The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The new directions being taken in Seattle, D.C. and New England (we think)

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

The Seahawks, Commanders and Patriots will all have new coaches in 2024. That represents massive change in Seattle and New England, and necessary change in Washington. That change, however, means different things depending on the franchise. Robert Mays is joined by The Athletic NFL beat writers Michael-Shawn Dugar (Seahawks), Ben Standig (Commanders) and Chad Graff (Patriots) to dig into each team's situation on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Michael-Shawn on Twitter: @MikeDugarFollow Ben on Twitter: @BenStandigFollow Chad on Twitter: @ChadGraffSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Fun show for you guys today. We're going to be talking to a couple of our beat writers about the news over the last week. Some of the movement of these front offices at those head coaching spots. We're talking with Michael Sean Duggar, as our Seahawks writer at The Athletic, about Seattle moving on from Pete Carroll, what direction they may take their head coaching search.

Chatting with Ben Standig, our Washington football team writer, about Washington's decision to hire Adam Peters to be their new general manager, what their head coaching search would look like, the new direction that this franchise is taking under Josh Harris and that new ownership group. And we're also going to talk with our Patriots writer at the Athletic Chad Graf about everything that has happened in New England, the end of the Bill Belichick era, the start of the Gerard Mayo era, whether they're going to be taking this in a drastically new direction. Is it just kind of a continuation of some elements of what Belichick was there? So many fascinating questions lingering over. all three of these teams excited to dig into these conversations. Let's do it.

Joining us now, our wonderful Seattle Seahawks writer at The Athletic, it's Michael Sean Dugar. Michael Sean, how you doing, man? I am doing good. Robert, how are you? I'm doing great. We're deep into playoff time, but the nice part about this stretch of the calendar, you could say it's nice. Maybe it's not nice, is that along with all the playoff things we have to dig through, it is coach season. And the team that you cover made, I think, one of the most surprising decisions of this cycle thus far. Even if there were rumblings, even if you can look at his age and their lack of playoff success recently

and say, yeah, maybe I understand it. The news that the Seahawks were parting ways, whatever you want to phrase it with Pete Carroll, I think was a shock to people maybe outside of that Seattle bubble, that Seattle ecosystem. When you heard the news, what was your first reaction, the fact that Pete Carroll would no longer be the coach of the Seattle Seahawks? My very, very, very first when I got the notification,

was, okay, did he get fire? Or is he moving upstairs? That was my first thought because that got proposed to us on our Seahawks Man The Man Podcasts. Like everyone was asking all year like, hey, are they going to fire Pete? Or will he just like pull out? I think Brad Stevens does something similar with the Celtics of the NBA side. And I was always skeptical that he would do that just because I know how much Pete loves

ball. And anyone who watched his exit press conference, they saw it. Like he still wants to do this thing. I don't know if he has the juice to go like recruit college kids right now or a high school kid, but he's got the juice to still go out there and play scout team quarterback at 8.75. And he is not like a year or two away from walking off in the sunset. So I was like, all right, is he going to be fired or is he going to be an advisor or something like that executive assistant to the head coach or whatever, some weird role. So he obviously stepped into an advisory role.

It's very surprised to hear that. And then hearing him speak later in the day was like, oh, okay, he might not actually be doing it. thing. They just kind of told him to go away is what it sounds like and he can spend time with his family or do whatever he wants or play scout team quarterback with his grandkids. I don't know. And then that final thought, final two thoughts were, does John Snyder get full control now? The answer to that was yes, is very curious about that. John has never had that in 14 years with Pete Carroll. He's always had to cook up all these ideas, scout all these players, and then run it by someone else before acquiring them, which has to be kind of frustrating. And my final thought was,

was, well, I was so funny when you guys were on your podcast this week, you said something that I thought was very, very intuitive that Pete during his press conference said to John, it's your chair now, buddy, I hope you enjoy it.

And even that little acknowledgement, I think was a very, very important moment over the course of that day. Oh, yeah, because it's very rare that the GM has to do all of that work. John, you know what goes into scouting a player.

It's you got your area guy living in hotels and college towns in some random region of the country. country, away from his family, he's got a notebook full of stuff, you bring it all back, you all watch it as a scout team, or as a front office, and then you'll fall in love with the guy, you bring him in on a 30 visit. He's right there at pick 55, and then you're like, all right, Pete, what do you think? You know, you spent all this time loving this guy, and then maybe Pete's like, ah, yeah, I trust you guys, you know, go with your gut. Or maybe he's like, I don't know, man, I like this nose tackle that, you know, you guys mentioned to me earlier, you know,

and now they don't, I don't know if that's exactly how it goes, but you guys get the gist. that's a lot of work to eventually still have to defer when other guys, your other GM buddies, they don't have to defer. They can just go take who they want right or wrong. Especially guys with the standing in the league that John Schneider has. Think about the teams that he's built. He's won championships. It's been in the conversation for executive the year as recently as last year.

He's done this for over a decade. So he's not just any GM or any personnel guy. And for him to have to defer to Pete in those situations might be a little bit more difficult than somebody who's been at this for six months a year and has a guy like Pete Carroll working next to him. I understand that was the dynamic in 2010, but that is no longer the dynamic now. Yeah, that was a guy who built a Super Bowl roster having to be like, yeah, man, so what do you, what do you think? Can I take this guy? You know, so yeah, John was certainly on my mind on top of just wondering what the players thought. And then I put some fillers out initially. And there wasn't a lot

of shock. There was a lot of, yeah, man, I don't agree with it or yeah, man, I agree with it. but I can see how it was time. You know, and you could see the on-field product reflected that it was probably time for a new voice because the voice in there as great and is as full of juice and as legendary as it is was not getting to his players and coaches in a way that translated to winning. You know, and that's what you get fired. I've seen you say that in a couple different places. You talked about that on your podcast this week, and then you wrote about it and your story about Pete and that day,

just that the message that was being sent Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday was no longer being translated to Sunday. Why do you think that is? Why do you think it stopped reaching this particular set of players compared to other errors of the Seahawks that we had seen thrive? Yeah, I think part of it is there wasn't enough proof of concept for the new guys. And I thought about that during the season as well. So Pete Carroll's got this kind of reputation.

And the Seahawks do, of these dramatic late game finishes and playing this great defense and completing the circle of toughness. And when you go back and you listen to what got the other guys to buy in, the Doug Ball wins or even I was watching a Golden Tate interview last night. And K.J. Wright, Bobby Wagner, even Cliff Averill and Mike Bennett when they came in his free agents, when they bought in, you know, they saw it right away. They saw other badasses kicking, kicking butt, doing what coach said from Monday through Saturday. This old man is crazy. He's doing all this stuff. He's running through whiteboards. But then we went out and we beat the bills by like 30 in Toronto or something. like that. Or we dropped 50 on the Niners. Or we, you know, or Aaron Rogers doesn't target Richard

Sherman, right? Or we beat the saints in the playoffs. Or we smack the Cam Newton Panthers in the playoffs. Like, there was all these examples of like, oh, man, if we just do what dude says, even if he might be a little wonky and we hold ourselves accountable, we will go out there and we will get results. And you could, like, if you're a young kid on the team, I think Devin Willispoon might be like 22, 23, right? Like, he knows that in theory, that is correct. Not saying Devin wasn't listening, but I'm using his age as an example. Like Devin might know, hey, yeah, that's correct. Bobby tells me it's correct.

Some of the other guys around the building who are older, say, yeah, no, just do what Pete says. You guys might win championships. But it's not getting there. You know, you can say all these things Monday through Saturday if you want. But on Sunday, eventually you need to see the fruits of the labor. Seattle had a lot of late game-winning drives this year. But it was in a lot of games that they didn't feel should be close, with the exception of maybe beating Detroit in overtime.

