Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS- 11/15/16- Patriots/Seahawks All-22 Review

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

Chris Simoneau analyzes the coaches tape to see what went wrong for the Patriots Sunday night in Foxborough. #patriots #toughloss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our healthy benefits and sign up at fepblue.org slash choose blue by December 11th. Good evening. I'm Chris Simino, Patriots Insider for Scout.com and also your host of Lockdown Patriots, your source for everything Patriots. Today is Tuesday, November 15th, 2016. Today is Tuesday Tape Day. So we're going to bust out the coach's tape and break down the All-22, which is pretty enlightening this week. It shows the myriad of problems that the Patriots had in every phase of the game. There was no specific unit that lost this game for the Patriots. It was a team effort all the way through, which is typically what happens in a loss and typically what happens in a win, too.

Before we get into news and notes, I just want all my listeners to know that I can be found on Twitter under the handle Chris underscore Siminoe. That's C-H-R-I-S underscore S-I-M-O-N-E-A-U. And if you have any questions for the show, be it about the Patriots, Patriots Insider, or if you're interested in advertising here on Locked On Patriots, email me directly at chrissiminousc at yahoo.com.

That's C-H-R-I-S-S-I-M-U-S-C at yahoo.com. Okay, before we get into the tape review, let's get everyone up to the minute on the All Patriots news and notes. You know, we only discussed it briefly last night, but the Rob Gronkowski issue isn't quite resolved yet. There are conflicting reports, and the reports are coming from two NFL reporters that are pretty high up and know what they're talking about.

Ian Rappaport of NFL.com was told that Gronk has a punctured lung, but he changed that to a perforated lung, but it's pretty much the same thing. Either way, he would miss minimal time. But Adam Schefter of ESPN said that something different, stating that the Patriots told him that it was just a chest injury that wasn't too serious and that it was not a punctured lung. And I look at this two ways, and I think this makes sense. Either Ian got the wrong info and he's wrong, or he's right

and the Patriots gave the news to Schefter to throw the 49ers off who are trying to game play up in New England. I lean towards the second scenario because I believe that Rappaport is a great reporter, as is Schefter, but Rappaport isn't going to get info from the team like Schefter did, a team that would absolutely be trying to hide an injury specifically one to their most dynamic player. So we'll see how this plays out over the next three days, and we'll know by Friday if Gronk will play. It's looking like he's not going to either way, either with a chest injury

or with a punctured lung. Either way, he's probably going to get the week off against the 49ers. It hurts them, but the fact that they have Martellus Bennett to throw in there definitely makes it easier. But it's just funny to watch Ian Rappaport of NFL.com going out and probably having himself a solid source and Adam Schefter getting fed information by the Patriots and the two conflicting reports. Not much of a surprise.

So, now, there was some other stuff going on, too, that people were asking questions about, mainly about Jacoby Brissett. A lot of questions about Brissett and his presence on the sidelines over the course of the last two games. Brissett is currently on injured reserve, so Bill Belichick, he addressed this question today in his conference call. You know, why is he there? That's what people wanted to say. Belichick said, quote, I'd say it's more to do with the position he plays and the injury.

I mean, he's only been four regular season games, so I think the experience that goes from being able to see the things that go on during the game are valuable for him. They might be valuable for some other players, too. I'm not saying that it isn't. But the quarterback position in particular, I'd say it's a little bit different. So that does make a lot of sense, especially if they view Brissette as the quarterback of the future, which I think they do. Mental reps are huge, especially for a young quarterback in the NFL. And now that he has a couple starts under his belt and he knows what to expect from a game speed perspective,

seeing Brady run the offense from the sidelines while hearing the calls and seeing the coaching and hearing the adjustments and all that things, it's going to be an invaluable experience for the kid. I think the kid can play. I was very impressed with him, his throwing motion, the way he gets it down the field. In this offense, I understand that you have to be able to hit the short passing game, but I think he's going to be able to figure it out and do it. They're going to have a decision to make when it comes to Brissette and Garoppolo. That decision's going to have to be made pretty soon. I think

they might even pay Garoppolo, take the gamble and see what happens, but I'm not really sure. We'll see how that all plays out. So it's always a good question and it's always a good problem to have. Multiple quarterbacks is never, ever something that an NFL team will complain about. Speaking of quarterbacks, quarterback Tom Brady spoke with Jim Gray on his weekly interview with Westwood One on Monday, and he spoke about the low hit he took from Seahawks safety cam Chancellor Wetsch.

