Jason McCourty shares his key takeaways from Patriots-Panthers preseason opener

Jason hello sir thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it oh no problem you guys can still make fun of Zo there's nothing wrong with still making fun of him although he did a good job no no there's plenty of things to make fun of him about he's a mess well how much how much did he eat during the game because when he's doing the radio broadcast it's just a constant stream of food he's going out into that hallway behind the booth just to get whatever has been you know put out there or what's been out there for hours it doesn't matter every break he's going to get more food you know what he wasn't bad and I think it has to be with we never knew when that little camera was going to come up in the corner and show us three sitting there in the booth and the worst thing that can happen is you have dressing or crumbs just sitting there on your mouth as you come up on Camp so I'm sure he had a lot of fear in his heart if he tried to stuff his mouth too much during the game it's the one thing he takes seriously is like he takes that job and Hardy will attest to this he takes the play-by-play job or the color commentary job far more serious and he takes the midday show wouldn't you say uh yeah yeah I think that's but that's a pretty low bar to set but going into that game and I want to I want to get all your thoughts on the players and the and the game and everything Jason but going into that game last night it was an unorthodox setup without a uh a traditional play-by-play guy and essentially two analysts or three analysts together did you did you have any dry runs any rehearsals because I'll say what Fred already said I was really impressed with how well it flowed and how well the three of you worked together and managed to mix in good information about what had happened on the field but it was it was info and Analysis Al together it it it didn't seem like it was your first time doing something like that yeah no dry run or no rehearsals we talked a lot about kind of what we were striving to do and listen the new Eng and Patriots last year Devon and myself did an alternate cast and my guy Bob s and zo on the call ini sure they wanted to mix it up and they had a vision of what it would look like and the preseason is different you know there's a lot of different guys playing and to have three guys in the booth that play the game that can talk intelligently about what's going on on the field but also talk about what's going on within the organization you guys know zo's there every day Devon and myself have been up to training camp we got a chance to talk to a few players Gerard Mayo before the game I think that's a lot of the information that fans want to know all right there's five offensive linemen that they have to figure out by the right about game one but what are those combinations looking like what are the receivers who's going to be the guys that are going to be lining up out there how are the two rookies doing we saw Joe Milt and Drake May a little bit last night so I think those are the things that fans want to know and I think it's a cool experience to to try that during the preseason and see what it looks like what did you think about Drake May yesterday getting such limited reps what was your feeling on that I didn't anticipate that um honestly thought that he would play a little bit longer we' get to see more of him um from watching it I I think a big part of that was listen you got jacobe brassett who's going to be your starter I would assume and you have Drake May those guys are competing you're trying to bring May along and the one thing you don't want to do is put him out there without the starting offensive line out there to protect him I think that probably had to be a factor for gerro mayo and Alex Vel David Andrews is a guy who's played a lot of football and he's your Center and I'm not sure that they they know exactly who's going to be the backup today you don't want to play Da too much in these preseason games you don't want to play Michael winu too much in these preseason games City Soul wasn't out there so I think it was a combination of you want to get Drake May some work I think it was also like well we don't want to put Drake May out there in front of a backup offensive line because we want to make sure we're keeping him clean and we're keeping them healthy so I think there was somewhat of a combination probably uh for the coaching staff of trying to figure out exactly how much he was going to play and judging off that game last night I would assume to see a lot of Drake May next week when they go against the Philadelphia Eagles oh you do okay and is that because of the joint practices we talked to ber Breer earlier and he was saying that his footwork under Center was all messed up when they got him and that uh they've been working on that and so you think do you think the joint practices and then going into that game that will be why I guess why do you think he'll play more in the next game because he didn't play much in this first game and I think uh got to do it at some point right EX exactly and I think um The Joint practices are huge listen the time I spent in New England the one thing we knew joint practices can be hectic and they it can be chaotic I was at the Giants and uh Panthers joint practice and there was a fight every 10 seconds but the one thing you know as a player if you went into the joint practice and you played a ton of snaps during the course of that week you probably weren't going to play much in the game I think different for a young guy uh and Drake may as a rookie you're working on that footwork every single day in practice you want to see him improve on it but no matter what you do in practice as a quarterback you can't be hit so you know I'm working on my footwork and you can just can you can just think about that the whole time you don't have to think about all right my footwork is not right if I don't hit the open guy like somebody's gonna smack me in the mouth so you have to get them out there and live action I think the fact that he didn't play much in this game I think they're they're gonna play him a lot in the next game and it'll be a conversation If You're Gonna Play Drake May a lot do you play jacobe a lot jacobe is a guy that's played a lot of football so I think that's probably the the conversation that Mayo's having with his staff as they lead up into that game of maybe getting jacobe a ton of reps throughout the course of the week I don't know how they're going to work it out but I think you have to play Drake May in the game at some point in this preseason where you can see a lot of reps so that you can coach them off of it all right you mentioned these joint practices and the fights and that's been happening again this year with these joint practices how legit are those fights Jason mccordi like is there like a real tent to to hurt someone in those fights or are they more skirmishes what's your read on those I mean I can't a m like I'm I've watched Kirby Joseph and Malik neighbors go at it yeah and I they're throwing blows to the helmet so when you talk about intent to hurt somebody you're only going to hurt yourself if you're punching the helmet I guess God Bless The Guardian caps that on top of there're protecting the hands and