Speaker 1: It's nice time with Dan Ray. I'm going you beasy
Speaker 1: Boston News Radio, all.
Speaker 2: Right now, thanks a lot appreciated. Dad is often doing
Speaker 2: a little football action special. Thanks to our entertainment guru
Speaker 2: Cooper Lawrence for joining us. Also early in the program,
Speaker 2: Joe Lopino Esposito attorney talking about the TikTok man and
Speaker 2: our next guest, my good friend from the coast, Tanya Ray,
Speaker 2: Fox Ladies and gentleman of Fox Sports. I do want
Speaker 2: to get her thoughts on TikTok because she is that's
Speaker 2: a big deal for her.
Speaker 3: It's weird gonna be But if for.
Speaker 2: The next forty eight hours follow Tanya Fox on TikTok,
Speaker 2: That's what I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: Do it now? Fox? How you holding up?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm hanging in there. I'm doing just about
Speaker 4: as well as like a one hundred million other Americans
Speaker 4: at this point.
Speaker 3: But you know, so, what's you have to say? I
Speaker 3: love you, man.
Speaker 2: You still have the same attitude you always have. What's
Speaker 2: it like out there? I mean you guys, you Santa Monica.
Speaker 4: I used to being I'm over like a little bit
Speaker 4: further south, actually closer to lax which works out really
Speaker 4: well for me, but we're in the safe zone from
Speaker 4: any of the fires and things like that. Just really
Speaker 4: bad air quality. But otherwise, you know, it's taking a
Speaker 4: few years off of my life. But you know, I live,
Speaker 4: I mean live near the Pacific Ocean, so I guess
Speaker 4: it's worth it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's so if you had stayed back here in Boston,
Speaker 3: you would have lost those years anyways, you know exactly,
Speaker 3: So you just have to look at it like that.
Speaker 2: Sorry, let's get to talk at some sports here, because
Speaker 2: you need to follow Tanya on social media. She's on
Speaker 2: all her social media handles, handles, excuse me, at Tanya
Speaker 2: ray Fox. You can follow her on x you can
Speaker 2: go TikTok for the next forty eight hours anyways, and
Speaker 2: Instagram or whatever is coming next. I love your stuff
Speaker 2: on social media. I love your quick one minute hits,
Speaker 2: your opinions.
Speaker 3: I think they're great.
Speaker 2: I think people they're insightful, they're fun, so people should
Speaker 2: definitely follow them. Let's start with Rabel. Now, when Vrabel
Speaker 2: was a player here, you were working with us, had
Speaker 2: a Comcast.
Speaker 4: Correct, that was before my time. I was still I
Speaker 4: was still very very young and in high school and college.
Speaker 4: When Brabel was there, But you suck?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? I did that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh god, so you don't remember when do you've ever
Speaker 3: when Brabel?
Speaker 4: Oh no, I did not know the story.
Speaker 3: Oh no, we we well.
Speaker 2: Greg and I used to get down to Foxborough and
Speaker 2: we would do the friendly scoop and the first one
Speaker 2: was Richard Seymour and then after Seymour left, uh.
Speaker 3: It was Vrabel. Brabel did it.
Speaker 2: So we would pay these guys so much a week
Speaker 2: to come on and pretend to be our friend to
Speaker 2: talk to us. And we did this bit where we
Speaker 2: lined up in a line of scrimmage and Rabel just
Speaker 2: sent me back twenty yards, I mean, and he didn't
Speaker 2: even break He barely used any of his strength.
Speaker 3: And I swear to god, I thought I broke a ribcage.
Speaker 3: I mean I was. It's on video somewhere of he
Speaker 3: just blocked.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 4: Actually might be your It might be your most impressive,
Speaker 4: impressive athletic feat that you didn't break any bones in
Speaker 4: that scenario. I were you, I would use that.
Speaker 2: I was going to say it was my greatest journalist
Speaker 2: journalistic feet that too. But there was no doubt that
Speaker 2: Rabel was going to become a coach.
Speaker 3: We know that. What did you think of the whole deal?
Speaker 4: I think that Rabel is a good hire. I think
Speaker 4: he's a good head coach, a good hire. He makes
Speaker 4: sense for the organization. A lot of what I've talked
Speaker 4: about about the situation is just that I find the
Speaker 4: whole approach of the organization from ownership to be very confusing.
Speaker 4: I don't quite know what the Crafts are trying to
Speaker 4: send as far as the message for what they're trying
Speaker 4: to no pun intended craft the organization into going forward,
Speaker 4: because there's been this very anti Belichick sentiment coming out
Speaker 4: of the organization for the last year plus and this
Speaker 4: idea that they are going to move in a very
Speaker 4: different direction. They wanted to leave behind the Belichick way
Speaker 4: and move into something that was a little bit more progressive,
Speaker 4: a little bit more forward thinking, and they didn't want
Speaker 4: somebody at the helm who had a ton of power
Speaker 4: over personnel and had just I mean, Belichick was the
Speaker 4: most powerful head coach in the NFL for obvious reasons.
