that they have a great quarterback in Sam Darnell. The
guy that they are trying to kick to the curb. Here's
Tapper. Boosting.
The guy that we all think
is on borrowed, time and Carolina. Let's have a listen.
I'm quarterback position is always the most important
position on the field.
Scott Scott Fitters mentioned many times. We're always
looking
just want to say. One thing. I do think we have a very good
quarterback in Sam.
You know, the first three-game says I recall we won. We had
this running back that has some talent that got injured
that
might have affected some, you know, some different momentum
that we had.
I think he's name is Christian McCaffrey
and then you know, as you saw the fourth game, the Dallas
game Sam was still there and then we had a center that got
injured.
So there was a lot of different things on the team in the same
itself got injured. So there was a lot of different things
that happened last year that We will not repeat this year
that do give me some hope
the other things as you're aware. We have made changes
time. And again, I rather Scott deal with this to me, but we
have made some changes during free agency
on the on the offensive line that we think have will lead to
Improvement there. And of course we do have the draft
coming up.
Look,
I'm past listening to excuses every team can make excuses
for why they didn't achieve their goals. Every team has
injuries. And
we talked about this last night on PFT p.m. We played some of
that clip. Chris. I
the best teams overcome the injury to Christian McCaffrey
the best teams overcome the injury to the center, the best
teams, overcome whatever adversity comes their way.
That's part of it. You're always gonna have something.
It's never going to line up perfectly
where you have 17 games,
where you have your best players,
your best game plan your best everything.
No bad calls, no bad. Breaks, no bad weather, no unforeseen
development. You have to be able to fight through those and
still have a winning culture. And that's the Patriot Way as
you well know
when someone gets injured there are no excuses. It's next man
up. It's do your job and it is an expectation that the person
who steps into the lineup will perform at the same level as
the person he's replacing.
When you start bellyaching about injuries, you're making excuses
and what you're doing is
you're giving cover.
In advance to the folks who are going to get pressed into
service this year when there's an injury because one of those
are well, we we thought things were going to happen this way
again, but they did
and oh, well, maybe next year.
That's a mindset
that starts at the top of the organization
that David tempers got to get out of there.
Take a cue from Bill Belichick. Don't talk like that. Am
I right? Or am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. You're not.
Yeah. I think they're in the process of trying to get there
and build that they're you know, there's just not Enough
there
for the organization to be able to
overcome some of that stuff quite yet.
That would be like, what I would say. I don't think you're
wrong at all. I don't I just don't think they're quite there
to where they can quite deal with the Haymaker every now.
And then go well, we're a little wobbly, but we'll be
okay.
And it just because
again, you know, the office grab that will you know, what?
Yeah, Chrissy would be better. If he said that, I know it
would be better if he said
we've had some adversity that we've had to fight through
and we don't yet have the That we can deal with adversity,
like some of the teams out there that are consistently
successful that they get a guy injured. They just keep going,
right? Have something bad happened. They just keep going
to get screwed by a
bad call and lose a game. They just keep going. We're aspiring
to get to that point where no amount of adversity throws us
off of our goal of being a consistent Contender. That's
a message. If I'm a Carolina fan, makes me feel a hell of a lot
better than making excuses for why things went
wrong last year? Yeah. I hear you there. I hear you there.
You know, the one thing I'll say with the This thing and
again, you know, not to say it's an excuse or whatever. But
I hear you. It's kind of comes off that
way a little bit. You know, the one thing I like that, he said
there is it to me at least it's like logical. Sometimes there's
the owners that are like, well, you should have one. Anyways,
who the hell cares. I don't care. If you're on your 7th
offense of lineman at left tackle, screw that. That's why
I pay you to
get it done. So I guess I would, I like to see, is
that he was at least a little logical,
you know? Yeah, they
they, they had a
That's a coordinator where they blew it.
They took a guy that was hot off the college. Whoo. Yay, won
a national championship with jobber. Oh, it's college
football. The,
you can win a college football with when you have the most
talented team and have 20 plays in your playbook. You can, you
know, it's the NFL you can have the most talented team. You
better have 120 plays in your playbook just for first and
second down. So that's where it's a different animal. So
they got burned by that. They got burned by the quarterback
McCaffrey did get hurt. They got That
horrible left tackle play
and then you heard the center get hurt too.
So there was some real tangible issues and yes, they're not
able to overcome that yet for the reasons. You stated. Matt
rules still getting used to it. They're still building
a culture in depth on their football team.
So this is it though. I do, I do think this is the year and
they better get the leash really close to the playoffs. I think,
if Matt rule, probably wants to save his job. They probably got
to get like really close at the very least. If they go 6 and 11
or,
you know, something like that, then I think it's probably see
later
when we have these conversations about developing
a franchise that deals with adversity and the adversity
will always be there and there will always be something that
conspires to keep you
from being ideally what you want to be.
I am reminded of that classic sequence from Goodfellas where
Ray Liotta says business is bad. F you pay me. Oh, yeah.
Fire F, you pay me
place. Got hit by lightning
F. You pay me. Apparently may hear that later.
But but that's my point. Those things don't matter.
Once you are locked in as the owner and NFL team.
All this stuff is going to keep coming
and you're either going to weather that storm
or you're not. And you're going to tell everybody after
the fact. Hey, what was I supposed to do? There was a storm.
So we'll see if they get there.