 Welcome to Post Game Live of all the things you didn't expect to see on Christmas Eve. That number right there, Patriots beat the Denver Broncos 26-23 in Denver. It gets even stranger. They won on a 56 yard field goal from Chad Rylan, who missed to the left, who missed to the right throughout the game. And finally, when the game was on the line, he made the 56 yarder to give the Patriots their fourth win of the season. How do you feel about a Patriots fan? Happy? Disappointed? It messes with your draft position. Tommy Curran is here. Ted Johnson is here. Gotta start with you, Curran. If there's a takeaway or two from this game, what is it for you? They are going to hate themselves in the morning, but it feels real good right now to win 26-23. Redemption stories all over the place. It was mentioned by Rich Eisen for the kicker Chad Rylan, but also for Devonte Parker. Also for Bailey Zappi, released at the end of training camp, relegated to a guy who didn't even dress for the Raiders game. He comes back and he architects a drive like this. The Patriots were bounced off of prime time for the Kansas City game, but now they've won two prime time games in their last four. It's pretty amazing to see this team. What it does to change the overall conversation around the team? I don't know. Probably very little because the Denver Broncos seem a little bit woeful on their throne, but it changes the night. Merry Christmas. It does. It really does. It might change the narrative just a little bit because here's what you're going to have. Everybody watched that game tonight. It was exciting. I mean, if you didn't have fun watching that game, especially the second half, I don't know what to do with you. But I mean, just there was still fight. That team came back. You saw how the Patriots played in that second half. That's going to be part of the narrative. I think maybe with this win is, hey, these guys are still playing for Hartfordville, but just put that aside. Great game. Great game for Bayley Zappi when you consider how the things started. Just a horrible sack fumble there to start the game. He was terrible in the second half of these last two games, and so the second half has been a big issue for him, and they come out in that third quarter, you guys, and start slain it. And it's just start putting drive after drive together. Three touchdowns, two on offense, and one on special teams in that third quarter. And then almost choking away there at the end. But I'll say this. Defense had me worried there when Russ started cooking and doing his thing, leaving the pocket and started hitting guys downfield. The defense came up huge. Denver has it, scores tied. They have it. They lose four yards on three downs. The Patriots get the ball back and are able to go down and kick it. A game-winning field goal. So hats off to the defense, hats off to Bayley Zappi for having a really, really, really outstanding second half when that's kind of been his bugaboo all season. And that's exactly where I want to pick it up. And said, we don't know if this changes the conversation at all about the Patriots this season. Maybe it does with Bayley Zappi. We know that he has been capable of getting it done in the first half. The story is second half, he falls apart. Well, he had a good first half. I mean, solid. I only scored three points in the first half. Second half, the defense really put them in position to score. But when it really mattered, because I said to Ted Johnson, down to stretch, I said, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? They waited for overtime. They didn't. They wanted to. They waited for overtime. But Bayley Zappi, they put the ball in his hands and he made a throw to Devante Parker. And to me, that's what helps to seal him, Mike and Ted, as a guy that you can look at as a legitimate number two. Okay, we're in trouble here. A guy got hurt. We can put him in. Now, we talk about people might want to put the card ahead of the horse and say he's a starter. You certainly still need a young quarterback with more vast physical talents. But if you're talking about at the worst backup quarterback, and maybe at the best, a guy who can bridge and even start until the next guy is ready. Get you through a few games. Just a few games. But you know what? At least put them in the conversation. I thought you were going to say they wanted to play for overtime. They did. And you know what happened was the Broncos actually forced them to change their plans because Broncos call a timeout after first down play, so second and four. And then they call a timeout again and they force the Patriots. Okay, what are you going to do? That's right. You're going to have a little sorry run play or are you going to go for it? And they actually pass the ball and they have some momentum there. So Ted, if you look at Bailey Zappi, do you look at him as, hey, just a backup quarterback who's on a good run or do you take him more seriously than that? Just Bridgy. A good run. Bridgy. Nice Bridgy quarterback. He's a Bridgy quarterback. And I said that last week and nothing's going to change my mind. Look, I think he had five passes of 25 yards or more in this game. I mean, and I thought in his first, his first start against, what was it, LH Chargers a few weeks ago, even though he completed one deep ball, he gives these receivers opportunity to catch these deep balls. I mean, they're always just right around them. You know, they're not always perfectly thrown, but they're all catchable balls. And so that's what's, what's what I like about this kid. Look, here's the thing, you know, can he be a viable starter? I don't think so. But does he have some guts? But why not? Why can he be? Because I think he's a stringy player. What do you mean? Why not? What do you think he could be? No, no, no. I'm asking. I just don't know. I just want him to, you know, you say, I don't think he can be a good starter. And then somebody is saying, well, why can't he be a good starter? Look, I'm just saying, I don't think he can do it consistently. I just think he can't, he can't, he can't have a good night. I mean, is it size? Is it arm