Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS- 12/11/16- Breaking Down the Patriots Offense vs. the Ravens Defense

Episode Date: December 11, 2016

Chris Simoneau, Patriots Insider for Scout.com, breaks down the Patriots offense vs. the Ravens defense, a battle that has been fun to watch for about a decade. #Patriots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Minimum purchase required, U.S. only. Good afternoon, I'm Chris Cimino, Patriots insider for Scout.com, and also your host of Locked On Patriots, your source for everything Patriots. Today is Sunday, December 11, 2016. Today we're going to break down the Patriots offense versus the Ravens defense. Obviously with a Monday night game, give us an extra day to go through things and try to get an idea of who I think is going to win this game and give you guys my reasons why and my detailed reasons why.

We're also going to go through the Patriots news and notes and see specifically how things are looking on the injury front. Before we get to all that, I just want my listeners to know that I can be found on Twitter under the handle Chris underscore Simono, that's C-H-R-A-S underscore S-I-M-O-N-E-A-U. If you have any questions for the show, be it about the Patriots, myself, Patriots Insider, or if you're looking to advertise here on Locked On Patriots, myself, Patriots Insider, or if you're looking to advertise here on Locked On Patriots,

you can email me directly at chrissimusc at yahoo.com. That's C-H-R-I-S-S-I-M-U-S-C at yahoo.com. If you are a member of Patriots Insider on scout.com, you can contact me directly on the site via message. All right, let's take a look at the Patriots news and notes for this Sunday afternoon. The Patriots are relatively healthy heading into Monday's matchup against the Ravens. You know, obviously, I know they have some guys off of the year, but if you look at who's on the injured reserve and who's on the 53 man,

they're actually not doing too bad. We had some of these other teams out there. Danny Amendola, as we know, he was the lone member of the team to be ruled out with his ankle injury. The high ankle sprain he suffered against the Rams this past Sunday, an injury that we discussed at length here on the show. Expect to see Amendola back for the AFC Divisional round, assuming the Patriots make it that long. So here is the official injury report. Danny Amendola was out.

Wide receiver, ankle injury. Questionable. Tight end Martellus Bennett with an ankle and also dealing with a shoulder issue. He will play this week as we all know but he's still on the list. Wide receiver Matthew Slater, he was back at practice. He's got a foot injury. I don't know if he'll play or not. I do think that he will though because this is a big game and I know the Patriots were trying to hold him back the last couple weeks so they can have him available for Baltimore. So I do think that he will end up playing. Safety Jordan Richards, he did practice also.

I was a little surprised to see him back out there. He had the knee. I would not be surprised if they kept him inactive another week, but we shall see. I could be wrong again. I know they want all hands on deck special teams-wise, so we'll see. Landon Roberts, linebacker dealing with a hamstring injury. Again, he's another one who's practiced, and I expect him to play. And cornerback Eric Rowe also has a bum knee, but I think he'll be ready to go too.

The only guy I think is going to be out is Amendola and possibly Richards. I think everyone else is going to play, though. In other news, apparently Mike Lombardi is confident that the Patriots are going to trade Jimmy Garoppolo this offseason. This is what he had to say on the subject. He said, quote, the next quarterback that will be the Cleveland Browns quarterbacks perhaps is Jimmy Garoppolo in New England. He said this Thursday on FSN1, the show Speak for Yourself, and the Akron Beacon Journal reported this.

He said, I think Cleveland understands, specifically Hugh Jackson understands he needs a quarterback and he thinks they're going to be very aggressive. He says, I think Jimmy Garoppolo is on the top of their list and I think they'll go hard after him. Lombardi also added that he said, quote, I'm sure the Chicago Bears are going to make a phone call too. You know, there's a lot of teams that are going to come hard after Garoppolo because there's not a lot of quarterbacks.

Mike Lennon from Tampa is also going to be available as a free agent, but clearly out of the two, Garoppolo has a higher upside. I think that these are very interesting comments coming from someone that was in the Patriots' front office not too long ago. And not to mention he has a great relationship with Belichick. Sometimes I wonder if some of these things have floated out there to see if maybe that word gets back to Hugh Jackson. And that's what this was, was a way to just kind of float it and say, hey, Hugh, this is what we're thinking. And maybe Chicago is the other team that the Patriots are targeting because they know they can get a high draft pick out of them.

