REShow: Tom Curran - Hour 1

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That's Dell.com slash gift guide. Let's do this. Let's do this. This is the Rich Eisen Show with guest host Andrew Siciliano.

We all need to do a better job. It's everybody live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Hey Andrew, when when Brady left, I said to Chris, welcome to the rest of us. The Rich Eisen Show today's guests. NBC Sports Boston Patriots insider Tom Curran Colts running back Zach Moss.

Plus your phone calls, latest news and more. And now sitting in for Rich, it's Andrew Siciliano. You know, it's amazing here. Hi everybody. It's Andrew sitting in for Rich. Just tweeting everyone. Hey, listen to the show or watch the show. We're on the Roku channel today, obviously on the Odyssey app on Sirius XM and all that. And I just tweeted on my account at my name, common spelling that we're on the air. But like nobody here was ready to get on the air. I was, I want you to know that I was ready to talk about the thrilling 1713 Raider victory last night.

Yes. And why Josh McDaniel's inexplicably decided to kick that field goal again, like another prime time analytics meltdown. You should have punted for Pete's sake.

If you're not going to go for, we'll get to that in a second. I was ready to talk all about that. But these guys, good morning to Chris Brock. Hello, Andrew. Michael Del Tufo. Good morning.

TJ Jefferson. Andrew, you know something? We stay ready. So we ain't got to get ready, baby. These guys were not necessarily ready as Hoskins from the control room.

Literally had to get everyone's ears shut. Like we're on. We knew. Because these guys were sitting here talking about what they would have done if they had won the $1.5 billion pass.

Powerball lottery yesterday, or what we're going to do when one of us wins, or what you're going to do, like Brockman's Biden Island. Yeah. Del Tufo is going back to a life of illicit debauchery by all the Instagram followers he wants at that point. He could buy all of them.

I have someone to do it for me by Instagram. He could buy Instagram. Yes.

Yes. Kim Kardashian will sell him Instagram with Christiano Ronaldo. And TJ, I didn't even hear what TJ was going to do. He would buy the Dallas Cowboys. I'm holding in my hand my ticket.

So true story. Yesterday, NFL Network, I'm sitting there getting ready to do our pregame show. NFL Game Day kickoff.

Yours truly and the always affable Steve Mariucci. And I realized, oh my, I hadn't bought a lottery ticket. Now, two things might have happened. Also, about a half hour earlier, I went all throughout the building. Every little snack bar.

We have a beautiful facility there in Inglewood. All these little snack kiosks with the coffee machines and the little snacks. I love pretzels. We're out of pretzels. We have little rolled gold bags all over the...

I can't. I circled the damn building looking for pretzels. So I'm like, I need my pretzels. It's like my vice. Like what Del Tufo was talking about, buying all the pretzels in the world after he wins the lottery.

Not really. White pretzels. So I decided. I decided. Chocolate covered, I meant.

Like the white chocolate. I decided I am going to walk across the street from our building right at SoFi. If you've been... Arbovitis is in the road. Yes, been the Arbovitis.

Viti, Viti, whatever you say. I walked across Prairie to buy my big bag of pretzels and also my Powerball ticket, which... Let's do some live lottery look up here. Yes, do it live. Well, I know I didn't win the big thing.

The big thing is up to 1.7. If you have the app, you can just do that. Check my ticket. I don't want to do that. No, here we go. I am. Let's see.

I am doing here. Tells you how much you won immediately. 16, 34, 46, 55, 67. Power number 14. Do I get at least a dollar or two here?

If you have just the power number, that's $4. Can you see if the radio listeners can hear this? Oops. However, when's the next one? I promise I will. If I win on Wednesday, Wednesday, you have my word on it.

I will do Thursday show. Oh, thank you. Yes.

Can you just like, like, what a blessing. Can you, can you just give me a million in a backpack? What is that?

What do you mean? Coney gave all of his high school friends or something a million in cash and prepaid the taxes. Like when he sold Casamigos. A million in a backpack. Something like that.

Yeah. Or just, like, wired the money to their account. Sounds like a buddy I know who won a survivor pool. Backpacks are way cooler. It was a suitcase filled with cash, and it was like 11 guys.

I think they were just friends. This sounds like the start of a movie. I give you all a million bucks, a bottle of tequila, and a backpack. Right. And then it's a race through the desert. Yeah. The winner gets it all. Right. The winner gets it an Alec Baldwin movie.

Anyway. Hi, everybody. Let's go. Welcome into the Rich Eisen Show. I'm Andrew. The phone number is 844-204-RICH. 844-204-RICH. Rich will be with us coming up live from London. Big Ben Parliament and Rich in his lovely hotel room. And I mean that. I'm not mad.

