Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Patriots Throwback Thursday: It Started in South Beach? - 1/16/2020

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

In the offseason’s first installment of Throwback Thursday, host Mike D’Abate takes a look back at the New England Patriots 43-0 victory over the Miami Dolphins on September 15, 2019. Although this will always be remembered as Antonio Brown’s first and only game in a Pats’ uniform, it also planted the seeds for some of the struggles that affected the Patriots throughout the 2019 season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello to all of you Foxborough faithful. It's Throwback Thursday here on Locked On Patriots, your daily home for news, notes, and analysis, seasoned with the occasional opinion on your six-time Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots. My name is Mike DeBate. I am your host of Locked On Patriots, which of course is a part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Feel free to reach out to me and to follow me on Twitter at MDABATEFPC. And while you're out there in the Twitterverse, please be sure to follow Locked On Patriots as well at LO underscore Patriots. Take me away.

I don't mind. Just promise me I'll be back in time. Rhodes, where we're going, we don't need Rhodes, folks. Yeah, you know I've been looking forward to this one for a while. Throwback Thursday, a chance to go back in time. But fair not, Patriots fans. Throwback Thursday is not going to be an excuse for me to start quoting one of my favorite all-time movies. Yeah, I already got that out of my system.

You know I love Back to the Future. I've never held that back. Throwback Thursday here on Locked on Patriots is going to be a little bit of a different affair. Again, folks, feels kind of weird. It's AFC Championship Week. Usually, that means the Patriots are preparing for a game. Every year since 2011, they've done just that.

First time in a long time, Patriots are going to be home watching this one. And the two teams they'll be watching, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Tennessee Titans, both have something in common. They beat your New England Patriots this year. Kansas City beat them in the regular season. Tennessee beat them in the postseason. And as a result, the Chiefs and the Titans now will be facing off on Sunday for the right to make a trip to Miami and Super Bowl 54.

But if we're all being honest, folks, we probably figured that the Patriots were going to be the ones that were going to be making a trip to Miami, especially the way the season started. Starting the season 8-0, landslide victories, but then again they found ugly ways to win as well. Pats were making plays on offense, and they were riding a very strong defense to a lot of these victories. It had an old-school feel to it. Maybe even a throwback feel to it. But now that we've entered the offseason here in New

England, we have the ability of 2020 hindsight. Yes, folks, that pun was intended. But seriously, here in 2020, we have the ability to look back at what happened in 2019. And even early on in the season, there were some warning signs that this might be a different year and a different ending than we were all hoping for. And brace yourselves, folks, here comes another Back to the Future reference. But when Doc Brown and Marty McFly were looking for ways to fix the problems that were caused from the present and the future, they had to look to the past, and they had to identify the moments at which things started to unravel. I'm far from being a scientist, so I'm not going to bore you with all kinds of talk about the space-time continuum, but here on Throwback

Thursday, I thought it would be a good idea to take a trip back in time, hop into our Belichickian DeLorean, and travel back to September 15th, the Patriots' 43-0 victory over the Miami Dolphins. Now you might be asking yourself, well why would you bother doing that? It's probably the Patriots' most lopsided victory for the year. It showed that everything was all well and good. Not so fast, folks. There were some elements of that game that led us to believe this could end up being a problematic year for the Pats. Didn't see it at the time. I'll be honest. I didn't.

But when you look back at it, you'll see that there were a couple of things, especially that happened in that game, that set the tone for the year. But before we turn the time circuits on here on Locked On Patriots, we start with the news of the day. And for a nice breath of fresh air, folks, it's not speculation or what ifs or who did this or who did that. It's about accolades, and it's about well-deserved accolades for one guy who truly deserves all the awards and praise that he's going to get, and that is Stephon Gilmore.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Pro Football Writers of America announced their selection of Gilmore as its 2019 Defensive Player of the Year. Considering the season he had, folks, this was not a surprise. Gilmore had his most consistent and his most dominant season of his career. He ranked first in passes defended with 20. He was tied for first in the NFL with interceptions with six of them, including two which were returned for touchdowns. Without question, Stephon was the top defensive back for the Patriots this year, and that means he was always given the task of defending the opponent's most effective receiver,

and he scarcely disappointed in that role. He allowed just one touchdown in 17 games. That includes New England's wildcard round loss to Tennessee, and according to Pro Football Focus, he only surrendered more than 55 yards receiving just twice. Simply an amazing year for Stephon Gilmore. But to make this award just a little sweeter, he's actually the first New England Patriot to win this honor. He's also only the third cornerback to win it since the PFWA members began voting in 1992. He joined some very elite company here, folks. Think about this for a moment.

