Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS- 2/2/17- Bill Shanks of Macon.com, ESPN Middle Georgia, and the Telegraph Lets Patriots Fan Know What to Watch For Sunday

Episode Date: February 3, 2017

Chris Simoneau spoke with Bill Shanks of ESPN Middle Georgia about Sunday's upcoming game, and Bill broke down the Falcons for Patriots fans to digest. This is great stuff, check it out. #patriots #falcons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Minimum purchase required, U.S. only. Okay. Okay. Good evening. I'm Chris Simino, Patriots inside of the Scout.com, and also your host of Locked On Patriots, your source for everything Patriots. Today is Thursday, February 2nd, 2017.

We are only four days away from Super Bowl 51, and we have plenty to talk about. Today, we're going to talk to Bill Shanks, the Telegraph columnist and also radio host of ESPN Middle Georgia, which I had the pleasure of going on last week. Bill, thanks for joining us. It's great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Hey, we want to get some intel on these Falcons that look pretty, pretty good coming in here. And like I said to you earlier, before we got on the show, national media up here, the Boston, you know, so-called experts, haven't really dug too far into what the Falcons really are.

They just kind of talked about, you know, Matt Ryan's a good quarterback and Julio Jones and how they're going to defend him. And that's pretty much it. Talked about the running game a little bit, but the defense is fast. That's one of the only things you've heard up here. So Patriots fans, I feel, are kind of getting robbed as to what to expect come Sunday at 640 when this Falcons team, which I know has a ton of talent, comes rolling onto the field. So I think we should start off with the offense, considering that the Falcons do have a record-setting

offense. Bill, what do you think the Falcons are going to come at the patriots with as far as a game plan and what are the some of some of the other players they should really look out for other than the aforementioned uh two that have always been in the media this week well yeah matt ryan obviously is having an mvp season i think he'll be the MVP. And Julio Jones is the one everybody's going to talk about. I'm sure the conversation has been up north. You know, how do we stop Julio Jones? How are the Patriots going to stop Julio Jones? But that's really a foolish way to look at it, I think, Chris, because they have so many weapons. And here's my biggest example.

Well, first of all, we can count them off. I mean, they've got Julio Jones, Muhammad Sanu, Aldrick Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Austin Hooper, Levine Toilolo, and then you've got Justin Hardy, another receiver, that's seven, Tevin Coleman, and Devonta Freeman in the backfield, that's nine. And here's my example of how difficult this is. I guarantee you in the first quarter of the game between Atlanta and Green Bay, Dom Capers, the Packers defensive coordinator,

probably went nuts when he saw one of the first passes of the first drive for Atlanta go for 31 yards to fullback Patrick DeMarco. That's the 10th option for Matt Ryan. And I'm sure Dom Capers was ready for any one of those other nine that I mentioned, and all of a sudden one of the first passes for Matt Ryan was fullback Patrick DeMarco for 31 yards, and he was wide open so the biggest thing that I think or one of the biggest things that has the Falcons in this position is the fact that Matt Ryan has so many options at his disposal it's not just a one-trick

pony and and now for example the difference between now and four years ago for the Falcons, when they got the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, they had Julio Jones, Ronnie White, and Tony Gonzalez. Well, Tony Gonzalez is going to go to the Hall of Fame. Ronnie White might, and Julio Jones is on his way. But that's all they had. They had great quality, but it was top-heavy, and they didn't have any other options. Now the quantity has matched the quality, and that's one of the main reasons why Atlanta has had a record-setting offensive season. So I'm sure Bill Belichick, I said today on my show, I said, look, if I'm the Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick, or the defensive coordinator, I am standing up every night to my defense and saying,

look, you may think that it's only Julio Jones you are wrong. It is Matt Ryan to at least ten people. Yeah, and that's great insight, actually, Bill bill because that's the thing it it seems like that's all we've been hearing about but i know just from being uh an expert of a so-called expert i like to call myself too of of the game atlanta's offense is one of the best i've seen in the last 30 years of watching football they're just just excellent. Great tempo, the way they get their backs out in space, and the way that they use them in two different ways, but at the same time, they're just so talented.

Their receivers keep getting better. Mohamed Sanu was a terrific addition to that team, and I just think I agree with you on that offense. It's so varied, and there's so many different guys they can go to. It's funny you mentioned the big tight end there. What's his name again? Levine Toilolo from Stanford. Yes, I literally cannot pronounce his name and I'm

going to try someday, but I'm not there yet. Hey, I don't know if I'm right either, but that's what I call him, regardless of if it's his writer. I think you're right, because I'm a Pac-12 fan and I remember watching him scorch my Trojans a few times there in the games. He's a monster. He's a big player. So he's

always going to be a difficult matchup in red zone. So yeah, he's a good one too. The Falcons are definitely loaded offensively. So like I said earlier too, we keep hearing about this Falcons defense and you look at them on paper and it's not pretty.