The rest of them, they were like, man, we should have had to come back from behind with our offense. I think that was one part of it. And the other part was they just didn't have the same alpha dogs that that old group had. I remember talking to Chondre Diggs after they beat the Browns in whatever week that was.

That was when they wore the throwback jerseys. No, no, I think it was the Panthers. It was the Panthers game because they honored the 10-year anniversary of the Super Bowl team. And I remember that Quandre, he's kind of still close to those guys, you know, Cam's and Earls and all that, and obviously Bobby and KJ. And he was mentioning one of the biggest compliments

and say he's gotten is that those guys feel he could have played with them you know and that take that's a huge compliment from that legion of boon he'd be like hey bro you could have rocked like us and you just don't see many other guys on defense in particular who could have rocked with them not just from a talent standpoint but quandary's got that mentality like you know i'm not going back to where i'm from about to get it right here get these wins make my name get this contract and live a different life i ain't going back you know i don't think they have enough i ain't going back dudes right now and that those are hard to find, but when they had them is when they were at their peak. So interesting, because listening to guys in the Steelers locker room yesterday talking about

what that building feels like, Madjee Harris specifically, talking about how there's a lack of structure a little bit. And I think the Steelers have always leaned on their players to create culture. And I think sometimes we forget how important it is to have those four or five touchdown guys in the locker room that really set the vision and the feel of everything. Even if you have a guy who has been very good at that from the coach's seat like Tomlin and Carol have for a very long time. If you don't have the right guys on the player's side of it, sometimes that can fall apart.

And I think sometimes we forget that. Yeah, you know, that goes into a really interesting debate. So like KJ. Wright, for example, he's a big fan of like Pete and that Pete created the culture. Whereas Doug Baldwin is someone who's like, yes, he did. But players make the culture. Like we kept that thing together, just what you're alluding to, like, yes, Pete and Tomlins and Bellethex and Harbaugh's and even like Sean Payton, those guys were. there forever. They set this culture. Like, here's how we're going to rock in this organization.

But if you don't have the players, the culture will fail eventually. And the Pete Carroll-Ciach to that Legeon to Boom era, they kept it going. They held each other accountable. You couldn't be slacking. You couldn't be skipping meetings. You couldn't be not on your assignments. You couldn't be going 100% in practice. You know, you couldn't be holding, you're not holding yourself accountable. And if you didn't, that was culture, right? Pete didn't need to go over there and give somebody a talking to if they were like out late and missed a meeting or blew in assignment or word of one or peas and cues because cam chancer was going to be on your ass or old thomas was on the other side Doug balden was going to chew you out you know like your sydney rights even

in the earlier days like there were just all these levels of accountability that never even got to peep they didn't even have to go till the principal you know they had them like student dudes in the hallway making sure you wasn't just bugging around with your bathroom pass right and like i don't know if they had enough of that they had some of it but i don't think they had enough of it to overcome their talent deficiencies particularly uh on defense it's probably a little bit of both right Some of it's the coach, some of it's the players. At different times, it's coming from different directions. Because when you're at a place for this long, 10, 15 years,

I'm sure that the voices can fall on deaf ears after a certain amount of time. And with the Seahawks, it almost feels like it was a player-driven thing early on. But then I look at other situations that you could maybe compare it to, like New England, right? Bill Belichick's voice probably isn't going to get across for 20 straight years. But 10 years into that thing, that's when Tom Brady's voice takes over. At a certain point, you have different guys from different guys from different sources that create that edge. And one of the things that Pete said in his press conference that I thought was so interesting is that we lost our edge really. The edge to be great,

which was how we ran the football and how we played defense. It wasn't as good as it needed to be. And that's really it. That's all you need to know about why you end up making this sort of decision. So as they get here and as they make this choice, I'm curious outside of just the feel of the building and the culture ideas, what do you think were the most important missteps that led to this? Was it the defensive coordinator hires? Was it the lack of ability to kind of to find a new identity on defense. What actual practical decisions that they made over the last couple of years do you think ultimately brought them to this place? Yeah, I think really bad drafts from about 2013 to, I'll be nice and say 2017, the best players from those drafts

were basically Kyle Lockett and Frank Clark, which is fine, but that's two guys out of like five drafts. Yeah, Frank Clark's not on the roster. Correct. So the missteps there led to a lot of trades that then, you know, when you have to keep trading and stuff like that and you don't eventually get to a place where you're hoisting the Lombardi, you know, you're kind of putting Band-Aid on a bullet wound, so to speak. So when you miss on a Delano Hill at a Michigan in like the third or fourth round, when you miss on a Tedric Thompson, these are safeties. When you miss on Marquise Blair of the second round pick, another safety, well, then you have to trade for Quadra Diggs. Well, then you trade for Jamal Adams, right? Well, then you go sign Julian

Love. Now, those are not bad players, but it's just resource allocation. Be much nicer if Marquis Blair had just hit. If Tedrick Thompson had just hit, you draft Malik McDowell trading back multiple times, passing on Buda Bakers, another safety you could have used, passing on TJ Y, and then you have to eventually trade for Sheldon Richardson four months later because of Malik's bike accident. And then what do you do? That's another resource allocation.

Sheldon's a fine player, but you give up a second round pick of Jermaine Curse for him, you know. Giving up Jermaine Curse also kind of really pissed off Doug Baldwin and Richard Sherman. But in terms of schematic stuff, like, okay, you do that. You don't draft a good left tackle after you let Russell Okunwa. So what do you have to do? Trade for Duane Brown in the middle of the 2017 season. You know, you don't draft any good pass pressures after you trade away Frank Clark.

So what do you have to do? Trade for Devi and Clowny. Eventually trade for Carlos Dunlap. Like you have to fill all these holes. You're covering up your own mistakes. It reminds me of a quarterback like Russ or even like Bryce Young. They're really good problem solvers, but their problem was that they create. you know so that's what seattle had they did it john made some good moves they only had to give up a fifth

to get quandre you know but when you make those moves um and you and they don't pan out well not only are you down draft capital you're down like contract money if you extend some of these guys which they pretty much extended all of them except for sheldon uh i believe in that example so i think that eventually caught up to them on defense which is why you know their defense was not only old it was the seventh oldest by snap, if you factor in snaps and wait that accordingly. It was also really expensive. They were spending a ton of money on safeties. You know, the D-Lylin wasn't cheap. Gave J.mont Jones 50 million bucks. You know, the corner room was cheap, but it looked like it, you know, at time outside of whenever Devin Witherspoon was on the field. So I think that part

created not very good rosters at times, not maybe this year, but not very good rosters at times. And then now they're just trying to adjust. Now they're trying to find an identity. Are we a three-four team or we have bear front team or we a nickel team or we a two high team are we a single high are we single high but now we're a three match team you know all these things you're just trying to throw darts at the wall and hope it sticks and as the good team show us year in a year out you can be whatever you want three four bear you can be aggressive soft zone you could be just a cycle like brian flores and wick martindale but whatever it is just have an identity just have an identity stick to it get guys to buy into it and you can get far man i win the