If Belichick and Casario see the growth out of Jacoby Brissett that they do think is coming, I think Garoppolo is going to be traded. I think it's definitely going to happen. There's a reason New England used their one designated IR returnee on a third-string quarterback. They want to see what he can do in practice. I know he's not going to get the reps that he wants to get, but in the Patriots' eyes,

they're getting enough reps out of him to see what they want to see and to have confidence that they can trade away Garoppolo knowing that there's still somebody waiting if Brady all of a sudden just falls off a cliff and just can't play anymore because that does happen. Brady's 39. At any moment, this thing could be, uh-oh, Brady's losing his accuracy, uh-oh, Brady's not as quick anymore,

and the next thing you know you're looking for a new starting quarterback. I do think that Brissette is a legitimate talent. I think that Garoppolo is also a legitimate talent, but out of the two, I tend to lean towards Brissette. I like his game. I think he's got a bigger arm, and I think that with him, he's got pretty good accuracy in the short passing game too, enough to be able to succeed in the NFL, and guys get better at that. With his feet and the way he can move, he just seems really tough.

I think Brissette might be the better guy to keep. And I just don't think you're going to be able to get as much from him right now either as you will for Garoppolo because Garoppolo has shown what he can do during regular season games a couple more than Percet has. So if that's the case and Lombardi happens to be right and Garoppolo does get traded to Cleveland, that's okay. I think that you can't really pay him what he's going to want to be paid. And I think if you are going to do something,

you've got to trade him to a team that you're going to get a high draft pick for. And if you can get a top ten pick for him, that's absolutely worth doing. So that was Mike Lombardi who had to say that. So, again, that's interesting coming from a guy like him that's one of Belichick's number one guys he talks to in the media. So keep an eye on that. Jimmy Garoppolo possibly going to either the Browns or the Bears in the offseason. John Gruden's in town with the Patriots playing on Monday night. Gruden's here for production meetings, things of that nature.

He had some good things to say about Tom Brady. He said, Brady's wired differently than just about any human you'll ever meet. He's maniacal on and off the field. That's what he told reporters. He said his diet is stretching, his flexibility, he's moving around so much better than I've ever seen him move.

He can establish new launching spots in the pocket. He's quick. He's even scrambling for yards this year. He's not staying the same. You never stay the same. You get better, you get worse. He goes, I don't give a dang how old he is. He's getting better.

He said he took it even a step further, too, saying that he's the best quarterback he thinks that's ever played. This is a guy who coached Joe Montana, so he was asked that question even ahead of Montana. He said, quote, I'm not going to get into all that fantasy stuff, but I don't know many guys in my lifetime that I can remember that are 39 years old and 19 touchdown passes and one at deception. It's pretty insane if you ask me. The guy looks like he's 25 years old. So again, you have Gruden saying that. You have the Patriots,

like I just said a couple minutes ago ago in a situation with Garoppolo, where what are you going to do here? You can't ignore the fact that this guy still looks great. You have to keep him in there. He's the best quarterback that's ever played. He's the best player you've ever had in your franchise history, and that's not going to change. What you've got to do is let him ride it out.

You let Brady play until he can't play anymore. And it has to be a prolonged stretch. I'm talking like a month of ugliness to two months of ugliness before you say, all right, that's it, you've got to pull the trigger here. So when you see Gruden saying that Brady looks like he's getting younger and how well he takes care of himself and all these things, I think Brady's just going to kind of stay the same for a little while. Aging's going to catch up with him eventually, but the way he's taking care of himself and all these things you know i think brady's just gonna kind of stay the same for a little while um aging is gonna catch up with him eventually but the way he's taking care of his body he probably does have the body of a you know say a guy in his early 30s compared to

a guy in his later 30s as far as wear and tear so um interesting words out of gruden uh you know gruden loves every quarterback in the world but to to say that Brady is the greatest, that's a lot coming out of him. I'm actually kind of surprised to see that. In other news, the 49ers this week, they threw a wrench into the tight end prices, the free agent prices, which is going to cause some problems for the Patriots. The Patriots are recently trying to re-sign their talented tight end, Martellus Bennett, but again, the 49ers threw a wrench into the process with frivolous spending.

I understand you have a ton of cap space, and your team stinks. You lost a lot of guys to retirement. All these bad things happen to you, and they want to keep anyone that's halfway decent. Again, I get that. But to sign tight end Vance McDonald to a five-year, $35 million contract, that's ridiculous. He's earning $7 million a year. So now, Bennett,

he's going to probably want at least nine now. And that's what Gronkowski gets paid. So I can understand why even Gronkowski's frustrated. These guys getting paid $7 million a year that haven't done anything in the league. And Gronkowski making only $2 million more and Bennett making less. I think they need to find a way to work out a deal with Bennett.