the head Alto together but I think it's a little bit more frustration throughout training camp where now here is you're in day 10 11 is getting to those those tough days although training camp nowadays is a lot easier I feel like a old guy when you say that you're talking about well back in my day it used to be this but you just get tired of going against the same opponent and now you bring in fresh blood and for a lot of teams you're working off of whatever happened last year so if you're a part of a secondary and people say you struggled last year now you get chance to go against another opponent it's like all right it's our it's our chance to show everybody like we're a different team this year a different unit so I don't think it's intent to hurt it's just intent to poke your chest out and show that you know what we're going to be for real this year no matter what the position group uh you mentioned we talked about Giants and Panthers the Giants offensive line is trying to be much improved you're getting a chance to go up against a guy like Aiden Hutchinson uh mcneel on the inside so when you go against those guys you want to prove that you know what we are an improved unit and we're somebody that's going to be a factor for this team this season just real quick Malik neighbors I heard the guy a Giants guy who's been at all the camp Malik neighbors is like is crazy he's awesome like like like if he drops the ball like he immediately just starts pounding the quarterback like he just he's like he's very he's talking about puffing out your chest Malik neighbors is legit all right go ahead all right you me you mentioned the you know the quarterbacks in these joint practices being able to like work on things without having to worry about getting hit but for the other players like yourself would you rather go out in a joint practice situation or in a preseason game situation like which do you think they get more out of ultimately I think the joint practices um in the sense of when you go out there in the preseason game that film is going to be sent around to every single team in the league and you're starting to watch it and you're developing your game plans for whenever you go against somebody in the regular season so you know you always say when you're watching a preseason game well it's going to be more vanilla the defensive coordinator is not really going to bring any pressure they're not going to do certain things the offensive coordinator is not game it he's not dialing anything up well it's the exact opposite when you get out there in the joint practice especially if it's a team that you're not going to be playing against That season you're dialing up and you're trying to do everything possible so one thing we talked about a lot last night was third down situations for both sides of the ball that's where you really see who the coordinators are and what they're really good at and you get in those joint practices you look at an offensive line for the New England Patriots right now where you feel you feel pretty good about the three interior guys but on the outside you had Oka for you have you have L you have Calvin Anderson you're trying to figure out who are going to be your starting tackles you get in there in those joint practices in a team like the Philadelphia Eagles and what they have up front you get a chance to really see those guys up against some of the Premier pass rushers in this game so to me you get so much more out of it because Vic fio the defensive coordinator for the Eagles he's going to be dialing up in practice because he's still trying to figure out who can do what on their roster as well so I think that's where the challenge comes for especially a young team like the Patriots the receivers on the outside being able to look out there at the Philadelphia Eagles defense and decipher R and man RNA Zone how does that change my route hey are they blitzing am I the hot guy all of those situations come up especially for the young guys Drake May and Joel Milton making sure they're in the right play uh we talked to Milton before the game and he talked about just simple getting a play call from the offensive coordinator and then saying it to the rest of the team in the Huddle was going to be his has been his biggest challenge of being in the NFL so those are the things that you want to see and that you're going to get a chance to see in the joint practices Jason you talked a little bit about it last night during the game but was there anything from like a quarterback perspective watching the quarterbacks last night specifically Bret and May and and even Joe Milton anything from those guys from your perspective as as a defensive player that particularly impressed you or concerns you going forward so not a ton of action from from May and brassette so it's so hard to really get a feel for those guys especially with some of the penalties that they had when you're in situations uh where it's it's second and long third and long they weren't able to run the ball especially early on in the game and when you talk about a DB when you're sitting there and I know you can't run the ball and we in these situations it allows me to kind of sit back and read and make plays Joe Milton played the most I would say the touchdown strike that he had was really impressive not the throw he got you have a guy that open you just get the ball to him and let him catch it but Hoyer did a really good job during the game of showing Joe Milton moving the free safety with his eyes and his shoulder with a pump opposite and then coming back and making that throw to Jackson those are the things you want to see I will say for Drake May the one thing you wanted to see was him get out there and I mentioned it with Milton but the same thing with him run a clean operation get in and out of the Huddle those are the things that you're going to want to see early on but as far as those guys making throws and doing things we just didn't we didn't see them enough to sit there and say hey as as a DB like he's staring down his receiver or he's doing a really good job looking people off I think Van Pelt with the play action is going to be a lot of fun to watch as they're able to get this Zone Run game going up front and what they're able to build off of that all right listen great job Jason mccordi uh congratulations on all the success with the broadcasting uh you're doing you're very talented at it and uh enjoy you doing these games and you you were with zo who we've seen his balls and so we all have that going for us all right I didn't know that's where that was going I I didn't anticipate that at all I didn't know what other superlatives I could give out the conversation was so nice and so professional up until that point Fred just had to you know they I had to ruin it yeah it's my thing well I'll make sure I'll make sure we don't see those of Zo while we're up there in the bo we're not we like zo we love zo we don't want to be that close all right very good well I suggest that all right thank you Jason we app appreciate it very much if you like that clip and how could you not check out more videos from toucher and Hardy here Point slightly up and to the left for more patriots analysis and opinion hit this playlist Point slightly down and to the left and for the latest from the sportsub download at 985thesportshub tocom