Super Bowl, but you can get far. The worst thing is to not know who you are. And Pete, after he lost a New England job, he got, he had a little Zen moment with John Wooden before taking the USC job. And the biggest thing Pete mentions is he found out who he was. And he was like, I'm going to die by these things. And his teams just didn't reflect that, particularly on defense and on offensive front of the ball. And that's kind of how we get to where we are. You can have that lack of identity and kind of be finding yourself schematically if you have the players to drive it. If you have such an overwhelming level of talent, then not being able to find those answers maybe matters a little bit less. And they didn't have that. When you watch them play on defense, you just didn't feel those

difference-making players despite all of the resources that they'd spent on that side of the ball. And I think that what's interesting to me is this team went nine and eight last year when everyone expected them to win five or six games in this weird reset season. The problem is they went nine and eight this year when everyone expected them to win 11 games and be a contender in the NFC. And it feels like that's kind of where Pete and this staff were. If you wanted to win, if people expect you to win five games, they could win nine games. People expected them to win 11 games, they could win nine games. And that's a tough place to reach as a regime. Yeah. And, you know, Seahawk fans have been calling for Pete Carroll's head, like, credibly for

quite some time. He's had a few press conferences where he's got asked about his job or meeting with Jody, going all the way back to like 2020 when they lost in the first round, 2021, when they didn't make the playoffs. And I think I wrote like a column saying why Pete Carroll is the guy, like three years ago, you know, and then our Ben Baldwin, one of our kind of analytics nerds guys, shout to Ben, he wrote like the opposite column. This was like three or four years ago. So we, Pete's kind of been on the fan hot seat for quite a bit, you know, and maybe the media hot seat as well, if we're the ones writing about it and talking about it. And because they want to see the results, you know, they want to get past the divisional round. And I think

what really made it frustrating in Seattle is seeing other teams in the division get there. That's always the most frustrating part, you know, when the Niners are making Super Bowl for the Jimmy G. When the Rams are getting there with Jared Gough and then make a trade from Matt Stafford and get right back there. And then the Rams tear it down and they get further than you again. And the Niners are still further than you. It's just that Pete needed to advance further. It's a results-based business at the end of the day where that all falls on Pete is whatever. It's kind of not fair. But again, you're the headman. So you deal with that. But yeah, the results weren't there. And they had high hopes for this season. They wanted to win the division and compete for a championship

and they were competing for the seventh seed at the end of the day. When they didn't get it, half the locker room was smoking cigars after. And it just kind of spoke to the disconnect between, you know, what a Pete Carroll team has been about and what this one was currently about. And now they face a bunch of really important questions. And you went over some of those, the ones that you would present to John Schneider, if you were talking to him about this next search for a head coach. And the first thing that came up was this idea of searching for a Pete Carroll 2.0.

and a lot of people have connected guys with Seattle ties to this job potentially. Dan Quinn being the number one person on that list. Do you think that that's the direction they should go? And do you think that's the direction they will go, where it's kind of just a continuation of what we've had here for the last 10 years? I'm not sure whether they will go that route, you know, I would not. I just don't, and I mentioned this on our pod too. Seems dicey, man.

Yeah, it just doesn't seem like, it seems very similar to on defense, It's like a smaller version of how they wanted like a Fangio disciple because as you know, Fangio kind of was like the hottest thing to slice bread there schematically across the league for a little bit. And then we just look at all of these teams who haven't been able to pull it off unless they hire Fangio, you know. And it seems very similar. Like if you want Pete, just keep Pete. Don't try to go Pete adjacent or, you know, or Pete on a discount. I just think that has the potential to really just blow up in your face.

I think that's the case. We're not just Pete. I think like the Patriots kind of are facing a similar scenario. I don't know as much about drawn Mayo, but the potential is there. If you just say, hey, we fired Belichette. Let's get Belichick adjacent. The Patriots are leaning in, man. The Patriots are leading in hard.

It seems like the guys who are running the personnel department and keep running it. Mayo's there. So they're going that direction. And I think that there are certain drawbacks that come with that sort of approach. And I appreciate that the Seahawks might do it differently. So let's say they take a turn and let's say they pivot. What do you think is the makeup? of the sort of coach they're looking for.

Offense, defense, culture setter type guy, offensive play caller. What does that resume ideally look like in your mind? Yeah, I think if you get a defensive guy, I would think they need to be really multiple. You know, I think that like, someone like Mike McDonald is probably really attractive to them in that regard. I just love the stuff that he did schematically.

And his guys knew who they were and were adaptable. It was very impressive. I know you've probably watched them all year. Like whatever they needed to be to beat the other team, they could do it while still staying true to themselves. It was one of the greatest things I saw this year. I think that's what they're going to have to be because so many people, like going back and reading some of the old stories, the Seahawks really were just basic on defense and Legion of Bloom years. They really just ran the same like three plays. And it just worked.

It was like, all right, cool. We can beat whoever we won't cover three, you know, four, three fun. And you watch offense. You just can't do that. There's too many motions, too many checks, too many different types of run games. too many star receivers lining up inside the numbers, outside the numbers, in line, all that stuff. You have to be adaptable in the Seahawks were not that. And to be adaptable, you need players, but you also need a coach who's good at teaching multiple things.

I think Rahe Morris would fall in that category as well. I think that the other route you have to take is you go try the Wiz Kid thing. You go try the guy who's running the cool offense, have him be your coach, have him call the plays, and see if that works. We've seen it not works on places, but we see like, you know, Kevin O'Connell seems to be doing fine. Mike McDaniel, you know, depending on which dolphin fan you acts, is doing fine over there. You obviously see that working in the division with Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVey. And I think that route kind of sets you up for sustainability a little more if that works. I agree.

Because you're never getting your OC poach, right? You can't just take, you can take all of Sean McVeigh's minions if you want. Good luck. You can take some of Kyle Shanhan's if you want. Maybe that'll work. Maybe you get D'Amico Ryan to Mike McDaniel. maybe you don't right but there's no fear of losing the head coach and play caller when you have them be a kind of a two for one so that's why i think someone like ben johnson's attractive in that

way if they think frank smith in miami is attractive in that way that's probably the direction i would start i wouldn't be sold on that like going in with like singular minded but i would want to start there and work backwards start with my heads coach who can be my oc and then work backwards to maybe the multiple on defense guy who can get us to just kick the shit out of shanahan and shaw mcbay The problem here is that the whiz kid tree has been picked over. There aren't a lot of whiz kids left on the bush because so many of them have been pushed into these jobs pretty quickly. Frank Smith is a guy that I think that they've requested to interview him. Mike Kafka is somebody they've requested to interview the Giants offensive coordinator.

But those are guys that don't nearly have the play-calling experience and the play-calling pelts on the wall that some of these other guys have had when they've stepped into these roles. So there's risk that comes with that. You said something on your pot earlier this week that I wanted to ask you about. You thought that going with someone who has some head coaching experience should be a priority based on where this roster is and kind of what their goals are. As you've seen some of the candidates that have emerged and talked to people over the last couple days, do you still feel like that would be the prudent approach for this team? Yeah, I think so. That's why it doesn't surprise me that Dan Quinn is on their list of guys they've actually talked to.

and then Rahe Morris is on that list as well, you know, because there's going to be a lot of bumps in the road that you really don't have time to, like, guess and get it wrong, you know, and Pete Carroll did a little bit of that, you know, early on. Even though he had coached the Jets and the Patriots, he was still feeling out how to do it this time around, like, all right, do I need to give the speech this time or do I need to revert back to, we just lost. Do I need to show them all the things they did wrong, or maybe should I show them their good highlights and remind them of who they are, what they can be? He went, you know, kind of waxed and waned a little bit, you know, in that regard early on. Is a new coach whose first time doing this going to know how to do that? Is he going to know how to when to rip into the guys or when to take them the top golf because they're going through a slump? You know, not to say that a first year coach can't, but it's just easier if you've done it. If Dan Quinn can look back to the to a Falcons moment and says, yeah, in week seven, I really should have not been so hard on my O line that time.

I should have just, you know, took him to the nearest steakhouse, told him I loved them and kind of reset them. Maybe, you know, he can look back to that. Rahim Morris can kind of refer to those same lessons, whereas, you know, sometimes with these new guys, they go in, they have these thoughts, and then it has to fill miserably and they have to go back like a Josh McDaniels before they, Josh McDaniels in Denver, that is, before they kind of learn like, oh, I messed up there. Josh didn't learn enough, but you get the point. So that's why I think when your goal is to win a championship almost immediately, I like

that experience there because so much of this is managing people, knowing how to motivate guys in the right way. And the margin for error, particularly in this division, as the Rams get it together and John and Gannon, like, finally gets a year to really fix that thing in Arizona. The margin for error is really thin. So I would prefer someone with experience, I think, to take them to that next step.

