002 Raiders, which was Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, and Charlie Garner, the running back. What? Right. At a thousand seventy three yards. 2004 Colts, 2008 Cardinals. This is insane.

This is this is the Cardinals team that I think went to the Super Bowl, right? With? Yeah. Like Kurt Warner at the helm, I think. Who, again, another quarterback who I don't think gets his due. But listen to these numbers. Larry Fitzgeralds. No, actually, no, we'll start at the bottom.

Bolton had. Oh, sorry. That's not the name. Wasn't a Steve Breston, I think it was. 1,1154 yards. Bolton had 1,128 yards. Larry Fitzgeralds, 1,977 yards. Yeah.

Dude almost had 2,000 yards and two other guys had a thousand as well. That's incredible. Are you fucking kidding me? What's the receiver record for yards in a season? I don't know. It's got to be up there, though. Has anyone broke 2,000? I feel like 2,000 yards receiving is going to be like would be like a huge.

I feel like somebody I feel like Megatron did it. Oh, yeah. You may go right. Greg, stat check. Right. So we'd stat check this. No. In regular season, Calvin Johnson had 1,967.

And then Julio Jones is second with 1,871. And then Jerry Rice, 1,848. That's crazy to have one guy in your team who's like top five all time receiving yards. Yeah. I mean, that's including the playoffs, too. And then two other 1,000-yard guys, too. No, not even two other 1,100-yard guys.

Right. Yeah. 11 and 1,200 yards. And they're just cracking it. Some other interesting notes here. Then it was the 09 Colts with Garcon, Wayne, and Dallas Clark, the tight end. 2011 Patriots. It was Wes Walker and two tight ends.

All three of those had over 1,000 yards. 2012 Falcons, Gonzalez, Jones, and White. 2014 Patriots, LaFelle, Edelman, Gronkowski. LaFelle had 1,000 yards. If you include playoffs, yes. Same with the 2017 Patriots with Gronkowski, Cooks, and Amondola. Amondola had 1,007 yards. But that season, I think he actually ended the regular season with like 600-something yards

and then had 300 yards in the playoffs to get over the hump. Those bananas. But I mean- I think it is just philosophically bullshit that they don't count playoff stats and that sort of stuff. I agree, which is why I count them every fucking time. Yeah, because like, oh, well, you know, not everyone goes to play. Well, no shit. Yeah.

So this is a Colts manning team that's going to put up fucking yards. Yeah. And they kind of did it in this game, just like they have the last two times we've watched them. 4,500 yards from Peyton. Yeah. 49 touchdowns. Yep. Which is the record until Brady breaks it, right?

Right. And then manning breaks it again. And Brady will probably break it this year with Denver. All I remember is Tom Brady's 50. Oh, yeah. I mean, in the 50th in style too. He also threw 10 interceptions. What a pussy.

Who throws interceptions? All right. So talk to me about this game. I think we've been dancing around long enough. Give it a little Lombardi score. Out of six, I would say a solid four. Season opener against the, it's a rematch of the AFC championship at game again, just like it was in 2002 against the Steelers.

Back and forth game, a lot of new faces that are going to be playing a big part. You get to see Corey Dillon, who is, and also Vince Willfork, you could say this about him too, surprisingly loud on his feet for how big they are. He chased down that running back in that play, I would say. Those boys can dance though. Like Corey Dillon had one run where he like, he juked two guys out of their shoes and then lowered his shoulder, ran over the third guy. God, I didn't know he could juked too.

That's almost unfair. No worries. For an AFC championship game, this game, it's one of those sneaky great watches. Yeah, exactly. In respect because his rematch at the AFC championship game, so there's a ton of hype around it and it lived up, came down a last second field goal. Real back and forth. It seemed a little bit like that Colts at the Colts game,

where it really makes that stop in the goal line. Yeah. A similar game. Because there was a lot of similar storylines too, where the Patriots actually had trouble stopping the run in this game. Yeah. Hadron James was the beast in this game. Yeah.