I'm impressed, to quote another anchorman one day. He will join us from London as they get ready for the Titans and the Ravens coming up on Sunday live on NFL Network, also on NFL Plus. You can obviously, as mentioned, the Roku channel, the Twitter, the Instagram, the YouTube page, Rich Eisen Show, Odyssey, and Sirius XM. Coming up in about 20 minutes, Tom Curran will be here. If anyone knows the Patriots from a media standpoint, it is Tom Curran.

What's going on there? Is Bill Belichick going to be the coach next year? Is Mac Jones going to be the quarterback next week? And we will play for you some Patriots callers that sound like a Jimmy Fallon SNL bit.

It's that wild. Next hour, actually two hours from now, Colts running back Zach Moss will join us as well. As for the game last night, the Raiders won. They beat the Packers 17 to 13. The two teams are both 2 and 3.

You look at them and you go, ah, neither is really that good. But really, two very different storylines after that game. For the Raiders, you have Max Crosby playing his tail off, a one-man wrecking crew on national television. The stats don't even tell the story. He had five tackles, one sack, four TFLs, a bunch of hurries. But when you look at the PFF analytics, eventually when the numbers come out and the breakdown, he dominated the game. So many pressures and this and that and past rush win rate.

Can't wait to see that. He personally dominated the game. The Raiders for the last two years have been the worst team, not near the bottom, the worst team in the NFL defensively when it comes to forcing turnovers. No one's even close. They are that bad. Last night, the Raiders forced three turnovers.

Jordan Love, weeks three through five, six interceptions. Were they all his fault? Eh, I don't know.

Maybe? Last night? Eh, didn't play well. The Packers without Aaron Jones are a different team.

Without David Bakhtiari, a different team. And Jordan Love has got to do a lot. And he has got to figure it out with this young group of wide receivers, obviously with their own list of injuries as well. That was only Justin Watson's second game of the season last night.

They weren't necessarily on the same page. Matt Leflore talked afterwards about those wide receivers needing to be better, tracking deep balls, coming back for the ball, coming out of their break and fighting for the ball in the deep shots. Because right now, the Packers are as bad a team as it is in the NFL on completing deep passes down the field.

Without Aaron Jones, it's a bad look right now. They had a mini-buy to get ready for this game. They played Thursday last week, then had the weekend off. They had ten days to prepare. Now they have another buy.

It is back to the drawing board time. Hopefully get healthy with Aaron Jones here for the Packers. Clearly, this is not their division in the NFC North.

They already lost and lost badly last week to the Lions. A game after which Matt Leflore said, we got our asses kicked. Yesterday, he didn't say that. Kind of toned it down a little bit, but he realizes they have a lot of work to do. I am not yet writing Jordan Love off.

I mean, don't do that. First couple of weeks, his numbers were great. Week three, not so great early in the game against the Saints, but then he had that great fourth quarter rally, won the game after Derek Carr got hurt. I think the Saints win it if Carr doesn't get hurt, but that's not the case. He rallied him back, Love did.

I still very much believe in Jordan Love. You're going to have up, you're going to have down. Last night was certainly the down. As for the Raiders, bear with me here. I think the Raiders are in position to go on a little bit of a run.

I do now. Yeah, their schedule is favorable. It is. Are they a good team? No, they are not.

They're not. But half the leagues, two and two, or two and whatever. Look, this is a 500 league right now, and the Raiders are a two and three team. The Raiders next week, who do they get, Brockman? Patriots.

They get Bill Belichick's New England Patriots. Bad game. Coming to town. Not a great game.

Bad football. But hey, you two's at the sphere. Hey. I think my brother's going tonight. Del Tufa, you're going tomorrow, right? Tomorrow night. Wait, maybe, maybe. No, that's tomorrow night. Hold on. This is from my brother. Maybe you guys will be there on the same day. Nice.

Yeah, I don't think they're playing. Are you only going once, Mike, or twice? Once. I never know. You've got to ask. I can only ask the favor once. Okay.

Look at you, Del Tufa. If he wins the lottery, he's going to buy the sphere. I will buy the sphere. Yeah. From James Doley? Yes. Yeah.

He'll give it to you. Why not? Anyway. And the Knicks. And the Knicks. Yeah, good luck with that one. If he hears you may want to buy the Knicks, he will ban you from the building. That's true.

He'll treat you like Charles Oakley. So the Raiders get the Patriots, and then they go to Chicago, and then they go to Detroit because they're getting a third primetime game by week eight. But what if I told you the Raiders are looking at four and three?

