Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Foxboro Friction: New Report Details Discord Among New England Patriots Coaches, Players

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien’s first order of business may be to rebuild an offense which lay in ruins after a dismal showing in 2022. However, he may also have to play a key role in helping to repair what was apparently a fractured locker room — especially when it came to the players on offense. Joining host Mike D’Abate is Thomas ‘Murph’ Murphy of E2G Sports to break down the Thursday morning report from the Boston Herald, the dysfunctional relationship between offensive coaches and coach Bill Belichick, along with players such as Mac Jones.Find and follow Locked On Patriots on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-patriots-daily-podcast-on-the-new-england/id1140512627 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1c5ZxFmwg3WbfxAU3tR5Ve?si=k196wH-yRqifUcQQz8SjIQStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-patriots And follow host Mike D’Abate on Twitter, where he’ll be sharing the latest news about the New England Patriots and talking with fans.On Twitter: @mdabateNFLSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONNFLBuilt BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.PrizePicksFirst time users can receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100 with promo code LOCKEDON. That’s PrizePicks.com – promo code; LOCKEDONUltimate Football GMTo download the game just visit Ultimate-GM.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello to all of you, Foxborough faithful. Thank you once again for making Locked On Patriots a daily part of your New England Patriots coverage and also your first listen every day. Remember, Locked On Patriots free and available on all platforms, including YouTube. So smash that subscribe button, download, subscribe to follow Locked On Patriots wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of the pod presented by our friends over at PrizePix.

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at LO underscore Patriots. That's fans. The New England Patriots definitely have a new offensive coordinator. We've been talking about him now for a couple of days here on Locked On Patriots. It is Bill O'Brien. And the first order of business Bill has without any question is to be able to rebuild an offense which really lay in ruins after a dismal showing in 2022. But according to a new report out there, he may have to play a key role in helping to repair what was apparently a fractured locker room as well,

especially when it comes to the players on offense. Of course, I'm talking about a Thursday morning report from the Boston Herald by two very reputable journalists, Andrew Callahan and Karen Garigian of the Boston Herald, reporting that the relationship between the offensive coaches and their players last season might have been a little more dysfunctional than even we had conjectured throughout the entire season. There's a laundry list of reasons why this team did not do well on offense last year, folks. Definitely not localized to just one reason but according to this report the culprit the main culprit that is really was Bill Belichick's decision to install

both Matt Patricia and Joe Judge as the stewards of New England's offense in 2022. A lot of us out there myself included kept touting the fact that they'll be able to figure it out. These guys are professional coaches. It really is a situation where coaches can coach, and they have experience enough to be able to right the ship on the Patriots' field when it comes to the offense. Well, the results were substandard, to say the least, and I'll be the first to admit it was a project. It was an adventure that did not work out,

and the Patriots really showed that in the statistics folks seventh worst in total yards in the league ranked 22nd in points per game 26th in yards per game that's not going to get it done and you can talk about individual player regressions all you want to there's no question that Mac Jones regressed from where he was last year you saw a regression from Hunter Henry Kend Kendrick Bourne, guys on the field that really had strong seasons in 2021 that didn't perform up to par for whatever reason in 2022. But a lot of people seem to think that the problem really stemmed from coaching. And Karen and Andrew, I think, put out a great read. I know they used a lot of anonymous sources here, folks. I do want to take a couple of minutes just to let you know that anonymous

sources are a part of journalism. It's simply a part of the way they are reported. You need credibility. That is the central figure, the central point in any type of journalistic piece being taken with either a grain of salt or being taken for what it's worth not everyone has that same cachet but i can tell you that the journalists that put this report together andrew callahan and karen gregian are two of the most respected and two of the most integral pieces of journalism right now that you can find in this beat so if they're putting it out there i'm willing to venture to guess to give them the benefit of the doubt here. So be that as it may, we're going to basically make the assumption here

that this piece is coming from reputable sources within the organization. And they seem to believe that the problems really started back in training camp. There was really an insufficiently planned migration from what had been a successful offense here in New England under Josh McDaniels to incorporating more of that Sean McVay run scheme, that Kyle Shanahan run scheme that really allows outside zone run to dictate how your team is going to be able to move the football. For some reason or another, it just did not work. The Patriots did not have the proper personnel to do it, didn't really have the offensive line blocking schemes in place to do it, and as much as I love Damian Harris and Ramondre Stevenson, they weren't quite the running backs to be able to do it. Top flight running backs, both. Stevenson had a phenomenal year, but he's not the type of running back that can anchor this type of an offense. When you do that, you go away from that gap run team that the Patriots really excelled at being in 2021 and before when the Patriots were running that type of offense, when Tom Brady was running the show here,