I think one of the Colts first touchdown drive was just nine straight runs. And that's all he did was just run it. 302 yards. Yeah. Yeah, I think Eger and James finished like 140 something, right? On 30 carries. Yeah, 30 carries for 142. And you know, not really what you're expecting.

And then Manning started getting his play action going. So now both these teams are going back and forth. Yeah. And it was just like answering all over the place. Like the Patriots start off with that five wide drive all the way down, then they kick a field goal. Indianapolis gets stuffed on third and one, but then there's like a defensive penalty. Bullshit.

That was the Vince Wilfork stuff on that third and one too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because they had Vince Wilfork and they still had was it Keith Trailer? I think it was. Yeah, they had. They went out and signed a bunch of fat boys and drafted the best fat boys draft and then give up 202 yards, you know, they couldn't stop the fucking run.

What do I need to do? Yeah. But they were still doing. Red zone turnovers in this game, the Patriots defense and the Colts. Three of them. Yeah. So there was a brusky goal line interception on the Colts first drive. Yeah, catch.

That was awesome. It was it was like one of his typical like, like he's not really covering the guy across the middle. He just kind of like drops back and kind of like is watching Manning's eyes and then does that like dive to a sideways almost like he's a soccer goalkeeper diving to make a like a stop. And somehow marriage to catch that football. You need to put that as a highlight on the website and the other way.

Oh, it will be. Yeah. Sight down. I've got it. I've got it cut and it's ready to go. All right. And then, yeah, so it was just back and forth, back and forth. I thought in this game, one thing that stuck out to me was Tom Brady's pocket presence

because he's finally, it feels like growing into that because I remember watching like 2001, 2002, there were some times where he just made like very un-Brady like mistakes where he didn't feel pressure or he felt pressure and it wasn't there. But now it's just like, it seems like this is where his mastery of it started to come in. That's just like you take for granted nowadays. It's just like he just, he doesn't get sacked because he just knows, he's able to feel that pressure in this someplace. Just like Mac Jones.

I know. Yeah. We'll see. But there was like one play where the pages were backed up in their own end zone after one of these red zone turnovers by the Colts. It's that one where Vince Wolf will recover as a fumble. Yeah. And it was like a third and 11 or something like that.

And he's in his own end zone passing. It has to wait for the play to develop and sidesteps like two rushing defenders. Like, cool as a cucumber and has no issue doing it. Still keep his eyes outfield then throws the perfect bomb to, I think it was a Gibbons that time. My boy had a good game. Yeah. But there was, yeah, it was just like back and forth.

Like the Colts score touchdown on that nine straight runs. Brady comes right back. Oh, Dylan had a huge run after that to answer. And then Brady throws a touchdown a branch and then the Colts draw straight back down with a huge play on their first play to Dallas Clark. And then Manning throws a touchdown to Harrison and the Patriots have like, you know, less than two minutes left. And they drive down and managed to get a finitary field goal to end the half.

So it was just like back and forth the entire time. Definitely worth watching. Yep. We get entertaining. Yeah. And there was like some great like Colts moments that I remember where they would make a really great play and then fuck it up the next one. You know what was really missing though?

What? Some solid Manning face. There wasn't a ton. You're absolutely right. There was the time where after that first deception he threw on the goal line on the first drive. The commentator was talking about like he went to the sideline and didn't take his helmet off. He just stood there waiting to go back in. Like, hello, it's such like a petulant child thing to do.

It's great. And then the fourth quarter alone roller coaster. It was all over the place. They just go into the fourth quarter up 27, 17 up up 10. Which is never if you know that with Manning. Right. And that's the thing. And this is this is that fear that I was actually talking to mom recently and she was

listening to that that Colts game that we talked about last time. And she's like, that that's the piece that I remember. Is the feeling of it's not enough yet. Like, yes, we're up 10 and we're going for the Corbett. We need to be up more because Peyton Manning was a scary offense. And it's Tom Brady has struck that fear in many people's hearts as well. I think so, too. It's similar to like the way you were feeling in the AFC championship game against Patrick Mahomes.