Now, again, they are not even close to good enough to start looking at the schedule and checking off wins, but I did just do that. But if they could, I don't know, maybe learn to run the football a little bit more consistently. At least they were dedicated to the run last night. They gave Josh Jacobs 20 carries.

If they could find Avante Adams in the first half, which was stunning that they did not last night. And I'm not just talking for angry fantasy. Yell at the TV. It's Monday night. I need to rally and win purposes. That wasn't me.

I was already winning. Thank you, Desmond Ritter, Sam Howell, and Tyreek Hill. Yes, I said Desmond Ritter and Sam Howell. But they need more than one target in the first half for Avante Adams, who had 33 targets in the previous two games combined. I think the Raiders can go on a little bit of a run.

I really, really, really, really do. Their defense came around last night, and the Packers' defense played well, but not well enough. Which takes us, as we circle back to the Packers, to that side of the ball, and what was said in the locker room after the game.

Now, I do not think this is dissension. I do not think this is we're throwing the kid quarterback under the bus already. I think this is a very good player who is unflinchingly honest most times. Just speaking honestly after the game.

But Hoskins, if we could cue up Jair Alexander, everyone listen to this. I think at this point it's pretty obvious that the defense has to not give up any touchdown. I think that's the part of being self-critical of our defense, because the offense is pretty young, and they're still figuring out their mojo. The defense, we've got to be the ones to score and stop them from scoring. That one read a lot differently than it actually sounds there now when you watch it. On Twitter it read, we can't give up touchdowns with this offense if we're going to win a game.

But he also says there, we have to be self-critical. The Packers are in a position now where they need the defense to carry the offense, and honestly, the defense just is not good enough. It isn't. Now, Joe Berry's team played better last night, Joe Berry being the defensive coordinator who was under a lot of fire in Green Bay. This year is no different.

Last year, the same thing. But the Packers are truly a team in transition. You thought maybe coming into the air the way they got out of the gates and they pounded the Bears at Soldier Field Week 1, that this transition would be a lot easier than you thought it would be.

The growing pains with Jordan Love maybe weren't going to be there. Hey, they're going to compete with the Lions. Hey, they're going to compete with the Vikings who are, well, yeah, that's getting ugly.

We'll get to that in a minute. But you know what it is after five games? I think the Packers are exactly what we thought they would be, a team in transition with a quarterback who is trying to figure it out and a team that really, like most good teams, have a hard time overcoming injuries to their best players. And without Aaron Jones, he's only been active twice. They are a different team. You also have to wonder whether or not they needed him out there for those five carries last week against the Lions.

Like, if he isn't ready, he's not ready. Joe Buck relayed during the first quarter of that game, or maybe Troy, one of the two, and they were having fun last night. Like, can you name a Texas Ranger? Did anyone hear that? No.

Anyone hear that? That's funny. At one point, discussing the baseball playoff, somehow it came up and Troy said something about, yeah, my Texas Rangers. And Joe, just without even missing a beat, goes, your Texas Rangers, for $100 right now, name a Ranger. Could he do it? He did. Or maybe he said name four Rangers for $100. That's great. He didn't even try to do it. Hi, this is me sitting on my feet now.

I feel more comfortable as a 49-year-old man sitting on my feet. So, yeah. Where were we? Oh, yeah, Joe revealed during the game, or maybe Troy early on in the first quarter, that Matt Leflore was kind of agitated, not mad at Aaron Jones, but when they had met, whether it was Sunday night or Monday morning, was kind of aggravated that he, at that point, knew he wasn't going to have Aaron Jones because they thought throughout the week that they would have him, kind of game-planned for him, and then, in the end, did not. Had to go with A.J. Dillon, Patrick Taylor coming off the bench in third down situations.

Two-minute drill at the end of the game there as well. Say what you want, though. Josh McDaniels, I don't want to say boneheaded because that sounds personal, but Josh McDaniels' inexplicable decision to try up four for a 52-yard field goal, the two-minute warning, gave the Packers the chance to win the game. Do you guys remember what happened two weeks ago against the Steelers on Sunday night? Anybody? Anybody?

Buehler. Okay, great. Let me explain. Sunday night, the Raiders are down eight two weeks ago. They're at home. They're driving with about four and a half to go. Josh McDaniels opts for a long field goal to cut it to five to then try to get the ball back, knowing you need eight, you need a touchdown at a two-point conversion, or you need two scores. The analytics crowd lost its mind. You need eight.

Just go for it. Why give the ball up when there's a darn good chance with your defense you're never getting it back? He kicked the field goal, but then a funny thing happened. They called leverage, defensive penalty. So he took the points off the board, took the first down, and then proceeded to kill two more minutes off the clock, stall, and then kick the field goal again, and never got the ball back. And it was honestly, I think, coaching malpractice.