Gilmore now gets to etch his name alongside Charles Woodson, who won the award in 2009, and Deion Sanders, who won the award in 1994. Amazing company, and Stephon definitely deserves this honor. And all of us here in Pat's Nation certainly hope that this is not the last honor that Stephon will be getting this year, but keep in mind it wasn't the first either. So far, Gilmore has also been honored with a 2020 Pro Bowl selection and spots on the PFWA's All-NFL team, and he was a unanimous selection to the Associated Press' first team All-Pro. And while we're at it, I think it's worth a reminder that on January 5th,

Stephon was awarded with the fourth annual Ron Hobson Good Guy Media Award, and he was presented with that award by the New England Sportswriters. And that award is for being the most helpful, available, and accommodating Patriots player this season. I can tell you from personal experience, folks, that's not an award that's handed out very easily. A lot of the guys that have received it in the past, like Matthew Slater, James White, Devin McCourty, they are so respected in that locker room, not only among their teammates, but among the media members. Stephon definitely earned that award this year. It really speaks volumes as to the level of growth and maturity he's shown since his days as a Patriot began.

But Gilmore is the type of guy that would tell you that the accolades that mean the most of him is the praise and admiration from his teammates. When you're a cornerback, the most meaningful praise that you can get is from an offensive skill position player, namely a wide receiver. If you're a New England Patriot, who better to praise you than Julian Edelman? And Edelman was recently asked by reporters about Gilmore, and he offered this quote that I think provides great insight to what his teammates think of him. And he said, quote, he's a monster.

I get to battle against him every day. I love getting to do it because he makes me better. He's got a knack for the ball. He's confident. He's got that steady mind. He's never up and he's never down. He barely talks. But when he does talk, it's usually about football. And I love the conversations we have. We'll talk about players. How's this guy? How's that guy? I'll ask him how a certain corner is because he studies the game just like I study

the game. It's unbelievable to have a teammate like him and you're just seeing the tip of it. That's pretty humbling praise coming from a guy like Julian Edelman, but if you go up and down that Patriots locker room, you'll find very similar sentiments and very similar statements that would be made. So definite congratulations to Stephon Gilmore on this award. However, folks, keep in mind, the Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year Award, that's the quote-unquote big one, that's going to be awarded at the NFL Honors Ceremony on Saturday, February 1st, day before

the Super Bowl. It should be noted that the PFWA recipient has also won the AP Award in four of the last five seasons and 22 out of the last 25 overall. So it's looking good for Stephon, not a slam dunk, but I think this is a great indication that this is not the final award that he'll be winning this year. And it should come as no surprise to you that Stephon Gilmore factors very prominently into the throwback theme we have going here on today's episode of Locked On Patriots. In just a moment, we'll take our talents to South Beach, back in time style to September

15th and a matchup between the Patriots and the Miami Dolphins. But first, I don't need to remind you again, folks, that it is Conference Championship Week. Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs taking on Derrick Henry and the Titans. Old friend Jimmy Garoppolo and the San Francisco 49ers host Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. It still doesn't feel right that the Patriots are not there, but I digress, folks. Time will be up for two of the teams playing this weekend.

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Sunday, September 15th, 2019. Hard Rock Stadium, 1 o'clock PM. I hope you enjoyed the ride in our Belichickian DeLorean. After all, Marty did warn us, the re-entry is a little bumpy, and it certainly was. And here on Throwback Thursday, we're delving into the past a little bit. But you know what? The Patriots entered this game on September 15th, delving into the past of their own. They remembered the previous trip to Miami from 2018. That ended in the infamous Miami miracle. But this time around, your New England

Patriots ensured that this trip to South Beach was not going to end in any type of miraculous loss. This time, they were not going to leave anything to chance. There would be no stunning defeat on a last-second Dolphins pass and a double lateral. Instead, the Patriots dominated this contest from start to finish. Antonio Brown, he was a Patriot in 2019? Oh yes he was, folks, for one game. This game.