Now, some people think it was a cheap shot, but I don't know. I'm kind of on the fence about it. And the fact that I know he didn't hit him in the knee now, after hearing what Brady had to say, I don't know. I think it was just a football play. Brady said that he's, quote, pretty in tune at this point with his body. He says, I know exactly what I feel. I knew it wasn't my knee, so that was good.

I'm sore, but I'll be ready to go. It's part of football. Everyone is playing with the bumps and bruises this time of year, and I'm not different, so I'll get my treatment this week, get out there and practice, and be ready to go. So that sounds good. And at the age of 39 brady obviously knows his body very well and his eating habits um have been very well documented

we've heard about the fact that he won't eat tomatoes and such um so we all know he he is a young 39 but it's still going to be rough on his body especially being older you know myself i'm a 40 year old man so i know what it feels like waking up. It hurts a little bit. He's 39, and he's getting hit by guys in their early 20s, and that's going to hurt. So to recover in time for games, that's going to be tough. Even he admits that. He says, quote, he needs all six days.

He said that today. So I found that kind of funny, but it's got to be true. You get a lot of bruises. You get hammered out there. Brady's one of those guys that's not afraid to take a hit, but at the same time, he's got to take some days to recover from it. So that's got to hurt. Let's take a minute to discuss one of our sponsors,

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It's a great site, so check it out. $5 a month, $50 for the year. nwe.scout.com. Register today. So we're going to take a look at the All-22. It wasn't pretty. I'm not going to lie. There were some things that I saw that weren't good. They weren't good. There were some positives. I'll admit that. There were a couple studs that didn't get the love that I thought that they should have. But to be honest, after a loss, the studs and duds segment is pretty much cut down

to the three and three that we typically go with. So there were no honorable mentions or dishonorable mentions. We decided to save that for today. So to get started, it was kind of disappointing to see Deion Lewis wasn't available to play. Belichick actually weighed in on it today and said that he is healthy, he's ready to go, but it just wasn't happening. But to open the game, they did have that nice screen pass, great design,

and it played to James White, a nice 13-yard play. They got the Seahawks on the heels a little bit too right away. That's one of the things that Brady was able to do. He was able to get Seattle on their heels. Another thing that Brady was excellent at doing, he was doing it in the first quarter, was picking up first downs on third and long. Extending drives on third downs is a killer to the defense. Then they started to mix in Blount a little bit. He started to run well. The first drive in the first series for the Patriots was excellent. It was unfortunate

that they weren't able to sustain that type of play. They just had it going. They were mixing it up. Blount was playing, running hard with a lot of confidence and looked like the offensive line felt like they knew they could move the Seahawks front. But as we'll talk about in a couple minutes, that kind of changed as time wore on. Then Seattle got caught with the big interference in the end zone, set the Patriots up with the goal line, and that was it. Blount took it in quickly.

So, you know, Patriots went 79 yards on nine plays, and they made it look easy. They really did. Just well-designed plays, great blocking up front, good run blocking. Just a great job overall on that drive. And they made the Seattle defense a coordinator with the way that it was blocked. Rob Gronkowski, he is just an excellent blocker, and so is Martellus Bennett. Like I've said before, having those guys out there, and I pause and rewind

and I just watch them and I laugh because it literally looks like they have four guards on the field having those two out there blocking along with their offensive line. So, Great job by the Patriots offensive line on that first drive. Tom Brady making plays on third down moving around in the pocket. They call it being able to move around in a telephone booth which people don't understand nowadays because it's cell phones but it's being able to move around in small spaces and avoiding guys.

Guys are flying, but you just kind of take a step to the right, a step to the left, and just make a play. Brady's excellent with that, and he did a good job against Seattle all night, but it wasn't enough, unfortunately. Speaking of Brady, he is an addition to the studs list this week. He was awesome. The film review going through it, it shed light on how awesome of a game he had. If the Patriots had won, he would have been definitely on the stud list. Unfortunately, he wasn't because, again, I didn't have the honorable mentions,

and he would have been on there. So Brady was awesome. He had nothing to do with this loss. So Patriots go down the field. They get the nice score. They come back on special teams and they kick the ball out of bounds. And, you know, just watching the film of it today,

shaking my head the whole time. I think I rewound it like three times and there's really no reason to because all it is is a kicker shanking the ball, but I was trying to catch an angle of the sidelines to see if I could catch Belichick or any of the coaches and see if anyone were going crazy, but I couldn't, so my guess is that somebody was very angry when that happened. That's a huge mistake. I talked about this on my podcast on Sunday. I know probably bored the heck out of a whole bunch of people when it came to the special teams talk, but I broke it down.

