Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - 2018 Revisited: Week 4 - Locked On Patriots May 23, 2019

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

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Don't Worry Cause every little thing's gonna be alright And you don't worry about a thing How's everybody feeling right now? You feeling a little bit better? You feeling a little bit relaxed? I'm feeling a little bit more relaxed. Mark Schofield here with you on this glorious victory edition of Locked On Patriots. And as you heard, a little bit different music. I thought it fit.

I thought it fit for a number of reasons. One, it just kind of soothes you, the message. Every little thing, it's going to be all right, everybody. Number two, look, you're probably going to be listening to this on Monday, October 1st. That means, look, I'm one of those people that, you know, what did I do Sunday? Among other things, I got into the crawl space. I dug out all the Halloween decorations. I got the big bin out.

I'm ready to go. I'm going to put up some Halloween lights. It's decorative gourd season. I love October. I'm one of those people that just absolutely loves October. We got fall baseball. You hear that song? If you're a Red Sox fan, you flash back to 2013 and some good memories there.

But it just felt better today. All that angst, all that consternation. I was chatting with Erica Pearl at Erica Holmes for you on Twitter after this game. This one, no sky falling, right? It just feels better. So every little thing, at least for the today, is all right. The New England Patriots taking care of business, reestablishing themselves as a team to at least not forget about, let's put it that way, with a 38-7 victory over the previously

undefeated Miami Dolphins. We've got... I'm Mark Schofield from Locked On Patriots. And do you remember where you were when the earth started spinning on its axis again? When everything in the world seemed to be right once more? When all of Patriots Nation stepped away from that proverbial ledge? I do. I was recording what you just heard right there. That was the intro to the September 30th slash October 1st episode of Locked on Patriots,

a glorious victory edition installment of Locked on Patriots. Why? Well, as we're doing here in this off-season series, 2018 revisited, we are going week by week through the Patriots 2018 season. And week four, the one and two New England Patriots hosting the 3-0 Miami Dolphins. It was the culmination of a week of, you could almost say, sheer terror in New England. The Patriots facing a potential three-game deficit in the AFC East. A potential situation where could the season be over before it even started? Well, not so fast. The Patriots righted the ship. They got it right. A big win, 38-7 at home. And it was a game that when you sort of went through and watched it in real time,

when you went back and sort of re-watched the game and studied it a bit, it was clear from almost the opening drive of the game that New England was going to take care of business. Even with an early Tom Brady interception, you felt like still this was going to be their day. We're going to roll through that game today as we do during this series. 2018 revisited. We're going to talk about some of the big plays.

We're going to talk about what we learned about the New England Patriots in this week for victory. But before we do all of that, you'll use your reminders to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield, check out the work at places like inside the pylon.com pro football weekly, the score, Matt Waldman's rookie scouting portfolio. Yes.

That trio of SB nation websites, including big blue view, bleeding green nation. And yes, Pat's pulpit. By the way, speaking of the pulpit, I have a piece up there right now on bill Belichick,

Iowa state and the future of defensive football. I'm going to talk about that on Friday's show. Just to give you a lay of the land for how we're going to do this series, Mondays through Thursdays are going to be 2018 revisited. Friday's shows will be reserved to sort of get you caught up on the week, things you might have missed, because OTAs and off-season activities are proceeding. We're getting some player movement, Ndamukong Su, you know, Joe McCoy. So we might want to sort of keep Friday open to catch you up on stuff you might have missed. I don't want to go full-on, full-bore

five days a week on looking back. I want to keep his show open. So that's what we're going to do on Friday. We'll take a look at the week in football and things like that. But let's dive into it now. Because this game was a contest that the Patriots needed to win. And when they did, it started out, Dolphins, first possession. They go four plays, 25 yards, and a punt. Patriots get the ball. And what do we see? A score and drive on the opening drive of the game.

Something we had not seen in two weeks. Actually, we hadn't seen it yet this season. The Patriots punted on their opening possession of the year. They punted, actually, excuse me, they missed a field goal on their opening drive against Jacksonville in Week 2. They went three and out, three and out, three and out on their first three possessions the previous week in that loss to the Detroit Lions that we talked about in yesterday's show but here they go 13 plays 14

yards and they do get a field goal now they needed a defensive penalty to avoid the three and out on third and five Brady looks for Dorsett it falls incomplete but a defensive holding penalty gets them a fresh set of downs and then we see Sonny Michel start to establish himself. That next play, that first and 10 of the 34, nine-yard gain. That second one of the 43, a 13-yard gain. First and 10 of the Miami 44, a 14-yard gain. We started to see Michel become perhaps the running back that they drafted in the first round. So the Patriots take a 3-0 lead. Miami gets the ball back. They go five plays, five yards, and another punt.