and you go away from it, it's going to be a problem. And it was a problem this year for the New England Patriots and according to the Herald sources they described typical training camp as being installation of run plays installation of offensive line learning protection schemes very inadequately planned and this is something that was really a surprise to me Josh McDaniels would spend pages upon pages of the book really installing these types of run blocking schemes, pass blocking schemes, and new things that the Patriots offense needed to do. They didn't do that in this situation. Ultimately, what they ended up doing was cutting them in half and then

trying to even dumb it down a little bit to simplify the process. The process they wanted to call streamlining. Well, we all know that that didn't really do that. There wasn't a proper contingency plan in place. The attempt to simplify only led to more questions on the horizon. And really, I think what was the biggest eye-opener in all of this report to me was that guys in the locker room were asking what's going to happen with the defense or when an opposing defense, I should say, does this, what happens when they do that. And you'd see that the coaching staff did not really account for that yet. A lot of the responses they were getting, well, we'll get to that when we get to that. Very un-Belichickian, very uncharacteristic of a New England Patriots team that always thought

three to four to sometimes five plays ahead, just did not really jive with what type of offense that the Patriots needed to run, really what their MO is all about. That Patriot way, Patriots lost that in a big way, and it looks like it started at the top. And according to the source, again, that attitude got us in trouble. I'm quoting verbatim here from Karen and Andrew's piece. So notwithstanding all of the friction that the Patriots personnel had to go through, it clearly had an effect on Mac Jones. Apparently his relationship with quarterbacks coach Joe Judge wasn't the best in the world. A lot of drawing going back and forth.

Apparently a lot of drawing going back and forth between Joe Judge and Bill Belichick, if you can believe it. Not exactly a really cohesive relationship there as well, folks. So this was a disaster from start to finish. And Bill O'Brien has his work cut out for him. Is he the guy that can come in and be the glue to hold this Patriots locker room together, especially on the offensive side of the ball? Well, we're going to bring in today one of our favorites here on Locked On

Patriots, a mainstay because not only is he the perfect guy to be able to talk to about offensive scheming, but he also happens to know the authors of this police pretty well. One in particular, and that is our good friend Thomas Murphy of E2G Sports. The Murph man is in the house and we're going to be talking all things this report, Patriots offense, whether Bill O'Brien is the right guy and what his thoughts are on all this when this episode of the Locked On Patriots podcast continues. But first, folks, please remember that today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at PrizePix. And PrizePix is daily fantasy made easy.

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So don't forget to enter the promo code locked on at signup for an instant deposit match up to $100. PricePicks.com. Patriots fans, once again, we continue to break down the recent reports out there of tension within the Patriots locker room. Not pretty much anything that we didn't already know, but a lot of things that went a little below the surface and here today to help flush those out and to give his opinion is one of our favorites here on the pod i'm welcoming in my good buddy thomas murphy columnist extraordinaire

of e2g sports.com and murph while this report from the boston herald on thursday is certainly not anything overarching that we probably didn't already know. There are a lot of intricate details here that are definitely eye-opening. Some criticisms of the Patriots coaching staff, a little bit of a finger being pointed in Bill Belichick's way a little bit more than it has in seasons past. First of all, what was your reaction to the report? What did it tell you that you didn't already know? And what did it tell you that you did already know? Well, I, uh, a lot of the things that, um, that we did already know, cause I've, I've

talked to Karen Grigian on a number of occasions on, you know, just, just between the two of us and, and of course on, uh, on one Patriots play, she's a frequent guest, you know, one of our Mount Rushmore type guests, if you will. So we've talked about most of the things that were spoken about in her article today. The lack of confidence in Matt Patricia. That's something that was quite evident to everybody that was in that Patricia. That's something that was quite evident to everybody that was in that building and anybody watching, quite frankly, this year. The fact that a lot of the players just didn't think that Matt,

or not that he didn't think, but they thought that Mac was unfairly tested this year. You know, he had the rug pulled out from under him with all the work that he did in the offseason with those wide receivers and everybody else that was involved. And then to have this new offense installed by people that didn't know the offense. Those are the things that we knew. Okay. We, we, we heard Kendrick Bourne, uh, throughout the year, criticize what was going on, um, in the, uh, in the, uh, the planning room and the lack of knowledge of this system. And the fact that, you know, uh, Matt Patricia was fine when things were scripted out, but there was, there was no plan B when you got to the line.

