 this news, which came through just a short time ago. Ian Rappaport saying that Washington quarterback Michael Penicks Jr. Set to have dinner with the Patriots brass and coaches tonight in Foxboro. And he has a top 30 visit tomorrow sources saying New England continues to do all the quarterback homework. So let's bring in Tommy Kerr, Phil Perry right now as we can. Phil, what do you make of this that Michael Penicks now added to the list of guys who've been brought in? Yeah, really interesting because he's not in that class in terms of being a high end first round pick. That's not how he's considered by the league and so now they're broadening their search. And I wonder if they're broadening it because there might be some of that same disagreement, lack of consensus that Tom and I had off the very top of the show on J.J. McCarthy. And if they think, oh, the best thing for us if we can't get settled on one guy at three overall, if we do end up trading back, now we're open to the second tier of quarterbacks, whether it's Michael Penicks or Bonex or maybe even further down the line Spencer Rattler, people like that. For me, Tom, he comes with a variety of concerns. Michael Penicks does, he is off the charts in terms of the intangibles stuff. Tough, he's been through a lot personally. He's dealt with two season ending knee injuries, two season ending shoulder surgeries. So all kinds of grit there and he's played some really high level football the last couple of years, but there's a lot that makes him a second round prospect as opposed to a high first round prospect like some of these other guys too. I think it's good that they kick the tires on every single prospect that they could conceivably cross pass with. And I think that Michael Penicks while there are aspects of his game that aren't delightful including the injuries, including the relatively older age, he's 24 now and will be 24 as a rookie. There are elements of his game with the arm strength, the ability to just move the ball with a flick of his wrist, the leadership skills, the toughness. Now, when Gerard Mayo and Elliot Wolfe discussed all the quarterback prospects, they talked about the toughness and it's more germane when it comes to McCarthy, Penicks and Drake may to me and Jayden Daniels too, but if you figure he goes to the commanders, whatever. All of those guys are tough and it's absolutely indispensable to have physical and mental resilience when they get here. So Penicks to me, if you end up trading down and getting Michael Penicks and having artillery to fill wide receiver, offensive tackle, cornerback edge, all those places or most of them, that's awesome. That's great. That's why I again circle back to the conversation we had at the top and I eventually folded my tent on JJ McCarthy because you can't go wrong in many ways. The Patriots should not be able to go wrong in this trap. They can screw it up after the player gets here, but the player they select is going to be worthy of being an NFL starting quarterback. But you wouldn't take Michael Penicks at three overall, for example. I would not, no, no. So for the folks who are tuning in and say, Penicks at three, I would highly doubt that. Okay, so in this scenario, would it then, do you think it's more likely that the Patriots are trading down, getting a package of picks and then you're looking at Michael Penicks and say, you said second round, do you think that there's any chance he jumps to the end of the first round? I do. I think there's a chance he gets taken in the first round. There seems to be a lot of buzz around the Raiders and Michael Penicks. Raiders are quarterback needy. They're right in the middle of the first round. And so maybe they feel comfortable there, taking them there. There's a lot though that should give you pause as a franchise that's investing in this guy as the face of your franchise. It starts with the injuries to me. Two torn ACLs to the lead leg, so his right leg over the course of his career that doesn't bode all that well for his long-term health with that particular knee. His accuracy in the short range isn't awesome. He is thought to be and he played in an offense that was thanks in part to three quality NFL receivers that are all get drafted this year. And a great offensive line. I believe they won the award for the best offensive line in college football this past year. They threw that thing down the field, down the field again, again, again. And again, so if he was going to a Bruce Arians type of offense, Tom, that's your guy right there. But if you want to be able to dink and dunk a little bit more, he's probably not it. That's why scheme fit to me, sorry to you, is so important with Pentax because if you look at that, what he was so great at and why he was absolutely scintillating in the national semifinal was his downfield throws an accuracy, but as we all know, it's easier to track a fly ball than a line drive. You're going to be a more accurate quarterback down the field if you can keep it on the grid if you have a pension for doing that. J.J. McCarthy rarely threw downfields compared to the other guys, but he was as accurate as could be relative to, for instance, Drake May on the underneath. He blew May away in terms of accuracy underneath. The Patriots don't have the artillery to be a downfield passing team. End of story and it's going to take years for them to build that up. That's why if you look at a McCarthy versus a Pentax or even a May, there's a better fit for the personnel in some ways. I look at the due diligence has to be part of this as well, right? They're doing due diligence by talking all these quarterbacks. What else would there be to gain? If they're not planning on trading out of that number three pick, what else do they stand to gain by meeting with all these different quarterbacks here, leading up to the draft when you're kind of coming up on a short clock? Yeah, not really though. I mean, you've already, no, I think right now you're into talking about, okay, who's going to go undrafted? Who are the UDFAs that we want to chase? You're looking at medicals and trying to establish things like that. I think right now is the time that where you try and dye your eyes and crush your teeth because you don't know what Oakland's going to do or Denver's going to do or the Giants might do. So what do you gain by all these interviews in Michael Penic? If you trade down, then you say you're taking, Oakland wants to come up and get J.J. McCarthy? How much are you going to give us? You're going to give us this, this and Devante Adams? All right, let's do that. Say the bag that we've been talking about for weeks. Say it's overwhelming on draft night. And wow, we weren't planning on trading out of three but we do have some concerns about the quarterback that falls to us there. Maybe we should take said bag and now we're in the mix for a day two quarterback, whether it's Michael Penic or one of these other guys. I would say to this, the real, the story is interesting to me is because this does represent somewhat of a shift, at least publicly, meaning they didn't meet with Michael Penic even at the combine. Now he was at the senior bowl. Patriots had representatives there, although Elliot Wolfe was not there. They didn't send a huge contingent to his pro day. I believe his pro day was on the same day as North Carolinas. So they had, I think it was Cam Williams who's the director of college scouting, hugely important guy in their front office for draft weekend, but it wasn't Mayo and Elliot Wolfe. And so if they think there's any chance they might be in the day two or late day one quarterback mix, it behooves them to get as much information on all these guys that they can. But if this does feel like a little bit of a shift, Tom, because it felt like for weeks, months even, boy, they haven't done almost anything on Michael Penic as far as we know. There's all sorts of private workouts, Zoom calls that you can do with these guys. So they may have been doing all this stuff with Michael Penic and we just don't know it. This is the first bit of public information that we have that says they're gonna spend hours with this guy. So to answer your question, this could be cover your ass for a trade down. Not to say they're gonna do it, but more or less if this and this happens, well, then we're out of the quarterback market, which is what our default is as we sit here right now.