And it might just be, arguably, the most high-profile and memorable one-game stint that a player has ever had with an NFL team in the history of the league. And yes, folks, I will be talking about Antonio. But let's get back to the action on the field here. And Brown had a big impact on the field in this one. He caught a 20-yard pass from Tom Brady and a touchdown, and New England's highly touted defense scored twice on interception returns in a two-minute span in the fourth quarter. In short, New England annihilated the Miami Dolphins 43-0 at Hard Rock Stadium, winning for only the second time in their past seven trips to Miami. Now in terms of the

action on the field here, folks, there really wasn't much that went wrong. Sonny Michel had a very productive game. He was the first Patriot to find the argyle pattern miami end zone on that sunday michelle scored on a one yard slice through miami's poorest defensive line tom brady was very brady like in this game he threw for 264 yards two touchdowns the first one was the second quarter strike to antonio brown his second was to james white with only 210 remaining in the fourth quarter at the time the pats were already holding a cruise-controlled 37-0 lead. At the time, most people were probably thinking, why is he still in the game? 37-0. This would be a great time to get our first look at the season at rookie Jared Stidham. Bill Belichick didn't think so.

He remembered what happened the year before. Brady remembered what happened the year before. And the Patriots were going to keep their proverbial foot hard-pressed to the accelerator. Tom was also credited with a rushing touchdown on a quarterback sneak in the third quarter. Now again, this game is probably going to be best remembered for being Antonio Brown's one and only game with the New England Patriots this year. He was the focus of much attention on that day. There was actually some question as to whether or not he was even going to suit up for this game. Remember, he had only been a Patriot for mere days. His signing with the Patriots was made public on September 7th. On September 10th, which was the Tuesday before this game on the 15th,

news broke that Brown's former trainer had filed a civil lawsuit that alleged three instances of sexual assault. Many, including myself, questioned whether or not Brown would even be allowed to play. Would he be placed on the commissioner's exempt list? Well, on this not Brown would even be allowed to play. Would he be placed on the commissioner's exempt list? Well, on this Sunday, he would be allowed to play. He was active, and he made his presence felt. I'm not going to lie to you, folks. The 20-yard touchdown and the connection between he and Brady was a real thing of beauty to watch from a pure football perspective.

Nobody was more excited about it than Brown. He celebrated this touchdown by vaulting into the first row of the Hard Rock Stadium seats. Don't forget, he's a Miami native. It was important for him to make a good impression on his new team and show off in front of his hometown crowd. He did both. He also made a good first impression right off the bat. His first reception in a Patriots uniform was an 18-yard catch. All in all, he finished the game with 56 yards on four receptions, all in the first half. But it would only go downhill from there when it came to the Patriots and Antonio Brown. And we will get to that in a moment, folks. But back to the positives. And for the second straight game, New England's defense

started to show why they were going to emerge as the true strength of this team. Not only did the Patriots defense shut out the Miami offense, they outscored them by 12 points, two pick sixes, two interception returns for touchdowns, 54 yards by Stephon Gilmore, and 69 yards by Jamie Collins. They were also extremely effective in getting pressure on Ryan Fitzpatrick and even Josh Rosen, who saw some time in this game as well. The defense totaled seven sacks, four interceptions, and the defensive shutout earned the Pats their most lopsided win in the 100-game history of their series with the Dolphins. Fast forward to December 29th, and it is still a head-scratcher as to how the Patriots lost that one. But that's a conversation for another day. On September 15th,

in South Beach, the Patriots were determined to put in a full 60-minute effort. Bill Belichick had been touting all week long to the media, his team, about how in the previous year, in 2018, the Patriots had only played 59 minutes and 53 seconds. You think Bill Belichick forgot the Miami miracle? Not a chance. Despite his on-the-Cincinnati persona, I can tell you, Bill Belichick has a long memory, and he didn't let his team forget that either. That was a big reason for the Patriots winning this game in such lopsided fashion. Because they had already beat their previous week's opponent,

