Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - 2018 Revisited: Week 9 - Locked On Patriots June 4, 2019

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

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A lot of talk going on these days about who is the greatest ever. About who has the titles, the raw talent, the most clutch moments. I get it, it's a tough call. I mean even the jersey numbers are the same. But maybe the best way to settle this debate is to play it out head to head I'll watch that And that is how NBC Sports promoted what would be their primetime week nine matchup. The New England Patriots hosted the Green Bay Packers. And yes, it was billed as a tilt between two potential goats, between Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. And you hear there Michael Jordan himself setting the stage.

Again, that was a promo that aired during NBC's Week 8 lineup. But that's the game that we're going to talk about today. This is Mark Schofield here at Locked On Patriots welcoming you in to the latest installment of 2018 Revisited, the week-by-week, show-by-show look at the 2018 Patriots season. It was a season that we know began with a victory over the Houston Texans. And how did it end? Well, with a victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl. Today we're going to talk about that week nine matchup, that tilt between

the Packers and the Patriots that the Patriots would end up winning 31-17. Before we dive into this contest though, your usual cavalcade of reminders. Please do follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThe pylon.com pro football weekly where as part of their bears preview their bears preview magazine there will be a piece from yours truly talking about the one and only mitchell trubisky the true biscuit as it were in that magazine so look for that to hit stores and shelves sometime later this summer also of course you have the matt walden rookie scouting portfolio and yes not one not two but three sb nation websites big blue view bleeding green nation where i'm the co-host of the one

and only qb sco show and yes pat's pulpit now week nine packers come in three three and one strange record for green bay they had a strange start to their season, and it was a strange season for the Green Bay Packers overall, as we all know by now. They begin it with a strange Sunday nighter against Chicago. Aaron Rodgers goes down. It looks like potentially he could miss the season. There was a moment in that game where he is walking off, and it looks like, I remember saying to people on Twitter, he looks like a man that knows that he is done. But of course, Rodgers comes back in that game and they beat the Bears.

But then they have a strange tie against the Vikings and that was the Clay Matthews play that touched off the huge debate over the roughness of quarterback rules. They lose to Washington in week three. They beat Buffalo in week four. Then they lose at Detroit week five. Win over San Francisco in week six.

They're by early. And then week eight, the week prior to this contest that we're going to talk about, they have a two-point loss at the Rams. And so we don't know what to make of Green Bay, but it's still Aaron Rodgers coming to town. And so between the NBC promo and the buildup to this game, and in all the makings of what could be a classic nationally televised contest. And the Patriots, well, they got on top early in this one.

The game begins. Patriots, on their first possession, they go right down the field and score. Patriots take the opening kickoff. They go, basically without Michael's terms, warp speed going right down the field and ends with this James White touchdown run from eight yards out.

Man, oh man, you run 10 plays in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Four runs, six passes, they take the lead. Wow, so they're going to go in motion, going to fake that, and pitch it out here and watch them all get in front and outflank the defense. But I've seen these guys go fast. I really have. I've seen what I thought was hyperspeed. That was something beyond.

Al Michaels, Chris Collinsworth there on the call for NBC. And it was actually Collinsworth who called that beyond hyperspeed. The Patriots offense, as you heard, 10 plays in just under four minutes. And New England takes the early 7-0 lead. The Packers, though, they would strike on their opening possession. They get a Mason Crosby 29-yard field goal after a third and 14 pass to Randall Cobb, falls short of the first down marker. And so it's a 7-3 game, and that score would continue into the second quarter.

Early in the second quarter, Stephen Koskowski would hit a 28-yard field goal of his own, and that would make it a 10-3 Patriots lead early in the second quarter. But the Packers, they would strike next. Aaron Rodgers, on a third and two from the two-yard line, would do a little dancing and magic over to the left side of the offense before finding Devontae Adams for a short touchdown toss. Despite New England's attempts to keep Rodgers in the pocket on this third down play, number 12 for the Green Bay Packers manages to get outside the containment and finds Adam on the pivot route for the touchdown. The Patriots would not waste much time, though, on their next possession.

