Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Bombshell: Patriots Stun NFL by Cutting Jabrill Peppers

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Pats stunned New England by releasing Gibral Peppers. That's where we start in this breaking news edition of Locked On Patriots. You are Locked on Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast, part of the Locked On Podcasts Network, your team every day. What's up Patriots fans? I'm your host Nick Cattos, born and raised in New England, also host of the Everything Pats podcast, co-hosts, of the Greg Bedard Patriots podcast with Nick Cattels and a sports talk show host veteran. On today's breaking news episode, we discussed the impact of Drill Pepper's being gone. But first, we have the latest on his shocking release.

Starting point is 00:00:44 We appreciate you joining the show, making us your first listening for being an everydayer. The Lockdown Patriots podcast is a proud partner, the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I was absolutely stunned by the release of Gibral Peppers early on Friday. Now, I expected Peppers to play a significant role within this defense. Maybe at the end of the day, he doesn't start. But he was no doubt 100% unequivocally, at least the third best safety on this roster. Camp showed that. The preseason showed that.

Starting point is 00:01:21 So, yeah, I was pretty stunned when we found out that. Peppers was gone. So the question is, why? Why is he gone? Well, let's knock down a couple of things here. Number one, the timing of the release on a Friday, nine days before you kick off against the Raiders, days after the initial cut down day, when you get down to 53 players on your roster. When you combine that with Peppers and what he went through last year off the field, and I'm not talking about the allegations that were dismissed. I'm talking about the other stuff off the field, you had to ask the question, did something happen? Was there some kind of incident?

Starting point is 00:02:01 Because this seemed to come out of nowhere, and it seemed to happen so late in this process that you have to at least wonder if that was part of the equation. Was there some kind of incident? Well, the latest is that there was no incident. I mean, even Andrew Callahan posted when this news came out that Pepper's release was a surprise, and based on his performance, there isn't much basis for, cutting him. And as Callahan posted without speculating specifically, other considerations likely factored. But Mike Giardi and Phil Perry both say there was no off-field incident. Now, when we say

Starting point is 00:02:36 off-field incident, it doesn't have to be peppers breaking the law. It could be anything. I'm not going to throw a bunch of stuff up against the wall. But you wonder, was there some kind of incident that made this happen? Mike Giardi posted, I can tell you, there were no off-field issues for peppers that led to the release. Phil Perry, nothing off field, I'm told, no incidents if that's what folks are wondering. So it wasn't anything off field. So then what was it? And why did it happen now?

Starting point is 00:03:07 Why did it happen when it happened on a Friday? Why? If it wasn't some kind of incident that just happened, then what went wrong? But why all of a sudden do you say goodbye to Peppers? Was it on the field? Was it on the field performance? Well, he's no worse than Kyle Dugger, is he? He's no worse than Del Pettus, is he?

Starting point is 00:03:27 Again, he is easily the third best safety on this roster right now. And if you're talking about finances, which will get to Pepper's finances individually in a few minutes, if you want to talk finances, well, you could easily say, you know what? Yeah, we get it. Dugger makes a lot of money. But Pettis doesn't make a ton of money, Del Pettis. Gibral Pappas doesn't make a ton of money, really, when you look at it in the big picture. So let's get rid of Pettis because Peppers is the better safety.

Starting point is 00:03:57 And if it was on-field performance, what changed from Tuesday to Friday? Because you had a chance to cut peppers in the initial cut-down day, but you held on to them for another few days. So was there something huge that happened on the field in a couple of practices? You didn't practice on Friday. What was something so dramatic on-field performance-wise that you decided within 72 hours you didn't want Peppers on the roster anymore. So that doesn't really make much sense. Was it fit?

Starting point is 00:04:28 Because you could question the fit. Peppers is more an in-the-box close to the line of scrimmage type safety, right? Kind of a hybrid safety linebacker. Was it fit? Well, if it's fit, Anthony Jennings is still here so far. Look at the same position. Kyle Dugger is still here so far. So if it was fit or if it was on the field,

Starting point is 00:04:51 would you have any trade talks? Because we know the Patriots were talking to teams to try to trade Anthony Jennings and try to trade Kyle Dugger. So if it was on the field, if it was fit, you would imagine the Patriots would have been burning the phone lines trying to trade peppers. But according to Andrew Callahan, he posted checking in with a few teams, I don't get the sense the Patriots shopped peppers across the league before his release.

