Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - 2018 Revisited: Week 7 - Locked On Patriots May 30, 2019

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

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Chip away to try to give a chance to the Hail Mary. Trubisky into range where he can throw into the end zone. He is a mobile quarterback. Oh my God. And he's going to have to roll out a bit to try to give his guys a chance to get downfield. The Patriots meanwhile are going to flood the other end of the field. He keeps calling his hands down to calm the noise down. Seven Patriots inside the 25.

And all of them are experienced defensive backs. The snap to Trubisky. He's pressured by Claiborne. He starts the roll to his left. He pulls up. He heaves one deep to the end zone. That ball sailing toward the goal line. It's caught by White.

White is caught and wrapped up short of the goal line. Unreal. And the Patriots are going to win, but that close to a Hail Mary and an answered prayer for Chicago. We just go home. Let's get on a bus and go home. Get the heck out of here. Play around with a bad football team.

Bad things happen. Why made the grab? And then as he turned to the one. It's a great stick. He was kept. Is that Rower Chung that initially right here. Boom. Any momentum on the spin.

Jason McCourty was dragging him backwards. No, that's Harmon. And Deron Harmon was the guy who stood him up. Yep, I got the two. And kept him from breaking the play. Deron Harmon saves the game for you, folks. Woo. folks hey there everybody and welcome on into the seventh part of 2018 revisited the offseason series to get a week-by-week look at the 2018 Patriots season.

I am, of course, your host, Mark Schofield. Please follow me along on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, and of course, that trio of SB Nation websites, Big Blue Review, Bleeding Green Nation, and yes, Pat's Pulpit. Now, we are into week seven of this series. The Patriots took a trip to the Midwest, to the Windy City, to take on the Chicago Bears. And in a season perhaps filled with some strange games.

You know, in a couple of shows here, we're going to talk about that week 10 game, early November at Tennessee. We've, of course, got that two-game loss, losing stretch, Miami and Pittsburgh, both on the road to talk about when. Perhaps we were wondering just how good this team really is. But the strangest game of all might have been this Week 7 contest against the Chicago Bears, a team that would win their division, a team that would have a first-round home playoff game. And so this team was actually a little bit better, I think, than Scott Zolak and Bob Sochi and everybody else thought they were back in Week 7.

But still, this was a very strange contest. It had perhaps the most horrific stretch of football in a late first quarter, early second quarter stretch of plays that we're going to start off with. And, of course, it ends with that Hail Mary. So we're going to get into this game. We're going to talk about it. We're going to, of course, break down some pivotal plays

as well as what we learned about the Patriots. But I want to remind everybody about our great sponsors, of course, Hotels.com, Untuckit, Grip6Belts, Blue Chew. We're going to talk about them a little bit later. And don't forget, check out this show on that great podcast app, Himalaya. It's free. It's super easy to use and has every single podcast you love or are searching for. And also, they can curate some

playlists just for you by their expert podcast tastemakers. So check out Himalaya.com. Get it where you download your apps on the App Store or the Google Play Store. And don't forget to follow Locked on Patriots once you're there. Let's get into this game. And as I said, there was a horrific stretch, late first quarter, early second quarter. We're going to skip some stuff. Because the Patriots, they got out to a pretty good start in this game. They had an early 7-0 lead, courtesy of their open and drive. They go right down the field and score.

Tom Brady, short pass to Julian Edelman for 9 yards and a touchdown. They stop the Bears on their first possession. Then the Patriots go 3-0. Unfortunate, but it happens. And the Bears get a field goal on their next possession. So with about three minutes to go in the first quarter, it's 7-3. Then we get the post-field goal kickoff by Chicago. Cordell Patterson set to return it.

And this is the first bit of disaster that kicks off this stretch. out of the end zone. Patterson, ball pops free, and the Bears have it. Houston Carson on the recovery for Chicago. Patterson's fumble set the Bears up with incredible field position. They would start their next possession, first and 10 of the Patriots, 24-yard line. They would convert one first down, and they'd get it down inside the 10, where they would face a third and five of the New England 8-yard line. And Mitchell Trubisky would score on an 8-yard touchdown run that, as you will hear from a second from Iron Eagle, Dan Fouts, probably covered almost the entire length of the field. The Pats.