Not Mario Cristobal level let's just run it rather than taking a knee malpractice, but it was horrible. Last night, two-minute warning, plus 34, up four, 17 to 13, he opted for the 52-yard field goal to try to make it a seven-point lead. If it's a seven-point lead, you're now kicking off, and you're giving them, you have to assume a touchback, 75 yards and two minutes.

And at that point, a touchdown will tie the game, a touchdown and two, they might do that on the road as the road team would beat you. It actually makes more sense if you don't go for it. And by the way, going for it is the play. It's not just the analytics play, it's the common bleeping sense play. But the numbers will tell you, and I'm not the analytics geek here, that if you don't go for it, it's actually a better play to punt. At that point, you try to pin them deep because they still have to go the length of the field, make them go from the five if you could pin them, as opposed to right there on the 34 if you miss, or the 25 if you make it and then kick off. He opted to kick the field goal, and Daniel Carlson, normally good, missed it.

They got bailed out. Honestly, here's my analogy, you're in Vegas. Josh McDaniels is the guy on fourth down late in the game, playing blackjack, that's got a 16, the dealer's got a 10 high, you got to hit. Have to. You got to hit. But he's just afraid to take the card. He's that guy that's like, I don't want to hit a 16.

I don't want to hit the 16. So you sit, everyone else at the table is furious at you. Furious. You screw up the count. I'm the guy at the other end of the table that, if he's had a few drinks, probably says things he regrets the next day.

But then McDaniels wins. And he's like, well, my strategy worked. Because when the dealer flipped it over, it doesn't have a 10 there, right? The dealer's got like a three and counts up and busts. And he's like, well, look, I played it the right way. Played it the right way.

That sounds like me. This is TJ blackjack. No, you hit the 16.

You have a losing hand without it. Play the math. It's math. All right, speaking of math, the Patriots are not good. Wow.

That's a transition. They do NBC power rankings. They are 32 in the NFL.com power rankings.

They are 29. Now to fix the Patriots, and will Bill Belichick be around to do it? Tom Curran. Coming up next, it's Andrew Siciliano sitting in for Rich, watching the Rich Eisen Show, everybody. Millions of listeners and thousands of five-star reviews rave about the hit podcast series In the Red Clay, the unbelievable story of Billy Sunday Burt, the most dangerous man in Georgia history. He was a whiskey man, bank robber, hit man. He was a murderer.

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Well, what I've learned is a smooth defensive back can make smooth wine. That's what it's all about. What the football with Suzy Schuster and Amy Trask. The podcast is available Tuesdays, wherever you listen. It's the Rich Eisen Show.

Thanks for being here today. Andrew Siciliano sitting in for Rich yet again, who is in London and as mentioned will join us coming up next hour as we get ready for yet another week in London. Third game there in a row. It's Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Ravens and Titans coming up Sunday. NFL Network and NFL Plus coming up this Sunday.

Four o'clock Eastern time. The best thing to come to Vegas since U2 in the sphere. The one in four New England Patriots hosting, or rather on the road against the two and three red hot Josh McDaniels led fun for the family. Las Vegas Raiders. Tom Curran joins us now. Friend of the program from NBC Sports Boston.

Hi, Tom. How bad is it there? It's as bleak, Andrew, as it's been since I started covering the team in 1997. This is this predates me.

I've never seen it this bleak. And you really got to do a little mental research for that. So I said, well, 2000, they were five and 11. Was it that bad?

Nope. Because they still had Ty Law and Larry Molloy and Teddy Brewski, and you still had Drew Bledsoe and you had a new coach and you were at least enthused about perhaps the direction of the team post Pete Carroll would change. This goes back to before me and it goes back to before Parcells and it goes back to before Bledsoe.

It goes back to the 1990 to 92 Rod Rust, Dick McPherson era Patriots. Can it be fixed in season? Belichick said they have to start over. I don't know how you start over when you've already played five games.

It's going to be really difficult to start over and fix it. And I'll say that admitting that, you know, I watched them play against the Eagles and then, you know, they played them for 48 minutes. Sure. And I watched the Miami game. They hung in there pretty good. And I said before they went to Dallas, 31-23 Patriots just got to clean up the mistakes.

Well, the mistakes have compounded and the mistakes have been here. And I just kept pretending that the Bill Belichick teams that were situationally smart, took care of the football, waited for the other team to make the mistake would evaporate. Even though we've been seeing this, Andrew, week in and week out for more than a year and certainly since Thanksgiving of last year, they fall behind by two touchdowns or so every week unless they're playing the Jets. Talking to Tom Curran here, NBC Sports Boston with the Patriots at 1 and 4 and kind of almost in no man's land, Tom, in purgatory.

