The Belichick Way ft. Evan Lazar: Do Your Pod Episode 22

As a show of gratitude to all those who have reached out asking for another offseason Do Your Pod, Nick Fasoli and I present this post draft reaction episode. 

We're glad to be joined by CLNS Media's Evan Lazar, one of the most insightful, knowledgeable, and often-cited Patriots analysts out there. And the co-host of the Patriots Beat podcast along with former Do Your Pod guest Alex Barth. If you haven't seen his video breakdowns of individual players or players, do yourself a favor and check them out. I certainly do. 

We start out by comparing our own levels of Draft Nerdness, and discover we're very much in sync when it comes to when we start turning our attention to the college scouting process (unlike Alex, who's already onto 2023). Of course we then dive right into Bill Belichick's completely unorthodox approach to this year's draft. And the New England media narrative that he ceded control of the draft process last year, but somehow wrested it back this year. We talk about the guys he left on the board in order to trade back and pick up Cole Strange. We each come up with our personal choices for the One That Got Away. Evan has a jaw-dropping story about a cornerback they passed on and why he seemed like the perfect fit. We get into second round receiver Tyquan Thornton, and what Evan thinks he already does better than any other wideout on the roster.  There's some discussion about which directions the NFL is evolving and whether the Pats are keeping up with the changes. Then we semi-debate what this particular draft class says about Belichick's future and how long he expects to be running the Patriots war room. Come for the draft talk, stay for me trying to land a joke about all the Joneses and Harrises on the roster, and failing miserably. Because I'm clearly not in camp shape yet. 

This was fun. As it usually is when you're talking to someone who knows so much about the topic. And we legitimately could've gone much longer. But an hour to unpack one of the strangest draft weekends in a couple of decades of them will just have to do. See you soon when we do our next offseason DYP, whenever that will be. 

Thanks again to you for supporting the show. And to Evan and Nick. Feel free to like, share and subscribe. But I'm not here to tell you what to do.