strength? It's probably, yeah, probably a little bit of, a little bit of both. I just think there, there's some limitations there. And so I just think teams can figure them out. I thought the Patriots offense kind of broke the code for the Broncos defense. I, I, I, and no offense to my former teammate, Vanshosa, the court in for the Denver Broncos. I just thought they were, they were, they were motioning out to empty and getting the Broncos defense to check into a very conservative zone defense. And the Patriots kept killing them with it. And the Broncos never made adjustments. So against teams that maybe aren't the smartest, they have some predictability. Look, Bailey's happy, I think, and have good games. Against the better defenses, Michael and Tom, I don't think I could expect Bailey's happy to kind of just deliver in those games. And let's face it, a lot of those deep basses that he completed. Look, there's going to be days when he's 0-5 instead of 5-0 on those deep balls. It's just, a lot of times it's just the odds. And I just can't think he can do it week in, week out, game in, game in. He can, he can be a starter, but you're always going to be trying to replace him. He will always be a player, even if somehow by some weird confluence of circumstances, he ends up next September as the starting quarterback for the Patriots. Something strange happened, they will be looking to replace him, whether it is with whoever was injured or not, coming into the season. It'll be interesting to see in March, for instance, what do the Patriots do in the free aging group? Are they trying to replace Bailey's happy with a more experienced veteran quarterback, a flakovian kind of guy? Or they say, you know what, he's fine. He can be our Gardner Minshew to Anthony Richardson. And if whoever we draft, Jayden Daniels, Drake May, Caleb Williams, they get hurt, he can come in and be Minshewvian. But to me, you're always going to be trying to replace him. And we talked about this a lot. And I know that we're fresh off a really nice win, a really fun win. It doesn't help at all next year in the draft, but it was really fun on Christmas Eve. But I think you're always going to look at Bailey's happy and say, he was trying to prove that he could be a backup quarterback, because he wasn't that as recently as the Las Vegas game. They had him inactive replaced by Malik Cunningham to play in that game. So the Patriots don't necessarily believe in that. They've shown that he's playing not because he's particularly good, but because Mac Jones is particularly bad. But again, the upshot is Bailey Zappe has earned an opportunity to solidify himself as a backup quarterback. You know what, I saw something from him tonight, Ted, and tell me if I'm overstating this. He moved around in a pocket really well, and he was able to complete some passes where you thought, maybe three games ago, Bailey Zappe, first game as a starter, second game as a starter, he's going to stand there and take a sack. He really moved around and created some plays, not in a dynamic way, but just pocket awareness and throwing it on the field. Michael, that touched down to Mike Gisecchi in the back of the end zone. That was him finding a little bit of space, kind of breaking out to his right and buying time and then hitting Gisecchi in the back of the end zone, because the Broncos were playing zone defense, a lot like how the Patriots were playing zone defense against Patrick Mahomes, who was killing him with those kind of scrambles out of the pocket. So Bailey Zappe did the same thing. He's got pretty good spatial awareness and knows where the pressure is coming from. And so, I mean, the one thing I do worry about, you know, Bailey Zappe is not only is he streaky, can he be maybe streaky in season, but he can be streaky in a game too, is there's kind of like one play that you just go, oh, Bailey, what were you thinking on that play? And, you know, maybe that first play, I mean, a little bit of that was on Zappe. The first play of the game, you know, he coughs up the football with pressure right in his face and should have, you know, should have done a better job of securing that ball. That's the only thing about Bailey Zappe, is you can point to one or two plays in each of these games where you go, oh my gosh. I mean, the Broncos just didn't do anything with that gift that Bailey Zappe gave him early in that game. Went forward on four down and couldn't get in and so zero points came from that. But that's my point. I think he's streaky and he always has one play that just makes me scratch my head. But I'd still say he never threw the pick. I mean, that first one, that's like pulling out of your driveway first thing in the morning and all of a sudden, here comes the dump truck at you. He encouraged some blame for not having it buttoned up and actually bouncing it off his own shoulder pad. But what blame did the Patriots incur for having the Darian low and James Ferenc on the field to start the game instead of Antonio Mafi and Trent Brown? I still don't understand that logic. Again, dodge the bullet. I'm with you on that. Dodge the bullet. They didn't score. But to me, the good thing about Bailey Zappe is you see a guy who tried a fake spike play and threw it into a team meeting when he was under duress in the Indianapolis Colts of Germany. But now he doesn't have, he understands when to fight another day. He did it on scrambles. He did it on throws out of bounds. It has sunk into him. There are absolutely physical limitations. You'll always want to try and replace him if he happens to be your starter. But I think he has definitely solidified himself. How complicit do you guys think, oh, we probably have to jump to something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said it. I can tell. You're so mean. When I do that, when I do that, he doesn't mean like this. Tom Kearn has been doing this for the last time. Hold that thought. All right, Pat's dropped a fourth in the draft. If the season ended today, so how do you feel about the win? Happy holidays? Or bah humbug. Hurts draft status. 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