Speaker 4: So okay, they hire Girodmeo. That makes sense, you know,
Speaker 4: in the ways that the Craft sort of described it,
Speaker 4: which was like it's going to be this sort of
Speaker 4: soft launch out of the Belichick era. Fine, we all
Speaker 4: know what happened there. We don't have to kind of
Speaker 4: get into the politics of that. But to me, Rabel
Speaker 4: is actually a step back toward Belichick in a lot
Speaker 4: of ways, and the fact that they've given him so
Speaker 4: much say over personnel, I personally think is probably for
Speaker 4: the best, to be quite honest, I think it's unless
Speaker 4: you have a really really elite GM like you know,
Speaker 4: Bret each or Howie Roseman or someone like that, having
Speaker 4: the coach involved in the personnel decisions, especially if they
Speaker 4: have the kind of ties to the organization, understand ownership
Speaker 4: and everything else the way that Rabel does. I don't
Speaker 4: hate it. I just I'm very frustrated with what the
Speaker 4: Crafts have asked of Patriots fans in terms of this
Speaker 4: departure from Belichick. You don't you know, there are very
Speaker 4: few coaches that have reached that level, and I think
Speaker 4: that everybody's feeling a little bit disillusioned at this point
Speaker 4: because we should be excited to have this new head
Speaker 4: coach who's familiar and part of the dynasty and Patriots
Speaker 4: Hall of Famer. But I sense from a lot of
Speaker 4: Patriots fans who at least engage with my content, which
Speaker 4: again could be an echo chamber that there's just like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is great, but this seems like you're actually just
Speaker 4: looking for Belichick two point out. Quite honestly, do.
Speaker 3: You have a do you think.
Speaker 2: In retrospect, post Belichick or I'm going to say post
Speaker 2: Brady Quite frankly, what should the crafts have done?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm on record as saying they should have let
Speaker 4: Belichick coach until he died or could no longer function.
Speaker 4: I think there's about there's a handful of coaches in
Speaker 4: the history of sports that just kind of earn that.
Speaker 4: And while I do think, yes, of course everybody has
Speaker 4: has fireable offenses, there were so many things that were
Speaker 4: starting from the quarterback position down that were hamstringing their
Speaker 4: ability to actually win games. I mean he did with
Speaker 4: McDaniel's take Mac Jones to the playoffs, which in retrospect
Speaker 4: was a real incredible feat, right and there, Yes, I
Speaker 4: think that there was a lot of things Belichick was
Speaker 4: stuck in. He's showing in US at UNC right now
Speaker 4: that he just will not work with anybody that he
Speaker 4: hasn't had a relationship with. For thirty years plus or
Speaker 4: he's not related to It's a lot, and that's a
Speaker 4: lot to deal with. However, unless you have the perfect
Speaker 4: succession plan, moving on from somebody like this is is
Speaker 4: just such a difficult task. And I don't think that there.
Speaker 4: You can you can see in the way that people
Speaker 4: still interact with Belichick in the national media and throughout
Speaker 4: even on social media, just he still carries so much weight.
Speaker 4: His opinion and his what he's up to carries so
Speaker 4: much weight, and just for business reasons alone, Belichick was
Speaker 4: an important person to the Patriots organization, Like you can't
Speaker 4: trying to move on from that as if there's you know,
Speaker 4: there's a replacement for that kind of social cachet. I
Speaker 4: think I think Crafts misunderstood how much he himself could
Speaker 4: carry the Patriots franchise and the Patriots name and the
Speaker 4: Patriots brand on his own post Brady Belichick and abandoning
Speaker 4: that both. I mean, Brady was eventually retire regardless of
Speaker 4: whether he left or not. But saying we can just
Speaker 4: move on from this entirely when you know Belichick's going
Speaker 4: to keep coaching, you know he's still going to be
Speaker 4: in the public eye to may It was just a
Speaker 4: bad business decision more than anything else.
Speaker 2: But what about the picking the players, because we all
Speaker 2: know Belichick and coach. I mean, Belichick could be ninety
Speaker 2: in coach, but the roster seemed to be going downhill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that the roster issues were a little
Speaker 4: bit overblown. Yes, there were issues. There's always been issues
Speaker 4: at wide receiver and his inability to fully adjust to
Speaker 4: life post Brady with his biggest downfall, Right, was this
Speaker 4: idea that you could get away with being stingy at
Speaker 4: wide receiver and or being a poor drafter quite honestly
Speaker 4: at wide receiver when you had Brady making up for
Speaker 4: all of those mistakes. Absolutely right, he didn't seem to
Speaker 4: fully Yeah, he didn't seem to fully grasp that. Like
Speaker 4: that was not going to be an approach that you
Speaker 4: could have with Mac Jones or anybody else really, I
Speaker 4: mean unless you had Chick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson or
Speaker 4: one of these dudes who are like absolutely truly elite.
Speaker 4: So that, but I also do feel like when you
Speaker 4: make so you're now made the playoffs with Mac Jones
Speaker 4: as a rookie louse McDaniels. Again, this is like a
Speaker 4: pattern through Patriots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really hurt him, you know, Telly, that's a
Speaker 2: good point that hasn't discussed enough that the loss of
Speaker 2: McDaniel sent thim south because then he put it defensive
Speaker 2: guys in and that was stupid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was stupid, and he there were definitely his issue.
Speaker 4: I just I think that the conversation about the drafting
Speaker 4: thing is just so deeply overblown because when you lose Brady,
Speaker 4: that the whole idea was that Brady leaving made exposed
Speaker 4: Belichick right as is bad GM. But when they were
Speaker 4: winning super Bowls and building those rosters while having Brady,
Speaker 4: the whole discussion was, this is how you build a
Speaker 4: roster when you had one of the great quarterbacks of
Speaker 4: all time. Right, So it's like, okay, well he didn't
Speaker 4: have one of the great quarterbacks of all time. He
Speaker 4: had to, you know, go through the COVID season with
Speaker 4: Cam Newton's pretty good season all things considered when you
Speaker 4: look back at it, and then Mac Jones as a rookie,
Speaker 4: they make the playoffs and then yeah that things were rough.
Speaker 4: Morale was low. Turns out Mac Jones not a great
Speaker 4: offensive leader, not let alone the performance on the field
Speaker 4: there was a lot going on. So I look back
Speaker 4: at those draft class I'm like, there's some players in
Speaker 4: there that really matter that I think would have had
Speaker 4: everything been going right in the other areas, people wouldn't
Speaker 4: be so nitpicky about There's just to me when you
Speaker 4: start talking about the personnel and he had too much power,
Speaker 4: It's just like, you can't have it both ways. You
Speaker 4: either think that he has a knack for building defense
Speaker 4: and special teams and a weakness on offense, and you
Speaker 4: deal with it, or you don't and crap decided he
Speaker 4: didn't want to do with it. But I think replacing
Speaker 4: that level of experience is a lot more difficult than
Speaker 4: people realize.