Starting point is 00:05:16 Certainly not like they shopped Kyle Dugger. So the timing and the fact that things happened off the field last year might lead you to believe that this was some kind of incident. Nope, that's been shot down. On the field, the performance wasn't nearly bad enough to justify getting cut on a Friday, nine days before you kick off against the Raiders, nonetheless. If it was fit, you have other guys who are as bad or even worse fits still, on the team. And those guys who were bad fits, you were trying to trade, but you weren't trying

Starting point is 00:05:52 to trade peppers. So was it really the fit? He's not injured. If he was injured, he would have been placed on IR like Jalani Tavai with a designation to return. That didn't happen. If it was an injury and you didn't want him on the IR with that designation, you could have waived him with the injury designation and moved on with your life. But they did not do that. I would imagine that if it was an injury only and he would be able to come back sooner rather than later, then it makes more sense to keep him, put him on that IR, and just add to your 53 man where maybe somebody else that you want on the roster in the time being. What is going on?

Starting point is 00:06:35 The money. It wasn't the money. Peppers doesn't make enough money to justify this late of a cut. Spotrack posted the Patriots release of Peppers leaves behind dead cap hits. of $4.15 million this year and $3 million in 2026 to drop in the bucket. And by releasing peppers, it frees up $2.3 million of cap space this year when you already have $60 million of cap space right now. So it wasn't a financial move.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Culture, that wouldn't make any sense. If you're cutting Gibral peppers because of culture, you would have cut them a long time ago. You would have moved on. You would have said, thanks. No, thanks. All the, you know, leaders and captains from 2024, they're all gone. We know that. But look how quickly you acted with David Andrews, for example, with Jonathan Jones, Dietrich Wise. Now, Jones wasn't a captain, but Wise was, Andrews was.

Starting point is 00:07:30 You moved on from Joanne Bentley quickly. You moved on from Joe Cardona quickly. So if it was a culture leadership thing, I don't think you hold on to Gibral Peppers until August 29. He would have been gone well before then. I mean, we're running out of options. I've got one left, one left. I will tell you that one thing that might make sense why Peppers has moved on. And also, now that Peppers is gone, we'll look at the impact to the rest of this defense next as we continue with today's episode of Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

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Starting point is 00:11:24 The only thing to me that would make sense as to why Peppers is gone in the way that he was released is that there was a disagreement over his role. he wasn't happy he was told he wasn't going to start he knew he was going to be that third safety in the rotation and he wants to start he only has so much time left in the NFL so maybe there was a little back and forth between he and the coaching staff coaching staff figured mike rable said if he's not willing to play his role if he's not willing to be the third safety on this team then we're going to move on from him because maybe they don't believe there's that much of a drop off between peppers and dougar and pettis i would disagree but they know more than i do That's really the only thing that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:12:06 Is that just they disagreed about what he was going to do? They disagreed about the role. I mean, I guess you could say maybe they asked him to take a pay cut, like they asked Kendrick Bourne, but that's hard to believe after we went over the numbers last segment. That's the only thing that makes sense. But now we know Peppers is gone. So the next question is, how will this absence impact this defense?

Starting point is 00:12:27 Because make no mistake, Pepper's absence will 100% impact this defense in multiple ways on. off the field. I want to start with off the field. I want to talk about how he's a tone setter. He is a vocal leader. He was one of the only guys last year during that dreadful season who stood up, took accountability, took responsibility. He obviously missed a big chunk of the season due to what we talked about in the first segment. But when he was there, he was accountable. And when he's been there, he's been accountable. So that leadership, the vocal leader on the field as far as the tone setter.