Trubisky. Spins the other way, looks, Trubisky will run, Trubisky in for the touchdown! Mitch Trubisky! Yeah, the Patriots know that he likes to roll out of the pocket to the right side. And Trey Flowers is ready for him. We talked about the number 10 of Bobby Douglas. How about the number 10 of the Vikings, Fran Tarkington here? He picks up a convoy with Whitehair and Leno. And that monologue's good for six. It's officially an eight-yard touchdown run. He ran about 60 yards for the eight. Did you count all 60? We did. We just did the math. Extra point from Parkey. As you listeners

know, the Patriots gave up some frustrating plays on the defensive side of the ball throughout the Tyler 2018 season. This might have been the most frustrating. They have their dime package in. They initially have him contained. As you heard there from Fouts, he tries to roll to his right. Trey Flowers is there, forces him back. But then there's just nobody there. Adrian Claiborne sort of loses contain.

And he picks up a convoy of blockers. Scampers into the front left corner of the end zone. And the Bears get a touchdown. Now, making matters worse. In the second quarter. In fact, the very first play of the second quarter. This is on New England's ensuing possession. Sonny Michel takes a first down carry off left tackle and disaster strikes again.

Sonny Michel is drilled. Bears have the football. Nichols comes out of it. Well, Nichols made the tackle. Patriots claim the ball was down, and now the officials will have a chat. 98 is Nichols. He gets spun around there. I'm not sure his knee was ever down as he's laying and spinning on top of Nichols. He got spun down in an awkward manner. as he's laying and spinning on top of Nichols.

He got spun down in an awkward manner. Yeah, it looked like his ankle. And the concern right now is for... In the blink of an eye, the Patriots lose both possession of the football and running back Sody Michel. The awkward twist and tackle causes him to leave the game with a lower body injury as his leg gets awkwardly pinned under the body weight of himself and the defender. This touched off perhaps even the most infuriating part of this entire sequence, this strange, strange sequence, because the Bears take over. They have a first

and 10 of the Patriots' 36-yard line. They get six yards on first down, but then Trubisky gets sacked by Dietrich Wise, setting up a 38 of and 8 at the Patriots' 34-yard line. Now, this is a situation where the Patriots could somehow hold them to just 3 points here, and it would just be a 13-7 Bears lead. But Tariq Cohen picks up 4 yards on 3rd and 8, and on 4th down, Trubisky hits Trey Burton for 17 yards, getting the Bears a 1st and 10 at the New England 17. Then there were two defensive penalties during this sequence.

First is a second and 10 at the Patriots 13-yard line. Trubisky's pass intended for Cohen falls incomplete, but Deron Harmon is flagged for defensive holding. Then on a third and five, Trubisky's pass is short

and incomplete for Kevin White, but J.C. Jackson gets flagged for illegal use of hands. That sets the Bears upward a first and goal at the two-yard line. What happens? Landon Roberts has a pass thrown that hits him between the five and the two

and he drops it. On the next play, Jordan Howard scores on a two-yard touchdown plunge, making it 17-7. Bears in the blink of an eye. As we come back, though, the Patriots start their comeback. Welcome back, friends, to this 2018 revisited installment,

taking a look at the Patriots' Week 7 contest against the Chicago Bears, a game they would ultimately win 38-31, but one of the stranger games of the season. Before we dive into this show and pick up the action in the second quarter, a reminder that today's show is brought to you by our friends at Grip6. They make ultra-lightweight belts with no holes, no flap, and these belts are a great Father's Day gift. Go to grip6.com to take advantage of their impressive offer.

That's grip6, G-R-I-p the number six dot com slash l-o-c-k-e now as we just heard the bears have taken 17 to 6 lead they've capitalized on some patriots fumbles some patriots miscues and one of those fumbles was from cordell patterson on a kickoff return well he got a chance to return another kick and he more than made up for it with that first turnover the return man and the second turnover a costly one with michelle injuring his knee and how new england will now handle that james white is not your traditional type of tailback they have kenyon barner as well the six-year veteran formerly with carolina and philadelphia from the five, Patterson.

Patterson. He's got track-level speed. Patterson is gone! 95 yards for Darrell Patterson! Touchdown! Patterson houses the ensuing kickoff, and just like that, the Patriots are right back into this contest. Patterson's kick return goes for 95 yards and the touchdown.