And one of the things I talked about was coverage. And one of the things that I said was field position. And when you kick the ball out of bounds after you score a game-opening touchdown, you give the Seattle offense that much more momentum because it's one thing to give it to them at the 25. It's another thing to give it to them at the 40. So they went down the field, they scored right away and they made it look easy. So, you know, that was, that was a big mistake by Gaskowski. And, you know, they talk about the things that he struggled with. That hasn't been one of them.

He's been very good at that, but not in this game. So Patriots special teams gaffe there in the first quarter cost them, I believe it cost them three points. You know, you can say that Seattle maybe would have got the points anyways, or who knows. But, you know, when you give them the ball at the 40, you're giving them confidence. They only have to work up the field 30, 40 yards before they're even ready to kick the field goal, and they did.

So, you know know that was just not very good um so again very bad job by the kickoff team unfortunately uh you know fortunately for the patriots they held into a field goal though so they didn't give up the touchdown they held the lead at that point the next offensive series for the patriots was just it was quick quick quick ugly stuff nothing doing in the first two plays it wasn't one another stuffed run by a blount the thing about blount in this game you know I had picked him as a stud for the game and you know I was going off of what I saw just watching the game and off the raw numbers. But watching the game again, man, he got stuffed a lot. And, you know, I still think they should have given him some more of the goal line,

but they've got to find a way to get him low. And I know he's an old guy, and it's tough to teach the old dog new tricks, but, man, he is like 6'3", 6'2", and he's like 240 pounds. He's got to stop getting tackled in the backfield. That's just too much. He's got to clean that up. You know, Bennett made a catch for six yards.

You thought maybe they were going to pick it up. It was a quick third and 11, but they were forced to punt to the Seattle defense. Their coverage was good all night, and that was the start of it. Even on the first drive, that was one of the reasons why I thought Brady was so awesome the other night was because of how good the coverage was, and he was still able to make plays. But you saw it on this series. Seattle's defense was swarming.

They did a great job covering the lanes and picking up their men. It was excellent stuff. Sitting in, if you get a chance, I don't know if any of you guys out there have NFL.com, if you can check out the coaches tape, go to that series and pause and take a look at how well the coverage is and just look at what Brady's looking at. It's tough. That's tough stuff to deal with. You got to give Seattle credit with that. So Seattle gets the ball back there, and that's when they started to see C.J. Procise looking like O.J. Simpson

circa 1970. It was ridiculous. You know, he goes out on the flat, makes a big catch. Patriots weren't even close to covering him. It was disgusting. Another third down. Patriots, you know, try to step them. It was disgusting. Another third down. Patriots try to step up. They can't.

So Seattle goes down. But once again, the Patriots hit hold up in the red zone, and Seattle was forced to kick a field goal. But again, the defense was not where it was supposed to be. Listen, I don't know the plays, so I can't sit here and tell you i'm watching the film and i know exactly what blitzes are called i know what coverages are called things of that nature but i know when i see a guy and he looks lost in coverage and then you see him chasing that he did

something wrong and there was so much of that when watching the film of this game. It was not even funny. Things that you just don't see during the game, and then you have to go back and watch it again, and it was all over the place. One play that stood out, the touchdown right before the half. Oh, my God. Eugene Chung, you got your name back again. No, it's Patrick.

I'll stick with that. But still, he was called Eugene when he made the plays that he was making on Sunday. He had to pick up the man in coverage. It's a very easy play to make. And the guy ended up behind him. He didn't even look back, and they scored a touchdown there in the first half. And I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but still, those are the type of things that you see on film and just go,

good God, what were they doing out there Sunday? It was ugly stuff. So after the Patriots were totally terrible on defense, the offense actually stepped up. This is when Gronk took that shot over the middle. Oh my God, I put that on pause like five times. He got hammered on that play. Earl Thomas and Gronk actually said it to his credit. He is a missile.

That was an absolute shot to the chest. He's lucky he didn't break his sternum. But in the meantime, Gronk's on the sidelines getting looked at and getting his chest caved in. And Bennett's running around with him making plays, and Blount's got a strong run going. Blount, he just looks so much better. I've said it before, he looks like he's in better shape.

