 Can I just stop you for a second? Because there's a, there's, can I stop you for a second? Yeah, go ahead. We're a six minutes into your tenure here and I got to throw a wrinkle at you. Oh, do we break? This is breaking sports news. How about leveling instant oil change on 98 five, the sports hub? It's all happening here. Six minutes into the show. The breaking news is that Patriots long time captain and special teams ace Matthew Slater has announced his retirement. What a run first later and not at all surprising that this would be the off season in which he decides to retire. The timing of it is phenomenal. So Matthew known him for a long time. We get along very well. Thank you for this. We appreciate the breaking news. And thank you. Thank you for being you. What a gentleman McCarthy. If there was a sportsmanship award, which there is actually in the NFL and he's won it, the Bart star award. He would be taking that thing home every single year. One of the best people that has come through Fox pro in his tenure in New England drafted in 2008 fifth round pick. They gave him a run at receiver. They knew he was going to be a special teams guy. The offensive stuff didn't really work out. He ended up being arguably the best cover man of all time and is going to among the special teams. Corners of the NFL have an argument for a gold jacket. I mean, that that's the class that he is in. Unbelievable career, three Super Bowl titles, long time captain, really the voice of that locker room for about a decade now because he think about about, you know, he's 15 years in the league. About five years in, he had already established himself as, as who he was as a person and as a player and really defined. And now the Patriots have been mocked over the years for being so heavy on special teams and for valuing it so much, but he really has defined in some ways what the Patriots have been about, which is making the most of every inch, making the most of the kicking game. And he has been the face of that for a long, long time here. Yeah. My first reaction to this is, this is in some ways one of the last few connections you have to the Patriots of all, right? And we knew this news was coming. And it was pretty obvious final game of the year that that was going to be, you know, his last game, but, you know, Slater is, you know, was in some ways the last remaining holdover. I mean, David Andrews is kind of on that list too. But, you know, here was a guy who was here in, you know, the mid part of the dynasty where, you know, there were some, not to say lean years where they didn't win a Super Bowl. That's how we define Patriots lean years under Tom Brady. You know, he got here in 2008, he was on, you know, I'm played in what six Super Bowls, won three of them. You know, if my math is correct and he was an all time Patriot, you know, say what you will about the position that he played, but he was an all time Patriot, the definition of a core player, a core member of that locker room, a core member of that group. We can talk about the impact of special teams and maybe, you know, the Patriots placed a little bit more impact on special teams than they should have at times. You could make that argument over the last few years here where, frankly, their special teams, despite the amount of money they were spending, wasn't good enough, but Slater was a hell of a player. And at the height of his career, I remember in one game, it was a game against Indianapolis. I turned to, I turned to whoever I was watching the game with and I said, I legitimately enjoy watching that guy gun down punts, which I'd never said before. And I don't know if I'll say again, that's how good he was at that particular, particular role and what a career, what a career. And he meant so much to so many players who came through that locker room, the guidance that he was able to provide them as they transitioned from, from college to pro from young and single to older and married and with kids. He really was an emotional beacon for this team in a lot of ways. And where let's be honest, the head coach really didn't provide a whole heck of a lot in that regard. I think he helped fill in the gaps. This was a cold, emotionless, business-like football machine for 20 plus years under Bill Belichick. And Matthew Slater gave you something a little different while fitting in, right? He is, he is one of the ultimate Bill Belichick guys. It doesn't necessarily mean he agreed with everything that Bill Belichick did during Slater's tenure here, but he'll tell you, and part of his lengthy retirement announcement today, thanks Bill Belichick. It's an exhaustive thank you, quite frankly, but he gave them something that they were not thought to be by people on the outside. And you need that. This is a, this is a human game. It may be the most human of all the sports that we are watching on a regular basis. And so he provided something incredibly valuable in that regard. Is he a Hall of Famer to you? To me, he is. If you are one of the best at your profession and special teams is, was at least a significant part of this sport during his tenure here, and you're one of the two or three best ever to do it, that to me is a Hall of Famer. Is Tasker in? He's not. Yeah. And he should be. So Slater is an all-time great at his position. I just don't quite know if that's a position that gets into the Hall of Fame. Now, if we're going to start putting Gunners in the Hall of Fame, he should be the first or the second. You know, it's him, Tasker, you know, whatever you want to decide there. But as of right now, I'd say no. And this is nothing against Slater himself, because he was the best to do it. But it's maybe that position. And if we're not, but if there's somebody who should be there, it would be him or Tasker, one of those two. It's such an odd perception that special teams has league-wide. And let me put it this way, not league-wide, but voter-wide. When it comes to the board, it's sort of this mystical, almost like this chair, like you're peering into an office somewhere and can't know Ohio and you're wondering, okay, it's Peter King we know, and it's Gary Myers and every once in a while they'll bring in people. It's very difficult to determine who's a Hall of Famer and who's not in the NFL. I think if you value the kicking game, which the league did for a long, long time, and it plays a role and who wins and loses games, there should be more representation there. Don't put everyone in. Devin Hester just got in. I think it's a really good example of a guy who got in just based on his special team's ability alone. But there is a difference between returning kicks and gunning down punts, right? How many games did he... Now, I wouldn't have put Devin Hester in, but I will acknowledge that there was a difference between returning kicks and chasing down punts. Sure. I would say, I would ask you, which one is more consistently impacting games? Because the occasional explosive touchdown run obviously impacts the game. Well, I mean, Hester at his height impacted the game in a significant way, I would say, even more than Slater did, you had to kick away from him. You couldn't punt the ball to that guy. Definitely. It actually makes Matthew Slater irrelevant. If it's Matthew Slater trying to gun down a punt towards Devin Hester, Matthew Slater has just been taken out of the game. You know why? Because you're not kicking the ball to Devin Hester. I would just say this, over the breadth of Hester's career, you could probably count the number of truly game-altering plays on, I don't know, two, three hands. And he played for the Chicago Bears, who were a horrible franchise, who didn't win a damn thing. And so if you're looking at the Patriots, and I know now you're going down multiple steps, but if you're looking at the Patriots and you're looking at their special team success in some ways, being part of the reason why they were a successful program, if you want to factor in field position, obviously Brady's at the top of the list and how they performed offensively, then defensively. Okay, but field position is somewhere in there. It's in that equation. If you want to take the best player on one of the best special teams units over the course of 10 years or so, I think that is, that's at least worthy of consideration. I might be biased because I know the guy, I like the guy. I like everything he stands for. I think he is among the things that has been right in the NFL for a long, long time. And so again, what is, what is a Hall of Famer? Is it just about what you do on the field? Is it about both? Is it about winning guys, a captain of three Super Bowl winning teams? I don't know. I also think McCarthy, we can get into this later because I know we have to break. There's not going to be a lot of Patriots representation in the Hall of Fame and that to me is a crime. I couldn't agree more with that. It's a real issue. The way it's set up now, there will not be that many Patriots in the pro football Hall of Fame, in my opinion, fewer than the Steelers have, fewer than the Dolphins have from those 70s teams. Maybe even fewer than the Buffalo Bills from the mid nine early to mid nineties have. I have a theory on that is a crime.