And with Steven Gostowski's extra point, the Bears now just had a 17-14 lead. Now, the Patriots' defense stepped up on the Chicago ensuing possession. They would force a punt that was returned awkwardly a little bit by Julian Edelman, and the Patriots would capitalize on their ensuing possession. Closing it out with a Tom Brady short pass in the right, to James White for a five-yard touchdown, giving the Patriots, with the extra point, a 21-17 lead. And that would be the halftime score.

But the Bears would get the ball first in the second half. And they would go right down the field and score with a nice drive of their own capped off by this Trubisky throw to Cohen for a six yard touchdown. and goal for Chicago. Just underway in the second half. Trubisky, quick hitter, caught by Cohen, takes it to the outside, hits the pylon. Great move by Cohen for the touchdown. Trubisky's quick throw to Cohen on the sort of shield screen designed behind some blockers in front of him in the left flat, and that little scamper there gets the Bears right back into this game

with a lead of their own, 24-21. The Patriots would tie it up with a field goal from Steven Gostowski, a 29-yard field goal. This was a rather disappointing drive. The Patriots got it down to a first and 10 at the Chicago 16-yard line. Kenyon Barner, as you heard, as you might have expected, with Sonny Michel out, getting some carries on this drive on that first intended to the chicago 16 he goes for seven down the right end then on second and three from the nine he gets down to the bears seven yard line with a two yard

carry but brady gets sacked by roquan smith the rookie linebacker from georgia making the patriots settle for that field goal the bears Bears, on their next possession, they get stopped near midfield, and Pat O'Donnell retreated to punt. But here would come the next and the second big special teams play from this Patriots unit. ...return from Pat O'Donnell's punt,

but jumped on top of the football. He's looking right into the sun as well. It's locked. Ball trying to get scooped up by New England, and they do. Going in for the touchdown, Van Noy. Patriots go in front on special teams. Dante Hightower comes firing through for New England. Hightower with the block. Kyle Van Nooy with the scoop and score.

And the Patriots, their special teams, that third unit, that third phase of the game, comes up big for the second time, getting the Patriots some points. With a Gostowski extra point, New England back in front, 31-24. And we're going to break down those two special teams plays in the third part of this show. But we'll pick up the action in the fourth quarter. After the teams sort of go scoreless from the middle of the third to early in the fourth quarter, the Patriots get on board yet again. Now, the big play in this drive was Josh Gordon.

The Patriots facing a second and ten on their own 44-yard line. Tom Brady retreated the pass and found Josh Gordon on a dig route coming from left to right. And from there, it was all the receiver. Brady throws. Great fake. And toss to Gordon. Josh Gordon powers his way out of spin. And Gordon.

Cut down before the goal line. This was a fantastic individual effort from Josh Gordon. He's wide open on the route because of the coverage from the Bears. But after he makes the catch, he gets hit by a couple of different defenders. And he's able to power through both of those tackle attempts and then race down to inside the five-yard line. He's finally dragged down, as you heard, at about the two-yard line. The Patriots would capitalize just a couple of snaps later. Tom Brady out a little Bob Stitt fly sweep, that little touch pass with James White coming in motion from left to right in front of him with Brady in the shotgun, getting Tom Brady a nice, easy touchdown throw, and getting the Patriots another touchdown in this contest.

That touchdown would make it a 38-24 lead. However, some things sort of went awry. The Patriots would force a 3-8 out on Chicago's next possession. Now they get the ball on the Chicago 43-yard line, facing a 1st-and-10 with 7.47 they get the ball on the Chicago 43-yard line facing a first and 10 with 747 left in the contest and a 14-point lead. You're thinking, oh, they're going to run off the clock here. Fantastic. But here comes the mistake. Tom Brady forces a throw to James Devlin under a little bit of pressure. It's intercepted by Kyle Fuller. The Patriots don't run

off the clock. The Bears capitalize. Trubisky hits Trey Burton for an 11-yard touchdown, and suddenly it's a one-score game with four minutes left. The Patriots, they take over on the ensuing kickoff return, thanks to Patterson, with pretty good field position at their own 41, with 4.05 left in the contest. They've run James White one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times. They forced the Bears to take all three of their timeouts. Ryan Allen punts, giving the Bears the ball back, facing a first and 10 on their own 20. It's a touchback on the punt with just 24 seconds left and no timeouts, but they get just enough distance on their position. They get a completion for 14,

a short throw for three, a short throw for 8, giving them a first and 10 at the 45, their own 45 with two seconds left. Time for one more throw and one last heart in the throat moment for Patriots fans. From the 45, desperation mode for Chicago. Rush coming. Trubisky steps up. Trubisky uncorks. Deep ball on the way. It is caught. But he couldn't get in.