They're going to have to figure something out with Gronkowski, too, even with the injury. Because with guys like Vance McDonald making big bucks, that doesn't make any sense. Vance McDonald, I mean, come on. He's an okay guy, okay player, but that's crazy. Five years, $35 million, San Francisco, what are you doing? That's just a foolish move. Let's take a minute to tell you about one of our sponsors. Patriots Insider on scout.com.

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Save money all over the place. I'm telling you, it's a great deal. Go check it out. So the main goal of today was to talk about the Patriots offense versus the Ravens defense, and it's a good matchup. Just looking at the raw numbers here, Patriots still averaging 26.6 points per game, which is 6th, 387.5 total yards per game, which is 5th, 270.2 through the air, which is 4th,

and 117.2 on the ground, which is 6th. But then you take a look at the Ravens' defense. 17.2 points allowed per game, only 2nd in the league, which is impressive. 296.1 yards allowed per game, which is 1st. 222.2 yards allowed through the air, which is 7th, and only giving up 73.8 yards on the ground per game, which is 1st in the league. I'm going to put it out there right now.

That number's a little skewed because when they played against the Jets, they only gave up, I believe it was 11 yards rushing. Granted, that was a great job on their part, but I also wonder what the Jets were thinking. Any team should be able to run for more than 11 yards in a game. This isn't the Ravens' defensive hold, but they are definitely effective, which is clear when you take a look at the rankings that I just talked about, from points to allowed to yardage allowed to also their forced turnovers,

which they've done a good job with. Ravens are second in the NFL in points allowed. Just giving up those 17.2 points per game, that's impressive. That's very impressive. With a look at their yardage, that makes sense. Their points per game allowed compared to their yardage actually makes more sense than what the Patriots is. So that kind of lines up a little bit better. But I do believe that the Seahawks defense is better than this Ravens defense.

But this Ravens defense hasn't really allowed anyone to break the 30-point mark too, which is impressive. Baltimore has been the best team in the league at the limiting yardage, but they also haven't faced the Patriots yet. And when they faced good offenses, they faced Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh had just gotten back. Roethlisberger was coming off the torn meniscus, and he just wasn't 100%

ready to go yet. And also that was a division game too. So division games teams know each other a little bit better. So that really doesn't surprise me. These teams have had success against them this year. Their past defense is ranked 7th again allowing the 222 yards a game. But those numbers are all well and good. But when you take a deep dive into the numbers, there's a reason why the Ravens are just 7-5. The one standout win, again, was against the Steelers. Roethlisberger, again, like I said, he wasn't right. And then they played Dallas. That was the last opponent when you can

be comparable to New England that Baltimore faced. And Dallas won the game by 10 points. They threw for 299, they ran for 118 yards, and they put 27 points on the board with a rookie quarterback and a rookie running back. I know they're good, but still, if you want to take a comparison as far as overall team talent, Dallas and New England are close, and Dallas took care of Baltimore pretty easily. So the Jets, who are not a good team, also beat up on the Ravens. Rushing for 155 yards en route to a 24-16 win.

Baltimore has given up over 100 yards rushing just three times. Cleveland did it. They ran for 145. The Jets did it in their win, running for 155, and the Cowboys also in their win over Baltimore did it for 118. All three teams are top 10 rushing teams, as is New England, so I do think the Patriots are going to be able to run the ball Monday night. Patriots are averaging 117 yards per game on the ground, like we mentioned earlier,

and they've been able to run pretty much on anyone except for Seattle. Last week, the Ravens, they whooped the Dolphins 38-6, and they limited the Dolphins, who were pretty hot going into the game. They held them to 215 yards through the air and 62 yards on the ground. So they are going to come to Foxborough with confidence, but again, I think the Patriots are going to be able to move it on them. One of the reasons the Ravens had so much success in the past against Tom Brady was the presence of Ed Reed, but they haven't had him since the 2012 Super Bowl winning season. Brady has faced the Ravens twice since Ed Reed left.

First time was 2013 regular season. Patriots won that game 41-7. Brady was 14-26 for 172 in a touchdown, so it wasn't really him. They ran the ball, though, 34 times for 142 yards and two touchdowns. So keep an eye on that right there. New England, they know they can run on these guys. And then in 2014 playoffs, that was the Patriots' comeback win. New England won 35-31.