I mean, you can see that as well as I can. I mean, they gave up 25.4 points per game, 27th in the league, 371 yards a game, 266 through the air, and 104 on the ground. But I know they've improved over the last half of the season. Do you think that they can keep the Patriots below, say, 27 points, which is what I think they're going to need to keep them below if they're going to win the game? I do.

And I know the season stats from week one to now, cumulatively, are not great. But the one thing, and this is regardless of stats, Chris, they have gotten better each and every week out. We've just seen gradual improvement. I mean, look, at the beginning of this season, the best player on defense of this team was Desmond Trufant. He's not even on this team right now.

He's hurt. He's out for the year and has missed half the season. And we have seen a development of a defense that is sinfully young. I mean, they've got four rookie starters on defense, including the nickelback, Brian Poole, who's an undrafted free agent out of Florida, and three second-year players. So seven of your 11 starters are either rookies or second-year players. I haven't seen anybody say this in the last 10 days, of how this youth on this defense matches up with other Super Bowl teams, winners or losers, because it's got to be one of the more inexperienced defensive teams.

But it's the kind of defense that Dan Quinn wanted to have when he came to Atlanta from Seattle two years ago. The speedsters, the bigger defensive backs. You know, the guy who took over for Desmond Trufant, and I love Desmond Trufant. He's a great young man and just a great kid and great player, great teammate for that bunch. But Jalen Collins took over for Desmond Trufant,

and when he was drafted in the second round out of LSU in Dan Quinn's first draft, people were like, what does he want with Jalen Collins? But Jalen Collins was 6'1", 203. He was bigger than Robert Alford or Desmond Trufant, and he had that big, tall, rangy defensive back size that Dan Quinn had in Seattle. And so that's what he wanted.

And then he brought in Keanu Neal, 6'2", 11, from Florida, rookie player, kind of like what he had in Seattle. And, you know, that type of player, I mean, he's still got Ricardo Allen in the secondary who's shorter. You know, and Alford is 5'10", so he's not very big, but he's at least got a little bit more length in the secondary, and that's what he's wanted, and that's been a big difference for this team.

But the gradual improvement, the just creation and transformation of this defense, I mean, one thing I want for Patriots fans, I think, to realize, to let you know how serious of a shift this season has brought to this Falcons team. Look, they were 5-0 to start last year, 2015. They then went 3-8 to finish 8-8 on the season. Came out, had a horrible preseason, had a horrible first game of the season. I walked out of the Georgia Dome after their loss to Tampa Bay,

and I'm like, oh, my God, that was awful. That wasn't very impressive. My show the next day, people were calling up saying, is Deshaun Watson going to be the top pick in the draft, and can we get him and replace Matt Ryan? It was that negative of a situation as far as how the perception was of that team. And they went on the road. They beat Oakland.

They beat Denver. They beat New Orleans. They won four in a row, then lost to Seattle, lost to San Diego, bounced back with a couple of wins, including a win over Green Bay at home, turned around four days later against Tampa Bay on the road and won that game. Then they lost a tough game to Philadelphia, where Philadelphia really was a bad matchup for them and beat them badly. The only other loss they had all year long was when Kansas City had a pick two.

Eric Berry had a pick two on a two-point conversion try that failed, and he picked it off and ran all the way for two points. I remember that one. And that's it. That's all they – And so we've seen a drastic shift from this team looking awful to all of a sudden becoming a Super Bowl

team and one that a lot of people think may win on Sunday. Yeah, they've definitely improved. It's funny, when I look at this Falcons defense and I look at this Falcons team, they actually remind me of a Patriots, a former Patriots Super Bowl team, and it's not from this time. It's actually from the 96 team, the Bledsoe team.

And that defense was very similar. They had Ty Law, who was only a second-year player, William McGinnis at the time was a third-year player. They were loaded, loaded with young talent. And if you looked at their statistics over the course of the 16 games, that's pretty questionable. But if you look over the final eight games of the year, they were completely dominant. And

to be honest, they played pretty good in the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, Desmond Howard came out and bit them and made the plays he needed to make to win the game. But I see a big similarity between those two teams. This Falcons team reminds me of that team a lot. Kind of came off, again, Patriots in 1995 were also an 8-8 team too.