Stopped at the one. The Bears will fall short. It is Kevin White. short it is kevin white chicago came that close to a miracle toss receiver kevin white is able to come down with the lawn desperation heave from trubisky but thanks to the patriots and their situational winners they're able to even though they give up the completion, prevent the touchdown. We talked about this after this play and a couple of shows after this game. The Patriots, in Hail Mary situations, they have one defender act as the jumper because they're always afraid. They've seen in Hail Mary situations, what usually happens is if everybody jumps, you get the deflection and nobody's in position to make the tackle. So on this play, it is Josh Gordon playing the role as the jumper and he kind of jumps a little bit early which allows White to make the reception but you've got Daron Harmon and company in position feet on the

ground planted and ready to make the tackle they stop White just one yard short of what could have been if not at least a potentially tie-in situation. They could have, if they score here and get two, it's ballgame. Another big aspect to this play, Kyle Van Nooy gets some pressure on Trubisky, which may have resulted in the pass being somewhat underthrown. But however you want to describe it, however you want to phrase it, the Patriots escape with this win, 38-31, moving them on the season to 5-2. And after what was a bit of a tough stretch in their season, we talked about those week

two, week three losses, the Patriots now have won four straight games and they have what they would face, as we'll talk about in the next installment of the show, a trip to Buffalo for a Monday nighter in week eight. But when we come back, we're going to break down some of the pivotal plays in this game, particularly the two special teams plays. We're going to talk about the Patterson return, and we're going to talk about the Hightower block and the Van Noy scooper score on the punt block. But before we do that, friends, let's talk about sex.

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Mark Schofield back with you now. I'm going to close out this latest installment of 2018 Revisit as we look at the Week 7 victory over the Chicago Bears with two pivotal plays, as well as what we learned about the Patriots in Week 7. And let's talk special teams. We're going to talk about the Patterson kickoff return, and we're going to talk about the Kyle Van Noy's scoop and score off the Dante Hightower punt block. Let's start with the kick return, and we're going to talk some nerdy special team stuff, something we don't do often here at the show, but I like to do it when I can.

Let's talk about a name that will not mean anything to probably anyone listening to the show, but that name is Craig Ray. Craig Ray was one of my college coaches. He spent some time in North Carolina A&T after my time at Wesleyan. He actually spent some time at Purdue. He's been a high school coach. He's coached all over the place, but he was an offensive coordinator my freshman year, also our special teams coach. And he said on kickoff returns, if you want to score, you need two things. The returner has to make one guy miss and they got to get either somebody out of position or somebody to the ground, hopefully both. Now, he also said, look, if you were a kick returner, you get tackled by the kicker or the punter, you're fired, which I always enjoyed. But on this return, we get both Patterson making one guy miss and the Patriots getting two players to the ground.

Let's set the stage, though. The Bears call what we would say middle kick right. And what that means is the first middle, that first positional designation, is where they place the football on the field, on the tee. Instead of, you know, left would be on the left hash mark, right would be on the right hash mark. It's middle, so the ball is aligned in the middle. That means for all the other 10 players, that changes their alignment. If it's middle, you're going to align on one landmark. If it's left, you'll align on another, depending on where you are in the formation, whether you're L1, L5, L2, L3, L4, and so on. So it is middle, kick right. And what this means is that L1 player, the player that's all the way to the left side of

the kickoff formation, he's now going to be the safety on this play. It's the sort of last line of defense because the ball is being kicked away from him. So there's no sense in him trying to get down there like a maniac. He's going to be the last line of defense. And now Patterson receives this kick, since it's kicked to his left, the right side, at basically the numbers. And he starts to the outside. And then he cuts upfield about two yards below the numbers at about the 18-yard line. And here's where everything sort of comes together because the Patriots get not one but two guys to the ground the l2 and the l3 those two players as they start to angle towards Patterson they