the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the home opener 33-3, this 43-0 victory ensured that in two games, the Patriots had outscored their opponents by a combined score of 76-3. At that point, they were looking like every bit of a juggernaut. Antonio Brown looked to be a great fit here in New England. The Patriots' linebackers and defensive ends were starting to round into the quote-unquote boogeymen that they would become later in the season. Stephon Gilmore was showing signs of why he would end up being the eventual defensive player of the year as voted by the PFWA. Keep in mind, at the time of this recording, the AP award is not

out yet. But everything was looking great in this game, right? Not so fast. I alluded to this earlier, folks. This game actually started to plant some of the seedlings of a lot of the problems that the Patriots would have throughout the 2019 season. What do I mean by that? Well, I'll get to that in just a moment. But taking a trip into the Wayback Machine here on Throwback Thursday allows me to close the book on the chapter of Antonio Brown in New England. And folks, anyone that might be still clinging to the hopes that we might see Antonio Brown

in a Patriots uniform next year, I never say never to anything, but I can tell you I can't think of a scenario in the NFL that is more unlikely. I don't want this to be an episode that's going to turn into, look at what Antonio's doing now, but just take a look at some of the social media stuff that's going on out there, and you'll understand why this guy was jettisoned from the New England Patriots. From a pure football perspective, Antonio could have made a great New England Patriot, but ultimately, it's his own behavior that's the reason why he's no longer here. It's not the media running him out of town.

It's not Robert Kraft being cowardly. It's simply because he just couldn't stop himself from making his situation worse. But still, I know a lot of you have that sense of what might have been. And look, when you take a look and you break down his performance in this game, it was pretty good. He didn't start, remember, but he did take the field. His first offensive series with the Patriots was all about he and Tom Brady. He found a soft spot in the middle of Miami's zone, hauled in his first hookup with Tom. He wound up with three catches on that initial offensive series, and in fact, he was the only player targeted by a Brady pass on that opening 10-play possession.

So if you think the Patriots weren't ready to showcase and utilize him, take a look at that drive. It'll show you he was going to be an integral part of what they wanted to do offensively. But they did it in a smart way, and I credit Josh McDaniels on this. Josh scripted out a number of early plays that really focused on getting Brown the ball and allowing him to utilize his talents. Tom's first touchdown pass of the day, again, it went to Brown. It was a very pretty back shoulder throw just inside the pylon, and there really wasn't much to the rote, but with Brown's physical abilities paired with Brady's incredible accuracy, there really didn't need to

be for it to work. And as Rick Blaine once said in Casablanca, it looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But keep this in mind too, folks. After the five receptions in the first half, one of which went for a touchdown, Brown didn't haul in another reception, and there were a couple of reasons for that. It's not like Brady didn't try to target him again, he did try to find him three times when the Patriots moved the ball into the red zone. The first one looked like just a blatant miscommunication. Brady threw it outside when Antonio broke in. That resulted in an incompletion. The second one, I have to put that on Tom.

His throw was off target. And on the third one, the two looked to be on the same page, but Brown just missed the hauling in. But again, give credit to Tom Brady and Josh McDaniels in this situation. Instead of continuing to force the ball to Antonio, they realized that maybe there was some field rust on his part, and they needed to develop a better connection. They didn't go to him all that much in the second half, and that's pretty much the reason why. Antonio even went on to say after the game that he was working to get in better shape. So even though he was already in pretty good shape, conditioning could have played a

role there as well. Ultimately, though, this game did show that Antonio Brown could have provided the Patriots with a greater amount of offensive firepower. At the very least, he appeared to understand the offense. That's not so easy to do here in New England. We've seen a number of very prolific and talented wide receivers come into Foxborough and all of a sudden not have the ability to be as prolific or as productive as they had been in previous systems. That didn't appear to be the case with Brown. He looked like, on the field anyway, a guy that had figured out Foxborough. And even though there were some kinks to be worked out, Ian Brady could have put up some big numbers together.