So it's kind of an interesting thing if you look at it. The Falcons are kind of on that same path, which is a good path to be on. Now, I'm going to tell you, to watching the Falcons and seeing what they're doing and seeing who's in their front office and their coaching staff, I firmly believe that this team, they might be the next team in the NFL that can really challenge the Patriots. Because the Patriots aren't going away. I'm going to tell that.

People are going to hate to hear that. But it's the truth. They're not going to go away. They have good coaching. They have good talent development. They're always going to be competitive. But the Falcons right now are in the prime of it, and they have so many guys. I just think that they're a team that's going to be a contender,

a legitimate contender in the NFC Championship for years to come because there's not a lot of holes there. And your guy Jalen Collins, Bill, I'm a big fan of. When he drafted him, I laughed and said, that's a steal. I liked him a lot when he was in school. He's a good player. Yeah. He's going to give the Patriots some trouble on Sunday.

Well, and, you know, I think the players I'm interested in are the linebackers, Chris. I mean, I want to see what Deion Jones and Devon Ray Campbell, two rookies now, who, and here's the thing about Jones. I asked, oh, heck, I can't remember his name now. He works for Sports Illustrated. Holy cow, you'd know him. He works for Sports Illustrated. He does a lot of game film.

And I watched him on Twitter. And I invited him on my show. And he came on. Anyway, I'll remember it after we're through probably. But he was someone who I really liked who analyzed film. And I had him on the show. Was it Greg Bedard? No.

Nope. Not him. Anyway. He does a good job as a tape, too, if you're ever looking for somebody to talk to. He's great. Yeah, well, and I love those kind of guys. Because this guy, he just goes, he's with Monday Morning Quarterback. He does things with Peter King and SI and so forth.

Anyway, and my computer's off. But he came on and I asked him, I said, So who do you think of the young players, first-year and second-year players, has gotten better since week one? And I thought he may say Keanu Neal. I thought he may say, well, Vic Beasley, my God. He said Deion Jones. And I ran that by someone with the Falcons, and they said, oh, yeah, absolutely.

Deion Jones has come leaps and bounds and done very well and is not getting as much publicity. But what we've talked about down here is if the interior line for New England is a weak spot, if our old boy from UGA, David Andrews, and Shaq Mason from Georgia Tech are two of the weaker links on that offensive line, what will those two linebackers do if, for example, they run LeGarrette Blount up the middle? And with the speed that those two rookies have gotten

and the improvement they've made, when Belichick tests those guys, I can't wait to see what happens. I'm really anxious to see that. And I don't know. I mean, that's the one thing that's kind of got us curious, Chris. We don't know what is going to happen with these rookies on Sunday. We don't know how they're going to react. We don't know how they're going to perform.

You know, I can say they weren't intimidated by Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers, and that was great because a lot of people could be intimidated by either one of those two players. They weren't, and it didn't matter. But what are they going to do when Belichick and Brady test them? That's one thing we can't wait to see. It should be interesting. Just one thing to note, too, just with the Patriots' interior offensive line,

Shaq Mason's actually been very underrated this season. If you look at his numbers, yeah, he's and I actually do watch a lot of tape myself, just I coach, so I kind of have to anyways, so I figure what the heck, I might as well watch the Patriots' stuff, too. He's developed, he's one of the best run blockers

in the AFC. That's been since he came into the league. He comes from Georgia Tech, that's what they do. He's a road the best run blockers in the AFC. That's been since he came into the league. He comes from Georgia Tech. That's what they do. He's the road grader. But his pass blocking has improved a ton, especially over the course of the last month. He's really improved a lot. So when you look back at the game that the Patriots were giving up the middle pass rush

with Davian Clowney causing chaos out there, the biggest issue, like you mentioned, was David Andrews getting confused because Tooney was doing a good job, Mason was doing a good job, but Andrews didn't understand his role, and the running backs didn't do a very good job either. So they did adjust to it well two weeks ago against Pittsburgh, but we'll see. We'll see.

Because if they can pull that off, Atlanta can get that middle rush and cause some issues. There is no doubt that they can come in and win this game. No doubt about it. So it should be interesting to watch. What about the Atlanta special teams? Honestly, I personally haven't done enough research on them. How have they been this season?