We were talking about this yesterday. Like, if you want to look ahead to the draft, that's fine. But the idea that you're going to get in Caleb Williams or Drake May or even Michael Penick's territory to me seems unreasonable because even with everything we just said, you think that Belichick's going to coach this team to at least a couple of more victories and you're not necessarily picking top five. You're bad, but they'll clean it up a little bit.

So then where does that leave you, hypothetically picking 10th or 12th or somewhere around there next year? You're not good and you're not in a position to truly get better. I think they'll still get – I think they're bad enough to be bad, but I really don't think that Caleb Williams, for instance, would necessarily be the silver bullet. The problem is everything around him. Bill Belichick has failed this offense for more than a decade. He can't pick skill position players. The coaching on the offensive line is poor.

The players on the offensive line are poor. So it's inherent and it's in Bill's DNA to not be able to pick offensive players, period. Tom, what would Bill do if Robert Kraft came to him and said, you're still my head coach, Don Shula 18 wins away.

I mean, that is still reachable and I want you to do that here. But Bill, if you're going to coach in 2024, I'm hiring a GM and that's it. Take it or leave it. Well, that would mean you're going to blow out the personnel group, meaning Matt Groh, who is Bill's director of player personnel right now and all the coaches that Bill fostered. I think it'd be hard for Bill to accept that.

Would it be impossible? I don't know that it's impossible, but I think it would be impossible for Bill if he didn't have a hand in deciding who was coming in to help. It goes back to the Parcells. They want you to cook a meal.

They got to let you shop for the groceries. So I think that Bill would more than balk at that idea. But the facts are the facts, whether it's Isaiah Wynn or Trent Brown or Nikhil Harry, these players that the Patriots, they don't spend on players and the players they spend on don't work out. And Jacoby Myers is an absolute shining example of a player that the Patriots unearthed who was very, very, very effective for them, the most effective offensive player they had from 2020 through 2022. And they didn't want to pay him because they wanted to move on from him because they didn't think he was that good. And they went and found somebody who had absolutely no connection to the team who was injured and past his prime and brought him in to replace him in JuJu Smith-Shuster.

So when you got somebody, Andrew, sitting in front of you, whether it's Tom Brady or Jacoby Myers, and you can't tell how good he is, that's a friggin' problem. Tom, what we're describing, what you're describing, is in essence an existential crisis here. How does this team continue to exist as it is?

Or if you blow it up, how do you reform it? What is the endgame? How does this end? It ends by eventually, I mean, what eventually will happen is Bill will not catch Don Shula, and there will probably be a mutual parting of the ways. I mean, that's the way it's… After this season? Yeah, I think it's hard to make… barring continued 31-point losses, you go through the season with Bill and then say, We've regressed. The quarterbacks on his rookie contract, he was good.

Now he's not. He regressed. You made some really horrible decisions in 2022 with the coaching staff and have left a lasting mark on this team. The offensive line has regressed.

The players that you brought in aren't good enough. It's not working anymore, Bill. And you think it's phrased as a mutual parting of the ways? I have no idea, honestly. I don't know if Bill accedes to that.

I think that's generally what people have believed to be the case. But I think Bill's a prideful guy with an ego, and I don't think that Bill thinks that… I think that Bill would still think I can fix it. So whether he ascends to putting that kind of a press release out and says that or not, that'd be interesting to see as well. Do you think, and I go back, Tom, you remember to Robert Kraft at the owners' meetings in Arizona back in March when he stood there and he was pressed repeatedly about, you know, Is Bill going to break Shula as a Patriot? And he said, I want to make the playoffs this year. It's not about individual records. Never been about individual records for our players. Won't be for our coaches.

I want to make the playoffs this year. That seems like a long shot. I know there were some people that thought, Well, maybe Jerrod Mayo's name is brought into this conversation right now. Didn't happen. Do you foresee a situation where maybe if it does continue to be this bad, they say, Hey, this guy's the coach in waiting, and actually make it official and say something like that to ease this transition the second half of the season?

I don't think something, again, yeah, that's what I was saying. I don't think it had happened during the season because it would be humiliating for Bill in some ways. And he's got two of his sons on the team. Jerrod is a pseudo son, and Troy Brown, and all of the people in the scouting department. They're all so loyal to Bill as they should be because they've all profited wonderfully, as have I, and so many of us in the media for the content that Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and Robert Kraft provided. But I think that that would be very difficult to do anything in season to kneecap a legend like that because of the fallout. It's not like replacing Matt Eberfluss or Ron Rivera or anybody else who's struggling.