get blocked into each other and both of them hit the deck that gives Patterson a crease so we've got guys to the ground now there are just two guys to beat here the kicker and let's face it if the kicker tackles you you're fired and that safety valve player that L1 who is now cut over from the left side of the Bears kickoff formation now to the top of the opposite numbers Patterson makes him miss with a simple little stop, hop, and cut to the right. That safety player sort of gets into a situation where he overruns Patterson as he cuts back to the inside. And now it's just the kicker with a poor angle and Patterson's track speed to outrun him. And that's exactly what happens. Parkey doesn't have a chance and

Patterson is gone. So just a tremendous return from the Patriots and they get what you need for a big kickoff return. You get guys to the ground and even though they didn't get somebody out of position, you got somebody that you make miss as the ball carrier. Now let's talk a little punt block action. This must have been a situation where the Patriots had seen something on film. The Patriots basically go all out here, and it's Hightower who gets home. What kind of happens is Hightower is aligned basically on the end here, and he's going to be working against Ben Brownecker, one of the Bears' tight ends, who's aligned as a tackle on this play.

And he bull rushes him and just bulldozes him over. Why? Because they've got a player inside that guy's gap between him and the guy that's aligned at right guard. And so when he sort of starts upfield, if you're in a punt return team, if you're blocking for the punter, you want to protect inside out. It's very similar to pass protection because the inside guys are the biggest threat. So Broniker's first step is to the inside. And then when the guy that's in his gap sort of cuts away from him, then he starts to sort of kick slide to block Hightower. But Hightower has a nice little head of steam thanks to how this player began his blocking technique. And he just runs him over, just pancakes him. And then Hightower

just gets his hands out, gets to the block point, blocks the punt. And then it's a little bit scary for a second because the Patriots struggle to pick it up. But finally, Van Noy scoops and scores, giving them another touchdown on special teams. So that's a quick look at those two special teams plays. What did we learn about the Patriots? Well, one thing. We learned that this is a resilient team. Because that's one of those stretches, that late first quarter, early second quarter stretch, where bad teams would fold.

Bad teams would sort of lay up. You know, you get the fumble on the kickoff. You give up the scramper, the awkward looking run for Trubisky for a touchdown. You get Michelle fumbling and injuries and you give up another touchdown with some bad penalties to boot and a missed interception from Landon Roberts. Bad teams fold in those moments. Good teams rise above it and find a way to overcome some mistakes, and the Patriots do just that, thanks in part to the two special teams plays we've talked about. Another thing we learned was this Bears team is better than advertised. We heard Scott Zolak

over the call for 98-5 saying, you know, you let bad teams hang around and bad things happen. This would be a playoff team, and when you sort of look back at the Patriots entire body of work for the 2018 season you could honestly make the case that this win was perhaps one of their better wins and in fact it was their best road win maybe even their best road performance until the playoffs I mean what other win on the road are you going to point to? Their win the following week at Buffalo? Their win after the bye at the Jets? Because those are the only other options until you get to the playoffs.

So this was their best road performance. And if you remember sort of when it became clear that they were going to have to win a road playoff game, this was the game we would end up pointing to and say, look, that Bears team, that was a playoff team. They won their division. That was their best road win. And so while it seemed shaky at the time, perhaps this game told us more than anything else

that this team could go on the road and win a big game. So that will do it for 2018. Revisited here this week 7 look. This is going to be posted on Thursday, May 30th. Friday show, May 31st. We're going to sort of get away from this for a second, as we're going to do each Friday, sort of get you up to date on OTAs and things like that.

We're going to talk about Brady not being at OTAs because what's old is new again. So we're going to talk about that. And then next week, we'll be back into it. Next week on 2018 Revisited, we are going to be looking at week 8 at the Bills, that week 9 game against the Packers, the week 10 debacle at Tennessee, and then after the bye, of course, that week 12 on the road victory over the New York Jets. So that's what's ahead here at Locked on Patriots.

Until next time, everybody, do keep it locked right here. To me, Mark Schofieldield and Locked on Patriots.