You know, they've been okay. Eric Williams is a very good player on all sides. I mean, he's on the punt team and punt receiving team and everything. He does just about everything for them. Yeah, he's got some wheels, too. Yeah, he's a very good player. You know, we had a guy on our show today, as a matter of fact, who's already in

houston one of our friends who's a reporter for fox sports radio and he said that he's heard that taylor gabriel may be someone who they put back with the punt team which may be a little bit of a change they have gabriel back there instead of weems so that's something to watch out for but weems is a very good player now now look when they played Seattle, they had to deal with Devin Hester, and Devin Hester was out of his mind that day. He was kind of pissed the Falcons didn't re-sign him a while back, and the sign was Seattle late, and he was almost like, hey, this is my drop of the mic moment.

I'm going to run hard. They're going to have to kill me to bring me down. And he had more yards than he should have. And that may make people think the special teams is not very good. But, I mean, I don't think it's a huge strength, but I don't think it's a problem either. I mean, they're okay. And Williams can do some damage on the kick returns.

And we'll see if Gabriel or Weems handles the punts. But, you know, their punter's very good. Matt Bosh is very good. Matt Bryant's been very good all year long. So, I mean, I think it's in pretty good shape, to be honest with you. Okay, that's interesting because that's another good matchup too because from watching, they definitely look fast on film, and they do a good job of blocking.

Patriots special teams have been one of the top tens in the league for a long time. They have great coverage. That's one of the things about the Patriots special teams that you'll notice. They have excellent coverage, punt and kickoff. They don't really do much in the kick return game. Every few years they'll steal one. They got one earlier with Deion Jones, ripped one off. But honestly, that was a surprise.

We haven't seen that since 2012. The punt return game was a complete nightmare this year because of Cyrus Jones. Didn't expect that out of him, but unfortunately that was what happened. So expect to see either Edelman or Amendola back there. If Edelman's back there, he can make a play. But he doesn't have that same explosiveness he used to have. He's more of a wide receiver now than he is a punt returner. But Amendola can make plays back there too,

so I would expect to see one of those two back there on a regular basis. They're not going to put the kid back there and let him fumble away a Super Bowl. That probably would not be their best bet. Yeah. Well, that's one thing I think people kind of overlook. We had a caller to my show today, as a matter of fact, and he said, you know, what about the special teams? What are we going to see?

Because, you know, we're so focused, I think, on what the Patriots defense can do with Julio Jones and company and what the young defense can do against Tom Brady that we kind of forget about the fact that special teams can be a big part of the game as well. Absolutely. It always is. It always is. It always plays a part. Last season, the Patriots, no, their kicker missed an extra point up in Denver, and that ended up forcing them to go for two at the end of the game,

and they made a comeback instead of kicking an extra point and going overtime, and it cost them possibly a trip to the Super Bowl. So it always has meaning no matter what it is. If it's in the kicking game, the return game, guy coughs one up on a bad return, guy makes a stupid return, only gets it out to the eight-yard line, things like that, can have huge swing as far as momentum, as far as field position, all those things.

So special teams I don't think gets enough attention, especially in big games like this when you have two excellent teams that have good depth, so there's good players out on the field that have the ability to go out and actually make big plays. So special teams I think is going to be something to watch for on Sunday. I think that maybe somebody, who knows, maybe somebody will make a play. Maybe somebody will miss a huge field goal. That can also happen too.

So we will see. Bill, I really want to thank you for coming on and joining us tonight on this Thursday edition of Locked On Patriots. And as one, I'll be sure to let my fans go to iTunes, subscribe to our show today, as in right now. That's what everybody else is doing, so you might as well do it too. Tell your friends about us here at Locked On Patriots. We're all about getting Patriots fans the most info you need

to be the most in-the-know Patriots fans. Be sure to join us tomorrow. We're actually going to do a little breakdown of the statistics of the two teams, and I'm going to offer a score for what I think is going to happen. And, Bill, I'm actually going to put you on the spot right now. Are you going to give us a score for the game? Well, look, I'm coming to you from middle Georgia, so you know I'm going to be a little bit slanted.

Look, I'm a reporter, talk show host, columnist, all that stuff, but I've been a Falcons fan since I was eight years old in 1978, so this is quite an event. Falcons 33, Patriots 24. Hey, I respect it. I'll pick them two if I were you. I respect it. You know what? I'll leave it thrown out there now because I already have a score.

I'm going to talk about it on the show tomorrow as they do the breakdown, but I'm going to say Patriots 34, Falcons 24. I think it's going to be one of those games. We're kind of in the same boat just on opposite ends. And we should be right on opposite ends, right? Yeah, sounds good to me.

Thanks again for coming on the show. Patriots fans, I hope you guys enjoyed this. It was fun for both of us. It was great. I got to go down and talk with Bill's fans down in Atlanta. He gets to come and talk with you guys up here in New England. So thank you all for joining us.

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