Speaker 3: Well, there's no doubt about that. And if he had
Speaker 3: not put his two.
Speaker 2: Defensive guys there and his special teams coach, you know,
Speaker 2: got I'm so old, I forget their names, but everybody
Speaker 2: knows what I'm talking about. How about that? How arrogant
Speaker 2: am I? You know what I'm talking about people, but
Speaker 2: I can't remember their names.
Speaker 4: But I don't remember anyone's names. And I'm not old.
Speaker 2: Well obviously not after I thought you were older than
Speaker 2: you were. But if you just put in a regular
Speaker 2: offensive coordinator. You know, you could have used Mac Jones
Speaker 2: as a bridge to get you to the next guy.
Speaker 2: But when he messed up the offense, So what's that?
Speaker 4: I don't think. So I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: Mac Jones is a failure. No matter what, you don't
Speaker 4: think Jels.
Speaker 2: You don't think you could have used them for a
Speaker 2: couple of years just to maybe make the playoffs and
Speaker 2: then look for the next quarterback.
Speaker 5: No, absolutely not, No, I think with I think, I
Speaker 5: mean yes, I do think that had you gotten a
Speaker 5: McDaniel's level caliber two offensive coordinator, you probably could have
Speaker 5: made Josh McDaniels look a little bit I mean sorry,
Speaker 5: I made Mac Jones.
Speaker 4: Looked a little bit more serviceable for a little bit longer.
Speaker 4: But he was always going to regress because he was
Speaker 4: essentially just a McDaniel's system quarterback as a It just
Speaker 4: was this always happens with these guys who have these
Speaker 4: decent but unimpressive rookie seasons, but they make the playoffs whatever,
Speaker 4: we start thinking wow, like, you know, this is something
Speaker 4: that they could build on. But those guys also start
Speaker 4: thinking that and if you don't have the right mentality,
Speaker 4: which Mac Jones just didn't. He did not have the
Speaker 4: mentality of a franchise quarterback that could be the team.
Speaker 4: They end up becoming exactly what he did, which was
Speaker 4: over confident, not working on his passing game, not working
Speaker 4: on his mechanics, not working well with his coaches. Like
Speaker 4: those things were always going to happen past rookie season.
Speaker 4: They probably would have happened with McDaniel's too, It's just
Speaker 4: he ended up kind of that. McDaniels is one of
Speaker 4: those dudes who, with the right guy, can have those
Speaker 4: types of seasons. And he's not going to work for
Speaker 4: every type of quarterback but that pure you know, pocket passer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he can make it work. What do you
Speaker 2: think about Belichick at seventy two years old and what
Speaker 2: was it his twenty four year old girlfriend came out
Speaker 2: and said he's staying at Carolina.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, Grandpa's creepy as heck. Grandpa's Grandpa's gotta get
Speaker 4: off the fact that he's on social media now. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, dude, can you not do you know how
Speaker 4: many people give me crab about this, Like I cried
Speaker 4: when this guy retired and now he's being weird, So
Speaker 4: I just calm, creepy Grandpa, because there's nothing, there's no
Speaker 4: other way for me to cope, Like this guy's this
Speaker 4: guy has been in my life, you know since I
Speaker 4: was like thirteen years twelve, thirteen years old, and I
Speaker 4: just have to live with the creepiness. But you know
Speaker 4: he's not the only one.
Speaker 2: So well, No, there's a lot of seventy two year
Speaker 2: old guys that if there was a young twenty four
Speaker 2: year old woman would want to marry them or live
Speaker 2: with him, that would certainly say yes. It's the other
Speaker 2: way around, is like you have to want yeah.
Speaker 4: God, oh I do, I do wonder And you know what,
Speaker 4: that's not for me, that's for her to deal with.
Speaker 4: That's her own trauma to deal with. And I'm glad
Speaker 4: it's I'm glad that I was never in that specific position.
Speaker 4: But either way, you know, wish them the best. Don't
Speaker 4: want to see it. Please leave it away from my eyeballs.
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 2: Tay Ray Fox is with us from Fox Sports in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. We're going to continue the conversation on Rabel
Speaker 2: in the NFL. Coming up next to WBZ.
Speaker 1: Now Baptist Dan Ray live from the Window World Nice
Speaker 1: Side Studios. On WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Social media star was kid check her out on all
Speaker 2: the platforms x TikTok at least for the next forty
Speaker 2: eight hours in Instagram and whatever is coming down the
Speaker 2: road from FS one and Fox Sports. It's our own
Speaker 2: Tanya Ray Fox. All right, let's get to Rabel in
Speaker 2: the situation.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I had Bert Breyer on last night, and you know,
Speaker 2: Burt's prey plugged in as you know. So this is
Speaker 2: what we figured out so far that Rabel will have
Speaker 2: final say, but he's not going to get caught up
Speaker 2: in the day to day front office stuff that Bill did.
Speaker 3: He will have people.
Speaker 2: In the front office do that for him, possibly Elliott
Speaker 2: Wolf with another Vrabel guy that have they've worked together
Speaker 2: in the past. So Able still will have final say,
Speaker 2: but unlike Bill, he's not going to be playing GM
Speaker 2: every minute of every day.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you think about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that that tracks right. Bill
Speaker 4: was really Bill Belichick was really the only guide doing
Speaker 4: what Bill Belichick was doing for a reason, and quite honestly,
Speaker 4: it takes a lot of It takes a lot of
Speaker 4: energy and effort to even do the regular head coach job.