So you think within the building, again, with John maintaining control, obviously the same hand as on the wheel from a team building perspective, you think they still believe that they're kind of close, that this is about dropping in a couple new people, is figuring out the right coach, and we can compete pretty quickly here in the short term. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that question because I'm about to go speak to John Snyder in about an hour at his press conference, and I wanted to ask him, you know, hey, do you think

the roster's close? You need to hit the reset button. And I honestly don't think it matters for this reason. John Snyder grew up a Packers fan. He's from Wisconsin. And every year when he was a Packers fan, the one thing he wanted was to go into the season, feeling like his team did everything it could to build a championship caliber roster. And he just grew up wanting that.

And then obviously went to work for the Packers for a long time. And it was very similar. You know, and he wants that. That's his mindset is for make sure these fans, every September, August, are like, yeah, my team is going to be in it. Not, oh, this is the year we win six games, so next year we win 11 or 12. He wants his team to be in it. Regardless of what he thinks of the roster right now,

I think he's going to carry that mindset. That's the part that's going to overlap with Pete if 2.0 exists, is the always compete. Every opportunity is a championship opportunity because that's not just how Pete thinks. That's how John grew up. So I think he's going to carry that mindset in thinking the 2024 Seahawks should be a contender

and it's my job and this new coach's job to get us there. Whether I think the roster sucks or I think the roster is a few pieces away, our job is to get us there. And I think that's how he'll approach it. So yeah, I think he's going to want to build a contender in this off season. I asked because we were talking about the Steelers yesterday and I was looking at potential quarterback options. And if I were a team that needed one and I saw a team in transition like Seattle is going to,

I would at least call and ask about Gino because I just think that if you dropped him into the red situation, he is a very, very good quarterback right now. And when things are moving in certain places and you have new coaches and new timelines, that's when opportunity strikes. So I wouldn't be surprised that they thought that they could win right now, but at least might be worth a phone call. The head coach front here, the two names that I would keep coming back to that I find most intriguing. Every time I think about these jobs right now, Rahim Morris' name comes to mind,

whether it's Tennessee, even Carolina if they don't go offense, and I could easily see him be the coach for Seattle right now. I just think that he's checked so many boxes. But Mike McDonald for this team specifically is intriguing to me. Because if I think they have a lot of pieces on offense, and I think that that offense has already shown a propensity that they could be a top 10 offense. If you have a defensive coach that can get the most out of those players, that formula is interesting to me. I have no idea what he'll be as a head coach. It's a different job. Projecting guys into that job is always difficult. But that sort of model of I'm going to get the most out of the defensive personnel and I like the guys I have on offense for the

24 Seahawks specifically. That piques my interest a little bit. Yeah, I know I'll fight to the death for him. For assistant coach of the year, I know some Browns fans are probably not. man, our guy, we had the best defense, but like, there's just something about being able to adapt versus, as you watch the Browns, they really just were like, we're just going to line up, play man. It just kind of beat you every week. And that was fine. It worked. But the Ravens were just like, oh, you do this well. You're a perimeter team. Okay, well, watch us just be men on the edge this week. Oh, you're a duo team. You're playing the ramps. All right, cool. We're about to get nasty up front today in the spine of our defense or confused the hell out of you like they did with the Niners. I just love that so much. Yeah, I think the ability to be multiple. And you, because, like, Robert, you know, there's pieces here. They can re-sign Leonard Williams, get back Jordan Brooks, Devin Witherspoon, Rick Wullen. They still have quandary digs under contract.

Julian Love just made a pro bowl, boy, Mafei. I think I had like eight or nine sacks this year. They're going to get a chin of new Wosu back as well. Like, Jemont Jones still around, Jared Reed still around. The cover isn't bare. And you can just maximize it. You got something here. You really got something here.

I don't know if they'll have a healthy Jamal Adams in 2024, but the rest of the guys I named, you got something there. And when you got that, man, and he can get that OC who's covered also isn't bare? Like, that's a really good. The skill positions here. I mean, Robert, this is probably the most attractive roster of all the jobs open. Objectively, that's what I think. The commanders, when you factor in resources, probably is the other one that's attractive to,

but just pure roster, Seattle, man. If you want the best roster, take the Seattle job. Yeah, I think it's a question of do you want a known quantity of quarterback or do you want possibility at quarterback? And that's what the other jobs presents you. I think that Atlanta has a solid roster with some resources, but they don't have a quarterback. Washington has a ton of resources. Who knows what the quarterback is going to be? If I'm a head coach or an offensive coordinator, I can look at what Gino Smith has done the last couple of years and instantly convince myself, I can win with that guy.

And when you look at all the other talent that's across the roster, I think that ultimately when you put it all together, I get your argument. Michael Sean Dugar, very much appreciate the time, sir. Always great to chat with you. We will catch up here very soon. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I love it. Anytime you guys need me, I'm here for you.

Sounds good, man. Appreciate you. Talk to you soon. All right, joining us now. It is our Washington football franchise writer here at the athletic. Ben, Stan Dick, Ben, how you doing? You're sticking to that. Just standing.

It's no name. It's been years at this point. I can't give it up now. It's been years. Obviously, it took us all a long time to get used to not saying the old name. then we had to not say a different name. So look, when you get into a rhythm at some point, just stay with it. You can't break out of it.

A man must have a code. You know, you know that from the Baltimore, D.C. area, and that's how I live my life. Big offseason, huge off season, monumental off season for this franchise. And it's already begun. Obviously, Ron Rivera was fired. I don't think there's a ton of need to spend a lot of time and talking about why that happened. It was almost a foregone conclusion.

We all understood that they were going to turn the page, and the page has been turned. The first major move that Washington has made under new ownership in Josh Harris is to hire Adam Peters as their new general manager, which was done on Friday. It was the assistant GM in San Francisco for years. And was somebody that was kind of a prize in the executive search east off season. Somebody that turned down interviews last year was waiting for the right opportunity. Why do you think that Adam Peters was ultimately the decision that this new regime made? Well, first I guess what I would note is, like, obviously the big change for this franchise happened right before training camp when Dan Snyder sells the team to the group with Josh Harris. And there's been other examples along the way as to why how this is already playing out on the football side.

Fans are a little more engaged, things like that. This to me is a clear signal that is a new day in Washington. A person in Adam Peters is a spot, forget taking a job with this franchise. They're not even talking to them. They're not even going to engage. They're not taking their first job as the main guy here under the previous regime. The fact that Josh Harris got it done. I mean, Josh Harris is obviously a very, you know, credible owner from his NBA and his NHL teams.

He brings in Bob Myers, the Golden State Warriors, former GM, to help with the search committee. That's a huge deal. And, you know, I think that shows already, like I said, that this is a change. In terms of Adam Peters, I mean, you know, there's some back room. stories like Bob Myers knows Peters a bit from their time together in the Bay Area. The president of the 49ers and Josh Harris have business deals together. So through that, they got to kind of know each other. And then Peters, I think, a little bit through that.

He's, like you said, incredibly highly thought of around the league. I did my annual NFL agent survey last year, questions ranging from who's a future GM to watch, who's the best town evaluator, who's somebody you trust the most. not, Peter's got mentioned in all these categories. And I have yet, I mean, I'm not looking for it, but I have yet to have somebody say to me, eh, that's the guy. I don't know. What's the big deal?

Everybody seems to really be in on him. And, you know, this team needs a lot of work, obviously. It's a basic, basically a blank slate. And they're turning it over to a guy who's viewed as a really good town evaluator. And the 49ers roster, you know, is quite the showcase to say, yeah, yeah, I help do this. So I think that's kind of why. why it all came to be. He's going to be the lead football executive.

