Good morning everybody and welcome to team preview number one here on the simple handicapped

podcast feed. Today is Wednesday July 17th and we are looking at the New England Patriots

with the help of Evan Lazar of Patriots.com.

Before we get into the interview, I just want to share a little bit of my thought process to tell you a little bit about the perspective that I went into the interview with and what I was trying to get answers around.

The first thing that I'm looking at when it comes to the paths is just trying to figure out

what this coaching staff is going to be because this is a massive regime change.

Gone are today's of Bill Bellacek,

and it is completely new, top to bottom.

So trying to get a sense of that,

also trying to figure out, is this team trying to win now or is this a full

rebuild year this team is very clearly fourth place in the AFC East arguably as

fourth place as any team in any division, league wide.

So like, what are the expectations here for New England?

I also want to figure out the Jacobi Brissette, Drake May, breakdown, who's going to be running the offense?

What is the offense going to look like with Van Pelt as the offensive coordinator?

And then finally, is this defense going to drop off? Is that drop off inevitable when you lose the best defensive coach of all time?

Or is there enough talent on this roster? Because on paper, there are some big names on this defense. Is that talent enough to keep this

defense a top 10 unit or is this going to be a step back? And what I also

thought was very interesting at the end kind of got into is there a sense of

tanking around the New England Patriots this year I think his answer might surprise

people based on how the paths are being discussed in mainstream media so far this summer.

So some really good answers from Evan in this, I think will kind of give you a really good perspective

...