Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 18, 2016 - Dont'a Hightower, Jamie Collins, Trey Flowers, Tyler Gaffney among those to watch vs. Bears

Episode Date: August 18, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe previews the Pats-Bears game with the most important players and storylines to monitor. 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. What's up everybody? This is Locked on Patriots. I'm your host Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald and this is your episode for Thursday, August 18th and this podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek where they are making it easier than ever before to buy and sell tickets on the internet. So download your SeatGeek app today. Today's show is all about the preseason game number two for the Patriots. They're hosting the Bears Thursday night at Gillette Stadium. So let's run through some of the more important things to watch and let's get the main storyline out of the way right off the top.

We don't need to get too in-depth on the quarterback play because it's been so discussed throughout the summer, especially on this podcast here. Time and time again in the Boston Herald, I think you know how I feel about Jimmy Garoppolo and his play, the things that he needs to do to improve. But we're not going to ignore that, especially for the first-time listeners.

So let's get through just the key bullet points with Garoppolo and what I'll be looking for as he takes on the Bears now just for starters I would think at this point Tom Brady will make his preseason debut after missing the Saints game or sitting out the Saints game and whether he plays a series or a few series it really doesn't matter we know what we're gonna see out of Tom Brady once he's ready for the regular season in October. So his usage really isn't all that important to me because he's been lights out so far this summer. And one performance, whether he plays or not in the preseason, isn't going to change my opinion on what I expect to see out of Tom Brady this season once he's back from that suspension. So Jimmy Garoppolo, the important thing for him is to get as much run with the starters as possible. And again, if that's starting the game, or if that's coming in in the second series,

or midway through the second quarter, it really doesn't matter to me. What I want to see is Jimmy Garoppolo play with the starters, because those opportunities haven't been as consistent as I thought they'd be during the training camp portion here. And it's 16 practices deep. A couple of those are walkthroughs that really didn't matter too much. But you look at those practices and Tom Brady has garnered most of the reps with the first team offense against a starting defense. Whether that defense has been the Patriots defense, the Saints defense, or the Bears defense.

So I want to see Garoppolo get a chance to go out there with the starting offensive line once again which I would expect to be from left to right Nate Solder Joe Tooney and David Andrews who have essentially locked up those three positions Solder was a given and then at right guard Shaq Mason he's still been ahead of Josh Klein over the last week since getting that preseason start and Marcus Cannon has remained at right tackle until Sebastian Vollmer returns whenever that happens to be so I want to see Garoppolo play behind them because I want to see guys protect for him because it's important to see

what Garoppolo can do when given the best protection possible now that's not to say that he wouldn't be well served to scramble a little bit just to see how he reacts in the face of pressure keeping his head downfield is the number one thing that I want to see out of him in terms of taking that success over to the regular season now the reason why I don't want to see him behind a backup offensive line is because you need to see him in realistic scenarios and backup offensive linemen in the preseason usually get their lunch taken. So you just want to see him with the highest quality linemen in front of him as possible. And I also want to see that Patriots offensive line play better,

or at least more consistent than they did in the opener against the Saints. It was Nate Solder's first game in 10 months. He had a couple mishaps, a couple tough plays. But again, first game in 10 months I'm going to give him a pass on that Joe Tooney looked outstanding David Andrews had a couple really solid plays opening up a running lane he missed a block on another sack was pulled for two series for Brian Stork before being reinserted at center so you just want to see a little more consistency out of him I think he locked up the center job this week Bill Belichick also raved about Andrews and his mental aspect of the game

I knew he was a smart guy in terms of getting the offensive line set with their blocking schemes and like but Belichick also said that because the Patriots do so many different things with their cadences Andrews was really good in that and that was something that I didn't really know about I hadn't heard that part of it before so I thought that was interesting Jack Mason again I've said this a couple times now in the last week I think he's really really really close to being a really good offensive lineman he just needs to clean up some things and that's not going to happen overnight that's not all of a sudden going to come together against the Bears or this preseason. But once he starts to get a little quicker off the line in pass protection,

I think you're going to have a solid right guard for a long time if you're the Patriots. And then Marcus Cannon is what he is, so he's going to miss some blocks, and it's just his MO. But the important thing there, again, is Garoppolo, keeping his head down the field. And who's he going to be throwing to? You know Rob Gronkowski's not going to play in this game. I'm not sure what they're going to do with Julian Edelman quite yet. If he's out there, terrific.