Speaker 4: Let alone be in charge of personnel and hiring that
Speaker 4: and sort of managing that to begin with. So it
Speaker 4: makes it makes perfect sense to me that they would
Speaker 4: have people installed to do the day to day management
Speaker 4: of that. And you know, I still think it's fine
Speaker 4: that that rabel is sort of crafting the personnel and
Speaker 4: then letting it be managed elsewhere. He's i mean, he's there,
Speaker 4: he's in the building, he's taking care of things, like
Speaker 4: it makes the most sense. But you know, there's there
Speaker 4: was there's maybe two coaches in the last you know,
Speaker 4: twenty five years that would be qualified to do anything
Speaker 4: more than that, quite honestly.
Speaker 2: Well, And one of the things that Bert said would
Speaker 2: be Friday during a season, nine am and Bill would
Speaker 2: be in a meeting about the draft during the season.
Speaker 2: It's like, why you don't have to be Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, there's no need for that. And
Speaker 2: I think verybel understands that where you have the right
Speaker 2: people in the front office that can do that day
Speaker 2: to day stuff, and then when the season's over, it's
Speaker 2: time to get ready for the draft to come in
Speaker 2: and they tell you.
Speaker 4: What's up, Yeah, Belichick coming. I mean, he's always his
Speaker 4: need to be involved in absolutely everything. It was good
Speaker 4: until it wasn't right, and it was productive until it wasn't.
Speaker 4: And when you didn't have to micromanage your quarterback, when
Speaker 4: your quarterback was actually sitting with you in meetings, when
Speaker 4: you trusted their instincts, when you had those conversations and
Speaker 4: you weren't developing a young rookie or dealing with Cam
Speaker 4: Newton coming in from the Panthers during COVID seasons and
Speaker 4: all of this other stuff. You that's when Belichick should
Speaker 4: have been able to recognize that that's spreading yourself too
Speaker 4: thin and that you're not focusing on the task at hand,
Speaker 4: which is something that he preached to absolutely everybody else.
Speaker 4: And I think the player the coaches who are former
Speaker 4: players have a different perspective on what needs to be
Speaker 4: invested in the players in order for them to succeed. Now,
Speaker 4: there's varying degrees of success in doing that, but Vrabel,
Speaker 4: he was there seeing what worked early on when Belichick,
Speaker 4: before Belichick had the greatest coach, the greatest quarterback of
Speaker 4: all time, when he just had a really incredible quarterback,
Speaker 4: a really great quarterback. And so that early dynasty is
Speaker 4: actually the best belichick blueprint, and that's where he played,
Speaker 4: That's when he played for him. So whatever he took
Speaker 4: out of that is absolutely going to be applied to
Speaker 4: how he functions as somebody who's in charge of personnel
Speaker 4: but is really focusing on being a head coach and
Speaker 4: understanding where these players are coming from. That is the
Speaker 4: pro to having a former player as a coach. When
Speaker 4: it works. When it doesn't work, it looks a lot
Speaker 4: more like Gerrod Mayo, who is trying a little too
Speaker 4: hard to relate to the players. And I do think
Speaker 4: that Rabel has the has a better balance, has struck
Speaker 4: a better balance at that.
Speaker 2: Did I ever tell you that Mike Vrabel's story when
Speaker 2: he first came here from Pittsburgh, fact that when you
Speaker 2: were obviously like you in high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Vrabel came in.
Speaker 2: Was here in one o two. I can't remember if
Speaker 2: it was. I think it was after the first Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: I think he was here for the next two Super
Speaker 2: Bowls yet, because yeah, he might have been here for
Speaker 2: the first one because Rabel was a linebacker in Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: or a defensive end hybrid type of thing, and he
Speaker 2: was actually the guy that knocked the ball out of
Speaker 2: drew Bloodshoe's hand when the Patriots lost to Pittsburgh in
Speaker 2: the title game. So Vrabel was a stud coming out
Speaker 2: of Ohio State. When he got to Pittsburgh, he kind
Speaker 2: of got lost in the shuffle, right, and his stock
Speaker 2: went down. So Bill was able to make a good
Speaker 2: deal for him and bring him in. But he wasn't
Speaker 2: he wasn't considered one of the top backers. Atsbergery was in,
Speaker 2: like you know Greg Lloyd or all those guys down there, right,
Speaker 2: So when they brought him over, I was doing sports tonight,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure you were watching every night, and I said,
Speaker 2: what the hell is Mike Rabel?
Speaker 3: What is this guy gonna do? Right?
Speaker 2: So Larry Iso and all those guys like I used
Speaker 2: to laugh, like Rodney Harrison watched us every night and
Speaker 2: you go into locker room and he would just kill us,
Speaker 2: absolutely destroy.
Speaker 3: Us, which we loved.
Speaker 2: And so Iso recorded the thing and he puts it
Speaker 2: on Rabel's voicemail that this is this tangue guy saying,
Speaker 2: who's Mike Rabel?
Speaker 3: What the hell's he done? Anyway?
Speaker 2: So I first meet Rabel, I mean he is like
Speaker 2: he is he is like steams coming out of his nose,
Speaker 2: you know, he's sorting.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the hell is this guy's problem? I go, what,
Speaker 3: I don't even know the guy? What's going on here?
Speaker 2: And later on down the road, I found out that
Speaker 2: that was the deal with rabel And when he first
Speaker 2: came to New Way, he really and I interviewed him
Speaker 2: later on as a player, he had to kind of
Speaker 2: reinvent himself.
Speaker 3: He had to.
Speaker 4: That's something that and that's something that's so that story,
Speaker 4: the you know, sort of underutilized, maybe misused, or just
Speaker 4: hasn't had their opportunity to really shine player coming to
Speaker 4: Belichick and the Patriots and having this thriving career is
Speaker 4: a repeating thing that happened throughout the dynasty. We've seen
Speaker 4: it happen over and over again. From Rabel on. I mean,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of players who had that same story.
