Drew Bledsoe, Former NFL QB

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Drew, appreciate the time. How you been? I'm doing great, man.

I'm actually out in Boston currently and hanging out out here. Obviously, interesting time for the Pats out here. But, you know, hopefully they'll bounce back and figure some stuff out. Yeah, so you know me, I'm a Patriot fan, and I've now lost confidence in Mac Jones. I don't think he's been put in a good situation, but it feels like this marriage is just never gonna work between Mac Jones and Bill Belichick. Well, it's tough for Mac because they're not giving him a ton of help right now. And, you know, when you're playing that position and things aren't great around you, I mean, they were set up to be a team that was gonna run the ball and play defense. And now it's looking like they're gonna have to score some points. And I'm not sure that they're quite set up to be that high-flying offense that they apparently need to be right now.

And last year, right, the Patricia Judge experiment, if you want to call it that, was a disaster. This year, you get Bill O'Brien but don't have a number one wide receiver for Mac. It just feels like Bill has failed him. When you look at that, do you see just Belichick continuously failing him?

Well, you know, I don't know if it's that. I'm just not sure that they're, you know, they were set up this season to try to just play great defense, run the football, and, you know, win low-scoring games. And, you know, now especially with Judon Hurt and their young, you know, superstar corner from Oregon Hurt, you know, I think it's gonna be really hard for them to lock teams down. And you know, with the offensive pieces they have in place right now, I'm not sure that they're set up to win some high-scoring games, you know? And you know what the standard was in New England, and fans now aren't used to this with the run of excellence that they had for 20 years, so it's gonna be fascinating to see how they navigate this.

Drew Bledsoe here with us. What advice would you maybe give to Mac Jones right now? Well, he's got to persevere, you know? It's, you know, playing quarterback in the NFL is, you know, it's hard, you know? And when things are good, it's a hard job. And when things aren't good, it gets really, really difficult.

And what you have to be able to do is just show up, go to work, do your job, and continue to push to improve every single week. And so he's got to be able to do that, and hopefully he can do that without losing his confidence. And hopefully he can, you know, rise above. I don't know what's in front of them for the rest of the year. I think it's gonna be a tough one.

But hopefully he can make it through with his confidence still intact so that he can continue to be a good player in the future. Everyone's wondering how warm of the seat it is for Bill Belichick. Do you think there's a chance Kraft moves on from him at the end of the year?

You know, I don't know. They've had such an amazing relationship now for I think 24 years. This is the 24th season they've been together. You know, nothing lasts forever. But, you know, Bill's still one of the greatest of all time. And I think it's, you know, it's pretty hard to move on unless you can find somebody else that has, you know, that has his resume. And there's no other resume like his.

So I don't know what the future holds for him. But I know that this year has been tough. The last couple years have been tough on everybody. You know, Kraft and the entire organization has used to being on top. And I know Bill's in the same boat.

You know, these used to be on top as well for them to not have their level of success. I think it's been really, really stressful for everybody. Talking to Drew Bledsoe, I saw last week you're at the Bill's game, Bill's Dolphins. And the night before, you had a pretty cool dinner with Dan Marino and Jim Kelly. What could you tell us about the dinner?

That looked awesome. You know, it's funny, man, because I'm 51 years old. But those guys were my heroes growing up, you know. And, you know, I had posters of those guys on my wall. They were drafted when I was 11 years old.

So the funny thing is that, you know, I go do that. And I just turned into a 12 year old fanboy and get to hang out with my heroes. Those guys have always been incredibly gracious, you know, to me and to everybody else around them. But yeah, getting to sit down and have dinner with them and tell some old war stories is really, really fun.

And they're just great. Plus, we drank some good wine. So that worked out well.

Yeah. How's the wine business going these days for you? Wine business is great, man. We're having a ton of fun with it. And, you know, we've got, you talk about teams, we've got a championship team at the winery, man. We've got this great team all the way from the vineyard, you know, through the whole process. It's making that one a lot of fun, you know, because we just continue to try to get better every week. You know, it's pretty fun. So, you know, it kind of goes back to football speak. I think our team gets tired of me talking about it, you know, and giving them a football terminology. But they're kicking ass and taking the engine.

We're having a lot of fun. Going to Drew Bledsoe right now. What an impressive performance that was, Drew, from the Bills. Going into this season, people are wondering if they're still a Super Bowl contender. They have that bad performance against the Jets in week one. The Dolphins red hot. And you just once again see how great of a quarterback Josh Allen is and how lethal of a wide receiver Stefan Diggs is. No, Josh is very special. I mean, he's at the very, very top of the game.

Probably an MVP candidate. But the thing that makes me excited about what I saw from the Bills, from the standpoint of the Bills fans out there, is that they are now, Bills have to put everything on Josh's shoulders. You know, they're bringing the ball more effectively. Their defensive front looks exceptional. You know, they were able to get a lot of pressure on Tua without having to blitz a bunch. And when you can do that, man, that's a recipe to be really successful, you know, for the rest of the season.

We all know your history. And unfortunately, you went through a horrible injury with the Mo Lewis hit. When you look at Tua, his concussion problems were well documented last year.