If he's not, so be it. Edelman was dynamic during Tuesday's practice against the Bears. It was a route-running clinic. He was running circles around those Bears defensive backs, whoever they put in front of them. So yeah, he's going to help Garoppolo tremendously in terms of his ability to get open and all that. But if they want to sit him, if they want to give him the Gronk treatment, I totally get it. If they want to put him out there, that gives Garoppolo Edelman Martellus Bennett who Garoppolo's had a very good chemistry with over the course of camp and caught three balls from

Garoppolo last week in the preseason opener and then Chris Hogan should make his preseason debut after shedding the non-contact jersey earlier this week in practice so if if Garoppolo is able to work with those three guys right there then that's a pretty big improvement off of the week one preseason game when DeAndre Carter and Chris Harper got a lot of those early reps and struggled to get a lot of separation. Didn't really help Garoppolo when he was in trouble at times. So, again, you're just kind of putting a couple more pieces in place for Garoppolo to go out there and get himself into a rhythm and I think once those guys the Patriots are as talented at the skill positions offensively as any team in the NFL so they're going to help Garoppolo tremendously once they're all available assuming as many of them as possible are available in week

one against the Cardinals Garoppolo just needs to get the ball look downfield and get the ball in the hands of his playmakers almost like a point guard at times so he's going to be fine he's got the skills he just needs to again get the protection and when the protection isn't there keep your head downfield and look at your receivers as opposed to relying on your check down guys, the running backs like James White. Not that that's a bad thing, but again, I keep bringing this up. If the Cardinals in week one notice that Jimmy Garoppolo is getting pressured by Kim DiCe or Chandler Jones or whoever, if any of those guys are winning their matchups consistently at the line of scrimmage, the Cardinals can just dispatch down Buchanan on James White and say, all right, yeah, you want to rely on your check down?

Buchanan's going to eat him up. So that's just what smart defenses do. So that's why it's important for Garoppolo to just keep his head down the field. Don't panic. And more often than not, Garoppolo's been good at that. But when he gets into a funk, when he starts to struggle or get into a slump, however you want to term it, that's what he's kind of been struggling with. Just not keeping his head down the field and just looking too quickly

at that running back over the middle. So, again, that's not a huge concern. It's just the thing that if you're the Patriots coaching staff, that's probably what you want him to clean up more than anything now I mentioned that this show is sponsored by SeatGeek and buying tickets online for sports and concerts has been a confusing process for a long time it's always been hard to find the best deal for a game or show you want to go to and none of those older ticket sites want to change that but SeatGeek is different they've come along and created an amazing app and website that makes it easier than ever for fans to buy and sell tickets now I perused around on SeatGeek about a week ago when Alex Rodriguez and the

Yankees came to Fenway Park I was trying to see if I could get into the building there and I probably could have and then I realized I have a 13 monthmonth-old daughter, and responsibility is when I got home from practice every day. And that wasn't a realistic endeavor on my behalf. But I could have gone after looking around the SeatGeek app and found a very affordable arrangement of tickets. So, you know, check it out. And SeatGeek has a pretty solid offer for my podcast listeners, and I'll get to that in a second. Now, Seat Geek does all the price comparison for you by searching multiple ticket sites and ensuring that you get the best possible deal. They do all the work, and you save the time and money.

