Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS- 8/10/17- PRESEASON WEEK ONE POSTGAME PODCAST

Episode Date: August 11, 2017

Chris Simoneau, Patriots Insider for Scout.com, gives you his 10-minute recap of Thursday night's game between the Patriots and Jaguars at Gillette Stadium. #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. Welcome to the Locked On Patriots postgame show. This is our first show of the season, so bear with us as we just try to get used to what we're going to do as far as the format here. We'll try a couple things on the preseason just like the teams do. And whatever works best is what we're going to end up running with. All in all, that game was, how can I say this? It was not very good.

It was not very good. It was pretty ugly. Patriots giving up two huge plays. 197-yard touchdown catch and 179-yard touchdown run, just when they ain't gotten back into the game. Both times, back-breaking touchdowns. Jimmy Garoppolo did some good things out there tonight. He struggled in the first half, but he was better in the third quarter, and it was good to see him kind of wake up a little bit, but all in all, I don't think he was all that great.

I thought Austin Carr really showed himself tonight. He did a great job out there. He had a big touchdown catch that actually tied the game up at the time. Actually, no, put the Patriots down by a touchdown, but it got them right back into it, and they were driving and starting to play some offense, and he was one of the reasons why. Another real major I thought the best player on the field tonight was Jacob Hollister. Tight end. I thought he did a great job tonight.

I believe he had six catches for 118 yards, which is a heck of a game for a rookie tight end. He did a good job of working the seam. Did a good job making catches on third down. They looked to him mainly in every big situation. He was the guy they were going to. So that was good to see. Overall, the Patriots' defense struggled. I didn't like anything I saw.

Dietrich Wise Jr. early, he flashed a little bit, but he ended up getting hurt in the game. It looked like he might have a slight concussion. Other than that, really didn't see a lot from up front. The defensive line was getting swallowed on a lot of plays. In the running game, Jacksonville had a lot of success. Fournette was running right through the Patriots defense, as was T.J. Yeldon and Corey Grant later in the game, too. Chris Ivory also ripped off a 16-yard run right off the bat.

I think it was the first play of the game. Actually had a nice long run. Overall, the Patriots' run defense was very poor, I thought, and that was the main reason why they lost this game. The pass defense was pretty good, considering that they didn't have anybody out there. But the reason why they got beat so many times was because, well, Cyrus Jones was awful.

He got beat on the 97-yard touchdown. And on the another 42-yard touchdown catch that they allowed, or a 41-yard touchdown catch, Cyrus Jones technically would look like the one to get beat, but he wasn't. He was in the zone, and the safety didn't pick up the man over the top. So that wasn't, everyone's going to look at that and say, oh, Cyrus Jones got burned, but he didn't. That wasn't his fault.

That was actually a mistake by the safety. But still, other than that, I thought that the secondary was pretty good considering that their patchwork, it was just the run defense was awful. Steven Gaskowski, another guy that we were keeping an eye on tonight, did pretty good. He hit all his extra points. He kicked the 43-yard field goal. He did shank one from 56, though, and you could see Belichick wasn't happy about it.

I mean, I know a 56-yard field goal is a long field goal, but when you're one of the top, and when you're the top paid, I believe he's still the top paid. I gotta look that up. But if you are a top three paid kicker, you're expected to hit those. I'm sorry, but you just are.

And he missed the 56 yard. But again, he hit the 43 yard. He connected on three extra points. So that was good to see. At least he's actually connecting on the extra points because those are important. He had to be able to hit those. Brandon Bolden, the much maligned Brandon Bolden,

who I'm all over on the show all the time because I'm just not a huge fan of his game as far as what he contributes to the offense. He actually had a pretty good game tonight. He had some big runs. He got the offense going early when they were really starting to struggle, so Bolden had a good game. He also had a nice catch and run, too, that picked up a lot of yardage,

so that was good to see them having such a good game. Bolden proving me wrong a little bit, especially when the Patriots need some help with their running backs a little bit dinged up. It's good to see that a veteran like him, you know, he still can come in there and help out not only in the preseason, but he'll probably make this team and be big on special teams. So Bolden, again, proving me wrong, having a pretty good game.

