Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS- 4/28/17- Live Recording From Foxboro With Our Guest, Doug Moore of Patriots Insider

Episode Date: April 29, 2017

Chris Simoneau, Patriots Insider from Scout.com, comes to you live from Gillette Stadium as he discusses the two Patriots selections with Doug Moore of Scout.com. #patriots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. Good evening, I'm Chris Simino, Patriots Insider for Scout.com, and also your host of Locked on Patriots, your source for everything Patriots. Today is Friday, April 28, 2017. We are recording live here from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Tonight we have Doug Moore, columnist for Patriots Insider on scout.com as one of our guests. We're going to discuss the Patriots selection so far in the draft. They did some moves, made a couple trades, traded back, traded up, all over the board.

We're also going to discuss with Doug some of their needs for the remainder of the draft. Before we get started, I just want my listeners to know that it can be found on Twitter under the handle Chris underscore Simino. 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, 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're a member of Patriots Insider, you can contact me directly on the site via message. If you're not a member of Patriots Insider, well, I don't know what you're waiting for because you should sign up as soon as possible.

So, again, like I said, with us we have Doug Moore, and we're going to talk about the picks that the Patriots made. So welcome to the show, Doug. Thanks for having me, Chris. It's an exciting time here right now. A lot of things, like you said, moving and shaking. So, no surprise, the Patriots trade back. Not really anything that's a surprise to us. This is what they do every year. As we just saw on Twitter, the Patriots have actually made a trade in every draft with Bill Belichick since every year but 2004, so it's something they do on a regular basis.

First pick that they took was with the 83rd selection when they traded with the Tennessee Titans, Derek Rivers, an edge rusher out of Youngstown State. Doug, what do you think of Rivers as a player? Yeah, I think, you know, despite being from Youngstown State, a rather small school, you know, he did really well during the Senior Bowl. Had a terrific season. I think he had 14 sacks in his senior season

and was second in the nation in sacks. Just a very, very good edge rusher, even though he played at a lower competition with Youngstown State. He sets the edge well. He has good gap discipline. I think when you look at this pick and you look at what the Patriots needed, I think they hit the nail right on the head. This was their biggest need coming into the draft. A guy that I didn't think was going to be available at 83,

let alone in the third round, they go and get someone like that. I think this is not one of those picks that you scratch your head at, or it's a guy that you haven't heard of. It's a guy that you have heard of, and it's a guy that I think makes a lot of sense here, considering what they need. They have a young guy now across from Trey Flowers who can really set the edge and really get after the quarterback. It'll be really interesting to see. It's funny, you bring up Trey Flowers, and I'm glad you mentioned him. The thing I like about Rivers is he's a different type of player, different type of pass rusher. He's a little bit more long, lean

type of guy compared to Flowers who's a little bit more compact. I know that they had gone out and traded for Arcon Ealy who's a little bit more of a compact type pass rusher too, so it's good that they actually go out and get that long guy so they can have some flexibility between the two of them. As we know, we saw Rivers can actually play linebacker too if needed, so he can be moved around in the Patriots hybrid scheme, which is something that I'm sure they'll be doing. The second selection for the Patriots was one that Doug was very excited about. Tell us a little bit about Antonio Garcia, offensive lineman. Yeah, so in a rather

weak class of offensive tackles, even offensive lineman yeah so in a rather weak class of offensive tackles even offensive lineman in general uh even though he played again a rather small school at Troy uh Antonio Garcia makes a lot of sense here uh you know the first thing and I was writing about him earlier today um he's a terrific athlete he's got terrific athleticism um the thing that worries you know scouts the thing that worries analysts is he's played at under 300 pounds before for an offensive tackle. That's a little worrisome. I was reading on his draft profile with Lance Ziernan over at NFL.com, and they were talking about how he would play sometimes at 290 or even 280, and that's extremely small for an offensive tackle at the NFL position,

even though he is extremely athletic. He's a raw guy. He played a lot at left tackle at Troy, and I think to me he adds a nice swing tackle right there. There's some questions about whether or not someone like Cameron Fleming or Adrian Waddell can really step up if one of those two went down, whether that's Kinn or Solder. So I think Garcia is a good pick for either one of those spots

if someone went down as a swing tackle. But I think this is also an insurance pick. Say they don't retain Solder next year, Garcia has experience playing in left tackle, and he was a guy that I think wasn't, again, going to be available at 83, especially in such a weaker offensive line, offensive tackle class. I could have seen him gone in the second round, and so I think getting him at 85, which the Patriots obviously like to trade up from

96 to 85 to get him, so they clearly like him, and I think getting him at 85, which the Patriots obviously like to trade up from 96 to 85 to get him. So they clearly like him, and I think this is another good pick that really isn't out of the blue. Some people had predicted, like myself. So good pick there as well. Question. You mentioned that his weight has been an issue as far as dropping down below 300. Do you think he has the flexibility to play guard if needed? That's a good question. I don't know.

We've seen that with some tackles in the past. We look at Laramie Tunsil, for example. He was drafted as their left tackle in the future for the Dolphins last year, and he played guard last year and kicked outside when they needed a left tackle when someone got hurt. He learned the position. He got used to it. I think it's a possibility the Patriots, they really value depth. Not depth.