They would get it into the end zone to regain the lead at 17-10. And the big player on this drive, Cordero Patterson, not as a wide receiver, but as a running back. He had a run over right guard for 10 yards, a run over left tackle for 17 yards, a run over left tackle for 17 yards, a run up the middle for five, and then he capped it off with a five-yard touchdown plunge as a tailback in the I formation. Two minutes to the half.

It's second down and two. Patterson is the running back. And Cole Darrell Patterson goes into the end zone. Man, what a drive for that guy. Patterson's touchdown plunge capping off Witt, Al Michaels described as a great drive for that guy, gave the Patriots a 17-10 lead, and that would be the score at halftime. Tom Brady would take a knee after the Patriots stopped the Packers on their final position in the first half,

and the teams headed to the locker room break 17-10, Patriots in the lead. However, things would turn around quickly in the Packers' favor. In the second half, the Packers would get the ball first. They would go right down the field and score with Rodgers finding tight end Jimmy Graham for a 15-yard touchdown strike. Second down and goal. Ready and go, go! They block at one as he takes the snap. Dancing in the pocket, fires to the end zone, and it's caught! Jimmy Graham for the touchdown.

Patrick Chung trying to wrestle the ball away, but it's already been signaled a touchdown for Jimmy Graham. If you remember during yesterday's show, when we were breaking down the Week 8 game between the Patriots and the Bills, we broke down the Devin McCourty pick six that came on basically a four verticals concept with a Derrick Anderson staring down that bend in route with the inside trips receiver working across the formation and never looking elsewhere.

Well, the difference between Derek Anderson and Aaron Rodgers is pretty big, and you can see it on this play because Jimmy Graham runs basically that same route. He's the inside trips receiver. He goes right to the back left corner from the right side of the formation. The difference being, Patriots are in a similar cover two look. It's De'Ron Harmon, the safety, that is going to get moved out of position, manipulated by Rodgers. Rodgers looks to that backside single receiver to the left, moves De'Ron Harmon down a bit, and it allows Graham to get over the top and behind the safety. He drops an imperfect throw

and a touchdown. Getting the Packers right back into this game, 17-17, early in the second half. Now, coming up next was perhaps the biggest, perhaps momentum shift of this entire contest. The Patriots would go right down the field. They would get set up after a Tom Brady incompletion gets nullified by a penalty on Brashad Breeland for defensive pass interference. That gave the Patriots a first and goal at the one with 8.04 left in the third quarter. They would have four cracks from the

one-yard line. James White was stopped for no gain on first down. Patterson left guard, no gain on second down. Brady's throw on third down. Short right for Chris Hogan is broken up. The Patriots take a timeout to think things over, and they decide on fourth and goal from the one. With 7.06 remaining in the third quarter, they're going to keep the offense on the field. Out of the gun.

A fourth and goal. Brady to the end zone, and it's incomplete. field. Brady's back shoulder attempt in the direction of Josh Gordon, as you heard, hit the defensive back's helmet. Gordon had slipped on the play. And the Packers get a huge goal line stand. Four plays from the one, and they keep the Patriots out of the end zone. The potential was there to really shift all of the momentum in Green Bay's favor in what was already a tight 17-17 contest. How would the rest of this game play out? You probably know, but we will break that down next.

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Mark Schofield back with you now here at Locked On Patriots, continuing our look at Week 9 of the 2018 Patriots season. Here in 2018, revisited our show-by-show look on a week-by-week basis at the Patriots' season. Now, we've just left the action midway through the third quarter. The Patriots stopped on a fourth and goal on the Packers' one-yard line. The defense, though, on green base and soon possession, they would rise to the occasion. They would force the Packers on a quick three and out. Three plays, just three yards.

And the Patriots would get the ball back with pretty good field position. First and 10 on the Patriots' 38-yard line. They would not get into Green Bay territory. Their drive would stall out at the 49-yard line of New England, and they were forced to punt it. Now, Ryan Allen would do a pretty good job again, pinning the Packers inside their own 10-yard line, and the Packers would get a drive going. They would face, at the start of the fourth quarter, a first and 10. The very first play of the fourth quarter is a first and 10 on the Patriots' 34-yard line.