Seat Geek wants to help you get the most bang for your buck. That's why every ticket on Seat Geek is given a grade-based value. You'll immediately see any underpriced seats and be able to find the best deals that fit your budget. Now, my listeners get a $20 rebate off their first SeatGeek purchase. This is how you go about doing that. You download the SeatGeek app, go to the settings tab, and click add a promo code. Now, we'll back it up a second. You guys know how bad I am with technology. I think I compared my technological savvy to that of a spatula earlier when we started this podcast thing and even i was able to figure this out so go ahead again download the seat geek app go to the settings tab and click on add a promo

code and enter that promo code l o patriots now the l o stands for locked on in case you haven't picked that up so again that's LO Patriots and SeatGeek will send you $20 after you made your first ticket purchase so again download the SeatGeek app and enter the promo code LOPatriots to get your $20 in cash today back to the Patriots and Bears game second thing I want to look for is sort of just the defense. And now we know how strong of a start they got off to last week. We know how high the expectations are, especially for the guys in that front seven, how much havoc they can create. Dante Hightower and Jamie Collins put on another clinic this week in practice against the Bears. Monday's workout was

Hightower's probably his best of training camp when he was in the Bears. Monday's workout was Hightower's, probably his best of training camp when he was in the Bears backfield consistently. I mean, he beat every offensive lineman who was charged with blocking him at some point during practice. Absolutely blew up Kyle Long on one blitz and was in the backfield over and over and over again. And you know he's itching to get after it. During Wednesday's walkthrough, for instance, these guys, walkthrough is a pretty appropriate description for what we saw on Wednesday. These guys were not moving at high speeds at all, but Hightower slowly blitzed off the edge

and then started waving around at Brian Hoyer as he was taking his time and looking down the field to lob a pass over the line of scrimmage. So you can tell. It's just little moments like that that Hightower and Collins are ready to get out there and get after it. I talked to Hightower about that on Wednesday. He said, yeah, they put in all this preparation.

They go through these long hours at OTAs in the spring and these long days in the hotel and at training camp and on the field in these 95 degree weather situations in Foxborough. So they can go out there and have some fun on game nights in the preseason. So you better believe these guys are itching to get after it. I think Hightower and Collins are going to have a heck of a time when they're going after these Bears offensive linemen in this game. So you're going to see those two guys really get to work. After Collins' big preseason debut last week, again, you got a little taste, and I think it's going to be even bigger against the Bears,

just off of the way those two were able to dominate the Bears offensive linemen throughout practice. Now sticking to that side, Trey Flowers is going to get an amazing opportunity in this game. Flowers was all over the place in the preseason opener against the Saints. The highlight, of course, was that strip sack and then the fumble return for a touchdown. But he also created, I think it was three pressures. He drew a holding penalty. Some of that production was in the first half with the starting defense

and against some of the Saints' starting offensive linemen. So it's not like he completely starting defense and against some of the Saints starting offensive linemen. So it's not like he completely dominated the second string guys of the Saints, and that was where the production came from. It wasn't. But he's going to get an extended look with the starters and against the starters, against the Bears, because Rob Ninkovich is out with the torn triceps muscle. Jabal Sheard's out with an unknown injury. He hasn't practiced all week. Shane McClellan's going to be out with an unknown injury. He hasn't practiced all week. Shane McClellan's going to be out with an unknown injury because he hasn't practiced all week. So that leaves Chris Long and Trey Flowers as your two best defensive ends who are going to

get the majority of the reps when they have a four-man front. So that's not to say they won't put Hightower on the edge or they won't rotate in Geno Grissom and Rufus Johnson, but this has got to be Trey Flowers' best opportunity to prove that he can do it for an extended amount of time with the starting defense. And that's crucial for a guy who had a really good preseason as a rookie and was basically redshirted because of knee and shoulder injuries during his rookie season, was a game day deactivation, a team high 10 times in 2015 before he was put on ir december 1st and has replicated his this his rookie summer this

summer so it's should be an exciting night to really get a good look at trey flowers in his potential ceiling the patriots have some pretty good depth at defensive end now it starts with the top tier of veterans but those guys for the most part are injured and then it goes into that young trio with flowers grissom and johnson so we'll we'll get to see a better look at those guys but i think flowers is the guy you're really interested in seeing because of how explosive he was in that opener how much noise can he really create so another guy that you want to look at is tyler gaffney he was he got a lot of attention after that preseason opener and he he deserves it for that read that he made on that cutback to get the 44 yard touchdown against against the Saints. But look, I've been wanting to throw a little water on that heat that he's been getting because that was a defensive mess for the Saints on that play.