Right. Yeah. It's like, yeah, they didn't score in the first half and that's great. But like, this isn't going to last. Yeah. And it fucking did. They put up 31, right? And this was very similar.

Like you're up 10. You're going into the fourth quarter. Didn't feel safe. And then this is where you started to see the soft defensive holding calls that, you know, at least just trying to prove to the Colts. So, oh, yeah, look, we're calling it for real now. Okay, buddy. I don't know.

So that first. Already through an interception. Beyond-branched muffs of punt. Well, wait, before that. Uncovered. Before that, though. Before that, like the, like at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Colts scored a touchdown.

So it's 27-24. So it's a three-point game now. Yeah. And then the next drive Brady throws his first interception in. Jesus, I have it here. 88. Some of that. Yeah.

No, it's not loading. Yeah. It was like, I think it was 288. Yeah. Because he came into the game with the most consecutive passes at home without an interception at 263. Tied with Mark Brinnell, which might be why Brinnell is such a baby about things. Yeah.

Ended at 288. Yeah. There it is. In the fourth quarter, right after the Colts just scored a touchdown to bring it within three. And then Page, it's defense holds and the Colts have to punt, but because Troy Brown is inactive for this game, as was Kevin Falk, by the way, which I think Madden was hypothesizing, that's why the Pages kept going like five wide for a drive was basically just give Corey Dillon a spell because they didn't have another running back.

It was Corey Dillon and Patrick passed the full back and that was it. So it makes sense. So no Troy Brown. So Dillon branches back there returning punts and he musts it and the Colts recover at the pass 33. And then a couple of plays later, Asante Samuel is called for pass interference in the end zone. Clear pass interference, yes. Yeah.

I didn't look back for the ball. What? Was that Andy? It was. Was that a clear pass interference? I don't think it was clear, but I understand why they called it. What do you mean? He like he like had his hand holding down the other guy's arm.

No, he had his hand in his face. It was like he was pushing back for the ball. He looked back eventually. Eventually after the ball hit the guy in the face because he held down his arm. OK, you're ridiculous. You're ridiculous. I thought you were a failure in his football team. A pass interference in the end zone.

Pass interference in the end zone. And this is the point where I pause the game and went back to pro football reference and said, what was the score in this game? Oh, it ends 27-24. Even though the Colts have it first and goal from the one with like five minutes left. What the fuck is going on? Literally the next play. This is what I'm talking about.

Literally the next play. Hand off to Edgar and James at the middle. And he gets absolutely walloped by, I think it was Eugene and Vince Wilfork. And the ball pops straight down and Wilfork just falls on it. Eugene set him up. All right, Wilfork set him up. Eugene came hammering. Just crushed him.

Eugene had some big hits in this game too. He did. That guy was a hitter. Re-watching all these games. I can see why Greg bought a Eugene Wilson jersey. He was laying a lumberjack. I mean, Eugene, with that whole defensive backfield, definitely learned from the king of heavy hits. They're even talking about Ronja Harrison about the broadcast tried to find out

if he was the most fined person in the league. And the league basically wouldn't give out those numbers. Like we're not going to tell you. Which means yes. Yeah. And so they tried to look it up and he was like, it was like over $100,000 worth of fines. And they asked him about it.

He's like, I don't give a fuck. I'm just going to play my game. And if they don't like it, they can go screw. I like that. So that was Michelle Tafoya basically translating what was obviously a swear-laced actual comment from Ronja. Yeah. She was like, he just doesn't even care.

I'm like, that's not what he said. He said he doesn't give a fuck. But yeah. And I think that set the tone for this defense because they all came out hitting like that. But there was definitely a few times where teammates had to pull Rodney Harrison off of a referee. Like drag him away.

But yeah. So the pages get the ball on the one yard line. This is where Brady gets that big third down pass from the end zone. But they don't do anything with it. Not even after. They almost fuck it up. Yeah. Yeah.