Speaker 4: Undrafted dudes, Wes Welk or whatever else. These guys could
Speaker 4: come and ended up having these incredible careers and was
Speaker 4: a quarterback. Yeah, I mean, it happened so many. I
Speaker 4: mean we could sit here and go back and forth
Speaker 4: and name probably twenty players that had a very similar experience,
Speaker 4: whether it was for a couple of years or ten
Speaker 4: years with the Patriots, right, and whether they were part
Speaker 4: of the Super Bowl run or not. And Rabel having
Speaker 4: that you know, chip on his shoulder thing where it's
Speaker 4: like I remembered that you didn't even know who I
Speaker 4: was and said the stuff about me on the radio.
Speaker 4: Whatever else is also so it's just so typical of
Speaker 4: these types of players that ended up playing for Belichick,
Speaker 4: and he like would feed into those He would feed
Speaker 4: into those chips and make them even more worked up.
Speaker 4: But I mean, yeah, that was how listen. Like I said,
Speaker 4: first of all, you don't have to keep reminding everybody
Speaker 4: that you think I'm older than I am. By the way,
Speaker 4: we could just what the reality is. The reality is, Gary,
Speaker 4: I was just a lot younger when I met you
Speaker 4: than you remember, because I was an intern, a college intern, okay, but.
Speaker 3: But your presence loomed large.
Speaker 2: So good because you when you came in as an intern,
Speaker 2: you didn't act it that that was the difference. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, boss, we just got a
Speaker 2: new boss, new person running the place here.
Speaker 4: That's so fair. But what I was going to say
Speaker 4: is that I do remember. I mean I was old
Speaker 4: enough to remember the type of personality that Rabel was.
Speaker 4: And so that story that you're telling, both of these
Speaker 4: stories where he tried to maybe kill you and also
Speaker 4: just already having a chip on his shoulder about anybody
Speaker 4: saying anything about him in the in the media. Those
Speaker 4: that that tracks for me, and he still gives off
Speaker 4: that energy. It's just normal.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you something though, Tiny what what I've
Speaker 2: I've said this, and I mean, he's not gonna listen
Speaker 2: to me, but I would tell him because I've seen
Speaker 2: this happen all the time Rabel came into town. He's
Speaker 2: going to be the dude that rescues the franchise and
Speaker 2: I believe he will. I will they be a dynasty again.
Speaker 2: As we all know, you have to find the quarterback.
Speaker 2: You have to find who's going to be the next Brady.
Speaker 2: You know, who's going to be the next franchise quarterback.
Speaker 2: You need that. That's just and that's luck, that's just
Speaker 2: pure luck. But veryble in a couple of years will
Speaker 2: have him in the playoffs. They'll be a competitive team.
Speaker 2: They'll be worth watching. There's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 2: You know about that. But you know at his press conference,
Speaker 2: he God blessed Rochie. The first thing he says is
Speaker 2: hey Roachie.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Then he goes on with Current and then he goes
Speaker 2: with Beatlen Zoe and it's just this big love fest.
Speaker 2: And I actually was talking to Shaughnessy about this. I said,
Speaker 2: he has to remember if he doesn't win, that's going
Speaker 2: to end quickly and people are going to second guess
Speaker 2: him up and down. And as soon as you get
Speaker 2: on the field and you become the coach that Lovin
Speaker 2: is over and he has to run.
Speaker 3: You know, it's.
Speaker 4: Interesting because you was at My first instance is to say,
Speaker 4: there's no way he doesn't understand that because the boss
Speaker 4: and media has been like this forever. If anything, they've
Speaker 4: gotten softer than they were. Definitely absolutely brutal, right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank god for Shaughnessy. He's the last guy left.
Speaker 3: He is the.
Speaker 4: He's the last holdout of from the early era of
Speaker 4: just absence. I mean, some of those columns are just
Speaker 4: crazy to go back and read. But on the flip side,
Speaker 4: Rabel when he was in New England, was part of
Speaker 4: it was during a LoveFest and it wasn't miss the Patriots.
Speaker 4: The Red Sox had started winning like this, The city
Speaker 4: was euphoric in a way that really people hadn't experienced
Speaker 4: in so really ever, nobody alive had really experienced it.
Speaker 4: So I it's funny because I think about it, I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: he should know that, but now I'm wondering. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's been gone a long time in terms of his
Speaker 4: association with the Patriots as somebody where you know, people
Speaker 4: would actually be talking about him critically. His last season
Speaker 4: with them was in two thousand and eight, right, so
Speaker 4: that it's been a lot. Even that season with al Brady,
Speaker 4: they went eleven and five, and you know, people were disappointed,
Speaker 4: but more than anything, it was like, how does the
Speaker 4: team go eleven in five and miss the playoffs? So yeah,
Speaker 4: he you know, I will be really interested to see
Speaker 4: how he adjusts to it if there is critique, and
Speaker 4: it's going to be yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I mean, yeah, it's going to be a sports
Speaker 2: radio and the press conferences and the questions, Oh he's
Speaker 2: gonna get pissed.
Speaker 3: Oh he's gonna get passed, no doubt to get pissed.
Speaker 4: I'm fine with that. Fine, carry like I love I
Speaker 4: love a feisty head coach. I love somebody who's mad
Speaker 4: about it. I love every Joe Missoula, all of it.
Speaker 4: I don't need. I don't need boring people who don't
Speaker 4: know how to talk to the media. I'd rather have
Speaker 4: somebody who's making people mad and engaging or being even
Speaker 4: I I was one of the people who, like, always
Speaker 4: loved how salty Bill Belichick was, how weird he was.
