Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 26, 2016 - Breaking down the Pats-Panthers game and the Barkevious Mingo trade

Episode Date: August 26, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe discusses what to watch in the Pats-Panthers preseason game. But first, Jeff opens the show by examining the acquisition of Barkevious Mingo. 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. What's up, everybody? This is Locked on Patriots. I am your host, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald, and this is your podcast for Friday, August 26th, and it's game day for the Patriots and Panthers, the all-important third preseason game. Before we get to that, though, I want to break down this Barkevius-Mingo trade that went down on Thursday. First and foremost, this podcast is sponsored by SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever for fans to buy and sell tickets.

But let's get back to that Barkevius-Mingo trade, which really came out of nowhere. Mingo was a big, big name coming out of the draft a few years ago out of LSU, one of the best pass rushers in the country, just a tremendous athlete, came to LSU, very highly regarded. Les Miles loved him so much that he sort of jokingly said they could play him at safety because he was such a good athlete. Now, I don't think you should take that and say, all right, because the guy could play safety if Les Miles wanted him to. He could play safety or whatever in the NFL,

but that just goes to show you that Barkevious Mingo is just a heck of an athlete, and he's in the final year of his rookie deal, fourth year in the NFL. He's been a bust. There's no doubt about that. There's no way to dance around it. He had five sacks as a rookie two in his second year in 2014 and then none last year and he's been healthy so this is a another bill belichick reclamation project and when the trait when the news happened when it first broke i thought all right maybe they're giving up a conditional pick we'll see what he's made of over the next week before they make their decision no patriots gave up a fifth rounder in 2017 for Mingo so he's going to be on the roster so now it's about trying to find out where he fits and he is more naturally an edge player

than a space linebacker the Browns have recently tried to use him as an off the line linebacker think about a Jamie Collins or Jonathan Freeney role more than anything else but I don't know really what to make of that the Browns have a new regime under Hugh Jackson and he was basically playing with the third and fourth stringers as an off the line linebacker so just because he was playing there you know if they thought that they saw anything in terms of coverage ability or being able to fill gaps or anything like that they wouldn't have traded him like this. And by all accounts, from National and Cleveland reports, Mingo wasn't going to make the roster. The only reason the Patriots had to give up a fifth rounder,

because again, according to NFL Network, the Lions and Bob Quinn came into play and started a quick little bidding war. So the Patriots had to give up a fifth, and that essentially means Mingo's on the team so where does he fit I think you have to look at him as an edge player and if he is what you know one good comparison people are going to make the natural comparison to Jabal Sheard because he also came from Cleveland after not faring too well in recent seasons with the Browns and Sheard has been outstanding well in recent seasons with the Browns.

And Sheard has been outstanding in his one season with the Patriots. And assuming he gets this sprained MCL cleared in due time, he's probably going to have a fantastic year in 2016. But I think you probably look at this as more of an Akeem Ayers type of acquisition. Now Ayers was really good too. A rotational pass rusher. Didn't play on all three downs aside from when they needed to when Chandler Jones was down for a bit toward the end of that season. But I think this is a situation where you're going to see Mingo as a rotational pass rusher. And he's a guy who can also drop. He does have some coverage ability. We'll see how much he can get into the mix and figure out the coverage patterns, zone drops,

or just straight-up following guys in Bill Belichick's system. There's a lot that they ask these guys to do. Remember, John Bostick came in last year, and people said that because he was so fast, he could cover people off the line. John Bostick couldn't see the field. So sometimes these things work out. Sometimes they don't. But if there's anybody who has mastered the art of the reclamation project, you know it's Bill Belichick.

And why I think it's important. I don't know why I was getting a lot of questions like this on Thursday. But people were saying, well, is this in the event that the contract talks with Hightower and Mayo go off the rail Hightower Mayo Hightower and Collins go off the rails is this sort of something to protect them no for two reasons number one Mingo is also in the final year of his contract and two he plays a different position now you see Hightower play on the edge quite a bit, but he's more of an off-the-line linebacker. And Mingo, if the Patriots play a 4-3, they're going to use Mingo on the edge, or at least that's where he is best suited to play.