Sure, of course. He's got a whole staff that grew up under him. Talking to Tom Curran, NBC Sports Boston, do you think Bailey Zappi would do any better?

That's a great question. I don't think Bailey Zappi's nearly as good a quarterback, but given that Mack is actively making the team worse with some of the mistakes that he's made and continues to make, not just in snapshots but continually making through the first four losses, I think it would be kind of one of those, all right, you know what, come on over here, take a blow. Let's just reset, and we're going to let Bailey play here. And people here in New England have said, well, if you do that, it's over. It's over with Mack. You can't do that.

I'm like, why? It's not like you're benching Dan Marino or Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes after a few games. He does not have the backlog of reverence that those players should earn. And I think that does say to the rest of the locker room, if you put Mack on the sidelines and say, once you get your stuff straight, we'll let you go back in, I think some of the teammates would say, well, kind of about time. We love Mack, and we do know he's better than Bailey, but we just can't keep turning the ball over.

There's got to be a consequence. Tom, big picture. Go back to the beginning where you said it's as bleak as it's ever been since you've been covering this team back to the 90s here. What do you think – I know what I think. What do you think of all the Belichick slander from your angry radio callers? I mean, you've heard it on other shows.

I'm sure you've heard it on your show. Obviously, sports talk radio is a unique beast, and it doesn't necessarily speak for every fan. But some of it is just like, really?

Like, get a clue, people. I mean, yes, they're bad right now, but like it was all Brady, and I hate the Belichick or Brady debate, but just some of this just seems so ridiculous. Yeah, but I engage in a level of it too, because I have to analyze the team to a large extent. The Patriots went from 2012 when they drafted Chandler Jones and Dante Hightower through really now. I mean, Kyle Duggar is a good player. Trisha Gonzalez, Keyon White have played well when they've been healthy, sure. Yeah, but that's like the last 15 minutes.

We'll see how the Isaiah Wynn looked good. So 2000 to 2009 was Bill. 2010 to 2019 was Tom.

It's that simple. You look at that team that started 8-0 in 2019 and then finished the season 2 and 4, and everybody in the world said, I don't even know if Tom Brady's going to have a market out there. Why did they say that? Because they watched how he played in New England during the latter portions of that season.

They said he can't do it anymore. When it was clear to anyone who was watching, all he could do was sort of James White and Julian Edelman. He had Chris Hogan. He had Ryan Izzo as his tight end. He had Phillip Dorsett.

He didn't have anyone around him. I said, wherever he goes, they're going to be good. I said Tampa would win the Super Bowl in 2021. 2020.

2020 when he left, and they friggin' did. Because it wasn't Brady. It was the situation that had built up around Brady.

Well, that's the problem. You can't separate Coach and GM. When you have both titles, it's all on you, and we all agree. There isn't anyone anymore who fights the idea that the GM thing is over. That ship has sailed, and he has not done the job as a GM. So here's the thing, though, Andrew. If you say he's still a good game coach, why are they behind 16-0 to Dallas, 17-3 to Miami, and 22-0 to Cincinnati last year, and giving up a game-opening kickoff return, 1-2 to the Buffalo Bills?

If you can't get the team ready for 1 o'clock Sunday, what are we doing? I totally agree, and if you're bringing in people to develop your young quarterback who shouldn't be offensive coordinators, see last year's staff, then what are you doing? And I think that that's a great level of self-confidence that's probably misdirected. I think that Bill believed as strongly as anybody that 2010 to 2019 was still Bill. I mean, he was actively trying to replace Brady beginning right after the 2013 season and right on through to 2019, when he wouldn't give him a two-year, $50 million guaranteed contract like Drew Brees.

Wanted to go year to year. I mean, just, we'll be fine. And that's the lack of urgency that we see that I've been kind of harping on. And we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

You're not figuring it out. Tom, last thing. So let's just play this hypothetical that he's not the coach next year. Do you think Bill Belichick goes somewhere else to coach?

I don't know where the market will be. I would never underestimate, call it stupidity or call it optimism of NFL owners in hiring somebody because of the hirings that we've seen over the years. But there's nothing that indicates to me, because Bill will have to have control over everything, there would be nothing that would indicate to me as an owner that I want a defensive coach who's 71 years old who hasn't drafted well over the last decade plus and does poorly with his free agent investments is the guy I want to bring in to lead my team. All you need is one though. That's right.

That's why I say I would never underestimate the naivete. Look, if you put Bill, say Sean McDermott, things go sideways somehow. Sure. And you bring him into Buffalo, that'd be a good hire. If you put Bill with a good team with players in place and a quarterback in place and an offensive line in place, have a day.