Speaker 4: I know, the people who had to constantly interview him
Speaker 4: hated it, and it ended up grinding on them after
Speaker 4: twenty years. And I understand that. But there's something about
Speaker 4: somebody who actually shows their personality at a press conference,
Speaker 4: whether you like their personality or not, that I like.
Speaker 4: And Brabil is one of those dudes.
Speaker 2: And it's okay when you win. More with Tanya ray
Speaker 2: Fox coming up next here in WBZ.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Fox Sports a fice one timey ray Fox joining us
Speaker 2: here and as she reminded me, a former intern.
Speaker 3: Which is just an attempt to make me feel old.
Speaker 3: Do you know how many former interns I have?
Speaker 1: Listen?
Speaker 4: It was only because you kept being like, you're much
Speaker 4: younger than I thought you were, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: an insane thing to say on radio about your guests.
Speaker 4: So I was just reminding people that, you know, that's
Speaker 4: that's why, that's it's just been so long because I
Speaker 4: was just so young and fry, you know.
Speaker 3: And that's impressionable.
Speaker 2: And you guys, you came in wide I thinking we
Speaker 2: knew what we were doing, and then you worked there
Speaker 2: for a year and realized everybody working in sports television
Speaker 2: is a fraud. Okay, so, oh my god, So it's
Speaker 2: so amazing. I really tell you. I try to tell people,
Speaker 2: you know, for twenty five years, I had the easiest
Speaker 2: gig in the world, because is when you talk to
Speaker 2: people that aren't that are sports fans, they think, Okay,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you guys work so hard, you stay
Speaker 2: up on it.
Speaker 3: You know, I'll leave. I go, dude, it's sports. I'm
Speaker 3: not you know. I remember I got into a debate.
Speaker 2: It was coming Monday night football with the Broncos and
Speaker 2: the Patriots, and I had a friend in Denver. I
Speaker 2: went to their house after and everybody by the time
Speaker 2: I got there, everybody's hammered, right, including this little dude
Speaker 2: who wanted to just debate me on everything in sports everything.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh my god, this this guy is
Speaker 3: so annoying.
Speaker 2: Somehow we got onto the topic of who's better, Mario
Speaker 2: Lemieux or Wayne Gretzky.
Speaker 3: I don't ask me how, and I went, I.
Speaker 2: Go Lemieux and he goes, no way, and he like,
Speaker 2: I thought the guy was going to attack me, and
Speaker 2: I go, I got to get away from the student.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what's his deal?
Speaker 2: And they go, oh, yeah, he's he's a heart surgeon.
Speaker 2: I'm like what and he's hammered. Oh my god, I go,
Speaker 2: I hope he's not. I hope he's not in surgery tomorrow.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2: But that's that's just the thing is like people look
Speaker 2: at us that work in sports and they they definitely
Speaker 2: think there's so much more to it than there is.
Speaker 3: It's well, and part of.
Speaker 4: It is also, yeah, like these are people that the
Speaker 4: sports are their outlet, like they're funny thing, and so
Speaker 4: they're like, oh my gosh, I get to talk to
Speaker 4: somebody who does this for like no one ever wants
Speaker 4: to go and talk to you about heart surgery. But
Speaker 4: the reverse amazing, right, Like this person's got I can
Speaker 4: bounce all of my ridiculous things off this person and
Speaker 4: they're going to know what I'm talking about which is
Speaker 4: really a thing. I mean, I will tell you this, Gary,
Speaker 4: the respect for people who work in sports media, the
Speaker 4: real like thinking everybody is super qualified, that's gone way
Speaker 4: out the windows in social media. I have to be
Speaker 4: on most people just assume I'm I mean it might
Speaker 4: peop because I'm a woman too, but just assume they
Speaker 4: would one hundred percent could do my job any minute
Speaker 4: of any day. So like, it's really it's taken a
Speaker 4: full one to eighty from the days.
Speaker 3: Of digital question.
Speaker 2: But back I agree because my Emerson students, who I
Speaker 2: think are younger than you know, the emersons. I had
Speaker 2: a friend, I had a freshman class. I had a
Speaker 2: freshman class in Emerson. I'm like, oh my god, these
Speaker 2: poor SAPs. God they don't now. I'm like, uh, and
Speaker 2: they all gamble, I mean now the DraftKings thing, They're all.
Speaker 2: I go, I don't know how you guys are doing it?
Speaker 3: Is this legal?
Speaker 2: They're asking? The first question they asked me was the
Speaker 2: professor tag. I said, first of all, it's Gary, there's
Speaker 2: no professor act here. And they said, they said, would
Speaker 2: you take the over under of some receiver? And I said, stop, stop,
Speaker 2: put the phone away. We're not doing We're not doing
Speaker 2: DraftKings here in the class. Okay, we're just not one
Speaker 2: of the kids said to me. He goes, I go,
Speaker 2: he was really the guy was a professional camera. I go,
Speaker 2: do you keep track? He says, well, I'm up like
Speaker 2: nineteen grand since I started. I go, You've got to
Speaker 2: be kidding me. Oh my god, it's crazy. It's crazy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not you know, I'm not big into
Speaker 4: the like sports game. I mean I always though people,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I cover sports like a.
Speaker 3: Sports gambling Do you have to be a lot?
Speaker 4: I know, I know, I yes, you do. And so
Speaker 4: I mean the basic stuff, the spreads and that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff, like you know whatever, But the real deep sports,
Speaker 4: I'm like, guys, I that is not my thing and
Speaker 4: it's not my cup of tea in terms of getting
Speaker 4: really into the weeds because I actually care about the
Speaker 4: sports and the analysis, the real nitty gritty xs and
Speaker 4: odes of this stuff, and then also the broader theme.