Now, Ted Karras and Cam Fleming both had really good blocks that opened up that hole, and I can't undersell how important that cutback was for Gaffney because he was running to the left saw the saw the hole kind of filled up pretty quickly and then cut back and kind of felt the hole to the right side of the line so that was a good job by Gaffney but because of the over pursuit and the poor angles in the second and third levels of the Saints defense Gaffney was able to race away to a 44 yard touchdown and you're just not going to see those types of breakdowns from a starting defense more often than not anyway so the other eight carries that Gaffney had in that game he only

gained a total of 20 yards so you're still looking at less than three yards of carry it's what 2.5 yards of carry of those other eight so you just want to see more consistency out of Gaffney and I think all all the writers who were down in Foxborough regularly we all expected Gaffney to get the start in that Saints game just because those are that's how the practice reps were doled out in pretty much a full week before that preseason opener and Blunt got the start and had his moments some good some bad and some were just on the offensive line for not opening up enough holes for him so gaffney could go out there and run into the same problems where the offensive line isn't giving him much of a break here but you just want to see it you want to see what tyler gaffney can do with the starters because it's a guy who is going to have a tough

time cracking that 53 man roster if everybody's healthy and deon lewis's a guy who is going to have a tough time cracking that 53-man roster if everybody's healthy and Deion Lewis is a guy who still has not practiced and look I was told don't be surprised if Deion Lewis doesn't practice until week one of the regular season so it's he's somebody you might not see for a couple more weeks now but Donald Brown hasn't practiced since the first few days of training camp same with dj foster and you've basically got lagarra blunt and tyler gaffney is the two guys who are going to be who are getting the most consistent work between the tackles and then you've got james white and brandon bolden who or james white's having a really good camp he's been impressive especially

in terms of pass catching but you know he's not going to be a between the tackles guy and Brandon Bolden's a special teamer who sometimes fills a need on offense if they have to put him in there but if Donald Brown doesn't get himself healthy enough which has been the problem of his career and if DJ Foster doesn't come back and and live up to the the expectations we kind of built up for him all summer because of another injury, then you're looking at Gaffney potentially having to make the roster, and you want to see what he's capable of doing. So I want to see him with the starters. I want to see if this kid's legit. He runs hard, and again, he makes good reads.

So put him out there that's a guy that i i just i want to see more of in quality sorts of situations sort of a similar storyline with two other guys aaron dobson and aj derby now dobson told you guys over again he got off to a scorching hot start in training camp but he settled down over the last week. And they had four practices this week. Let's throw out that walkthrough when there wasn't a single meaningful pass in team drills. Dobson only caught five balls from Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo in team drills in those three practices.

So he's come back to earth a little bit with probably you know chris hogan shedding the red non-contact jersey with julian edelman being out there for a full day on tuesday and getting other opportunities throughout the week and then it's just you know he aaron dobson has to go out there and earn it and if the patriots are going to carry five wide receivers assuming everybody's healthy now we still haven't seen danny amandola put on the pads yet so we're not entirely sure if if they're going to have five healthy guys and that could all change if malcolm mitchell runs into a snag with his rehab but he's about he's his timeline suggests he'll be back for week one so if that gives you julian edelman

danny amidola now he's a wild card at this point still chris hogan malcolm mitchell and kishan martin there's your five wide receivers but martin hasn't practiced since the first few days of camp either so he's a guy who has had injury issues had a bad hamstring last year during his first season with the patriots hasn't practiced in quite a while has been with that rehab group for a couple weeks you just wonder when you see guys out there with the rehab group that suggests they're pretty close to returning more often than not anyway that not every case is equal but where has Martin been if he can't get out there this is a huge opportunity for Dobson to sit here and say, look, I'm healthy. I can contribute. You know, I might not be a special teams contributor the regular season begins in a few weeks,

then the Patriots aren't going to be forced to carry a sixth receiver. Now, if Amendola's out and Martin doesn't come back for a few more weeks, or Mitchell's injury bleeds into the regular season, then Dobson has a good shot but if you're Dobson you don't want to have to give the coaching staff that list of hypotheticals to think about you want to go out there and you want to play the way that you played for the first two weeks of training camp and say I belong here and worst case scenario if you're Dobson maybe a best case scenario I don't know however you want to look at it you go out there you play well everybody else is healthy and then maybe the patriots can can swing into another team for a draft pick even if it's a conditional pick you know it's better than cutting a guy so it maybe that gives dobson