Brady gets stripped. They close call timeout with like two minutes and eight seconds left. Yeah. So like you run the ball, right? Or take it down to eight seconds or whatever. Now we try a pass play. Take it at least off the edge. Stripsack Brady.

And Corey Dillon falls on the phone. Brady Dillon jumps on it right at the two minute. Like luckily since the ball's got them bouncing around back there and everyone's just run around their hair on fire. It got all the way to two minute warning. But it could have been a disaster because the Colts had no timeouts too. Right. Yeah, it was nuts.

Um, and then so the pages punt, Indy starts their own 35 and literally first play. This huge play to Stokely. Didn't know he cars it. Yeah. Right down the center of the field. He's got a free run. It runs all the way down to the 18 yard line. So it's first in 10 from the 18 with still like over like probably about a minute and

a half left, I think, give or take. Um, and they basically can have a couple of shots at the end zone. If they don't do it, they can still kick the field goal with a field goal kicker who did not miss a field goal the entire last season, 2000. He has misses 2002. Yeah. To be fair, the commentators jinxed the fuck out of, and they probably jinxed him forever, but they've been jinxing this dude.

Oh, he hasn't missed. Oh, he went a whole season without me. Oh, he's never, but also never misses. Yeah. And also they will madden at one point was like, Oh, you know, they can kick a field goal here with a guy who hasn't missed, but his last couple of field goals have looked a bit like ducks. Like they've been ugly, but they've been getting through.

And so what happens is he has ball at the 18 Colts, a couple plays, but then on third down, Willie McGinnis comes screaming off the edge edge and sacks Peyton Manning for what felt like a very true bloods-o-esque play. No, I have a great I have a way better comp. It looks actually very, very similar to the high tower Atlanta minus the back in the play because he comes off the same edge. Yep. And he kind of like he starts out wide, takes like a little shuffle step in right before

the step comes right off the end and doesn't really see him. And it's the same sort of situation, right? The Atlanta was in field goal range and that pushed him out the point range and they were in easy, easy chip shot range. And then he took a big ass sack and now it's like, ooh, I don't know. That's a 48 yarder. Yeah. And now it's 48 and like, ooh, that's going to be tougher.

Yeah. And Willie row graded Manning here. Oh my God. It might even have been a penalty this day in it. He got him a little high. Yeah. I don't know. His clothes speeding Willie's so underrated because.

Oh my God, yes. His closing speed on sacks is awesome. He's such a good edge setter. He can cover guys coming out the backfield. He could do it all. And Madden, another credit to him was just like, dude, this is the guy you want. He can do anything. Exactly.

Exactly. And it was, it was just like, just off the edge, exactly untouched off the edge. And just Manning was waiting. It was like looking off to his left. So he didn't even see him coming from his right until right at the last second. He just managed to tuck the ball down on the replay. You can see Madden Manning just like catching up the corner of his eye. And he's like, oh, shit.

His elbow and his shoulder comes up to his ear. Just braces for impact because, you know, there's nothing else he can do. So this is the part that I loved. And I'm going to, I'm just going to call this out. This is my best for this game is apparently, and this is another thing that was like people talked about it, but I couldn't actually find the specific of it. Um, but apparently Mike Vanderjacht came out onto the, the field for this field goal. And I have the quote here, uh, where is it?

So he hadn't missed an attempt all last season. And the quote is, uh, this is from ESPN. So confident was Colts kicker Mike Vanderjacht that he would make a tying 48 yard field goal with 24 seconds remaining in Thursday night's league opener against the Patriots at Gillette Stadium. And why wouldn't he be? He had only connected on a league record 42 in a row. That he turned towards the Patriots sideline before setting up for the kick

and rubbed a few of his fingers together for those who don't speak sign language. That's universal for money. So he turned to the Patriots sideline and did the money thing with his hands. Like I'm money. And then he turns around and fucking checks the field goal to lose the game. It was not a good kick. It seemed like it was all in Vanderjacht too. He just didn't hit it right.