We often said, why isn't Mac calling audibles at the line? Because there weren't any to call. This is the play. This is how we're going to run it. This is what's going to happen. And there's not much to check out too. So there goes the predictability. What I didn't know and nobody out there knew was the complete turn that Joe Judge went under midway through the season.

They say October, November. Bill was kind of getting into it with Joe Judge. Joe Judge was being phased out of the offense. And quite frankly, the way people felt about Joe Judge in that building. Yeah, that was a real eye-opener to me. I'm quoting directly from the story right here. And everything that we had ever heard, I had been in the room with Joe Judge when he had conducted press conferences this year, even previously when he was here in New England before his head coaching stint in New York with the Giants.

And you heard some of these reports coming out of New York that may be a little bit too overly aggressive, maybe a little bit too overly anxious to show his machismo, for lack of a better term. I'm trying to be very diplomatic in the way I say this, but it really did surprise me because we heard a lot of criticism about Patricia outwardly this year without any question. And I think a lot of it was warranted because one standing you know he was exactly you're standing there with the call sheet exactly so i mean there's no question as to why he became under fire but when you hear about the criticism from within and i think really what was dimming in this situation is you hear that he's going back and forth with uh belichick during crap during practices um profan's going back and forth with Belichick during practices, profanity going back and forth between the two. Matt Jones really having almost no trust in his positional coach.

That really explains a lot when you take a look at the struggles that Matt had this year. So it really is, I think, a difficulty when you look at the Patriots and you look at what they had to do. I think it's going to be interesting now to see what's going to happen moving forward. And we're going to get into Bill O'Brien in just a moment, but I want to get this report. It's just due because there's so much here to digest. But the fact that he was essentially stripped or really maybe stripped is probably, I think,

maybe an overaggressive word, but his duties were much less throughout the season. Yeah, that really surprised me. That was really, I think, the big eye-opening. That and the conflict that he had with Belichick because you didn't hear a whole bunch of that going on when he was here coaching special teams. You really didn't. It was a man that knew his job and knew it well when he was coaching special teams, he was just trying to prove himself to a bunch of people that knew more than he did. Even the other positional coaches, it seems like if you read through this, you don't even have to read through the lines.

Other positional coaches were correcting him as he walked away to the players. No, this is how it needs to be done. He's not right about this. And that was really, really eye-opening. And at some point in time, I'm not quite sure why anybody didn't say, Joe, just go down on the lower field and work with the special teams unit because they certainly needed the help and you were good there. You're out of your element here.

You really are. And my father used to always say that 95% of being a smart individual is knowing what you're stupid at. And it just seems like Joe Judge didn't even understand that he didn't know what he was talking about. Yeah, I think so. I think in a lot of ways, we're seeing that come to fruition.

And that leads me quite nicely into my next question for you, Bud, is I alluded earlier when we spoke and I alluded earlier when I opened the show today that the finger was pointed in Bill Belichick's direction, maybe a little bit more than we've seen in recent memory on this. How much piece of burden does he deserve

to have placed on his shoulders for the discord that apparently was pretty rampant within the Patriots locker room, not just between Judge and Mac Jones, but you heard a lot of the positional players getting involved. You wonder the identity of the sources. I know the Herald is going to protect those as they should, but it really is interesting to think about who might be the deep throat here. Right. I have a feeling I know who the deep throat here is, but I'm not going to get into that. I would never do that to the great people over there at the Herald.

A large piece of it goes to Bill Belichick. Okay. The buck stops at Belichick. Okay. This was his idea. This was his baby. Okay. I was his idea. This was his baby. Okay. I don't care who talked him into it.

He sat there and as Karen said on my show, he's of the ilk that coaches coach, and it doesn't matter what you ask them to coach. They should be able to coach it. And it's, it's, it's not 1989 anymore. It's not 1999 anymore.