But again, folks, even with the perception that the Patriots' wide receivers massively underperformed this year, which I think is a little bit of an exaggeration, they were still better off without Antonio Brown on this team. The off-field distractions and the uncertainty of what he was going to do and when he was going to do it just made it too much for the Patriots to tolerate any longer. This game provided a nice little snapshot of what could have been, but ultimately, it was Antonio's behavior that derailed that train. But besides Antonio Brown, what else were the causes for concern in this game for future Patriots production? Well, let's just say this game

laid the seedlings for the injury bug. And before we turn the time circuits back on and head back to 2020, I'll get into how two injuries in particular helped to shape the Patriots' 2019 season. Pats fans, before we head back to the future in just a moment, there was a specific reason why I chose this game to feature on Throwback Thursday. Yes, it provided a nice little glimpse into the what-ifs of the Antonio Brown saga. But when I look back on the Patriots' 2019 season, this game stood out for me a little bit above the rest. And it was because of injuries to two key players. And that would plague the Patriots throughout the 2019 season. One was to kicker Steven Gostowski, and the other was to Isaiah Wynn. Now, within the course of this game, Isaiah Wynn actually suffered the injury that

would place him on injured reserve and would mean that he wouldn't see action again until November. That was a big loss on the Patriots' offensive line. I'll get into that one in a moment. But when I took a look at the statistics in this game, Steven Gostowski may have had his worst statistically kicking game in his career. It had so many in Patriots Nation, fans and media alike, calling for his release, saying that he had lost it, people saying it was a mental block and he could no longer kick. I even saw someone on Twitter compare him to Chuck Knobloch back in the late 90s, early 2000s, when he was playing second base for the New York Yankees. All of a sudden, Knobloch,

who had been a gold glover at the position, couldn't throw to first base. He just lost the ability to throw. What was Gostowski's stat line in this? Well, it starts with a missing of a 48-yard field goal and missing of two extra point tries. Now, the saving grace in this game, of course, is that the Patriots didn't need any of those points to beat Miami. But it did start to raise the eyebrows of Patriots Nation.

People were concerned about their kicker. Right here on Locked On Patriots, back in September, when I recapped this game, I tried to use some of my glass-half-full philosophy, and I tried to put Patriots fans' mind at ease by saying that he didn't have the best of luck when kicking in Miami. Going back to 2018, he missed two kicks last year in South Beach, and if you looked at it over the past five seasons, 2017 is the only one in which he emerged from South Florida without missing at least one field goal attempt. But ultimately, folks, we would find out just a couple of weeks later that it wasn't a Miami malaise that was bothering Steven Gostowski. It was a hip injury. And in

early October, it was reported that Gostowski needed season-ending hip surgery and that his 2019 season was over when he was placed on injured reserve. And that set off a chain reaction in the Patriots' kicking game. They ended up signing Mike Nugent, Young-Wei Koo, brought in Kai Forbath for a little bit, and Nick Folk was the guy that really took the majority of the snaps. Folk did a fairly good job. He kicked very efficiently, but distance was always a concern when it came to Folk, and it did affect the Patriots in terms of their strategy, but not in the way you might think. I've seen a lot of people point to, oh, the Patriots went for it on fourth down a lot more.

Not really. If you take a look at the statistics this year, the Patriots went for it on fourth down 15 times. That puts them at the lower end of the middle of the pack in the NFL. Where it affected them was in punting attempts. The Patriots finished the season tied for second most in the NFL for attempted punts at 5.1. That tied them with the Chicago Bears, and they trailed only the New York Jets with 5.4.

That's where the impact was felt, folks. It put a lot of strain on rookie punter Jake Bailey, and look, for the majority of the season, he held up under that pressure. Replacing a guy like Ryan Allen is no easy task, and I thought Bailey brought it every single game. His distance was great. His accuracy was great. The only game that I would say he really, truly struggled from start to finish was in the final game of the season against the Tennessee Titans.

Not a great time to have your worst game of the season, but even then, he wasn't that bad, and if we're being honest, folks, he was far from the only reason why the Patriots struggled in that game. But again, here today on Throwback Thursday, we have the benefit of 2020 hindsight. You can see now that this planted the seeds for some of the difficulties that the Patriots would have in the kicking game all year, and it would affect them, especially offensively. There was another offensive injury that set the Patriots' plans in a little bit of disarray, and this one was more overt. It came in the first half, and it was as a result of an injury

to offensive tackle Isaiah Wynn. Earlier in the podcast, I talked about Sonny Michel and the early success he had in running the football and finding the end zone. Wynn was a really big part of that. Wynn was winning a lot of his battles up front. In the process, he was clearing space and allowed Sonny to hit the holes and have a great deal of success running the football. When he left the game in the first half, then things changed. All of a sudden, the edges of the offensive line were then occupied by Corey Cunningham and Marshall Newhouse. Newhouse has been the punching bag for the Patriots offensive line for the better part of the year. Some of that is his fault. There is no question about it. He struggled, but a lot of it is because he was forced to play out of position. Because Newhouse

had to play left tackle, that meant Corey Cunningham had to play right tackle. Don't forget, Marcus Cannon is their normal starting right tackle. He wasn't active for this game. He was out with an injury as well. They were already down to their backup center in Teddy Karras because David Andrews was out for the year with blood clots in his lungs. That left only Joe Tooney and Shaq Mason as the expected starters on the offensive line. The rest of it was makeshift.