Tua is lighted up on the field. But mentally, I wonder the toll that takes on a quarterback. Not that it was a similar situation, but what you went through.

Just what kind of advice do you give to Tua maybe? You know, it's when you're in the middle of it, you know, you're just focused on what's in front of you. You know, you don't really think about your mortality when you're young and in the middle of it. You know, my deal put me in the hospital for, you know, five and was out for six weeks before I could do anything. But all I was thinking about was getting back on the field. So, you know, it's something that, you know, you look back on it as an older person, you're like, oh, man, that was a pretty crazy situation.

But when you're in the middle of it, you know, you're just focused on the next one. And, you know, you're still 10 foot tall and bulletproof. And I know that's where Tua is right now. You know, he thinks he's bulletproof and he'll just continue to play. But hopefully they have the people around them that are going to make sure, you know, that that was a scary thing last year was they allowed him to go back into that game when he was obviously not in great shape.

So hopefully they have people around there now and all of these teams that are keeping guys from going back out there when they're in harm's way. And let me ask you about the quarterback Drew Bledsoe for a team that you wrapped your career up with in the Dallas Cowboys. Dak Prescott, big game this Sunday night on NBC in Santa Clara up against the San Francisco 49ers. When you view Dak Prescott, do you think he's someone that is capable of winning a Super Bowl in this league?

Yeah, you know, I really do. And, you know, he's a talented football player. You can throw it, you can run it. But the thing that I appreciate the most about Dak is, you know, you watch the way that he leads his team and you watch the way that guys react to him. He's a guy that is a natural leader that guys really want to play hard for. And there's, you know, that's one of those intangibles that that is rare, you know, where you were not only a good player, but you make the guys around you play better and play harder. And I think that's something that really separates Dak. You know, when he got hurt a couple years ago, you saw the outpouring of support from from his entire team.

And that just lets you know how well respected he is. And so I think, you know, they've got you talk about a team that's playing great defense, man. They're they're getting after it.

Micah Parsons is just unstoppable. And you know, I think that they're going to be in the mix. But this is a heavyweight fight, you know, between them and the Niners.

You know, that's strength on strength. That's going to be a great one to watch. And when we get to the other quarterback, Brock Purdy, the big debate right now, is he a product of the system? Or is he really that good in a franchise quarterback?

Where do you lie on that in the small sample size so far? It's both, you know, they're a very, very good team around him. He's, you know, he's got another MVP candidate in the backfield with him. And that makes life easy for a quarterback. They're playing great defense that makes life easy for a quarterback. But he's doing the best that you could ask for, you know, within that system. You know, now is he going to go turn into Patrick Mahomes and carry a franchise? He's probably never going to be that guy. But in their system, he's very, very effective. He's very efficient, doesn't make mistakes, doesn't do any of the things that are going to hurt your team.

So you start there first. But I just think it's a really, really cool success story. One of those underdog stories that, you know, that we all fall in love with, you know, kid was, was he Mr.

Irrelevant? I think he was the last pick, wasn't he? You know, so did you see a guy that was at the very, very end of the draft, you know, looking to be a journeyman and hopefully hang on for a few years. And now it looks like he's going to be a starting quarterback in the league for the years to come. So it's just, it's just, it's just exciting to see that underdog story.

Last thing I'll ask is your blood. So I have to go into the college world and talk about your Washington State football team. You want to talk about a great story, Cam Ward. We had him on last week, no star recruit, FCS school to start and now dominating with Washington State and looking like a dark horse for the Heisman.

What is impressed you the most with Cam Ward? You know, man, he throws it different, man. The guy has got a big arm.

He's really accurate. He's mobile. He can move around, but when he's moving around, he's still looking to get the ball downfield.

He's got his eyes up. And you know, I think that that team really has a chip on its shoulder right now, you know, getting left out of, you know, everybody else in the Pac-12 except Oregon State has failed. And so I think they really feel slighted as they should. And so, you know, the entire team out there right now is playing is playing great football and they're a bunch of, you know, there's there's a lot of guys on that team that are like Cam Ward, where they were under recruited, overlooked by by, you know, other programs. And they're playing with a chip on their shoulder.

And I think they're going to be they're going to be a force to be reckoned with the rest of the season. You also have to love all the quarterback play in the Pac-12 because the Pac-12 is disrespected going into the year because everyone was leaving. And you have Caleb Williams, Shadore Sanders, Bo Nix, Michael Pennix.

We talk about Cam, DJ Ungule. We go on and on and on with these quarterbacks. It's it's incredible to just see the depth of quarterback play in this conference. It's really exciting. And it also makes it all the more sad, you know, that the Pac-12 is the most relevant it's been in probably at least a decade. And it's the final year, you know, so that just makes it sad, man, that, you know, the Pac-12 is so exciting to watch right now and it's the last year of its existence, at least in this form. But it's really fun to watch this year and we're going to enjoy the heck out of it while we can. Well, Drew, always appreciate the time. Thanks so much for doing this. You be well. Right on. Take it easy. See ya.