Patriots get a chance to really extend their lead, but Tom Brady throws an interception. It was really just a great defensive play, this interception by Bobby McCain because the Patriots ran a dagger concept where you have the inside receiver run a seam route, the outside receiver runs a dig coming underneath it, and the defender peels off the seam, jumps the dig, Brady wasn't expecting it, and you get an interception. So you're thinking, okay, defense, need the three and out, and defense does it. Three plays, four yards, and a punt, which gives the ball back to the New England Patriots. And the way they ended this first half really set the stage for this entire afternoon

because the Patriots would go five plays, 67 yards, and punch the ball. He goes through the first three weeks of the season. He's a great space player. He's got great speed and quickness. He can run sideline to sideline. Lonzo Bourne and Newton. Massage is at third and six here. Five in that secondary.

Cannon gets the block at the right tackle. Look, it is wide open. Patterson. Acrobatic catch. Great move by McDonald. That is six. 55-yard touchdown pass. Brady to Patterson.

This score and play came on one of the staples of the Patriots two-man pass game concepts. This play, this route combination is called reel, a return route and a wheel route. It is a two-receiver combination where one of the receivers runs what the Patriots call a return route or like we sometimes term it here, a pivot route. You start on a slant inside, and then you break to the outside. The other receiver runs the wheel. On this play, James White starts out towards the boundary in his formation. He comes into motion, and he runs that sort of return route, while Patterson runs the wheel route, breaking towards the sidelines and then vertically. Now, the coaching point on the return route is critical to the execution of this play. Coaching point number one, to the receiver running the return route, alert to pick defender over number two receiver. Aim for upfield shoulder and force defender underneath. What you're looking for is this. You want to get in the way of the defender covering

the receiver running that wheel route. That's exactly what happens here. Patterson is wide open. Brady drops in an easy throw and from there, Patterson has one defender to beat. He does it and the Patriots get on the board to take a 10-0 lead. Up next, we're going to talk about the rest of this game and a little bit later, break down the pivotal plays in this contest, as well as what we learned about the New England Patriots in week four of the 2018 season. That's all ahead on this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. We are continuing our offseason series, 2018 Revisited. We are looking at a week-by-week basis at the 2018 Patriots season.

We're talking today about their week four victory over the Miami Dolphins, 38-7, a victory that kind of righted the ship. But before we dive back in, a reminder to check out our great sponsors, Grip6, Untuckit, Hotels.com, and of course, check out this podcast on Himalaya, the fantastic podcast app. You can get the show on a variety of platforms, but the one I would highly recommend is Himalaya. I use it for my own personal use.

When I'm listening to podcasts, you get to check out Locked on Patriots over on Himalaya. Let's get back into this game now. We just broke down Tom Brady to Patterson, the 55-yard touchdown pass, but that was not all the scoring the Patriots would do in the first half of this contest. After the Patriots force a fumble by the Miami Dolphins, a Ryan Tannehill fumble, the Patriots take over on the Dolphins 22, and they execute very quickly. The very next play, James White, 22 and they execute very quickly the very next play James White 22 yard scamper into the end zone giving the Patriots yet another touchdown

in this case give Van Noy a lot of credit because Cunningham was about to cradle the ball in his left hand and Van Noy took it away from him yes he did to his feet now the Patriots are the first in 10 go to work with three receivers left including Gordon on the outside. White to the left of Brady from the 22. Hogan in short motion from the left. And now he continues across the formation to the short side right. Brady takes the snap but

give to James White. Runs up the middle. Inside the 20. Bounces him left to the 15. Sweet feet to the 10. 5 to the end zone. Touchdown Patriots. They call them sweet feet for a reason, man. But, boy, Joe Tooney, your guard, gave him the opportunity. It's a give to the right underneath.

He follows Joe Tooney right up. They wall it off. And James White bounces this thing back. There's something about cutback backs in this league. Great vision. Oh, man, it's Shaq Mason with another great block. But James White makes the first

guy in the whole miss for a nice 22-yard scamper. You capitalize off other people's mistakes and now it seems like the New England Patriots are getting back to their winning ways and making other teams pay. 16-0. Gostkowski on to add the 17. Snap in place. He swings the right leg. Kick airborne to the uprights and the kick is pay. 16-0, Gostkowski on to add the 17. Snap in place, he swings directly.