You can't do that now. Okay. To be an offensive mind in this offensive-minded NFL, you really need to be a specialized individual. You need to be able to speak the language. Okay. And they're, they're, Karen even brought that up in the article, whether it were Karen or Callahan, I'm not sure who the quotes came from was they changed the verbiage for the offensive line.

It went from a numbers based system to a words based system to a numbers based system. And yeah, and it was, was just um it was what they wanted them to do was quite confusing and if the guys on the interior uh don't know what they what they need to do on each and every play it gets it gets to be uh frustrating it gets to me maddening and sooner or later it gets to be uh helmet throwing and finger pointing and these guys did not have that particular group set or ready um with this new system that they tried to bring in and by the time they backed it up yeah to what it was it was too late yeah very good point very very good point because you mentioned the difficulties that everybody had in that room don't forget matt patricia is the offensive line coach as well right and if you're drawing up schemes and you're drawing up foreign

type plays that the patriots or you know organization and their offense typically is not employed before that mcveighan type run-based system that incorporates the outside zone. That's not something that's easy to incorporate. When you change the scheme of what these linemen are used to as well, it's going to lead to a mountain of confusion. And that is, I think, a real, real big piece to take away from this. You can't meld the two without it completely mapped out. And that's what, what Patricia and judge didn't do, what they didn't, they didn't arm this team with, they didn't arm this offense with what happens if a happens, what happens if B happens,

what happens if C happens? That's, that's the Patriot way. That's the way, that's the reason Tom Brady and anybody else that was under and anybody else that was under center here for the last 20 years was able to do. Right up to Mac Jones in his rookie season. That wasn't the case this season. And it completely falls on those two. It's not A. It's B, C, and D when you get to the line and you look across and you see what's,

what you're facing. Right. And they didn't have them ready for that. Yeah. It was just a wing it. It's just a wing it. You and I can come in here and wing it because we've been doing this for a very long time together. Okay. Well, we don't, but you could. All right. And you can't do that in the nfl you just can't and be successful and that's what that's what matt patricia did that's what matt patricia and joe judge did they didn't have a game plan they didn't know what they were doing they didn't know how to teach what they didn't know and they didn't know. And just to circle back around,

it goes back to Bill and thinking that coaches can just coach and it doesn't matter what they coach. It does. It really does. Yeah, it really does. Yeah, it truly does. And, you know, I think it's a situation where maybe a lot of us, myself included, tried to convince ourselves that this was going to work maybe a lot of us, myself included, tried to convince ourselves that this was going to work maybe a little bit better than it did. But kudos to the people that saw the handwriting on the wall and really, really, I think, realized that this was not going to be

the ultimate fit that everybody thought it was going to be. So yeah, I think that in so many ways, the New England Patriots are learning from this experience. And this report, I think, brings into sharp view what a lot of people had feared. But the good news is, Murph, is that help is on the way. Bill O'Brien officially named the offensive coordinator for the Patriots. They have issued a statement, folks. It is official. He is in the building, or actually, I should say, on his way to the East-West Shrine game right now.

But he is in the fold. So what does that mean for Mac Jones and the New England Patriots? Is Bill O'Brien the right guy, not just to mend the fences that are broken on the field, but also in the locker room? Murph and I are going to discuss that in just one moment when this episode of the Lockdown Patriots podcast continues. But first, folks, the NFL playoffs are here, and today's episode is brought to you by our good friends over at FanDuel.

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combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with the same game parlay all on the app that's easy to safety it's safe to use easy secure you'll love it we do already so football fans don't miss out place your first five dollar bet to get 150 in free bets, win or lose, at FanDuel.com. Make every moment more with FanDuel, the official sportsbook partner of the NFL. Patriots fans, the great Thomas Murphy of E2GSports.com joins us for the second time this week. It was so nice the first time, we decided to do it twice. And boy, do we have a lot to dissect because there's a lot of stuff, Murph, coming out of Foxborough. We've been talking about the Boston Herald's report from Andrew Callahan.