Speaker 4: And people want to talk to me about gambling. I'm
Speaker 4: like this. You know, one of my best friends is
Speaker 4: a professional poker player, and so he is obsessed with
Speaker 4: sports gambling and I won't even watch sports with him
Speaker 4: because I'm like, I can't this too much. I want
Speaker 4: to talk about the game, and you actually don't really
Speaker 4: care what's happening in the game as long as you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. And that's that's a totally different experience.
Speaker 4: And so the fact that that's taken over definitely changes
Speaker 4: how you have to interact with people, especially on social media. Obviously,
Speaker 4: I have the talk shows, like the talk shows that
Speaker 4: I work on Fox Sports One, Like it's a lot still,
Speaker 4: you know, the class sports conversation and debate and x's
Speaker 4: and o' stuff, and that's more up my alley. But yes,
Speaker 4: I know I have to I have to talk more gambling.
Speaker 4: And that's fine. Everybody likes to bet on a good
Speaker 4: over under and I'm down, let's do it. That's fine,
Speaker 4: let's go.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I'm not going to ask you. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you that right now.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: What is the story for you in the NFL right now?
Speaker 4: Right now? I mean, without question, it's uh, Josh Allen
Speaker 4: versus Lamar Jackson, who is the MVP. That's the biggest
Speaker 4: story in the NFL right now. That's all anyone cares about,
Speaker 4: is what's going to happen in that game, and what
Speaker 4: it's going to say about their legacies in terms of
Speaker 4: not only just the MVP this year, but the playoffs,
Speaker 4: and you know how it's going to affect the way
Speaker 4: that people talk about them moving forward, which is a fascinating.
Speaker 4: It's a fascinating concept to tread it all over because
Speaker 4: they have they just got the worst possible situation put
Speaker 4: upon them, which is that there's two teams in the
Speaker 4: AFC that anyone cares about outside of the Chiefs, who
Speaker 4: are quite boring right now, very patriots of them to
Speaker 4: be very boring, and and now they're pitted against each
Speaker 4: other in the divisional round. So to me, that's like,
Speaker 4: that's outside of anything happening in the NFC with the
Speaker 4: Lions or whatever else, all anybody cares about is Josh
Speaker 4: Allen versus Patrick, Josh Allen versus Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 2: Josh Allen has really impressed me, really impressed with.
Speaker 4: You would say that, Gary, you would be a Josh
Speaker 4: Allen guy.
Speaker 3: Wow, How can you not be? Though? Why?
Speaker 4: I mean, I do I do like Josh Allen. I'm not,
Speaker 4: I just I'm I'm very much like I've been in
Speaker 4: the weeds on the analytics and everything else with Lamar Jackson,
Speaker 4: and I'm I'm team Lamar Jackson for MVP, but I do.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying is that, like Josh Allen has
Speaker 4: objectively had the best season of his career.
Speaker 3: So it's it's I think they're screwing out.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I like, and I honestly like. I
Speaker 2: don't follow it like I used to be. You know,
Speaker 2: I am now just a typical sports fan where I'm
Speaker 2: not sitting there looking again, I'm not sitting there looking
Speaker 2: over everything that my producers have handed me. God forbid, no,
Speaker 2: God forbid. But Alan to me seems to he's carried
Speaker 2: the Bills right more than Jackson has carried Baltimore.
Speaker 3: Am I wrong in that? I don't know?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I mean you are wrong in that. But
Speaker 4: also that has been the prevailing narrative is that, well,
Speaker 4: Lamar Jackson has Derrick Henry and their defense is a
Speaker 4: little better. I would say the Bill's offensive line is
Speaker 4: a little better. There's all kinds of there is a
Speaker 4: reason that you think that, But when you are starting
Speaker 4: to look at all twenty two, when you're starting to
Speaker 4: look at what Lamar Jackson is doing. I have compared
Speaker 4: him many times at this point across the season to
Speaker 4: what Tom Brady used to do for his offensive lineman,
Speaker 4: his running backs, and his wide receivers, which was you
Speaker 4: would suddenly be like, who, so, who's this guy who
Speaker 4: just had four touchdowns? This running back I've never heard of?
Speaker 4: And people are like, Okay, well that's some random guy.
Speaker 4: This is Dereck Henry. But you look at Derek Henry
Speaker 4: and suddenly Derrick Henry at his old age is averaging
Speaker 4: a yard per carry more than he ever has in
Speaker 4: his career. That's Lamar Jackson. That's the fact that like
Speaker 4: at the mesh point, people are still looking for Lamar
Speaker 4: Jackson instead of Derek Henry, and he's opening everything up.
Speaker 4: The fact that they Flowers, who is a two wide
Speaker 4: receiver at best, he's a number two, is a pro bowler.
Speaker 4: These are things that we used to see Brady do
Speaker 4: all the time, and by two thousand and seven, two eight, well,
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine and ten, when their offense started
Speaker 4: really popping off, we would talk about these kinds of things.
Speaker 4: The fact that Tom Brady's ability to move in the
Speaker 4: pocket would make it easier on their offensive line. That's
Speaker 4: the kind of passer that Lamar Jackson has become, and
Speaker 4: he has the ability to be the best runner in
Speaker 4: the league. And that's why to me, Lamar Jackson sort
Speaker 4: of elevates himself in a way that Josh Allen on
Speaker 4: his in h You're not wrong that that team relies
Speaker 4: entirely on Both teams rely on their quarterback to be incredible.
Speaker 4: It's just how are they doing it? And to me,
Speaker 4: Josh Allen is a lot more like prime Cam Newton
Speaker 4: and Lamar Jackson is a lot more like prime Tom Brady.
Speaker 3: Interesting take, and that's that's why she's t Fox.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, We're going to talk to NFC coming
Speaker 2: up next here in WBZ.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from The Window World
Speaker 1: Light Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, Tanya ray Fox is with us from Fox Sports
Speaker 2: and FS one FS one, excuse me in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: it's getting late, you know, you know me, Tanya, you
Speaker 2: get around eleven o'clock, it's getting a little shaky.
Speaker 4: I actually can't believe you're still awake.
Speaker 2: I know, I got I used to at the old
Speaker 2: Fox Sports that which became Comcast Sports.
Speaker 3: That on an NBC Sports Boss.
Speaker 2: And I needed naps and Ai boy, when we had
Speaker 2: those Celtic games on the West Coast, who those were tough.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that right now. I remember the great thing.
Speaker 2: There's so many great stories with Tommy Heinsen. But tom
Speaker 2: you must remember when Tommy would sleep if we had
Speaker 2: a West Coast game, Yeah, and he came in. Tommy
Speaker 2: was getting off the road. He didn't want to go
Speaker 2: on the road. So we had a West Coast game
Speaker 2: and he would come in and do the pregame, in
Speaker 2: the post game show, and he would take a nap.
Speaker 3: He'd be in a lobby.
Speaker 2: There's six to eight dude, like this Hall of Famers,
Speaker 2: like taking a nap in a lobby, Like wake him up.
Speaker 3: You know, Tommy off the couch was like.
Speaker 4: On the couch that was like barely big enough to
Speaker 4: hold you know, a five to six person. Oh iconic. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I missed that man so much. And he was great,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he was. He was absolutely best. He
Speaker 2: was the best NFL NFC. So the Lions, is it
Speaker 2: theirs to lose?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think that people can overthink it and look at
Speaker 4: the fact that the Rams are really hot, and you know,
Speaker 4: you're looking around and you're like, Okay, well, how can we
Speaker 4: talk ourselves out of the Lions because they've had some
Speaker 4: injury issues and whatever else. But yeah, when you are
Speaker 4: as dominant as they have been across the course of
Speaker 4: the season, and it's not just I mean, it's funny
Speaker 4: because the Vikings sort of provide a perfect mirror of
Speaker 4: what the Lions aren't, which is they were a team
Speaker 4: that was a bad quarterback performance away from falling apart,
Speaker 4: and that's exactly what happened. And the Lions have actually
Speaker 4: proven that they can overcome a tough game for Jared
Speaker 4: Goff and still win. And they have this developed locker
Speaker 4: room sort of franchise culture that they all have bought
Speaker 4: into entirely in a way that I think the Vikings
Speaker 4: are still working on because they don't have the quarterback
Speaker 4: fully figured out and their coach isn't quite as far
Speaker 4: along in his identity in terms of in game coaching.
Speaker 4: I think we saw that in the playoffs. Kevin O'Connell,
Speaker 4: to me, had a really bad game in the wildcard
Speaker 4: ground and to that, because those two teams were fighting
Speaker 4: it out all the way until Week eighteen. For the
Speaker 4: you know NFC North title. It's like here, here are
Speaker 4: the two options for what a team can be. They
Speaker 4: can be the Lions or they can end up the Vikings.
Speaker 4: And yeah that at this point everything is pointing to
Speaker 4: the fact that they are the team to be. It
Speaker 4: doesn't mean that they can't be beaten. We've seen way
Speaker 4: crazier things happened before. But one hundred percent, if if
Speaker 4: you're looking to some other team to overtake them or
Speaker 4: be the savior of the NFC or save you for
Speaker 4: whatever reason, you're a Dan Campbell hater. I you know,
Speaker 4: again not a gambling woman, but I wouldn't bet on that.
Speaker 2: Personally, I think Campbell's an unbelievable story. I just remember
Speaker 2: when he was a joke in Miami and yeah, well.
Speaker 4: I mean he is a ridiculous personality, right like there
Speaker 4: are there are certain people that are they are really
Speaker 4: ridiculous until they work out and until they find the
Speaker 4: space where they're supposed to be and the people to
Speaker 4: buy into their narrative. And I think people a lot
Speaker 4: of time look around at NFL head coaches and think
Speaker 4: that there are you know, there's a prototype or something
Speaker 4: like that, and it's really about fit and and you know,
Speaker 4: even somebody like Pete Carroll was and not was not
Speaker 4: revered as an NFL coach until he found the right
Speaker 4: fit and the right you know, team to build around
Speaker 4: and then everything worked out. Belichick, I mean I think yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean again, like so he's somebody who like was
Speaker 4: actually pretty. He was okay in Cleveland that everybody remembers
Speaker 4: his time in Cleveland as being really bad. He was
Speaker 4: okay in Cleveland, but he was part of that whole.
Speaker 4: He was part of the the He was basically the
Speaker 4: last head He was the last head coach before they
Speaker 4: moved away, and it was just there was everybody had
Speaker 4: a bad taste in their mouth about it. And then
Speaker 4: he was just considered as Bill Parcell's right hand guy.
Speaker 4: And that so there and that that can be said
Speaker 4: for a lot of coaches. It's just finding the place
Speaker 4: where you're supposed to land, and and that me there.
Speaker 4: There probably isn't another single team in the NFL where
Speaker 4: Dan Campbell works, but because he works there, and because
Speaker 4: of his relationship with Jared Goff specifically, I don't know
Speaker 4: how much you know about their relationship, but Jared Goff
Speaker 4: did not handle being traded away from the Rams very
Speaker 4: well at all. It really shook him mentally and there
Speaker 4: was a time there work he was going to fall apart,
Speaker 4: and Dan Campbell understood that we're either going to make
Speaker 4: Jared Goff work or this team's not going to work.
Speaker 4: Like we cannot start over at this position.
Speaker 2: Tanya, you're in a role, but we have to fly
Speaker 2: Tanya a fox. Check her out on all the socials.
Speaker 2: You're the best. We'll talk soon. Coming up next, going
Speaker 2: to open up the phones. How is this country doing?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 3: Tell me that's next WBZ