How did the Packers get there? A huge throw from Aaron Rodgers to Marquez Valdez-Scantlin. Back-to-back plays. He hit him for 24, and then he hit him for 26, getting the ball into Patriots territory. And on first and 10, Rodgers would hand the ball off to rookie Aaron Jones. And this, more than perhaps any other play, is the play that's won this game. No interceptions, been sacked twice. The pressure numbers have kind of flipped here in the second half.

In this drive, Patriots. The ball is out balls out the ball is out Jones fumbles it at the 23-yard line the Patriots At the bottom of the pile pretty sure they have it and it looked that way with a naked eye Jones' fumble was caused by Lawrence Guy, who punches the ball out, recovered by Stephon Gilmore at the Patriots' own 24-yard line, giving the Patriots a chance to retake the league and lead, and perhaps more importantly, just retake some momentum in this game. Things were really sort of tilted away from them and the Patriots would respond but the first big play of their ensuing possession came quickly Patriots would face a third and seven on their own 27 yard line the third play of their ensuing possession after getting just three yards on

the first two plays and Tom Brady came up with perhaps his biggest throw of the night down we'll break this play down a little bit more in the final segment of today's show but this big conversion from Brady to Dorsett allowed the Patriots to continue to build some momentum coming off that Aaron Jones fumble and they get the ball down into the goal line yet again they would get themselves set with a first end goal from the two as this drive neared its conclusion. The big play, though, after the conversion was a second and six where Julian Edelman hit a throwback screen from him to James White that would go for 37 yards down to the two-yard line. Facing first and goal from the two, James White would be stopped

after just a one-yard gain. James White on second down, just no gain on a second and goal from the one. And on third and one, James White finally broke through, and the Patriots got themselves a short yardage touchdown. Coming back onto the field. Wouldn't that be something? Meanwhile, Brady, does he sneak it? He will not.

Said he gives it to White, and he gets in. Touchdown, New England. So the turnover, extremely costly. Yeah, but you know what happened here al the threat of tom brady doing a quarterback sneak made morrison come down here which meant he couldn't get to that gap so just the threat of tom brady as a runner sort of as silly as that may sound really was the difference on that play. What Collinsworth is referring to there is actually a very good point. Fear in the prospects of Tom Brady sneaking this,

and we all know Tom Brady, great at the quarterback sneak, and what Michaels was sort of talking about was he was closing in on Tom 2K, remember, 2,000 career rushing yards. And so there was a thought that perhaps if he sneaks it there, that might be the way he gets over that mark. The Packers put three defenders basically over center Darren Conley. They've got a guy in each A gap and the linebacker over the top of them. And that opens up a spot, a little crease behind the left tackle and left guard for James White to plunge into the end zone. And so that touchdown gets the Patriots the lead again in this contest. It was a huge play at that moment. And the defense would

step up again. The Packers would go three and out thanks to a Trey Flower sack combined with Adrian Claiborne of Aaron Rodgers on a third and seven. And the Patriots would get the ball back on their own 28-yard line with 8.30 left in this contest with a 24-17 lead. And then the Patriots would get the ball back on their own 28-yard line with 8.30 left in this contest with a 24-17 lead. And then the Patriots added the exclamation point. Brady finds Josh Gordon along the left sideline for a 55-yard touchdown that would be the game's final point. Wide open. Well, there were two guys who were there, but it's Josh Gordon,

the second guy, into the touchdown. Oh, that Tom Brady's a sneaky little devil. 55 yards. Watch the young guys of the Green Bay Packers get fooled by Tom Brady. His eyes are going to go out to the screen. He's going to, uh--oh saw the two young defensive backs come flying up and threw a bullet into josh gordon watch these guys react up here they go they got it it's a screen pass not so much meanwhile edelman leap as if he was the intended

receiver he wanted to be the receiver it's often a good sign for the offense when somebody in the booth starts giggling before the ball is even thrown, but that's what happens here. The Patriots show a fake screen to Julian Edelman on a fake bubble screen. The defenders all collapse downhill on that action, and Josh Gordon simply releases upfield. Brady hits him, and from there it's Gordon and his legs taking them the distance for the game's final points.

The Patriots going on to win this one 31-17. And in a moment, what we're going to do is break down what we learned about the Patriots as well as that huge third down conversion. But that covers the action that was Week 9 for the 2018 Patriots, their 31-17 victory over the Green Bay Packers. Up next, breaking down some final thoughts on this Week 9 tilt. Mark Schofield back with you now on this latest installment of 2018 Revisited, going basically week by week through the 2018 season for your New England Patriots.