He looks faster. That's one of the reasons why I'm a little stunned that he gets blown back sometimes. He really shouldn't. It just shouldn't happen. Julian Edelman with a nice play. Made the first down at Seattle 14. And then next thing you know, the Patriots are going into the end zone again with Blount. So that was a good drive there.

The whole time it was well blocked. They did a good job of mixing things up offensively. I thought that was one of the better drives of the game, if not the best drive of the game. But unfortunately, they couldn't carry much of that over until the second half. So, then Seattle, this was just disgusting. Seattle, they get the ball back, 31 seconds left, and they pick up a huge chunk play

to get the ball down to the Patriots' 30. So, all right, you figure they're in field goal range. And then Chung, which I was just talking about, but good God. I mean, are you kidding me? You saw, you know, you have, you have that corner, you have the quarters, they're in cover four. You could see it just by looking at the film. That is your area. You have the back corner of the end zone. He looked back, and he didn't go back, and the guy ended up catching the touchdown right over him. It's like he didn't think Russell Wilson was going to see him.

I was blown away by that, and unfortunately that's the reason why I think the main reason why the Patriots lost this game I think is because of that touchdown. That's a huge, huge swing of momentum. Either you go in 14-12 at halftime and you're up. And, yeah, you got to kick off, but still, you're up. Or you're down 19-14 after giving up a stupid touchdown. It was terrible, and I'm sure that they heard all about it when they went into the locker room.

So that was ugly stuff from Chung, and unfortunately that cost the Patriots, I think, the game overall, and that's one of the reasons why the secondary ended up on the dud list. The third quarter was pretty fun stuff. Not pretty. A lot of mistakes by the Patriots. Justin Coleman got called for a stupid tripping penalty. He was terrible. He was absolutely terrible. Patriots, Justin Coleman got called for a stupid tripping penalty.

He was terrible. He was absolutely terrible. I should have had him separated alone on the dud list by himself. He's lucky that the whole secondary was on there because his name should have been by itself. He was bad. He had a very, very, very, very bad performance that night. But the Patriots did a good job. They got the ball back.

They drove down the field. they had a really good drive Danny Amendola had a nice catch on pick up first down it was a deep in cut and he was wide open down the scene was a nice really really nice play nice route and good throw by Brady that was and again I guess that Brady was awesome and that was one of the plays that really stood out to me. And then LeGarrette Blount, again, he was playing like a man possessed. Great blocking by the Patriots, and, you know, doing it against Seattle, who really wasn't giving up that many rush yards per game.

It was pretty impressive, and Koskowski was hitting his extra points. So the Patriots are up 21-19. It was about seven and a half minutes to go in the third, and they were looking pretty good. But, you know, unfortunately, it just wasn't happening. They just kept on giving up points. Seattle drove down the field. C.J. Proce is making plays. The defense started to make a couple plays here.

Trey Flowers with a nice sack. What a great pass rusher he is. I said it before, he reminds me of Trey Armstrong. Watching him on the All-22 reminds me even more. He does some of the same stuff and he just changes the momentum in the game.

In fact, his sack is the reason why the Patriots didn't give up a touchdown with a lot of field goal and they were just down by one point. So that was a good job on his part. So Cyrus Jones out there having tough times again. That was scary to watch him with returns. And there were holes out there too.

There was a couple times in the returns where he couldn't make a play, and I just think he's running scared still. So that's something to keep an eye on for sure. So another huge turning point in the game came here um patriots get the ball down all the way down to the to the one yard lines first and goal um and then frank clark comes up with a sack on third down and force the patriots into a field goal to go up 24 to 22 that was was a huge, huge play by Frank Clark, who is not the best guy. We're not going to get into that. He's not a good guy.

But he's a good player, and that sack was amazing, too, because he looked like a guy in a scary movie with a hand coming out of nowhere. All of a sudden, Clark's hand was on Brady's chest, and he was not letting go, and he got him down. And then to follow that, so the Patriots kick a field goal, and then again, just to reiterate what I talked about on Sunday, special teams, the Patriots have awful kick coverage, and the Seahawks end up with great field position.

So, you know, third and six, the Seahawks, you know, they kept getting pretty good first down, about third downs to work with. And C.J. Proceise again, C.J. O.J. Simpson Proceise, picks up a 38-yard catch and it's first and goal from the Patriots too. So the defense couldn't stop Proceise. They couldn't stop Russell Wilson. They weren't getting enough pressure, and every time you

looked up, Seattle was kicking another field goal, next thing you know, it's 25-24, and again, Seattle's, you know, got the lead again, so, Cyrus Jones comes out, he gets a great return, fumbled, and then lucky, luckily got saved by Nate Ebner. He got hammered, though. Oh, did he get hit hard? I would have died if somebody hit me that hard, so I can understand why he fumbled. Great play by Ebner this game. It was wild to watch in the regular game.