Kick airborne to the uprights, and the kick is good. Bob Sochi, Scott Zolak on the call there from 98.5, the sports hub up in Boston. And what a contrast between what we heard yesterday and Scott Zolak basically imploring Josh McDaniels and company to take the run game part of the playbook, stuff it in a bag, leave it behind the bench, and just scrap it. To this play where you hear in Zolak's call and his breakdown of the play,

you get great blocks from the pair of guards, Joe Tooney and Shaq Mason. You get a cutback run where James White sort of starts it up inside and then breaks behind the block from the left guard. Scampers, as Zolak said, into the end zone for the 22-yard touchdown. With the extra point, the Patriots took a 17-0 lead, but they were not done. They would score again before the half with Tom Brady finding Philip Dorsett on a touchdown throw

with under two minutes remaining. Brady finding Dorsett for a nine-yard strike on second and goal from the Miami Nine, and that would give New England a 24-0 lead at halftime. However, the Patriots were not done. In the second half, they would score a couple more times. You would get this throw from Brady to White that I broke down in the buildup to the Super Bowl. It might be one of my favorite throws from Brady on this entire season. You want to talk about anticipation from the quarterback position? We're going to talk about this next play from Tom Brady.

...slot inside of Dorsett. Allen along with Patterson to the right. Shotgun snap to Brady. Retreats in the pocket. Off his back foot. Throws toward the end zone. Left side. Caught by White!

What a throw as Brady hits the deck on target to James White for the touchdown Patriots. That's the Tom Brady I know. And that's the Tom Brady that we love. A guy that will stare down. A free blitzer. Take the shot. Fall on his left shoulder. Get drilled.

But deliver a strike and cut your throat in the back left corner of that end zone. 14-yard dagger by Tom Brady off a free blitzer and sweet feet white in the back corner. Start the buses, boys. Start the buses. Well, there may not have been a Kodak bop at the end of that catch, but that's a Kodak moment. Brady to white for the touchdown for the Pats, and Gostkowski's point after try is airborne to the uprights and it's good

and it's all New England here on the final Sunday in September 31-0 Patriots in the third on the safety insurance you're going to talk more about this play in the final segment of today's show but it remains one of my favorite from Tom Brady perhaps not just from the 2018 season but from his entire career you just heard the call there Scott Zolak Bob Sochi breaking it down over at 98 5 and White runs a corner route out of the backfield and as I said we're gonna break this play down a little bit more but Tom Brady has a free blitzer in his face and lets it go before White is even thinking about making his move, making his cut. It is just a tremendous touch throw with anticipation that you can't coach, you can't teach. This is something that Brady has just

learned throughout his career. And it's such a high level of difficulty to be able to place this where you need to be well before the break. It's just tremendous work by Tom Brady. But that was not the final score of the game. The Patriots would finally punch it in via the run and via Sonny Michel. He would get his first NFL touchdown late in the contest. He would go left end for 10 yards and a touchdown to give the Patriots their 37th and 38th points of the day. Now they would tack on Miami Wood, a touchdown late in the contest,

due in part by a Tom Brady interception. Tom Brady throwing an interception on a second 14 play at the Miami 32. But when you're up 38-0, you're not going to really crush anybody for throwing a pick at that point. That would lead us to the final score of 38-7. And yes, everything was fine in New England. Everything was back to normal. The Patriots going to 2-2 on the season.

And they would have a big game in the next week. That Week 5 contest, it would be for them. Another big test as they would face the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night at home. Short week, stiff test. The Colts were looking good at that point in time, and so it was going to be a big one for them. But this game got them right back on track. Up next, we're going to talk about that braided

white touchdown as well as what we learned about the Patriots in week four of the 2018 season. Mark Schofield back with you now. Going to close out this look at week four of the 2018 season on 2018. Revisited here at Locked On Patriots.

Remember, we're going to be going game by game through the 2018 season. Monday through Thursday here over the next couple of weeks, we'll reserve that Friday block, that Friday show, to get you caught up on what's happening in real time with the Patriots and OTAs and throughout the rest of the NFL landscape. Tomorrow, we'll also be talking about that piece I wrote over at Pat's Pulpit, which I would invite you to check out on the 3-3-5 tight defense at Iowa State, as well as Bill Belichick, and whether that is the future of defensive football,

not just for New England, but for the NFL. Before we talk about the pivotal play from the Week 4 victory over the Miami Dolphins, as well as what we learned about the New England Patriots in week four. A reminder to check out our great friends over at Hotels.com. Don't hate like your friend's vacation. Book one of your own via Hotels.com. They've got some great opportunities for you to book some summer travel over the weeks and months ahead. So please check out our great friends over at Hotels.com. Now, this Brady throw to White, I can't talk about it enough. It comes on a third and four at the Miami 14-yard line. The Patriots are basically in a two-by-two, Brady in the shotgun, ball on the right hash mark. James White standing to the left of the quarterback.