Brady was 33 out of 50 for 367 yards 3 touchdowns and 1 at deception so that's a pretty far cry from what he was doing against Baltimore when Ed Reed was around I know that they picked up some players and they've improved their defense and Eric Weddle definitely helps out in the secondary but again, Ed Reed was a big reason why the Patriots had so many problems with the Ravens defense and why the Patriots had so many problems with the Ravens' defense,

and specifically why Tom Brady had so many problems with him and respected him so much. So I do think that that goes a long way towards the Patriots having confidence that they can score on this Ravens' defense. Again, I know this is not Ravens' offense day. Ravens' offense feel they can score on New England. Well, guess what? Tom Brady feels the same way about this Baltimore defense. He's just not afraid of him anymore. I know Suggs is a dangerous player still, and you have to look out for him, but he's not the same guy he used to be,

and I know that the Patriots are going to focus on getting him blocked. So if New England is able to break the 30-point mark, which I think they're going to, they'll need contributions from Martellus Bennett, James White, Dino Lewis, and pretty much every other player that can get out in the flats, take advantage of the short middle too when that opens up. And Malcolm Mitchell and Chris Hogan are going to be used to try and stretch the defense a little bit too to see if they can open up that underneath stuff

and who knows, maybe get them loose and make a big play. The Patriots haven't had two wide receivers that can stretch the defense on the same field in a long time, and that's one of the reasons why the loss of Gronkowski isn't going to break this offense. And then lastly, Blount, he's going to get every chance to get rolling in the run game too, because Belichick wants to keep the dangerous big play mind, the Ravens offense off the field. So offensively, the Patriots, they can do some things here against Baltimore, I believe, because they have the guys and they have the personnel to do it, and I just don't think the Ravens' defense, I don't think any defense can take away everything

from New England. And once they start exploiting something, like throwing it to their backs out in the flat or finding guys, like I said, over the short middle and making plays in the middle of the field, eventually the defense starts to sag, over the short middle and making plays in the middle of the field. Eventually the defense starts to sag down and come down and try to make a play, and next thing you know the Patriots are hitting them over the top with Malcolm Mitchell or Hogan, like I mentioned before, and sometimes even Julian Edelman. Edelman makes plays in the slot and all different areas around the short plays, but he also makes some downfield plays too as a surprise, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him make a play down the field

tomorrow. But overall, this is a great test for the Patriots offense, but the home field advantage is ultimately going to be too much for the Ravens to overcome tomorrow. And even though I do think they will give the Patriots offense some trouble at times, I expect them to score consistently on Monday night. On Friday, I predicted that the Ravens were going to score 19 points, and today I'm going to predict that the Patriots will score 30. So there you have it. My final score prediction for tomorrow night. I know we haven't

gone through special teams yet. We're going to go through that tomorrow. I've already calculated that in by looking at it, but we're going to go through that a little bit more tomorrow. My final score for tomorrow night is Patriots 30, Ravens 19. I know that doesn't sound like a close game, but it's going to be closer to 30-19 than you think.

It'll be 23-19 up until about two minutes to go, and the Patriots will seal it with a touchdown. I think it's going to be one of those type of games. It'll be 23-19 up until about two minutes to go, and the Patriots will seal it with a touchdown. I think it's going to be one of those type of games. So it'll be a good game. The Ravens will be very competitive, but I think the Patriots are going to hold them to field goals, and I think New England's going to be able to move the ball pretty well,

and I think they're going to kick some field goals too, but I also think they'll get in the end zone more than Baltimore does. So there you have it. Patriots tomorrow predicted 30-19 winners. I want to thank you all for joining us this Sunday afternoon edition of Locked On Patriots. Be sure to go to iTunes and subscribe to our show today. Do it right now and tell your friends about us too. Here on Locked On Patriots, we're all about getting Patriots fans the most info you need to be the most in-the-know fan too. So be sure to tune in tomorrow. We're going to talk

about special teams. It's a matchup that's going to be fun to watch. And we're going to talk a little bit about the coaches. We're going to get into that. I want to talk about the hatred that used to be a deep respect that's, I don't think, a deep respect anymore. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow at our pregame show. We'll get that to you guys tomorrow afternoon. We're not going to post it too early in the morning just because we'd rather get that going a little bit later

so you guys can listen to it and get yourselves fired up for the game. So again, I'm Chris Simino, your host of Locked On Patriots. Thank you for listening. Have a great day watching all the other teams. And get yourself ready for a Patriots. Thank you for listening. Have a great day watching all the other teams and get yourself ready for our Patriots game tomorrow night that's going to go a long way towards deciding who has home field. Have a great day, Patriots fans.