Each show dedicated to one contest. We're working our way through the schedule. We are talking about week nine here. The Patriots Sunday night tilt hosting the Green Bay Packers, a game that the Patriots would win 31-17. Final segment of the show here, what we're going to do first. We're going to talk about that third and seven on the Patriots' own 27-yard line. 13-33 left in this contest.

This was a huge play in this game the patriots and the packers tied at 17 the patriots had forced that huge fumble just a couple plays prior by aaron jones that erased any chance that the packers would take the lead for the first time in this contest but they needed to continue to build some momentum. And facing third at seven, the Patriots put Tom Brady in the shotgun, and he's got two receivers to his right, two receivers to his left. He's got Julian Edelman on the inside in the slot, and then Philip Dorsett on the outside along the right sideline. And the Packers, they show sort of single high before the play.

Looks like it's going to be a cover one type situation, but they rotated into basically a Tampa two coverage, but they do blitz. They blitz the defender who is aligned over Edelman and they drop a defensive tackle to basically cover that zone. So that's sort of the situation that Brady sees. Now they drop into sort of a Tampa 2 coverage. The linebacker opens away from the Edelman-Dorsett side. He opens to the left because that ends up being the three-receiver side with the running back counted as part of that three. Brady is running a gaudy concept.

Go and option. Dorsett is running the go. Edelman is running that option route out of the slot. Now, you might expect Brady to sort of look to Edelman here. Remember, Edelman is basically given the opportunity to work away from a retreating defensive lineman, and Brady does look there, but this is the brilliance of Tom Brady the cornerback who should be sinking to get depth with Dorsett's vertical release rather comes off of that and traps Edelman Edelman that makes the right read here he's running an option route he sees space to the outside with an inside defender inside leverage defender again a defensive tackle coming from the inside so he wants to work away

from him so he breaks towards the outside the cornerback sees this as Brady looks that way and leaves Dorsett and traps down onto Edelman that gives Dorsett the chance to find some space where that cornerback should be of course you've now got the safety rotating over, that half-field safety. So Dorsett throttles down. Brady creates some time, climbs the pocket extremely well, and makes an impressive throw because he has some pressure.

He can't really step into it, but gets just enough on it, and the Patriots are able to convert this pivotal third down. And again, they would go on and score on the drive. So that's the pivotal play of the game. What do we learn about this Week 9 contest? As we've seen through some of these games, the defense was able to step up for New England when perhaps the offense wasn't carrying its weight.

Now, they had scored 17 points, but when you get a first and goal of the one and fail to punch it in, that's kind of a tough pill to swallow. But the defense responds. They forced the fumble from Aaron Jones when it looked like the Packers were going in, marching in already in field goal range. It was a chance for them to take the lead.

But the defense comes up with another huge play. Lawrence Guy punches it out. Stephon Gilmore recovers. And the Patriots are able to capitalize with 14 unanswered points, leading to their 31-17 victory. So once more, the defense steps up. The offense makes the plays when it needs to. And it feels a little bit better by the time this game ends.

Another national TV primetime audience. We had seen them the week prior, Monday night against the Bills. Now they've got the game against the Packers. And Patriots fans at this point probably feeling a little bit better about where this team was. Again, at this point now, Patriots, they move to 7-2. It seems like that two-game stretch, Jacksonville-Detroit, very much in the rearview mirror.

Patriots looking ahead. They had a bye week after a trip to Tennessee and then they would have games against the Jets on the road, Minnesota, and at Miami. So Patriots fans right now, we're feeling okay. We've gotten through. We're near the bye. Going to get into the second part of the season.

We all know Tom Brady and company, they're great in December. They've got five December games so we can just get through these next two games at Tennessee a bye and then at New York things will be great right well life has a way of sort of giving you some curveballs and we're going to talk about a curveball tomorrow because of all the strange games in the entire season I know I said this about the Detroit loss but that week 10 absolute debacle at Tennessee, we're going to have to spend some time on that one.

So that will be the next show. Until next time, everybody, please keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots. you