Miami shows a 4-2-5 nickel, cover one type alignment, free safety deep in the middle of the field. The free safety is standing on basically the old school PAT marker, right? We all know they've moved the point after back, but that old school marker, like the one and a half, almost the two yard line in the middle of the field, that's exactly where the free safety is standing. Now there are two critical components

to breaking down this play. First, it's not so much that brady gets a blitz it's more that there is a free rusher thanks to a twist the defensive end over trent brown as well as the defensive tackle over joe thune they twist and the defensive end splits the gap between tackle and and guard and is able to break free and get immediate pressure. The other aspect to this play, Miami shows cover one, but they sort of rotated into what I would call sort of a pattern match cover two. One of the corners rotates back to a safety spot. They play what looks to be a man coverage look over the two outside receivers to the left this is where

white's going to run his route both of those receivers break to the inside they get man coverage the underneath linebackers they play zone and so when white breaks to the corner one of the defenders and the man coverage covering that in breaking route, he's eventually going to peel off, but he peels off late. That's one part to this play. The other is, like I said, the anticipation from Brady because he knows he's going to get a free shot at him. So he lets this throw go on his own 25-yard line when James White is at the six and yet to make his break. How much ground does White cover

from release to catch? Like I said, when Brady lets it go, White is at the six yet to make his break. When he catches it, he is in the absolute back left corner of the end zone. So he goes from the six and the left hash mark all the way to the back corner of the end zone. That is an enormous distance to cover. That's how much touch Brady has to put on this throw. And that's how ahead of time, how much anticipation he has to make this throw with. It's one of the better plays I've seen from any quarterback, including Tom Brady, in the past couple of seasons. It just blows my mind every time I watch it. And before the Super Bowl,

I put together a thread of some of Brady's best work from 2018. It also got turned into a piece over at Matt Waldman's site, mattwaldmanrsp.com. And it was one of my favorite plays. I don't know how many different ways I can say it. I just love this read and this throw and this execution from Tom Brady. Now, what did we learn? What did we learn about the New England Patriots?

Well, one, this defense was going to be an opportunistic defense. They got some turnovers that were critical to this game. One of them set up the touchdown run from James White. It was the Tannehill sort of fumbled snap that they took advantage of. They got some interceptions in this game. They forced some turnovers, and this was going to be an opportunistic defense. We've seen this already throughout this game. Even last week in the loss to Detroit, the previous week,

they got the interception from Jawan Bentley, the rookie linebacker that gave them a chance to get back to a one-score game. So we continue to see this defense being opportunistic. But more than anything else, I think we learned in this contest that the Patriots could be that sort of versatile, flexible offense. They were able to run the ball with Sonny Michel. It sort of gave everybody a chance to catch their breath about the rookie running back. Michel gets his first NFL touchdown in this game. But overall, this is what he did on the ground.

Sonny Michel carries the ball 25 times for 112 yards and a touchdown for a long of 23. That alleviated some of the concerns about the rookie running back. They were able to throw it as well. Brady, 23 of 35 for 274, three touchdowns. He did have the two interceptions, but they could throw it when they needed to. They could run it when they needed to. They could spread you when they wanted to. They could go 21 personnel when they wanted to. And that is a staple, is a hallmark of how the Patriots approach everything. Just yesterday on Twitter, in the discussion about that piece I wrote over a Pat's pulpit, one of the things that I got, one of the threads that built off of that piece being tweeted out was how the Patriots,

more than any other organization perhaps, give themselves multiple paths to success, whether it's via the draft and how they handle draft picks, whether it's via free agency and how they handle the primary and secondary free agency market, whether it's handling the compensatory pick process, and whether it's yes on the field, schematic flexibility. The fact that they can go from a five-wide spread you out type of team to a 21 personnel power eye formation smash mouth run game team on the fly is impressive. The fact that they can go from a 4-3, 3-4 defense on some snaps into a 3-2-6 defense on others that gives them multiple pathways to contain an offense. And what we saw in week four was New England's ability on the offensive side of the ball to throw it and to run it. And that would be huge as the rest of their

season played out. That will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow on Friday for sort of a recap of the week. We'll talk about that Pat's Pulpit piece and some other stuff. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok