Patriots' Playoff Hopes: A.J. Brown & Drake Maye's Health

What are you guys' feelings on the Patriots? Because it feels like they've kind of gotten a little bit better as the season has moved on. Obviously, Drake may have those terrible first couple weeks, and he's kind of gotten it together, at least fantasy-wise. Trust me, I know. No, but, um, I guess, Beeve, I'll go to you. This Patriots team, obviously, awesome year last year. A lot of stuff towards the end of the year, it's like, how did they even get to the Super Bowl? How did Drake May even get them to that point? They faced some really good defenses. Their defense was just awesome, which carried them to the Super Bowl. And then they got crushed by a really good defense in the Seattle Seahawks. And now, I just don't know what to make of the Patriots because you have the Bills in the same division, right? So you're going to have to overcome that. And if they get into the playoffs, I don't know if there's anyone that really believes in this team, right, Beeve? Nobody believes in this team. And I'm going to start with the one key component that's there. A.J. Brown. No one believes in A.J. Brown. And I'm going to tell you why. Because Howie sold high on a player whose knee is cooked. John, that knee is bad. That knee is bad. Howie sold high. He got him out of it. But again, this is what happens when a player... acts the way he acted right and demanded what he demanded sold high and that was the only place that was gonna buy it and they bought it and nothing has transpired from it then why receiver core hasn't got better because he hasn't been on the field and then I'll take it a step further you have issues in your running back field Henderson is out due to mental health, right? So it's a lot of things that have transpired in this organization that you have to sit here and it's kind of head-scratching. Like, what is going on? Their defense is still good, but offensive ball, they're not good at all. Let me just say this because I'm going to defend A.J. Brown. Yes, he has never been a burner. He's never going to outrun anybody. He's just not catching the ball right now. When A.J. Brown gets the timing back, And he starts catching those 50-50 balls. They go back to being the A.J. Brown balls. All this is going to change. Even the balls he's dropping, by the way. He ain't outrunning nobody. He's just not catching the ball. That will change. I'm still high on A.J. Brown. I still believe that this will turn out to be roses for New England. I just think after a high ankle sprain and his inability to catch the ball right now, it purely comes down to timing. Where was his hands at in Philadelphia? Because the same issue that you're seeing in New England is, no, because now it boils down to this, right? The issue was with A.J. Brown prior was he wasn't getting the ball and there was a quarterback issue. The throws wasn't being made correctly and all that stuff like that, right? He was dropping passes at Philly. Fast forward, there's nothing wrong with Drake Mayes' ball, and you still dropped him at a high clip. It was one game where he was forcing it so much. That you literally walked off the field with only, like, what, two or three catches? That is crazy to me. Now, it boils down to a certain thing. Either you're going to necessarily ball out, or you're going to necessarily blame it on a real cause at hand, which is that knee. I think he's really be, he really is in pain. If he's in pain out there, it's going to affect every mechanic that you have available, or he might have lost his hands in the same attribute that he's losing his knee. Something's going on with AJ Brown. John, there's some really bad stuff that's going on with AJ Brown. If you look at it, Adam Schefter is like, it flared up. It says ankle, Annie, but it's the knee. They held him out. I mean. There's a lot of concerns about that. Because oftentimes when you come off an ankle, you get a knee because you're compensating because he didn't come back at 100%. A high ankle sprain is probably one of the hardest injuries to ever rehab from and then actually get back out there and try to operate with that thing because it never really goes away unless you have months and months off, more like an off-season to heal off of it. So, again, I'm not selling all my A.J. Brown stock. Y'all go ahead. Or he has a Kawhi knee. I'm going to take it there. That's what they said. I think he's got like a degenerative thing in that knee. This is not anything minor. It's like the Kawhi knee. It just flares up. You got to sit down. But in this case, AJ Brown can afford that. He has too much riding on him for that. I agree. Listen, they made this move because they wanted to get Drake May a number one guy. They wanted to get him a guy where it's like, okay, we can go into a playoff round and have AJ Brown and have a beast at wide receiver with our top guy and Drake Maye. And it just hasn't turned out that way so far. And now there's concern, not just with the ankle early, but now the knee