00:00Meggo is here and she, as I said, just, I mean, like within like an hour and a half or
00:04two hours ago,
00:05she was at Gillette Stadium covering a practice that was not open to the public.
00:09That's got to feel kind of cool, like an exclusive, when it's just like they don't get to see the
00:14cool stuff you get to see.
00:15It's just her and her.
00:16Yeah, just literally the two of us down there was weird.
00:18Nobody else showed up.
00:21But today was an interesting day, Meggo, if I'm not mistaken,
00:24because there were some important names that were not participating.
00:28And then there was one that I saw had to leave in the middle of practice.
00:33So what did you see when you were down there?
00:34Yeah, so Christian Barmore departed.
00:36And then Romeo Dobbs has been out for two days at this point.
00:41I didn't even see him there.
00:42And then on top of that, you had Will Campbell, who is very limited and appeared to have some kind
00:47of,
00:47I don't know, like a brace or something on his arm.
00:50And so, you know, something to keep an eye on.
00:53I also think it's notable that it wasn't Caleb Lomu, the first round pick,
00:57who was filling in behind Will Campbell.
00:58Uh-oh.
00:59And the team period, it was Marcus Bryant, who's the swing tackle who they drafted last year,
01:03that's seen virtually no play whatsoever.
01:06So a little indicator there.
01:08Is that obvious that he's not?
01:10I got to be honest, guys.
01:11Like, there's a lot of judgment of the offensive line right now based on one-on-one drills.
01:17And I look at this.
01:19Thank you, Ted.
01:20It's not fair.
01:20That's the most unfair.
01:21I look at those one-on-one drills, and I'm like, we're not even in joint practices yet, guys.
01:26Like, it's.
01:26There's no cadence.
01:27I mean, there's no, I don't know, double teams.
01:31But if he's not running second team, doesn't that say something?
01:34Well, he's with DeVito's group.
01:37He's not filling in, or at least he wasn't today, when Campbell was out as a left tackle.
01:43And I do think that's notable because Caleb played left in college.
01:47But I'm not surprised.
01:48Like, we knew he was a developmental guy when he was drafted.
01:51That was the rap on him.
01:53So if you remember Shine freaking out on the morning show about how much he hated it.
01:57So it's not a total surprise that it would take him a little bit to get, you know, up to
02:02the NFL level.
02:03Yeah, doing one-on-ones, basing your opinion just on one-on-one.
02:06That's not football.
02:07I'm sorry.
02:07It's not.
02:08You know, I mean, if you graded me on one-on-ones, I never would have played in the NFL.
02:12Like, let's put 10 other guys out there and play football and see how it goes.
02:17So I think the one-on-ones is a little overrated.
02:19That's just my opinion.
02:20Mago, wide receivers.
02:23Thoughts on just, you know, a lot of people are trying to figure out how many they keep.
02:27Do they keep six?
02:28Do they keep seven?
02:28Is Kyle Williams on the team?
02:30Is our guy Efton Chisholm on the team?
02:32What do you make of Kyle Williams and just the end of the wide receiver group, how that's all going
02:38to play out?
02:38So it was really interesting to me to start camp because you had this group of, I don't know, I
02:43just always think of them as the little guys.
02:45Because they are the smaller size guys.
02:47You got Pop Douglas, Efton Chisholm, and Kyle Williams.
02:51And I just think it's hard to keep those three.
02:54Now, Kayshawn Booty, we talked to after practice today.
02:57And he sounds like a guy who's like a sailboat in the wind, ready to go wherever the NFL takes
03:03him.
03:03Like, it doesn't sound like he's absolutely dying to stay here because he's in a contract year.
03:08And he's probably not going to get over 500 yards in the system this year.
03:12But when I look at the lower end of the depth chart of the wide receiver room, Kyle Williams is
03:19barely running with the ones.
03:20And that surprises me because he was your third round pick last year.
03:25He was somebody who I think a lot of us in the moment looked at and said, man, his speed,
03:30like if he can get with the playbook and learn the NFL level partway through the season, he could really
03:36break out.