more of a chance to to climb up somebody else's depth chart and if that's the route the patriots want to take that means they're five guys ahead of dobson are all healthy so that's a win for them there too it's not ideal that he ended up swinging a second round draft pick for from four years ago for a conditional pick but it's better than cutting him for nothing because the guy didn't play well over the last few weeks of camp so again it's there are a lot of different scenarios but i think if you are in the patriots corner you want dobson to finish out training camp on a high note or at least once they shut down training camp to the public viewing you want them to finish the preseason on

a high note to at least maximize this value or to force the coaching staff to make a tough decision now it's going to be tough for Dobson to leapfrog Keyshawn Martin if those two are equal because Keyshawn Martin got that $600,000 signing bonus when they extended his contract on the opener of the playoffs in January. So they want him on the team, and they've paid him to be on the team in a significant way. If you're new to the podcast, you haven't heard me say it, but I go back to this point frequently. If you get a signing bonus on a contract of at least $150,000 to $200,000, that means the team wants you around. So to get $600,000, it'd be a shock if Keyshawn Martin wasn't on this 53-man roster, unless they look at him and say, just can't trust you to stay healthy. So again, there are a lot of variables in play to steal one of those last wide receiver spots,

and Dobson ultimately just has to play well in order to do it. I also mentioned AJ Derby who has had a really good camp has been the third best tight end in camp now he's not going to be better than Gronk or Martellus Bennett but he has unquestionably been better than Clay Harbor who got off to a slow start because he was on the pup list but then came back and just really hasn't produced so he got nicked up a little bit uh during Tuesday's practice also uh pass was broken up over the middle and Harbour came up gimpy so I'm not sure if that's something that's going to linger because Wednesday was a walkthrough you know Harbour was out there but we couldn't really tell if Harbour would have been able to go full speed or not I'm not sure if

if that it looked like he might have pulled his groin or something. You know, again, you don't know if it's serious. You don't know if it was just something that because it was at the end of practice, you know, maybe he could have come back later. Who knows? You just don't know. So you want to see what he's able to do in this preseason game. And you won't talk about a guy getting hurt. If AJ Derby continues to play well, now AJ Derby hasn't been perfect. Brady kind of let him have it earlier this week when he dropped the ball over the middle and are allowed a defender to at least disrupt the pass

that caused it to not be a completion over the middle. There are things that Derby has to work on. It's not to say he is a roster lock or anything. He's got to continue to have a good few weeks of august before or at least before the regular season opens in order to make this roster but if clay harbor continues to get nicked up you know let's say he doesn't play tonight and that's a big if i don't know if he's playing tonight or not uh he could play he could go off and make this point move but if clay harbor doesn't go out and earn it he's opening a huge window for

aj derby and i talked about the money clay harbour got a four hundred thousand dollar signing bonus this offseason which made him look like a lock it looked like it was going to be gronk bennett harbour and then everybody else well you know thanks for playing maybe there's a practice squad opportunity for you but to this point Clay Harbor has not deserved the benefit of the doubt and needs to play better needs to come back so that he can be healthy and show that he can contribute with both Brady and Garoppolo in order to solidify that spot and if the Patriots have to keep Derby you know a fourth tight end or whatever Harbor is sort of an H-back that doesn't help James Devlin's chances of making the team but

again these are good problems for the patriots to have and if everybody's healthy then you cut a guy who's a pretty good player and again that's that's a team would rather cut a guy who's a good player because you have too many good players on the depth chart than to sit here and say ah geez you know down to the got 47 good players here who are the six that we need to round out uh this 53 man roster with so again the Patriots are in a good spot because they have so much depth in a lot of these areas but if if these guys like Harbour or Martin or Donald Brown can't stay healthy then you wind up scrambling a little bit. And who knows, maybe you're not putting the best 53-man roster out there in week one