I know that there was a time where they were going to call it a president of football operations, but he is the GM. He's going to be the guy at the center of this. I'm curious, what is built around him? Are they just going to tear down the entire front office structure and start over? And if that's the case, are there models from around the league just in terms of how that side is built that they're looking at as they try to figure out how they want to structure of theirs.

So Adam Peters is going to talk his first press conference with us, Justin, within the next 15 minutes right now, you and I are talking and we're hopefully, I doubt it, but hoping that we get some insight from him as to how he wants to build this thing out. You logically would think they're going to change a lot of the pieces. I will say that it's odd. Currently at this moment, they have two general managers because Martin Mayhew is still here. And he's the general manager by name at least. Ron Rivera had final say previously

Mayhew and Peters worked together in San Francisco before Mayhew came here and the fact that he's still on the books at the same name I kind of get the feeling he may be staying just with a different title he's obviously a former GM he's been around the league for a long time so that could be one thing

I got the sense prior to hiring Peters that they were taking a long look at how the Ravens do things and how the Eagles do things do things. I'm actually a little surprised they didn't have somebody from the Ravens on their candidates they interviewed, but they did have, they brought in this guy Eugene Shen.

He's the, their vice president. He basically in charge of their analytics department. They brought him in during the season. He was with the Ravens at some point. So I imagine he'll bring some thoughts from that group. So I think that, but I mean, you know, look, Peters is going to have the main say. That's the biggest call. There has not been a full-fledged.

with that main authority here since the 90s with Charlie Castorley. Other than that, it's been some form of coach-centric slash Dan Snyder meddling, you know. So just that is different. But yeah, I think the Ravens might be a model to keep an eye on in terms of blending talent evaluation with analytics. Which analytics is a big deal in Josh Harris's world. So I think that's something to keep an eye on. I think the current Washington analytics staff is like four people deep, which is bigger than it's been. previously.

Right. It was one for most of the time. They added two people this year. And, yeah, yeah, it's been very non-factor around Rivera. I think one of the reasons why David Tepper got rid of Rivera and Carolina was Tepper is more on the analytics side. Rivera is not that guy. Plus, they were starting to fade as a team.

And then, yeah, he just did not have that vibe here at all the whole time he was here. And if you look at Baltimore's listed people in a similar role, it's a dozen people long. And that's right up near the top of the league with the way that the Browns operate, with the way that the Eagles operate. So they're going to be pretty substantive changes in terms of how that entire department is built out, is my assumption. Yeah, no, I think so. We were all kind of been wondering, as I mentioned, they brought in Eugene Shen. Alec Halby with the Eagles was one of the candidates they interviewed. He is like pure analytics.

Like that's where he starts from and then moves towards evaluation. you know, if you brought in him, boy, that would really be kind of going all in on analytics. So they didn't do that. But yes, I imagine we'll see more people hired for sure. I mean, they have a lot to, you know, it's not just about the Dan Snyder of it all as to what was going wrong. They just, you know, this organization was just kind of let to rot in a lot of ways. The stadium is the thing that probably people recognize the most with. But just even the organization as a whole.

And, you know, Ron Rivera. did some positive things, of course, during his time here, but he didn't really alter, he didn't really bring the franchise into, say, the 21st century, the way you see with a lot of more, with a lot of teams these days, analytics and then other factors, that was just still, still behind the times in those regards. So we're going to see that staff built out. That's one step in the right direction, or one step in a different direction, let's say.

What are some other things that you already see moving? You'd mention the stadium. I'm sure the facility needs upgrades. What steps have they already taken to kind of take this team out of the dark ages that you've seen? So the first, you know, like I said, Josh Harris bought the team officially the day before training camp started. So there was nothing really they could do on the football side. And they did largely leave everybody alone.

I imagine they had their thumb on the scale a bit when they traded Montes-wit and Chase Young rather than keeping them and possibly having to give them bigger contracts. But that aside, Josh Harris said his focus coming in was going to be sort out the stadium situation because it's not just about do you build a new one? one in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia have also shown interest. But then it also was like this, honestly, reengaging the fan base. I mean, this place has people been miserable for forever. And you really had to get people excited again. And I think that's happening this year, of course, the season didn't quite help when you lose your last eight games and finish four and 13.

But I think in general, the ones who are more reasonable, you know, who can accept that some losing, you got to take a step back a little bit sometimes. with the losing to move forward. So he did a lot of that. I do think he had some success on both of those fronts. And, you know, look, he held a press conference the other day when Ron Rivera was fired. I had never been in a room where Dan Snyder held a press conference before. I'm not saying he didn't, but it was a long time ago.

That didn't happen. And I think just having an adult vibe helps him in, you know, Magic Johnson is part of the ownership group. He's not around every day or anything, but he's been around. It's Magic Johnson. That is an exciting component. All their other minority owners, the ones that we see at least, are successful, reputable businessman who all seem to be pretty good citizens. So just I think those types of things make it feels like there's adults running the place. And the way Harris answered questions the other day, you know, as direct as you can be in any situations. I think that's probably the biggest thing. Stadium is going to take a while. They may not get a new one until like 2030. Practice facility, it depends. Do they want to put it? with the stadium. If so, that good and could take a while, but if not, maybe it comes sooner than that. And, you know, players seem to be impressed when they heard from Harris after letting Rivera go. So it's a new, it's a new area. I think the Josh Harris ownership really starts now. Like the day he fired Rivera, that's when it starts on the football side.

And we'll start to see, hopefully, what other changes come in terms of, you know, things they have for the players, better training options, things like that. Obviously, they have a ton of resources this offseason, I think, like four or five picks in the first hundred with this extra second with the extra third. They're going to be picking second overall. They have some pieces already. You know, Terry McCorn is there. Jahan Dotson is there. And you're probably going to drop a quarterback into this. So I can understand where both people in the front office and people in the fan base are looking at this and saying, we could jumpstart this thing pretty quickly based on where we're currently positioned.

Isn't it crazy two weeks ago? The season ends. They're four and 13. Pretty miserable. You're getting Okay, fine, they get rid of Rivera, but still, you're like, oh boy, this team, where is this team going? Two weeks later, do they have the best outlook right now moving forward in the NFC East? I mean, obviously, I'm not saying like that they really do because Dallas and Philly have better team right now. Have good players, yeah. Yeah, but I'm just saying like obviously, you know, we're all talking about could they fire their coaches right now. People are so miserable. Here, it's, it's, for the first time ever, it's, you know, there's snow on the ground, but the sun is out.

I mean, like, you know, literally and metaphorically, like people are, excited because of what you just said, they have the, according to over the cap, they have the most cap space of any team in the lead going into the offseason. You mentioned the draft picks five in the top 100, nine in total. The roster, yeah, you know, you got guys like Terry McLaur and John Allen, Duran Payne, and, you know, you're going to have to hope that your new coaching staff gets more out of like Emmanuel Forbes who struggled as a rookie, things like that. But it's also a pretty blank slate.

There's no bad contracts. They do have Sam Hal. Whether they decide to build around him or more likely, I would guess, draft the quarterback. He hasn't cost any money, so that's not an obstacle. The end is as blank of a slate as you can have with good assets. I think this is a pretty attractive job. How quickly they can turn it around? Well, you are dealing with the owner who greenlit the process in the NBA.