It was bad. Yeah. It's just fucking like it came out and it looked like it came off clean. Then it's kind of like knuckled off to the right. It didn't even come out clean. It didn't come out like you see kick spinning. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's a good. This kind of like a weird like off kilter spin to it. It did. And it was it was a thing of beauty. It just comes out. It does the money thing that misses. That feels like a Greg Brown move. Oh, for sure.

You're like Kobe and then shoots and then just like misses the table of playing beer park or something, you know, that's such a Greg Brown thing. So I love that. That was that was my best. What do you got for worst? Oh, all right. My worst was ESPN's new thing that they tried to roll out here or ABC, wherever the fuck it was.

It was called Max stats, which is kind of similar. It was like the precursor of what you see now where they have like, oh, this ball traveled like seven yards in the air. And the next gen stats. Yeah, exactly. The running back got up to 32.7 miles an hour top speed. This one was how fast was a ball thrown? And it was so they they use one of Manning's touchdowns.

Break gun to Denny's like that ball Manning's touchdown was 55 miles an hour. And then like that part. Fine. Great. Like, but we're going to translate that into a baseball pitch. If that were a baseball, it would have it would have been an 83 mile an hour pitch. And then John Manning's like, that's not very fast. Yeah, I would have matched it would have matched that out of the stadium.

If that was a fan's ball, the meatball just like and see like maybe they'll throw it faster. Tom Brady definitely will. Like, oh, Jesus. Yeah, so not great. So yeah, that was probably my worst. What about you? Uh, you know, I have a worst and the worst is it keeps carrying over from last year.

Oh boy. We still won Super Bowl despite the absolute atrocious run zone offense. Yeah. The first time they get inside, they get inside the Colts 10. They're in their first and first thing goal from the 10 and our fourth thing goal, they kick a field goal from the 11. Yeah. Because like they throw a four yard pass and then Tom Brady takes a delay.

Right. Exactly. God, just drive killer, you know, brutal. Absolutely brutal. My best. Yeah, I got two. Okay. I'll give you a light one.

Did you see the Tom Brady? What's your favorite this and that? I have it. I have the clip. I was just going to play that actually. Yeah, let me, uh, let's hit this. Let me fire this up real quick. My best part is you can't run.

My best part is you can't really see it because it was a podcast, but his beard. Yeah, I'll see if I can post this bearded Brady. Yeah, it was like five o'clock shadow. But it wasn't like, no, it's like a legitimate beard. He definitely did this in the office. He's because this is like a, it's the most beard up. I don't even know. Brady could grow this sort of facial hair.

I think that's fair. So here it is. This is the like a just like a little one off. They did it. It comes in a ball cap, a regular jersey and like, the one word that defines me is persistence. I'd love to meet Bill Gates. My favorite food is chicken wings.

Teriyaki. I am a horrible, horrible cook. My favorite movie line from Scarface. Second night's little bad guy. Cause you ain't going to see a bad guy like this again. That laugh so bad. The beard. Yeah.

No, the laugh. Here we go again. So awkward. Do those Scarface line again. Scarface. Second night's little bad guy. Cause you ain't going to see a bad guy like this again. It's so bad.

Such a goober. I mean, like, because like right now he has like a very intentionally crafted public image. Yes. And that is entirely contrast. That ain't it. Yeah. It's so good.

He's kind of stuck in. He's got the biggest beard I've ever seen Brady ever have. That's true. Yeah. And like in between his hat, he's got like a baseball cap on, but it's like it's just slightly crooked too. So he's trying to do like that cool thing where people like turn their caps a little bit sideways,

but he didn't do it enough. So it's just like your, your, your hat's not straight dude. And then like in between each of those cuts, which you can't see because it's an audio medium, but they like cut to like a picture of like a video of him on a billboard or something. And he's doing finger guns to each one with this stupid fucking smile. It's definitely have to pose there.

I mean, because it's at the best part is how dichotomous it is to like where he's currently at, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's your favorite food? Chicken wings. Teriyaki.

I'm a terrible chicken wing. It is nice. 10 years. Yeah. Oh my God. And then the other I have another clip since we're here. And it was before the game. Who was the sideline reporter?