He's a good in-game coach, I think, unless he's punting from the 40 down 24 to nothing. Well, I mean, that's the opposite of Brandon Staley, so what if I gave you Justin Herbert, Derwin James and Joey Bosa? Have a day. Yep, yep. That is a 70 mile an hour fastball and if you can't get around on that, can't do it.

Then get out of the batting cage and give the next kid the token and tell him to get in there and do it. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. That, I mean, that would be fascinating. Can you imagine Bill Belichick with, I mean, the in-division thing, I don't know if that would ever happen, but Bill Belichick with Josh Allen or Bill Belichick with Justin Herbert? That would be fascinating. Yeah. I mean, that would be fun.

Tom, weather the storm. Are we doing Bill Belichick landing spots? Do you want to do that? No, we just did.

844-204 Rich. Yeah. Wait, Tom, real quick. Why doesn't Malik Cunningham get any run here? I just don't think that he can run the offense at this juncture.

Neither can any of the other two guys. Well, point well taken. I wouldn't be surprised. I would not be the least bit surprised if there was a package of plays for Malik Cunningham this week because the only option the Patriots have is to turtle more and run it 40 times so the ball is never in the air or to try and be aggressive and do something a little bit different. So if you put Malik Cunningham out there to run some RPOs and take advantage of his ability because you have an offensive line that can't block, so you might as well not have the most stationary quarterback in the league back there, get the guy who can run around a little bit. So not that bad an idea as a long-term starter, not ready yet, nor is Bailey Zappi.

I mean, it's just another position mismanaged. The backup situation. Fun times. I love how we went to back at cut-down day. Bill's playing checkers.

Everyone else is playing chess. He knows that he could sneak Bailey Zappi through waivers and it's roster management here and then bring him back and then, nope, he's just on of a quarterback. That's it. They've had Ian Book, Will Greer, and who's the other kid from Carolina? Matt Corral. Matt Corral, yeah. They're just running guys through. So you've had four different guys and throw in five different guys behind Matt? That does not look like a plan. Nope.

It does not. But hey, you never know what happens when Bill and Josh McDaniels get together this weekend in Vegas. Patriots could win by three touchdowns and then all of a sudden the conversation changes next week. It'll still be bleak. It'll just be a different conversation because it is a week-to-week league.

Tom Curran. The Vegas people will be up in arms now. Yes.

I mean, but they generally are. That wasn't a good team last night that won. That was Max Crosby single-handedly wreaking havoc on a young quarterback, and Josh McDaniels somehow, when choosing to kick a field goal up four with two minutes to go, not like punting on the plus 40, like what Bill did, somehow survived. Tom, we always appreciate your time. It's great to see you. All right, bud. Good to see you.

Thanks for having me. Tom Curran, everyone, from NBC Sports Boston. Yes, we are doing Bill Belichick landing spots. I never thought we would get to that. I've been saying it for a couple of weeks to just like, privately to people, why wouldn't the Chargers trade a first-round pick for Bill? If the Staley thing goes south this year and weird Chargers stuff happens again, I mean, I guess it comes down to ownership wanting to pay out Brandon Staley and then give Bill an amount of $15 million, but it's an idea. Hey, you know what? We'll kick that one around. Coming up, is there another mystery team in the Bill Belichick 2024 sweepstakes? Yes, this is great.

You won't believe which team it is. Andrew sitting in for me. Welcome back to The Rich Eisen Show, everybody. I'm Andrew.

I'm sitting at The Rich Eisen Show desk. It is furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for everyday industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call or click Grainger.com or just stop by. Do you really want to do the where does Bill Belichick coach in 2024 thing? No, I want to do that in like a month. Okay. When the Pats are 1-8. Okay. Would he go back to the Jets with Aaron Rodgers next year when this season ends poorly and the defense isn't as good as we thought it was? Uh, no. I don't think he's... I don't know.

He might be down. What if it goes poorly in Cleveland this year? What if it goes poorly in... Jacksonville this year? Stefanski's coaching for his job, right?

I don't know that. I'm just going through the standings here. This is a live look at the NFL standings. How about, and the one that you threw out there, is the fun one, the Chargers. Yeah, that's a fun one. That's a fun one. If Bill is going to coach somewhere else, which we all assume that he does because we think he wants to break Shula's record. You want to go all in here. Which Andy Reid is just going to break like five years after.

Yep. You got to go somewhere with a top flight quarterback and I think the only place with a coach potentially on the hot seat is the Chargers. What if I told you... How about this one? Let's say Josh McDaniels is out.