I'm not saying they're going to take four years and just try to bottom out to get more picks or whatever, but he is shown he's willing to be patient. So I don't know yet if they were saying, hey, we got to ramp up and by next year be good. But at the same point, they potentially could do that if, in fact, they hit the draft, whatever they do with the draft picks, they hit all those choices, as well as develop some of the younger guys that are already here. The quarterback is obviously something that can change things on a dime. Look at what the Texans are right now compared to what the Texans were last year. You're picking number two overall, the same way that Houston was last year. And if Drake May or whoever falls to them at that spot is one of those difference making plays.

players early on, then this team probably could be relevant a lot quicker than people assume. You mentioned that this is a decent landing spot or a decent outlook, and that hopefully will apply to the head coaching search. We have a list of candidates that they've apparently looked at, requested Ben Johnson, Bobby Sloick, Mike McDonald, Aaron Glenn, Dan Quinn, Rahim Morris, usual suspects. They also interviewed Anthony Weaver, who is the Ravens Assistant head coach and D-Line coach who has a very good reputation around the week. What is your sense of how this ultimately shakes out. Yeah, so the GM thing was a little more straightforward. It kind of felt like Adam Peters was the one to beat the whole time. Here, I don't know. I mean, there has been

some reporting, including from Diana Rossini, that their top choice is Ben Johnson. Okay, but he's probably the top choice for other teams too. It's not like, it isn't just to say, well, sure, we want you, you come and we're done. So we'll see. If somehow it's not Ben Johnson, Now, that would obviously be really interesting. I don't know what his relationship is with Peters. I mean, Ben Johnson seemingly has a lot of leverage, or at least he did before Mike Vrable, Bill Belichick, and Jim Harbaugh entered the discussion. But if he's got leverage, I don't know, does he want to go to a place where he gets to pick the GM? Does he want same personnel?

I don't know. If it's not him, though, I think it, to me, it seems like a very wide open field. You mentioned the other names. I mean, you know, you could, sure. one of them could be the next Mike McDaniel or one of them could be, you know, Arthur Smith. I mean, who can, who knows for sure. There's a lot more defensive coaches. Does Josh Harris want an offensive-minded guy?

I don't know. I mean, obviously Bobby Slowick was in San Francisco for several years with Peters. Perhaps that's an attractive piece, even though he's only been a coordinator for one year. I don't see them at all being in the mix for Belichick or Harbaugh. I would imagine both of those guys want a hand in personnel and you just brought in that in Peters and at a minimum, I think they're looking to hire a coach for the long term. Belichick is obviously a short-term play. And Harbaugh, I just think is, you know, it sounds like it's Chargers or Raiders probably for him.

But so, yeah, I think it's like Ben Johnson, but then I don't know. I'm intrigued by Rahim Morris, who used to be a coach here back in the day. But, you know, it's not, it's not as sexy as getting the Adam Peters pick. So that's why I'm like, eh, I don't know if that's like any one of these names are moving the needle for me, even if they're all, you know, interesting candidates. And the fact that it seems like they might have options because of how attracted the destination is feels like a huge departure for this team and what it's been like over the last however long. And Ron Rivera got that job and Ron Rivera got the power that he did because they didn't have many better options. That's the place where they had to turn in that moment.

And it no longer feels like that. So you guys are going to talk to Adam Peters later today. What are the couple things that you really want to know from that press conference that's going to happen here in about an hour? Yeah. I mean, you know, get a feel for him. You asked before. How is he going to shape his front office? What is he looking to do?

What traits is he looking for in the head coach? Does he say we would prefer an offensive guy so we don't have to constantly change out the offensive coordinator every couple of years if we have success? You know, yeah, tell me about why this team, he's turned down opportunities in the past. And it felt like with the situation he was in, maybe he stays there even, maybe gets a little more control. But why now? What was it about this organization that said to you, not only am I ready to go on my own, but this is where I want to go, which like I said, like you just said, like there's no chance this was happening at any point in the last, well, at least decade, if not before that. So that's pretty remarkable. You know, I mean, these things are like, is he going to tell us, is he, which of their free agency hopes to resign?

Probably not. Is he going to say which of the quarterbacks at two he's interested in? You should ask him that. You should ask which quarterback he's going to draft with the second overall pick on January 16th. I'm sure he'll respond well to that. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, at least try to get a feel for one, how does he communicate?

But then two, what does he say that potentially gives you some sort of a clue as to what his goals are? And, you know, it's going to be really fascinating to see. It's not just a new GM for this organization. It's new for us. We have to learn new people. How do they think I can read all I want? But until now that he's in charge, you know, maybe he handles things differently than what he was. saying or doing it San Francisco. So yeah, it's exciting, I think even for us on the beat,

especially after, you know, this will be a busy summer. It's way more interesting discussing who's the new coach and what are they doing in first round than having to follow the oversight committee about potential subpoenas or meetings. So this is a way better deal. Yeah, it's a way better deal for you and it is a way better deal for the fans. This is definitely the most optimistic rosy offseason that has been going out in Washington for a very, very long time. And we will will be monitoring it as it unfolds. Ben Standick, thank you very much for the time, sir. Always great to chat with you.

I'm sure we will catch up if and when Washington hires a head coach here pretty soon. Robert, I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. Talk to you soon. Joining us now, it is our Patriots writer here at the Athletic Chad Graf. Chad, how are you? On eventful week on your side of things. Yeah, just standard things, standard procedures over here.

Just the greatest head coach of all time, kind of being pushed out of the organization as they figure out the most important transition they're ever going to face as a franchise. And then not conducting a coaching search after that and turning to the next guy within a mirroed few hours. So, you know, there's a few things going on over here in Foxborough. Let's talk about the Belichick decision first. A lot has been written about this in multiple different places here over the last week. Obviously, the intrigue is off the charts as it should be with a guy who has Bill Belchek's career and resume. What do you think ultimately led to this? What do you think of the two or three things that sealed his fate?

A few things. So it's got to start with the four and 13 season and the way that the wheels fell off. From there, I think you look at the quarterback mishap and so badly missing on Mack Jones that they benched him four different times this season before they finally actually actually benched him. It was like midgame benching come back, midgame benching come back over and over and over until finally enough was enough. But he was even fed up before that. Like he was ready to trade Mac Jones and draft Will Levis in the off season. And I know that Robert Kraft has gotten some pushback for how involved he was, but I also don't fault an owner for being like, hang on now. We just drafted this guy in the first round two years ago. He was a Pro Bowl player as a rookie who was looking like somebody who could be the 12th best quarterback

in the league. And now you want to trade him. Like, what are you doing? No. So I totally get why they didn't trade him, even if it didn't work out. That part we led to it. And then I think the other part of it is just that Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick never had like the super unbelievable rosy relationship where they were vacationing together and hoisting the Lombardy in Cancun after some of those wins. Like there were very, very different people who had a very different outlook on life and various aspects and it was all smoothed over by winning. And then the last thing that led to all this, of course, that you can't, you know, get into

or look at the Patriot situation without talking about is Bill Belichick not watching. wanting to pay Tom Brady and telling Robert Kraft, he's falling apart. We're not giving this guy 50 million guaranteed. He says he wants to play until he's 45. Nobody does that. He's not going to win a Super Bowl this old. And then Bill Belichick convinces Robert Kraft. Robert Kraft says, all right, let's do it.

Goodbye. We're on to the next. And then he watches Tom Brady go and win a Super Bowl in a COVID year where he doesn't even get time with the bucks. Goes and wins the Super Bowl. So that was the genesis for a lot of this and a lot of the frustration that boiled up. Even before that, how many years earlier, 2014, when they draft Jimmy Garapolo, that is partially because Bill Belichick, in his opinion of Tom Brady's out, he's probably on

the decline. We probably need somebody to replace him eventually. And then Brady plays another decade at a relatively high level after they draft Jimmy G in the second round. So if you're Robert Kraft, that's multiple times that your head coach has misled you about what you should do at the most important position in the sport. And I'm totally with you on the checks and balances in the front office side of things because it seems like that had become a problem even beyond the idea of trading Mack Jones. You have somebody at the top of this who really went unchecked in some of the personnel decisions that he was allowed to make with a non-traditional front office structure, non-traditional way that they approach the draft. And eventually it seems like that non-traditional

approach to all of this led this team astray and probably couldn't continue any more in its current form. And it's a fascinating case study because I could totally see both points of view. where Belichick has been so good for so long, amasses all of this power, has a few sounding boards that he likes, fears, Karnakia, Ernie Adams, in the front office, Casario, Ziegler, like a lot of guys that he really respected and could bounce ideas off, all left within like a three-year span from 2019. Oh, every single name that you just mentioned. Every, like, to the point where he did bring back Matt Patricia as his number two, like,

hey, what do you think about this kind of guy, which should be eye-opening on a number of front. So everybody leaves. So I totally understand why Bill Belichick looked at it and became more siloed and said, I've won all these Super Bowls. I can do this myself. I don't need, you know, he is slow to trust people. And so when everybody left, instead of trying to teach up a whole new front office about what he looks for in this position and why he likes that, he just did it himself.

