Hey, what's up, everybody?

Welcome into Tom Cairns Patriot Stock Podcast, Phil Perry alongside.

We had a chance to go down at Gillette Stadium today, and we took it.

Excuse me, it's a little hiccup at the beginning of the show. We're going to roll right through it. We got a chance to talk to the free agents who the Patriots have signed. We had your Kevin Byard, you got your Elijah Vera Tucker, you had your Reggie Gilliam, you're Mike Brown, even, your Julian Love, and of course, Draymont Jones, and Romeo Dobbs.

In talking to those guys, though, there was one overarching theme that I gathered.

Players want to be here because of who the Patriots have become.

Listen to Kevin Byard here.

I had basically two teams that I wanted to play for, you know, this offseason.

Obviously, you know, with the year we had in Chicago, that was going to be the first option.

And once I seen that that wasn't going to work out, it was New England.

Because I think the hardest thing that you can get in this league is the quarterback situation good.

And I think New England definitely has that with a, you know, MVP runner up in the second year. I think Drake May is a phenomenal player. I've heard

nothing but great things about him from most people in the organization even before I got here.

And like you said, this defense has a lot of great pieces. So I just want to be somebody that's going to add on to it

and just bring everything that I have that I've learned over the years

and try to just serve this group as best as I can.

Now, this is a far cry from what the Patriots really were experiencing in 2023.

And to an extent in 2024, even though they had a great hall, eventually,

they still didn't get their plum-free agents.

And we remember the 2023 season,

I don't know, years straight.

Yeah, the 20-23 season, players are like, mm-mm, no, not doing that.

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