It doesn't go well. Dave Ziegler, he knows him. There's the GM. You got Jimmy Garoppolo. How about the Raiders?

We're just making nonsense here. With player owner Tom Brady? With player owner Tom Brady. What if Mike McCarthy? How about that one? Bill coaching the Cowboys, TJ?

How about Bill coaching the Cowboys? Oh, come on. What do we got?

TJ? Oh, baby. That's fun.

Look, we're on to the Chargers right now. That's fun. How about that?

I'm just throwing ideas out there. Yeah, I don't know. What about Washington is another spot that's coming up? I don't think Washington. No. Doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense. You got to go instant winner, right? He only has so much time, age-wise, obviously.

You want to go instant winner. The Buffalo one that Tom threw out there was... That is crazy. That was interesting. McDermott. Come on. McDermott's a good coach, right? He is a good coach. But look, it's not a Chargers situation. But I personally believe that the Bills have to be all in this year, right? Like, there comes a point where you're going to say... And I like Sean McDermott. Very good coach.

I'm not advocating his dismissal at all. But I've said this all offseason. This feels like a... There's more to be lost this year season for the Bills.

How about that? I don't want to say more pressure because I hate the pressure thing. There's pressure on everybody in this business at every level. But I think the Bills need to win, right? Leslie Frazier's not there. This is Sean McDermott, I think, saying, if I'm going out, I'm doing it my way. More control, okay? Not that the defense was poor last year. Quite the opposite.

But I want to do things my way. But now, no Trey White. Now, no Matt Milano. It's going to be a much steeper hill to climb without those two guys, the two best players on your defense, not named by them. Yeah, they're going to have to outscore everyone.

They're going to outscore everybody. But I think... Let's just put it this way. Regardless of who's healthy, assuming Josh Allen is, if they're an early exit this year again in the postseason, then you have to have some uncomfortable conversations there in Buffalo about Josh Allen's in his prime, right? He's looking at 30 now. He was drafted in 2018, a year or two away.

What are we doing here? Is this the best situation to win? I think Sean McDermott is the answer to that. But call me in January if they lose. And I've said this, by the way, the entire offseason. And the same thing goes for the Chargers here as well. Brandon Staley got rid of both coordinators last year.

Not just one, both. So when everyone thought he should be fired, not everyone, but there was a large call, a loud call for his dismissal after blowing a 27-3 lead on the road in Jacksonville in the wild card round. They lost. You know that by now. Well, what does he do? Heading into year three, gets rid of the coordinators.

Another one like, hey, this is on me here, my way. Okay. Well, if the season takes a charger-like turn, as we have seen before, then what?

Then Bill Belichick. I'm not starting rumors. We're just playing games. Just talking. It would be interesting.

All right. Injury news here around the league. Number one, Justin Jefferson is going uninjured reserve, so reported by my colleague at NFL Network, Tom Pelissero, this morning. That means he's out a minimum of four weeks. It seemed to be a no-contact hamstring on that turf in Minneapolis on Sunday, the same turf that might have taken down Travis Kelce with a no-contact ankle. He was able to come back.

Jefferson could not. I give you this from Adam Schefter as we count down to the final minute on the radio hour. Schefter reports this morning, or tweets this morning. Well, maybe he's not coming back.

Maybe he'll just come back next year, basically. I misread the clock. I couldn't read the entire tweet. I was like, a minute left. You know, this IFB is so low here.

This thing keeps going in and out. Regardless, I should be able to read a clock. I'm going to read the whole tweet down from Adam. Here's the unspoken issue that could potentially lengthen Justin Jefferson's absence. If the Vikings don't win games and stay competitive, what is Jefferson's incentive?

Not mocking Adam. I'm just reading this tone. What is his incentive to rush back when he did not land the contract he wanted? His absence could last longer than expected. I know. I hear the one minute now clearly.

Longer than expected. Listen, the Vikings are in a tough spot. They're a one-win team. Most people firmly believe this is Kirk Cousins' final year there. You didn't re-sign Dalvin Cook. You did give TJ Hawkins in the contract.

You don't want to say it's a tear down. It is a team in transition. You knew that your 11-0 luck last year would come back to earth. 11-0 in one-score games. They're exactly the opposite this year. They cannot win those one-score games. You're going to sign Justin Jefferson this offseason.

You have to. You couldn't get a deal done last offseason. So, what happens if Justin Jefferson doesn't give back or come back?

I tell you what. I would trade Kirk Cousins for anything I could get. You can have him for a three.

A five. He's yours. Take him. Ravens. Ravens. Final four. Overreaction Monday. The podcast. Wherever you listen.