And that was reasonable to me because of his resume and who he had lost and all that. And yet, it's also so reasonable to me to be. look at it from Robert Kraft's perspective and be like, hang on, we are missing every single draft class. Our free agents are so hit or miss. Judea Smith-Schuster was an absolute nightmare. And I'm supposed to just let this guy have complete unchecked power with nobody to, you know, go over. He, Robert Kraft had scouts and other front office people going to him, be like, we didn't want to draft Tyquan Thornton. We thought this, we thought that. But Bill Belichick comes into the draft room. You have no idea what he's thinking. And it's entirely his decision.

He earned that, as both Robert and Jonathan Graff said multiple times, and yet it also led to his downfall. It's fine when it's working. But when it's not working, that's when you have to take a step back and start wondering what the heck we're doing here. And the receiver position is the most damning, obviously. Every single choice that they have made at that spot over the last five years, seven years has been wrong. Nikiel Harry over the guys he drafted ahead of him in that draft, whether it was Debo Samuel, A.J. Brown. even this year, letting Jacoby Myers walk, paying Juju Smith-Schuster, and watching what Jacobi Myers did in the Raiders offense as you are just grasping for playmaking options within

your own offense every single year, it felt like there was an example of this. So I could understand if you're the crafts and you're the people in charge, just saying we can't keep doing this because we're giving ourselves absolutely no shot, no matter how good of a defensive coach this guy still is. Well, and then the offense became a whole problem within itself to the point where obviously everybody knows that they had Matt Patricia calling plays and Joe Judge is his kind of sidekick as the co-offensive coordinator. The worst buddy comedy of all time. For real. And then he, Bill Belichick goes into his exit interview at the end of that season. They missed the playoffs and says,

I think we're making strides there. I want to bring back Matt Patricia. And Robert Craft is, what? No, no, we cannot do. Are you kidding? No, have you seen what people are saying? Did you watch the? No, we're not doing that. So Bill Belichick, sorry, what if I hire, one of these guys's offensive coordinator. Bill O'Brien's on the list. Crafts like, yeah, great, let's do that. But I think what is interesting in this, you know, to push it forward now is the Patriots now need a new offensive coordinator. Bill O'Brien had the Patriots offense regress across the board. They got worse after getting rid of Matt Patricia and Joe Judge. They scored the fewest points in the NFL this season. And yet Bill O'Brien still in play to

come back in part because everybody looks at that offense and realizes, oh, my, God, he had nothing to work with. Maybe the least talented group in the entire NFL and the only reason that it's closest is because the Carolina Panthers exist. And yet, the Carolina, like Adam Thielen would have been by far the Patriots number one wide receiver, which is insane to think about. The fact that he wasn't seems like a misstep in history. Late career Adam Thielen going to New England should have been something that was just

written in the stars. And instead, Jujus Smith-Schuster comes and plays 11 games and has like 200 receiving yards. Ezekiel Elliott was their best play. playmaker, which I think says more about the Patriots than it does Ezekiel Elliott. No offense to him in his great career. But it was just a train wreck across the board. And I think that the craft recognized Bill Belichick was spending more time on offense this year than he had in years past, realizing, hey, this is the unit that's slowing us down. Let me try to assist with my brain power there to help things out. And it's also worth noting, as we mentioned with Bill Belichick being

slow to trust, they had the smallest offensive staff. in the entire league. They had eight offensive assistant coaches, which is crazy when you can compare it to the 49ers who had twice as many. And then two of those offensive coaches left midseason, Ross Douglas for a job at Syracuse and Adrian Clem, their offensive line coach due to health matters. They were down to six offensive coaches trying to coach up, you know, the talent that you mentioned and all of the issues there. So it was just a recipe for disaster. And it's no wonder why they went four and I totally understand looking at this season, looking at just how the trajectory of the offense looked and saying, we need a change.

It's time to move on. It's just time, period. But now you're faced with these two roads. You can really step back and evaluate the entire organization and the way that you've operated for the last 25 years and think, okay, this reached its conclusion. We need a reset. We need a reset of perspective. We need a reset of how this is structured.

Let's look around the league and see what's working, what's working for other people? What if we did this? What if we did that? Or you stay the course and in your mind, you rationalize our model isn't broken. It's just details about the way that it was set up under Bill that were broken. And to see them instantaneously pick door number two because Gerard Mayo was the successor that they had wanted all along is just a fascinating pivot point for the organization overall. And what do you make of that? Well, so I make two things, and I'm so, so curious to see how his introductory press conference

goes and how he answers some of these questions Wednesday at noon Eastern, when, you know, I think we'll find out more of, is this just the way to keep Belichick's Patriot way and everything that they've done, but do it in a nicer, do it with a smile and a younger phase? Or is Gerard Mayo really empowered to build out an analytics staff and run a shannon McVeigh offensive scheme if that's the way he wants to go. Because it's totally plausible that they go out and just hire back Josh McDaniels or Bill O'Brien and hey, you know, the only issue here was that Bill Belichick was choosing the wrong players and being a little bit miserable to deal with.

And if we fix that, then watch what we're going to do. That's the big question remaining for Gerard Mayo. And on the one hand, a lot of people I talked to mentioned that when he was a player, he was called Gerard Belichick by teammates. Tom Brady called him that a bunch of players. He was so intertwined with Belichick that he was referred to as the third Belichick son, Steve, Brian, and then Gerard. So on the one hand, that's, you know, it's hard to be more intertwined with the last guy.

On the other hand, he retires as a player and goes into the business world, spends a lot of time with analytics and finance and just working on a board of a healthcare company. he supposedly, based on a lot of people who have been close with him, is familiar to, is open to different ideas and doing things a little bit outside the box. And so I think that's the big question is, are you getting Gerard Mayo, the young innovator who is willing to look at things differently? Or are you getting Gerard Belichick, the guy who is the third Belichick son, basically? It's a fascinating question. And I think the offensive coordinator hire is going to point us in the right direction toward an answer. You told a story and the piece that you wrote

about Mayo and about the succession plan that I think is one of those things that was probably difficult for Robert Kraft to ignore. The interaction he had with Mack Wilson and his wife when Mac Wilson, I think, got to New England and just how magnetic Drod Mayo is around players in front of the room in those meetings. So I can understand not wanting to let that guy out of the building. Robert Kraft identified and hired the greatest coach of all time. Him thinking, I know what it takes to find a great coach. I completely get that. The question is going to be, where does Gerard Mayo and where does Robert Kraft take the rest of the organization? The early returns on some of those answers have been interesting. The idea that they are not going to be super

proactive about going out and hiring a general manager and Macro and Elliott Wolf, who are there in personnel positions are just kind of left to tend in the house now that Bill Belichick is gone. That's fascinating to me because again, you could spin it two ways. You could just say, this is status quo, this is continuity, or you could say Bill wasn't listening to any single person who was in here. So even though the guys are the same, the process is going to be different. And untangling that, I think, is going to be at the center of how the Patriots move forward here.