because the health just isn't there. So that's why it's so important this time of year. That's why there are so many surprise cuts at the end of August, whether you're talking about the Patriots or the other 31 teams, because health is a major issue. As Bill Belichick has said, the best ability is availability. And right now, some guys who are expected to make that 53-man roster, whether it's because of off-season contracts or OTA and minicamp performances

or the way they lit it up in the first week of training camp, are now injured and are opening doors for other players. So the last point I want to make real quick, because I've been going on and on and on here, is the cornerback position. Now, I continue to believe that Cyrus Jones will be the third cornerback once the Patriots begin the regular season. I think he's been the better of the group that,

well, it started with Jones, Justin Coleman, and Darryl Roberts. Roberts has really tumbled down the depth chart. So it's really between, Justin Coleman, and Darryl Roberts. Roberts has really tumbled down the depth chart so it's really between Jones and Coleman at this point. Coleman had a tough week against the Bears. Didn't have his best night against the Saints. It wasn't as bad as it looked I don't think against the Saints when I kind of went back and looked at the tape but right now because the Bears have range-year receivers, I wouldn't be surprised if Coleman got the number two reps. Logan Ryan isn't going to play against the Bears

because he's been wearing that red non-contact jersey. But if it's Malcolm Butler and Coleman in the base with Jones coming in in the sub, so be it. Last week, it was Jones in the base with Coleman coming in as the, in the sub package. So the bottom line is I think Jones has continued to be pretty impressive. And I think he's going to win that job, regardless of how they dole out the reps against the bears in the second preseason game. But those battles behind those guys, Craven LeBlanc with that really good pick in the

preseason opener and that kid can play, know he came from a small school but because of an incident in high school that kind of got blown out of proportion or at least the way that it was resolved he lost scholarship offer from lsu some other big time schools So this is a kid who has been a good player, really, for a number of years now, and because of his measurables, wasn't drafted, but he can play. He's got good ball skills, he's got good instincts, and he can handle himself out there, as you saw against the Saints. So LeBlanc is a guy who has made some noise over the last week or week and a half, kind of taking some of Jonathan Jones' thunder. Jones was the guy who really got off to a fast start in training camp, but

not to say he's fallen off, but you might see more of a look for LeBlanc as opposed to Jones, because they have some interesting choices to make. I think Justin Coleman is safe. One bad week doesn't change the fact that he had a really good regular season last year when healthy so you're looking at Butler Ryan Cyrus Jones most likely Justin Coleman is your fourth cornerback and then I'd be surprised if they kept more than five but Jonathan Jones Craven LeBlanc and then Daryl Roberts is is behind those two at this point in my opinion you know those guys might only be battling for one roster spot the rest of them have practice squad eligibility so the patriots might be able to sneak one or two of those corners

onto that 10-man practice squad in the regular season but you never know you could end up losing one of them and if you do you do but if it's because all those guys are playing well like i said earlier that's a good problem to have so there's a lot of stuff to watch as the patriots have this second preseason game against the bears and it'll be it'll make for a fun show on friday when i i recap this game after i do my film breakdown i'm not entirely sure what direction we'll go in maybe it'll have to be a two-part show like it was after that saints game. Maybe there will be something that hits hard, and we've got to adjust accordingly. So we'll see.

We'll see. There was a lot of stuff to look at and break down going into the game. This week was an interesting week of practice. I don't even care about the fights. Those are fun, but there was a lot of football stuff that took a whole lot more importance, in my opinion. So that's what we're looking at again this episode of locked on patriots was sponsored by seat geek so download your seat geek app put in the promo code lo patriots to get your 20 rebate and then buy some

tickets you know see how it see how it goes for you. Have some fun. See you guys on Friday. Is democracy in danger or decline? Condoleezza Rice, William Galston, and Carlos Gutierrez and others take on this question in the fall edition of The Catalyst, a journal of ideas from the Bush Institute. Surveys show Americans place less trust in institutions like the media and business. Others contend America has faced far more challenging periods and emerged strong. Leading policymakers, Bush Institute experts, and respected journalists take on this debate. Read about it at bushcenter.org slash catalyst.