Deion Lewis got a lot of carries tonight, and again, that was a lot out of necessity because they just didn't have a lot of guys healthy. Lewis ran the ball well. He also had a few catches on screens. He looked okay out there, I thought. He had his good moments. Devin Lucien had a couple good moments.

He looked like he still battled an injury, but he had some good ones. He actually had a touchdown catch, well, a catch outside of the end zone at the end of the game that would have been a touchdown except except Brissette decided to rocket the ball as far as he possibly could, not only on that play, but on the last play of the game, too, which was just, I don't get that one. Brissette is a work in progress. Speaking of Brissette, let's just talk about him a little bit.

So Jacoby, he was okay. You know, he had a couple good plays. He made a couple big first-down throws, led the team down the field for a score. He made some plays tonight, but he still has that Rohan Davey high throw, the high throw. Rohan Davey used to do it all the time, and I loved him when he came out of LSU because he had a big arm, and I thought he was going to be a good player. I didn't think he was going to be as good as I think Percet has a chance to be.

I think Percet actually has better tools than Davey did. But he's still, he's got that high throw and the thing sails on him all the time. He's got a lot of trouble with the short ball. And that worries me in this offense because that's what this offense is. Now, I do know that Bill Belichick is smart enough that if he thinks this kid's got it, you know, as far as the deep ball and the deep outs and all that type of stuff, he'll change the offense around a little bit. He's not going to change it completely.

They're still going to do a lot of the short stuff. But if they have a quarterback that excels at the mid-range to long ball and they can actually hit the throws, well, then they might have to adjust a little bit. But, yeah, right now I'm just not seeing it with Percet and the short stuff. He's really struggling. And tonight he had his moments again, but he threw one rocket at Austin Carr. That was just, there was no chance that, I think it was Austin, it was either Carr or Lucien. There was no way that either one of those guys had a chance to make that catch.

It looked like Pedro Martinez throwing a pitch in his prime. You can't do that. They're not going to make that catch. You've got to take a little bit off. So I thought that that was a little bit of a disappointment, some of the throws he was making. But again, he's a gamer. He's another guy who stepped up in big moments tonight and made plays when they needed to get some first downs and needed a score.

So it wasn't all bad stuff from Brissette, but he's got to get those throws down. He really, really needs to get those throws down. I thought the coverage tonight was pretty good as far as the kick coverage. They had one bad punt coverage, but as far as everything else was good, typically they do a pretty good job on that. And again, they gave up one good punt return, but other than that, they didn't give up much. Cyrus Jones, again, like I said, he really struggled defensively. In the return game, he was just so stiff.

And towards the end, I noticed his kick returns, he started to loosen up a little bit. He was coming out of the end zone a lot. He beat one or two yards deep, and he was taking it out. And he was getting between the 20 and the 25 pretty much on a regular basis. So it's not like he was getting tackled at a 10 like he was in the first half. But he's just so stiff. He looks like Woody from Toy Story out there running. I hope that he can really figure this out because he's a second-round pick,

and he's on his way to getting cut. There's no way around this um i said it i actually did a live blog for scout.com during the game and i actually said on the live blog that i truly believe this too i think bill belichick is going to let cyrus jones return every kick and every punt this preseason every one of them just to see hey can you do this because if he can and he shows some flash, then that's the guy. But if he can't and they give him every possible opportunity, then they can't say that they didn't give him every opportunity. They're trying to make this work. Defensively, I don't see it.