And I get the sense that they're going to pitch it more on Wednesday as the last. Oh, you think so? That Gerard Mayo is the guy to come in and knock down the big walls that have been in place between scouts and players and that have been in place between the front office and the coaching staff. And to be the big collaborative guy, because as you mentioned, where he differs most from Bill Belichick is that welcoming, getting everybody to buy into him being sort of magnetic. So if you can, in their eyes, in theory, pair that with. Bill Belichick's diligence and game planning and defensive prowess, then maybe you have something. It remains to be seen, though, if the sole problem essentially was Bill Belichick, and if you pluck that away, then all of a sudden these great minds are going to start collaborating, and it's going to

yield draft classes like you've never seen in free agency spending that's optimized and a far drastically different roster than what they had last year. it's going to be fascinating to see how they build out that roster because they have the third overall pick. And this is going to be weird to say, but the way that their offensive roster is set up, it's almost closer to them having the first overall pick. And the reason that I say that is if you look at the supporting cast that Jaden Daniels would have theoretically if he was dropped into this, it is so bad that it reminds you of teams that are often picking at the top of the draft. one of the only reasons they're not is because Bill Belichick was still on the other side of the ball. So this is one of those teams that even if they need a quarterback, I could understand coming to a conclusion when you say, you know what, we should probably build up the rest of this thing. Maybe we can kind of a quarterback one two years down the road.

At the same time, you're in a position to get one right now. If you don't get one right now, are you going to have the same opportunity a year or two from now? So those are the huge kind of franchise altering decisions that the Patriots are going to be wrestling with here. And then you add into it that Robert Kraft is 82. He'll be 83 next season. He didn't just get rid of the greatest coach of all time to embark, I don't think, on a four-year rebuild. Like, I don't get the sense that he's going to put his feet up at 85 years old and be like,

all right, now it's starting to come together. 2028, here we come. He got rid of Belichick because he didn't want a playoff game since the Super Bowl against the Rams. He wants to be back in the playoffs right now. He wants to be competing for the AFC East right now. And so does that speed up the timeline a little bit? Does that mean that you have to take a quarterback, whether it's Jaden Daniels or even moving up to the first or second pick?

It sure feels like you've got to do something because I don't think the plan is going to be. Let's build up the rest of the roster and then we'll get the quarterback three or four years from now. I think that's totally justifiable. And if you look at the rest of the staff, how that gets built out is going to be something to watch. And which direction they go for an offensive coordinator, whether it's in this, Patriots extended universe that we've come to understand, or if it's on one of the trees that are in vogue in the league right now, I think is going to say a ton about the direction that they're going to take. And as you read the tea leaves, as you started thinking about this, which do you think is more likely? I think Gerard Mayo is not going to just go with Bill O'Brien, Josh McDaniels. Because if you do that, you are really sending every kind of signal you can that, hey, now that Bill's gone and we're collaborating, like we are going to, we are going to, we are going to, come up with some crazy schemes that you've never seen before. And this is all going to work out

on its own. So I think he's going to cast a pretty wide net. One of the, you know, I think that you could call flaws of Bill Belichick is how slow he was to trust and that he would not go higher anybody that he didn't know, anybody external who he thought, I now have to teach the way I teach, and we call it this, and this is the way we've done it forever. That's why he brought Matt, Patricia and Joe Judge back to call the offenses, because Bill O'Brien and Josh McDaniels had jobs, and that's who I know. They're not available. All right, well, let me call up Maddie P

and we'll get this thing figured out. So is Gerard Mayo different from Bill Belichick in that sense? Is he willing to hand the keys of the offense to somebody that he's only meeting for the first time in an interview? That's a fascinating question that we're going to get the answer to in a couple of weeks. You've only been there for a couple years, but I wanted to ask you this. Can you imagine being in that building, going to work every day, being around the Patriots without Bill Belichick? It's going to be weird.

It's going to be weird for scouts, assistant coaches. It's going to be weird for the crafts. Like even though Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick walked past each other in the hallways of Gillette Stadium without saying so much as hello, it's going to be weird that this guy is not around. I think that their hope is there's a little bit of a deep breath and, okay, we can talk to other people and, you know, we're not going to get yelled at if we're not still here at 9 p.m. in February grinding tape for the upcoming season.

But man, he has just been so connected to this team, this region, this franchise, this owner for so, so long that, like, if he's wearing, as Robert Craft said in their little joint press conference to say goodbye, it's going to be weird seeing him in a cutoff hoodie of the Atlanta Falcons or the Dallas Cowboys, whatever. It's just going to be weird. There are a ton of resources at play for whoever is running this team and whoever's making the personnel decisions. They're going to have a ton of cap space. There are guys at positions of need. theoretically, they could be available, whether it's a receiver or somewhere else. They have some

guys hitting free agency. Kyle Dogger's been very good for them. Josh Ruchet's been a solid player. Michael Nguyen, who's been really good. The most staggering bit of information that I saw about the Patriots, since this has all happened over the last week, they have not re-signed one of the players they drafted to a contract extension since Duran Harmon, who was drafted in 2013. If you need any, you don't need anything else to understand how we've arrived here with the Patriots franchise other than that bit of information. It's, I've written that probably 10 times, and it's still one of the sentences that even though it's so ingrained, when I type, I'm like, no, I should probably double check that. Like that, I must be misremembering. 2013, that's, that's,

that's, that's your first, second, third round pick, miss, miss, miss, every time. Uh, it's, uh, it's crazy. It's why they had to do that massive free agency spending that they did in 2020 during COVID when everyone was tight with the money. And even Robert Kraft then admitted the Patriots used to laugh at the teams who spent big and free agency. Like these guys don't know what the heck they're doing. They botched the draft. They botched this and that. The Patriots have become what they for so long laughed at. Do you need to draft well? I mean, there's no, there's nothing else to say about it. We talked to Michael Sean about the Seahawks and their personnel missteps. earlier on the show. And that happens because you have cold stretches in the draft. And that's

exactly what's happened in New England. Last thing I wanted to ask you, what is the couple, what's the biggest question you have remaining? The thing you want answered first and foremost, as you think about the Gerard Mayo regime and where the Patriots go from here. Well, so two things. One is the more obvious logistical one of what we've talked about, the offensive coordinator. Is he going to take this in the Zach Robinson direction and bring in another fellow 37 year old who's been working under McVeigh and completely revamped this thing? Or is he going to bring back Josh McDaniels and here we go. This is the same Patriots that you've seen for the last five years. But the more kind of fun, odd question that I have is, Gerard Mayo, as we mentioned, became super

close with the Belichick's and specifically Belichick's two sons who are around the same age, Steve and Brian. They became close at the end of Gerard's playing career when they used to watch film together when Gerard was hurt. He has extended offers to keep Steve and Brian around. Steve would presumably be his defensive coordinator. And I'm very curious, do they follow their dad to Atlanta, Dallas, whatever? And if they don't, like, isn't it at least a little bit awkward that Steve Belichick would be the defensive coordinator of the Patriots weeks, months after they just split with

his dad and basically kicked his dad out the door. Like, even if they say it's not weird, that's a little weird. It is a little weird. That is a little bit weird. But guess what? This is where the Patriots are. Untangling all of this stuff and figuring out the cleanest way forward, it was never going to be easy. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Chad Graf, thank you very much for the time, sir. Always great to chat with you. We will catch up very soon down the road. Perfect. Thanks for having me. All right, guys. That's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Ben. Thank you to Michael Sean. Thank you to Chad. Always love chatting with these guys.

They have such great insight on what's going on in these buildings, how they're operating this way, especially this time of year, where we've got real franchise changing, franchise altering decisions that have to be made all over the league. That's all we got for now. We will be back tomorrow with In the Pocket with me and Chase Daniel, digging into some playoff conversations, some coaching conversations, a lot of good stuff coming your way. Other than that, regularly scheduled programming coming your way on the athletic football show. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.