And we could, we really, really could. Phenomenal piece by both Andrew and by Karen Geregian. Two of the best in the business, two very trusted reporters. And you know that the sources that they're using are people they've vetted, people that they're comfortable with. So in a lot of ways, it's disturbing as Patriots fan to read some of what's in this report. At the same time, you also have to feel some optimism because it's no longer going on in the building. Apparently Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, Mac Jones, everyone, Matt Patricia, Joe Judge included, have realized that this just did not work in 2022 and in 2023 they needed a new voice a new a new capo regime in town murph as i wrote in

for sports illustrated yesterday matt patricia is no longer no and what this means now is that bill o'brien is the new voice in the room And a lot of people have speculated that Bill is going to come in. He's going to toughly coach Mac. He's going to be the guy that's not afraid to spread the offense, incorporate the two tight ends, take deep shots from play action, all the things we wanted to see this year, but we did not see. That being said, Bill doesn't necessarily have the warm and fuzzy aura around him that really that a guy that's going to come in, mend fences, lead everyone by the hand in a chorus of kumbaya. This is not

something that I think is going to happen. So that being said, Murph, knowing what we know now about the fractured nature of the Patriots locker room, is Bill O'Brien the right choice, the proper choice? Can he mend those personal fences that also seem to have been fractured by the Patricia Judge experiment last year? Yeah, without a doubt. Bill O'Brien, no, he is not the warm, fuzzy guy. He is a Bostonian Irish Catholic kid that is going to come in and sit down and immediately get the respect that

he deserves. Are you good? Not, not to pull things back. These guys just, they, they weren't respected. We've talked about this dozens of times, you know, um, the, the, the men on the offensive line, um, needed a coach and they knew that they knew more than the coach that was trying to tell them what to do. That's not going to be the case with the offense with Bill O'Brien there. This is a man who's experienced. This is a man that has run offenses in the NFL, has run offenses and teams at the collegiate level, at the highest level of the collegiate level, the highest level of the NFL level. This is a man who was a head coach and a GM at one point in,

in Houston. And don't, don't, don't try to hang any of the issues in Houston on Bill O'Brien. Okay. That was, that was, you know, it would, we'd need six hours. We really would folks. We'd need six hours. Um, you know, we'd need six hours. We really would, folks. We'd need six hours. Yeah, you're right. But no. You're absolutely right.

Just walking into the building, the respect that this man commands without demanding is unreal. And that's basically what Joe Judge was trying to do. He was trying to make it so the loudest man in the room was the man that was right. And that's never the case. Okay. Well, I wouldn't call O'Brien a quiet leader. We've all seen him scream at the likes of Tom Brady on the sidelines.

And he was right that day, by the way. Oh yeah. He was right. That day. It's, going to click on a different level. When you sit down in a room with a professor that you know has taught this subject for the last 30 years, there's more respect given. There's more attention paid than the teacher's assistant that came in to teach that class on that afternoon because he called out sick because the professor was off somewhere else. O'Brien is the man. He's somebody, we asked for last year when these rumors first started flying around. Why not bring O'Brien back?

And people stop talking about the retread stuff. NFL head coaches have done this for decades. Okay, you move somewhere, you take your coaching staff with you. You take your best players with you. You take your best players with you. When somebody comes open and you have a job, job to fill and Hey, there's a guy that I've worked with for over a decade that gets, gets me, gets along with me and can really push, push my buttons, not push my butt, but push the right buttons. The buttons that I need pushed when I need a little pushback on something becomes available. You go and get them. And I do, I put, I put a little pushback on something, becomes available, you go and get them. And I do. I put a lot of blame on Bill for putting his friendship with the Alabama head coach

ahead of the New England Patriots at times because Bill O'Brien should have been in here last year. Yeah, and I think it might have made for a much smoother sophomore season for Mac Jones. Oh, without a doubt. Look, bottom line, Mac is going to be coached hard. You know he's going to be by Bill O'Brien. And I think Mac is relishing this. I think he's welcoming it. Because I think what you need, and I think Mac realizes this as well as anyone,

is he needs that type of writing. Almost like, you know, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. It kind of is. You know, you need that tough love situation where it's going to bring out the best in you as an NFL quarterback. Mack Jones needs this kind of offensive coordinator. Mack Jones doesn't need the offensive coordinator that he's going to scream at from the huddle and then come back over at the end of the game and say,

It's all good, we're good no he needs he needs the he needs the the oc that's going to tell him shut up all right don't ever do that to me again and bench him when he does and that will happen and that will happen and that will happen without question and i think the other thing don't turn and wave don't turn and wave Bill O'Brien off. Don't do it. No, no, no. And I don't think... Honestly, I don't think that would happen on either side. I don't think that would enter Mac's mind, and I don't think Bill would tolerate it.