I just don't see it. Special teams, okay. I think we might have something there. But, you know, the jury's still out, so we'll see how that all works out. Again, I thought the standouts, and I'll reiterate this, and when I look at the film, I'm not going to be able to do the studs and duds show for another couple days because we've got to wait until we get to see the All-22. But as soon as we see that All-22, we're definitely going to do the All-22

and studs and duds section. But last season we did it a little bit differently. This year I want to see the All-22 before I make anybody a stud or a dud just because it's not fair. Because I may name a guy a dud and then I get to see the All-22 and say, oops, that guy wasn't all that bad. So this season we're switching up that format a little bit. So the day after show will be more of a review of what we saw statistically and some of the bigger media outlets, some of what they have to say. And then two days later we're going to go ahead and we'll get you guys on the All-22 and the studs and duds, and that's when we can really get the nitty-gritty.

But we can't do anything until we get that game film. But again, overall, Patriots lose the game, but it's a preseason game, so there's nothing really to get worked up there about no big deal. I think for Jacksonville it actually is a good thing, though. It helps them. They always seem to be rebuilding in Jacksonville, always a rebuilding stage. So for them to come into Foxborough, have three solid

days of practice, and then go into Foxborough Stadium on Thursday night and pick up a win, for them that's good. You know, they made some plays and that gives them some confidence. For the Patriots, it shows them where they have holes in their depth, what they have to do, what guys may have jumped out at them and surprised them, negatively and positively. I mean, it wasn't all positive tonight. We're not going to sugarcoat this. A guy like D.J. Foster had some good plays out there, and then he chokes up a ball that would have probably tied this game up.

K.J. May had some decent plays out there tonight, but is he going to be enough for him to stick on the roster? Who knows? Probably not. But there were a lot of for every good play there was a bad play. And that was pretty much how this game went down. So congratulations to the Jacksonville Jaguars on picking up their first win of the preseason.

My guess is they probably will not pick up a ton of wins during the regular season. But Fournette is for real. There was no question about that. That kick and run. Jacksonville's got some players. Offensively they've got some players. But the Patriots, they should be happy with some things that kick and run. Jacksonville's got some players. Offensively, they got some players, but the Patriots, they should be happy with some things that they saw tonight. Before I let you guys go, like I said, we're just going to do a quick little rundown tonight.

I wasn't going to leave you guys hanging. Definitely wanted to talk to you guys about what we saw here at Lockdown Patriots. There were some good things from D.J. Killings, had a nice third and short play, stuffed the Jaguars, and then Myers turned around and missed a 53-yard field goal with 6.53 to go. That gave the Patriots a chance to actually win and go and tie the game. So that was nice to see. Those young guys in the secondary are pretty talented. My little binky there, Jonathan Joseph there,

he had a, sorry, I said his name wrong, actually. He had a tough game tonight, though, either way. He made one play, and I was like, okay, here we go. He looked good, and then he got burnt on a slant later on. So, you know, he's a work in progress, too, Jonathan Jones. He's a work in progress, but Jonathan Jones, he's a work in progress. But he's been really, really good in training camp. So I think that he'll be okay. He's just going to be, again, be aware of those slants because he got burnt hard. So again, the backup bowl wasn't the most exciting game to watch. There were some big plays, but they weren't the prettiest of big plays either. Jacksonville picks up the win. They improve to 1-0 in the preseason.

Patriots drop to 0-1 in the preseason. Next week, they will have they're actually going to practice with the Houston Texans, and then they will be playing against the Houston Texans in Houston for the second preseason game. I want to thank you guys all for joining us for this post-game show. Again, Jacksonville wins 34-27. Patriots 0-1 to start the preseason. Make sure to check us out tomorrow. We're going to go more in-depth about this game.

We're going to talk about some of the positional battles, what we saw tonight and what we think that's going to lead to as far as the positional battles are concerned, and also what injuries are going to do to contribute to, say, maybe a guy like Austin Carr making this roster. So, again, everyone have a great night. Hope you enjoyed the game. Maybe next week will be better, but definitely join us again tomorrow and make sure to tell all your friends about Lockdown Patriots. Have a great night, Patriots fans.

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