Put it very mildly, Cunningham struggled. He was a healthy scratch for the better part of the year, folks, and this game helped you to understand why. He failed to provide any support for Shaq Mason, who really had a poor game as well. Mason was bullied a lot in this game by the Dolphins' defensive front and even was pushed directly back into Brady for a sack at one point. All in all on the day, Brady was sacked twice and was hit three times.

The running game, again, got out to a good start, but with Wynn gone, a makeshift line trying to protect him, it led to the Patriots only averaging 3.6 yards per carry in this game. The inexperience of the linemen in this game also saw them get called for four penalties. After this game was over, it was revealed that the injury that Isaiah Wynn had suffered was turf toe. It put him on injured reserve, and he wouldn't come back until mid to late November. That caused a lot of problems on the Patriots' offensive line, and even though they kept racking up wins, it exposed a lot of problems in the way they were able to protect Tom Brady. Brady was pressured, took a lot of early hits, and it forced him to throw the ball an awful lot, and throw the ball away an awful lot.

Threw off the timing with his receivers, and again, this is what led to a lot of the execution problems that the Patriots had this year. Because Brady was often throwing under duress, it caused two problems. Timing issues with his receivers. The talent was there with the receiver group that the Patriots had this year, folks. They just weren't converting. They weren't making catches. They weren't running routes correctly. That all adds up to problems when you're trying to put together a confident offense. And because their best run blocker in Isaiah Wynn was on the shelf for a good period of time, it forced the Patriots to abandon the running game a lot more than they wanted to. Tony Michel was very apprehensive in running into coverage.

It affected him all season long. Rex Burkhead, James White couldn't get the ball running at the line of scrimmage. That made James White a little bit more of a pass-catching threat, and because of that, he drew the attention of a defensive back more often than not. It prevented him from being as prolific as he possibly could have been. And I know a lot of people are probably listening to this right now and saying that's a bit of a stretch to get from a blowout win back in September. Again, folks, I'm not pointing to this game as the beginning of the end, but I'm simply

saying that when you take a look back at the 2019 season, Patriots' primary struggles were on offense and in the kicking game. And although at the time this game looked like the crown jewel of the era of good feelings in Foxborough, those issues that plagued the Patriots throughout the 2019 season can trace their breeding ground right back here, September 15, 2019 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida. And just like that, folks, the temporal displacement has taken place. We are now back here, January 16, Florida. And just like that, folks, the temporal displacement has taken place. We are now back here, January 16th, 2020. And I hope that you enjoyed this round-trip ride in the Belichickian time machine and your time travel experience here on Throwback Thursday. What are some of your favorite moments of 2019? What are some of the ones you might want to revisit? Do you have any

moments in time that you'd like to point to as a key moment in the 2019 season? I would love to hear your feedback. Please drop me a line on Twitter at MDABATEFPC, or you can use the Locked On Patriots Twitter account at LO underscore Patriots. Let me know what you think, and I would love to feature some of those here on Locked On Patriots on the Throwback Thursday segments, which will continue to be a staple here on Locked On Patriots right up until we're ready to begin the 2020 season. As always, I'll be back tomorrow to put a lid on the week that was here in Foxborough. I'll continue to bring you the latest news, notes, and analysis, and of course, the occasional

opinion when it comes to your New England Patriots. As always, please be sure to join me each and every day here on the Locked On Patriots podcast. Subscribe and download via your preferred podcast provider. Once again, I'm Mike DeBate. I thank you for traveling with me through time here today on Locked on Patriots. But most of all, I thank you for making me a part of your daily Patriots coverage and for staying locked in to Locked on Patriots.

Have a great day, everyone.