Starting point is 00:13:07 He is a physical violent presence. And that's why I thought he was a perfect fit as far as the presence of Peppers for Mike Grable and Terrell Williams' defense. So you lose some of that. And it begs the question with Peppers now gone, who is the true alpha of this secondary? I'm not talking about talent because that's obvious. We all know Christian Gonzalez is the most talented guy on this. team, let alone the secondary. But I'm talking about who sets the tone for the secondary now.

Starting point is 00:13:38 Who's going to be that vocal leader? Who's going to get in guys faces? As great as Gonzalez is on the field, he's not a loud guy. He's not gregarious. He's not going to get in his teammates' face, at least from what we understand of who he is. He's more of a quiet guy. He's more of a Stefan Gilmore, as people would always compare him to. So it doesn't feel like Gonzalez is going to be that alpha. Maybe it's Carlton Davis. Yeah, he's new, but there's a lot of new on this team. So maybe Davis fills that role. But is Davis going to be on the field for 17 games? Huge question. If a guy's missing for a month, like he's missed a month almost throughout his entire NFL career, can you really bank on him to be the voice of that secondary, to be that

Starting point is 00:14:24 guy who sets the tone and the personality of what they want to be? Jalen Hawkins, maybe. I don't know enough about Jalen Hawkins' personality to tell you if he's willing to take the grasp and say, all right, grasp those reins and say, I'm going to be that guy. I'm not sure. And Craig Woodson, he's a rookie. Do you really want to put that on the rookie's plate? So who's going to fill that void that Peppers is going to leave? And even if Peppers wasn't on the field starting as one of the first two safeties out there,

Starting point is 00:14:58 he's still there he's still a presence he'd still be getting snaps as the third safety in the rotation he would still be able to talk to guys on the sidelines he'd still be able to approach guys in the locker room so you lose that presence when you release gibral peppers the margin for error by the way for one craig watson who i just brought up man oh man it gets even slimmer now it is a very very slim margin for error when you talk about a young rookie doing what this defensive coaching staff has asked him to do, which during the preseason was a bunch. And for the most part, shout out to Woodson because he handled it.

Starting point is 00:15:38 But now you have a tough couple of weeks. You got to go to Dugger. You got to go to Pettis. They're a drop off from Peppers. Now, Mike Giardi wrote about Woodson recently said his arrow is going up. He wrote really smart rookie, been around the ball quite a bit, even if he hasn't made many plays on it. And I've been talking about Woodson since the draft,

Starting point is 00:16:02 and I had felt that Woodson was going to play a significant role on this defense. So I'm not surprised. I'm surprised that it's him and Hawkins starting, seemingly. I'm surprised by that. But now even more responsibility for Woodson, and he can't mess up. He cannot be a consistent repeat kind of offender out there. He just can't.

Starting point is 00:16:24 He's a better fit at free safety than really anybody else on the team. and you wonder if he'll play some nickel back? I would think so. We'll see. So a lot goes on to Woodson here. The other defensive backs, Alex Austin, Craig Woodson, and also you look at Marte Mapu,

Starting point is 00:16:45 who was a defensive back and is now a linebacker. I would have to imagine those three guys are going to be the main culprits to try to defend tight ends. And that's a pretty big assignment. from Mapu, who is transitioning to linebacker, but it feels like he's done a pretty good job doing it. Austin is a bigger-bodied corner. Now, of course, with Christian Gonzalez, if he's going to miss time, like we talked about in our prior episode, if that's going to happen, well, can you afford to move Austin onto the tight end? I think it depends on the tight end.

Starting point is 00:17:17 If it's Brock Bowers, you might do it. So that's a question of who covers the tight ends. I think it comes down to those three names. the front seven will have to ramp up and get that pressure because now you got more youth than the secondary you get some questions back there a little bit so front seven is going to have to do their job and I also wonder who gets added

Starting point is 00:17:38 because now Peppers is off the 53 somebody has to be on the 53 and by the time you watch or listen to this maybe the move has already been made we'll have to wait and see that wraps up this breaking news edition of Lockdown Patriots thank you for making us your first listen. And for being an everydayer, reach out to me on Twitter at Nick C Radio.

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Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Bombshell: Patriots Stun NFL by Cutting Jabrill Peppers

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