I already said it. Michelle Tafoya was talking to Bill Belichick about the jamming the wide receivers. Oh yeah. And the new rule. Al, you could say Bill Belichick's passion for football is reflected in his friend John Bon Jovi's song, It's My Life. The son of a college coach began his own career in pro football 30 years ago. Now entering the prime of his NFL life,

the 52-year-old Belichick tries to become the first coach ever to win three Super Bowls in a four-year span. I'm joined now by Bill Belichick. Coach, how is this team different from the one that tried to repeat as Super Bowl champions two years ago? Well, I think we're a little younger, number one. And a little more experienced at quarterback. But, you know, a lot of some of the same things are there.

Some of the same guys are there. But there's some new ones too. But I think we're a little younger. A lot has been made in the preseason of the rules emphasis on illegal defense. Many people think that might be a result of the way your defensive backs play the Colts wide receivers in the AMC championship game. How will the rules emphasis affect the way your defense plays? Well, there's been no change in the rules.

It's the same rule. You can't jam them after five yards and you're okay before five. So, you know, that's the way we coached it before. That's the way we're coaching it now. Coach, thanks for the luck. Okay, thanks, Michelle. How's nodding his head? He's just a fucking masterclass at not answering a question.

And it's perfect. Are you going to hear my best best? Yeah, give me your best best. I'm surprised you didn't raise up. There is the stat where Patriots haven't had more than four yards per carry in a season for 18 years. What's I mean, that's included in 2003 season. I don't know how it goes.

It's 2003 minus 18. Andy, I don't know. It's a long time. 76. I don't know. I don't like that. Yeah, in the 70s. Back when the Patriots rushed for 2,000 yards.

We get Corey Dillon. What do you think we got this year? I think it's probably over four yards per carry. 4.1, baby. Oh, baby, just got there. Yeah, Corey Dillon. I mean, again, I have people under, you know, value his, you know, value to this team. And he's awesome in changing that whole running game.

And, you know, Erranton Smith was just, they just kind of got by with him last year, where Corey Dillon adds a whole new dimension to this offense. There's a play where he gets a pass protection thing, too. And John Madden's calling this out where Corey Dillon gets this guy coming off the edge. He's free. They run a stunt and he gets the dude, he cuts him under and by cutting him under, he gets the guy coming around him, too. So he gets a two for one from Corey Dillon on that and Tom Brady puts a strike on the play.

So yeah, that was a great call. Corey Dillon's impact on the team felt a right off game one and be all year. Yeah. For the first time in 18 years. Yeah. Also, if we're going to talk about stuff that I thought you would bring up, so I didn't. The Patriots have a new punter. Didn't even notice.

No more Ken Walter, baby. It's Josh Miller from Pittsburgh. And he hit his first punt like 58 yards and the crack gave him a standing O. But then he got called back for holding. The fact that didn't notice means that's a huge improvement. Good thing. Yeah. Oh, here's another worst.

The reason Kevin Falk wasn't there was because his mom had passed away recently. And so he had taken time off to deal with that. So hopefully we'll see him back. I'm wearing my my Kevin Falk jersey for for him. I remember it's of his mom. What a good guy, Andy. Hell yeah. You got to do it, man.

All right. Oh, since Greg left, should we do best and worst for him? I mean, I guess Greg's worst is tie law because the man just can't stay healthy and is just like on and off the field. And he got beat for the the last touchdown by Brandon fucking Stokely. Yeah, just fucking yeah. Greg would never say it's his worst, but OK. Well, we're saying it for him.

That's why because he's not here. Greg's best is Bill Belichick coming out after halftime saying he's unhappy with the play in the first half. But he's not making any adjustments. It's like the team's just got to fucking play better. I don't know. Be better. Hey, you know what we're going to change up?

Not fucking suck in this half. How about that? Go out and do your job like I fucking told you to. Love it. Oh, beautiful. All right. I think that that pretty much covers this game. We've we've covered the fucking game tonight, I think.

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