So I think you're going to see an end to those sideline tirades. But the one thing that I think is important to remember here, that Bill O'Brien is coming in, and he's not coming in to be the warm and fuzzy guy Murph I thought you you articulated that perfectly just by giving the direction that the Patriots did not have last year in this locker room that makes Bill O'Brien so valuable right now because what he's doing is he's going to come in institute an offense that spreads the ball around you're not going to have guys like Jacoby Myers if he's still here. You're not going to have guys like Ramondre Stevenson being burnt out and really talking about how they need to use the offseason to get healthy. These guys were overworked.

They were overutilized to the point where you started to see the body start to break down. And you can't have that. That's going to mend that relationship i think you're going to see guys like kendrick born john and smith maybe even a hunter henry get back into the good graces of this offense because they are professional pass catchers especially henry and born i think you're going to see a lot of them this year taekwon you're going to see the occasional deep shot down the field phil o'brien knows how to scheme for this type of an offense. That's why he is the right fit. He's not a perfect hire, but he's the right hire for this team. And I think that's why his presence alone is necessary. And really, I think enough to be able to heal what's wrong with the New England Patriots. So Murph, as we take our leave from this report, because

quite frankly, it was that good and that poignant that i thought deserved its own show today um any more parting shots anything else that you think our um our listening public should be aware of here uh when it comes to the patriots moving forward yeah gerard mayo keep a very very close eye on marcus jones because bill o'brien is in the building right now. And he might just take him right out of your room and put him over there in his. Nope. Sorry. Yeah, you know, a lot of people are clamoring for that. I think Marcus could be one of the best slot receivers out there in the game right now. Oh, without a doubt.

With that type of speed and that type of explosion. He has the ability to do it. I loved what I saw from him as a corner this year. I think that's where they keep him. But kid is racking up off-season accolades. He's PFWA, All-Pro Punt Returner, All-AFC, All-NFL. And then you also look at being on the rookie team. This kid truly is something special.

Every time I see him get an award, I love to uh from my college just a little bit uh for uh for no i was far from being the only one folks far from it uh but that's i was just i really loved this kid coming out of the university at houston and i talked about him even before the patriots had drafted him and just to see him come in and do what we all hoped he could do uh is really a reward in and of itself. So great job, Marcus. And yeah, I think it's just leading to an interesting time in New England this year, Murph. And it's going to be continuing to be an interesting time. What I'm always grateful for is that you always take the time to, you know, whenever I need the handoff, you're there to accept it. And what can I say, man? I really do appreciate it before i let you go

please the floor is yours anything that you would like to plug that you have coming from the great and the great voice of thomas murphy until we see each other again on monday my friend because lockdown murph mondays don't go anywhere yeah no uh not a lot of writing going on right now um it's it's kind of a slow year i'm i'm diving deep my film study for my pre-draft rankings and things of that such. There's a lot of great writers over there at E2G Sports. Go on over and check out what they've got going on. They've got baseball, football, basketball, and even soccer. God, soccer, but it's good stuff.

Go on over and check that out. You can follow me at E2G sports. If anything tickles my fancy or something breaks like this story, you can read my story on Bill O'Brien coming back over there at E2G sports.com. And next week, Bob Sose is going to be joining us on one Patriots place with Klazzy Claire.

Don't don't miss that one. Oh, excellent. Definitely. We want to check that out and that is going to be happening without any questions so folks once again you can definitely check Murph out here on Monday but we are not done yet here on Locked On we got one special guest coming up for the week bringing you into the weekend in style Luke Robinson of Locked On Alabama here

on Friday to tell you a little bit about what Bill O'Brien, the offensive coordinator of the Crimson Tide, looked like and what his opinion is on whether or not he is the right guy to guide Mac Jones back into the discussion among the top quarterbacks in the league. Not necessarily in that direction, but we're going to go

there and he's going to give us his opinion. So download, subscribe to, follow Lockdown Patriots wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a second of the action. And now that you've made us your first listen, please make your second listen. Our good friends over at Locked On NFL, all the stories you need, everything covered, anything related to the shield, they're on it. So download, subscribe to follow Locked on NFL wherever you get your podcasts.

On behalf of my good friend, the legendary Thomas Murphy, I'm Mike DeBate. Stay safe. Stay well. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Have a great day, everyone.