Watching it on film, too, it is the same thing. This is a wild game. So the Patriots had the ball to Seattle 45, and then the play of the game, truly the play of the game. Julian Adam makes a catch, going over the middle, and he fumbles. So he got hit hard. I know. I get it.

The guy got hit. But sometimes you just need to go down. You know, they would have had the ball in good field position on first down, driving, only down by a point. That was huge. It was 8.46 to go, and that happened. Actually, 8.29 to go, and that happened. That was a huge play, and that really killed them. And then Pro Seis just kept picking up where he left off. And next thing you know, Doug Baldwin picked up his third touchdown of the night. They just couldn't cover him. Let me take that back.

They wouldn't cover him. It was unbelievable. They need to get back to the drawing board and the secondary because what I'm watching here, I'm glad that I put the whole secondary on there for Duds, but again, Justin Coleman picks up a big star next to him because he was just the worst out of all of them. This was disgusting.

And then the Seahawks went for two. I just, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. You don't go for two there. I'm sorry, you don't. You kick the extra point, you put your team up by eight, which puts pressure on the Patriots to score and go for two. You don't say we're trying to put them away. That's dumb. Pete Carroll, that's dumb. Dumb.

You know, it's funny because when Carroll left the Patriots back when I was younger, I'm a USC fan. Admitted. Don't even care what anybody thinks. I'm a diehard USC fan. I have been since the early 80s. I'll be talking about this on this podcast for a long time. I love the Trojans. When Pete Carroll left the Patriots and went to the Trojans, it killed me. Oh, my God. I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

I've got to deal with this guy with USC? Come on. It ended up working out. Obviously, it didn't end too well, and I still think he left some national championships on the table. But I always said, this guy is in-game. He is not that good. And to go for two in that scenario is perfect Pete.

It was unbelievable. I still can't believe he did that. What a moron. I'm sorry, Pete. You're a good coach and all, but that was just dumb. That was not a very, very smart move. But they scored the touchdown, and they made it 31-24, so they were up by a full touchdown.

The next thing you know, of course, no surprise, Brady and the Patriots go right down the field. They get down to the one, and that's when we talked about this yesterday, so I'm not going to go too far into it. Just, again, from what I saw in the field, they get down to the one. And that's when we talked about this yesterday, so I'm not going to go too far into it. Just, again, from what I saw in the film, I still think the Patriots could have scored if they had run it a couple more times. They had a clear advantage size-wise up front.

You know, you watch it from the rear angle and you watch the coach's tape, and it just seems like they had just gone with Blount and Devlin. They would have been able to hammer it in there for the score. And I don't think they should have worried about the time either. That was something where they should have trusted their defense to try to get a stop because, you know, you need the defense to get a stop at some point.

So that's pretty much what I picked up. You know, and the Patriots lost this game not just because of, you know, issues in the secondary or LeGarrette Blount getting blown up on 35% of his runs and things like that. The main issue in this game was there were breakdowns everywhere, from special teams to offensive red zone breakdowns to defensive big play breakdowns. It happened all over the place.

So everybody earned a piece in this one. Again, I added Tom Brady to the stud list. Justin Coleman gets his own little special house on the dud list, specifically the dog house because he was terrible. Cyrus Jones was also, eh, not good. And there was a lot of guys that just weren't that good but overall this was a team effort

loss, so it is what it is like Bill Belichick says I want to thank you all for joining us tonight on Locked On Patriots and be sure to go onto iTunes and subscribe to our show and tell your friends about us. We're a great show here and you know, we're part of the fastest growing podcast network in the world.

So definitely go to iTunes and subscribe to our show. Do it now. Listen to us on your ride home. Listen to us on your way to work. There's episodes every day. Sometimes they come out a little bit later in the day, depending on what's going on, but every day we're going to be on here, so come check us out.

Again, I'm Chris Simino, your host of Locked on Patriots, wishing all you Patriots fans a great night. Whatcha doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting some stuff. Bye, singing dog. Bye, goal. Bye, wedding ceremony. Stop. At MetroPCS, you get two free phones with twice as much memory.

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