Well, they do, but position versatility. And, you know, a guy that can play multiple positions, say kicking inside the guard or playing outside a tackle, could be something that they try to do with Garcia. They don't have an immediate need offensive line. It's just that they really don't have a lot of depth behind their starters. Whether it's Ted Karras as their swing guard, Cameron Fleming as their swing tackle, and there's really no other center there besides David Andrews.

So they really need some depth, and I think they could try and mold Garcia to be that guy you can move all around if needed. So, yeah, it's a possibility, but I think just in general, playing at 280, wherever you play on the line, is kind of hard at the NFL level. So we're just going to see if he can stay over 300. Okay. That's good stuff. It doesn't surprise me that they selected a lineman. I think every year, pretty much, they select at least one or two. Typically, I would say that unless they really do pinpoint a guy that they really like, they'll take him in the second or the third.

Typically they'll go a little bit later. To see that they actually went after a guy, see a trader back up to 85 to get him tells me everything I need to know about how they feel about him as a player. That's good stuff. You've got a busy day ahead tomorrow. Some players out there that you specifically like or positions that you think the Patriots need to target to shore up this very, very excellent roster that they put together here? Yeah, I'm going to have to look at players specifically, but when I look at this roster and I see they have three picks tomorrow, I think they have

a fourth, a fifth, and a seventh. I don't think they have a sixth-round pick. And it wouldn't be inconceivable to see them trading back in the fourth round to pick up some extra picks and just really bring in some camp bodies and compete. I think when you look at this roster, the two biggest needs for me are actually in the secondary. I think you need to add another cornerback, especially in such a deep class. There's a lot of questions about Malcolm Butler,

and it looks like he'll be with the Patriots in 2017, barring something unexpected. But beyond 2017, I don't think he's back. I think they burned that bridge already, and he'll get a massive deal out in the free agency. I agree. You had Gilmore there, but then you have some questions. Can Eric Rowe play on the outside?

Is Cyrus Jones going to develop how you want him to? So you need to bring someone in because you look at guys like Justin Coleman, Jonathan Jones. Justin Coleman, I don't even think he's going to make the roster. Jonathan Jones is a special teams ace. He could get some time at cornerback, but I don't know if he's going to be a guy that they can rely on, say, in the slot. So I think they have to go after a cornerback.

And then safety. I know you and I were talking about this earlier, but they have Devin McCourty, they have Patrick Chung, they have Daron Harmon. Daron Harmon's a terrific nickel safety, and I think he could be the eventual replacement for Devin McCourty at free safety. But Patrick Chung is going into the last year of his contract. He's going to be 30 years old before the start of the regular season. I'm not so sure that he'll be back. His play might have slipped off a little bit from 2016 to 2015.

Not that he played bad, but not as well as he did in 2015. So I think they have to go after a guy that can play strong safety potentially. At this stage with their roster, they have very little roster spots that they can give when you look at it. When it boils down to the 53-man roster, there's not going to be a lot of camp battles, I don't think. Really, I think that the positions that they're going to be able to give one or two players a spot to are those need positions. In the trenches on offensive and defensive line, and then also in the

secondary. That's where I see them having needs. I don't know about wide receiver, running back, they could add a guy. Tight end could be a possibility as well. It's another deep draft for tight end, so they could add a guy because they really don't have, you know, that lockdown number three guy behind Rob Gronkowski and Dwayne Allen. Matt L'Engle could be an option, but, you know, I think they're going to try to take one guy at least just to have him in there. He could be a practice squad guy for all you know. Those are the three biggest things. Cornerback, strong safety, and tight end. We're going to cut it short here tonight because we're going to be coming to you guys

tomorrow with some more information. We would provide you with some updates from Coach Belichick, but his press conference was not exactly filled with a lot of information as I'm sure a lot of you Patriots fans know from watching those over the years. Just want to make sure that we tell you guys, PatriotsInsider on scout.com, provide daily news, video from NFL.com, great fantasy football, you can sign up and play and it's awesome, you win a ton of money. You can also earn money back when you sign up for Patriots Insider. You get 10% off tickets to Patriots games, NBA, NFL, and MLB tickets.

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Illustrated. This is all for $5 a month or $49 for the year. Go to nwe.scout.com to register today. Just keep in mind, too, throughout the course of this weekend, we're going to be having a sale. Anybody who signs up is going to get two months for free. So on top of all the other discounts you get and all the great information you get, you also get two months for free.

So go check it out. Again, nwe.scout.com. I want to thank you guys all for joining us tonight on our Friday on location edition of Locked on Patriots. I want to thank Doug for coming on and giving us some great information and helping us out. Thank you very much, Doug. Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm glad to be here. It's always fun to see these things go on as they happen instead of sitting at home or sitting in a bar. As I said, even though you sit and you hear Belichick for one or two minutes,

it's still interesting to actually be here in person as opposed to seeing it on TV. It's a whole different dynamic. So I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm glad we had you. So here at Locked on Patriots, as you guys know, we are about getting you Patriots fans the most info you need to be the most in-the-know Patriots fan.

Be sure to listen tomorrow. We're going to have some more nuggets of info coming from Doug, and we're also going to update you guys on any Patriots news that has occurred over the last 24 hours. Have a great night, everyone. Thanks for listening, and we'll get to you guys tomorrow. What you doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting some stuff.

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