03:37And you saw him at times be able to connect for these super deep vertical routes.
03:42The Tampa Bay game was incredible.
03:43I don't know where he fits in this offense right now.
03:46And he's very much slating as like a backup at best.
03:51And when I look at the other guys, Pop always has a good camp, but he gets tons of targets
03:56from Drake May when he's with the ones and he usually catches them.
04:00And so I kind of think that depending on how preseason goes, he secured his place on the team.
04:06And between Efton Chisholm and Kyle Williams, I just think it's going to be maybe an interesting toss up between
04:13those two guys.
04:14How about Gabe Ackis?
04:15He was rotating in.
04:16Yes.
04:16So Gabe Ackis, it's hard to say.
04:19Like, I think still at this point in the season, the thing that when you talk to the other guys
04:23on the team that they're most impressed by is just how he looks, like strutting out there.
04:28I mean, the guy is like chiseled.
04:31Yes, exactly.
04:32But that's another guy who they really need to hit the ground running and Mike Vrabel has been spending tons
04:39of time focusing on Ackis and even just trying to get him up to speed on special team stuff when
04:46other individual or group periods are going on before the team drills.
04:50Like, that position for them, the edge position, is a real potential liability.
04:57And so if Ackis could come in and just at least fill a little bit of what Calevon Chasen left
05:04when he left or Harold Landry if he's not able to come back and be healthy to start the season.
05:09Like, you start running out of options pretty quickly there.
05:13Now, Meggo, all the time you spent down there and from the people you've spoken with and from what you've
05:17observed yourself, how do you think this Christian Gonzalez contract dispute is going to end?
05:23How do you think that – I mean, do you feel that he's going to hold out once the season
05:27starts?
05:28Are they going to be able to figure something out?
05:29Like, what's your sense of how this all ends?
05:31It's very strange because even today he was asked point blank, in Seattle, they have a rule of if you're
05:40not participating in camp, you don't get to negotiate.
05:43Is that what's going on here?
05:45And he was kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
05:48And you're like, okay, that seems kind of strange.
05:50Otherwise, why are you participating unless it's your shared agent who says, like, maybe this is just the best faith
05:55way to go forward.
05:56But even that is very strange because we see cornerbacks in this camp dropping like flies left and right.
06:03And Carlton Davis we haven't seen in, like, a week.
06:07You know?
06:07So it's not like participating in this part of camp isn't without real injury risk.
06:12This guy was injured in pads to start the padded portion of camp last year in Christian Gonzalez.
06:18I think they have to get something done before the season starts.
06:21I don't see how they don't.
06:22I am not following as closely what's going on with Devin Witherspoon, so I don't know where his talks are
06:27with Seattle.
06:27But I would be shocked if Gonzalez signs before Witherspoon signs because he knows that he should earn more money,
06:34and especially the guaranteed money compared to Witherspoon.
06:37Remind me, I don't remember if I heard your opinion on, what did you make of Robert Kraft's comments about
06:43the contract situation with Gonzalez?
06:45And are you surprised he said it?
06:47And how do you, what did you make of those comments?
06:50I'm not surprised he said it, Teddy, but I do think it put Gonzalez in a really awkward position because
06:54he dangled out there this idea that he's going to be the highest paid cornerback at the time,
06:58which we know changes with every cornerback that signs that can set the market, and the highest paid Patriot, which
07:04to me doesn't actually mean very much
07:05because when was the last time that you drafted a guy, had to give him that second contract that would
07:10be a market-setting contract at a premium position?
07:13I mean, you're going back really far when you start thinking about that.
07:16So without giving any of the specifics of what that contract is, we offered Christian Gonzalez $105 guaranteed million.
07:26Like, without saying that, you're kind of putting him in a position that he didn't want to be in and
07:31clearly still doesn't want to be in of negotiating this through the media.
07:36He doesn't want to talk to the media about it.
07:38He doesn't want to talk to us about anything, but he definitely doesn't want to talk about the contract.
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