TRANSCRIPT: Adam Schefter on WEEI’s The Afternoon Show
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Here’s what ESPN’s Adam Schefter had to say during an appearance on The Afternoon Show on WEEI on Wednesday:
Adam Schefter. How are we doing today?
“What is going on, gentlemen? How are we doing? Another week.”
Doing very well. Patriots got a nice win over a Chicago Bears team that made some changes. Losing to the Patriots, Adam, seems like it’s been rock bottom for a couple of teams this year. Can you take us maybe inside the decision? And what was, I think, something in the Bears fans and reporters that we talked to, certainly were not surprised by as they lose. Caleb Williams has a tough game, and Waldron has shown the door.
“Well, listen, I think that they’ve gone now two straight games without scoring an offensive shutdown. What is it? 32 straight drives, something to that effect, whatever it is. The offense has looked completely discombobulated. Caleb Williams looks like he’s regressing. It looks like they’re getting worse as an offense. You got players complaining. They had organizational meetings Monday, and you knew something was going to happen. And there were a lot of things that were discussed, including putting Caleb Williams on the bench, that came up. But they decided to bench the offensive coordinator, and that is the second offensive coordinator in less than a year that Matt Eberflus now has fired. And so, listen, it’s looked bleak there for a while. When we see Drake Maye right now, and maybe it won’t be the case every week, but we see signs of hope and progress. And you see this guy playing, you go, ‘Wow, there’s something there.’ And you saw that maybe early in the year with Caleb Williams, but you haven’t seen it lately. And when you’re not seeing progress from the number one overall pick, a player that many thought was the top prospect in this draft, and the Bears made them the number one overall pick. When you’re not seeing that, time to make a change and that’s what the bears did.
Adam, I think it was Jerry Glanville who had that famous ‘Not for long’ is the NFL stood for, and it feels like that’s more appropriate than ever. Is there less patience from ownership and personnel people in the NFL than ever? I mean, we have coordinators being fired in Chicago and Las Vegas half a year in. We have quarterbacks that are benched, like Bryce Young, barely a season into their career. Will Levis. You have these first-round picks, it seems like their careers are over, barely a year into it. Is there less patience than ever for coaches and QBs?
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that there’s so much attention on the sport right now. And I think that when results are not immediate, when there’s not instant gratification, fans are louder than ever. Cries for change are more frequent than ever. And I think that owners who are making more money than ever as well are apt to be a little less patient than maybe they’ve been in the past. I think if we go back and look, I would bet you by November 13th, there have been a couple of coordinator changes every year. I don’t think it’s anything unusual. But this year, you got one in Chicago with a number one overall pick, high profile. Look at Carolina last year, number one overall pick, Bryce Young, fired the coaching staff. So it happens every year. The circumstances are different, but there’s always two, three teams that do this sort of thing in the middle of the season.”
One unique thing about this season, I think we all agree on, Adam, is how many bad teams there are, at least by record. Over a third of the league right now is a three-win team or worse. Because there’s so many teams that are kind of hovering around that, do any of these three-win teams have any playoff aspirations? I know the most optimistic Patriots fans call us and say things like that, but do any of these teams really believe, even at three wins, that they can be part of this Wild Card conversation here in a couple of weeks?
“Well, who are the three win teams right now? We have it at New England. You’ve got Miami.”
Dallas?
“Miami. I don’t see Dallas. I don’t see New England. And if Tua stays healthy, I could see Miami doing it. If Tua stays healthy, I could see Miami at least making things interesting. I could see that happening. If, in fact, the Dolphins are a three-win team, They might have four. I don’t know.”
No, they’re three and six. They’re three and six. Yeah, they’re three.
“Okay. Yeah. I don’t rule them out yet. I think that’s a pretty talented team that’s playing tough defensively, that’s capable of making a push. But when you have three wins, your margin of error is so small and so reduced that as soon as you lose a game that you shouldn’t, your hopes are basically all but up in smoke.”
In your expert opinion, Adam, what do you attribute all these three win teams to? Why is it so hard to win games in the NFL this year?
“Well, again, I think you just have to look at the teams where they are. New England, New England is, I think, right where we expected them to be. I think three wins right now is kind of solid for them. If they could finish the season with six, seven, eight wins with the quarterback flashing the way he has, I think they’d be in a good spot. Carolina, that doesn’t look like a… You look at three wins, and we can look at it a lot of different ways. New England, hope. Carolina, bleak. Miami, good team if Tua stays healthy. “If” he stays healthy. There’s a different explanation with all these three win teams. Now, there are a bunch of two-win teams, and the league does seem a little bit more ‘have and have not’ this year than in other years. There’s usually a little bit more parity. And I think that, if I had to guess just off the top of my head, maybe the biggest thing that separates the ‘haves and the have nots’ is, I think, the separation between good quarterback play and bad play, bad quarterback play, is so pronounced that it literally separates franchises. Carolina has not gotten good quarterback play. New England, for a lot of the season, did not get good quarterback play. Miami, when Tua was out, did not get good quarterback play. So I really believe it’s all about that.
Adam, we have been sort of following Bill Belichick’s media career all season and also following places that might make sense for him to return to the sidelines. More than midway through the year, some firings have already happened. Jobs are going to line up. It’s going to be an interesting January. How do you sort of assess Bill Belichick’s coaching future? You still think he wants back in, and do you think he will be a hot candidate?
“Yes, he will want back in. Yes, he will be a hot candidate. And yes, I believe – I believe – that he’s going to have the ability to be a little bit selected. I think that he is going to… In other words, If New Orleans calls, do I think that Bill Belichick aspires to go to New Orleans where we don’t know who’s playing quarterback and the team is going to clean up some salary? I would not think that that would be a logical fit. I think that there would be other places that would fit more. Look, he is so close to the coaching record right now that, to me, he is going to be in demand. There are going to be teams that want him. I think he’ll be back coaching in 2025. And I think it’ll probably be for a team that we look at and say, ‘They have a chance to compete in ’25.’ That there’ll be a playoff contender of some sort. Now, you’re firing your head coach, how much of a playoff contender can you be? Well, there are different degrees of that. And I believe that he’ll have the chance and the ability to surface with a team that changes head coaches that has a chance to win in ’25.”
That is the voice of Adam Schefter, ESPN. We appreciate the time today. Thanks so much. We’ll talk to you next week.
“Guys, thank you so much. Have a great week. We’ll talk next Wednesday.”
(Editor’s Note: This transcript is done via the available footage and is subject to typos. If you spot something, please take a moment to let me know in the comments below.)
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