So you're not looking at, okay, well, this is leverage against Collins, or this is leverage against Hightower. No, it's not. It's absolutely not. Barkevious Mingo has been a bust and those two guys are fringe all pros. You're not just going to sit here and say, well, hey, look, we have this body. We can keep him for cheaper. Yeah. You know what? You get to keep bad players for cheap money. That's how it works. So the Patriots aren't going to say, hey, you know what? Instead of giving you $50 million with 2025 guaranteed, we're just going to keep this other guy on a two-year $3 million deal. So look, let's just not, let's not try to read too much into it. This is a situation where

the Patriots have had some injuries on the edge, notably with Rob Ninkovich and Jabal Sheard. Shea McClellan's also been down for about a week or two weeks at this point. And Chris Long has missed 14 games in the last two years. So you want to be a little proactive in making sure that if he gets added to that list of injured guys, then you're looking at a bunch of young guys having to step in at defensive end for who knows how long. I mean, Ninkovich, best case scenario was back at some point in September. But you know what? If it gets stretched to week five, that first game in October against the Browns, then so be it. It's week five. Jabal Sheard probably should be back for the regular season opener against the Cardinals. But if he misses time, you know, again, who knows?

Shea McClellan, we really don't know anything about his injury, but we do know that he's been working out quite a bit. So he can't be too, too far off. But again, now you just throw Mingo into the mix, and if Bill Belichick can use his athleticism and carve up some third down packages where Mingo's an edge rusher and can get after the passer a little bit, you know, those situations where Chris Long gets bumped inside as more of a defensive tackle, and then you've got Mingo as an athlete over the tackle, then again, it just gives you more options. And if Mingo really works out well, and the Patriots are able to implement him in some of their 3-4 schemes, or even their 3-3-5 subs, then you have a situation where you've got Mingo, Hightower, Ninkovich, Sheard, guys like that who, McClellan more than sheared i should say

you don't know who's rushing and who's dropping so it creates a lot of havoc for an offense as they're looking at the the patriots front seven so it's a uh it's an interesting trade i don't know if it's nobody knows if it's a good trade but you got a great athlete coming in and we'll see what the patriots are able to do with him now maybe they do see something in terms of him being able to play off the line because of his athleticism but again he's just he's a natural edge player and if it if they change it up they move him off the line then they move him off the line but bottom line is bill belichick apparently has flown him into charlotte i highly highly doubt they're just going to throw him out there on the field blind and say go run around and

try to do some stuff they're going to bring him into the system and we'll see what he's made of next week when patriots close up the preseason against the giants now i said this podcast this episode of locked on patriots is brought to you by SeatGeek. 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 that game or show you want to go to. None of those older sites want to change that, but SeatGeek is different. They've come along and created an app and a website that makes it easier than ever for fans to buy and sell tickets. Now, I wanted to torture myself, and I played around on SeatGeek and just kind of wanted to see

if I could get in the door for the Chesney show at Gillette Stadium tonight, which I cannot do because that's in New England and I am in Charlotte. But again, I like to torture myself, but you guys know I'm a country fan, so I was just looking around, and I realized I could have gone in to see the show for $61. That kind of hurt a little bit. You can get into tomorrow's show for $91. You guys can do that. I won't go ahead and jump onto that $91 ticket because I'm going to be breaking down the film for you. So if you want to do it for me and go and enjoy that show, tell me all about it. SeatGeek is always the first place I go to to look for tickets for a game or concert.

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So you download the app, you put in the LOPatriots promo code. Let's say you want to go to that Chesney show. You buy a $61 ticket. You put in my promo code. You get 20 bucks back. Boom, you're in the content for 41 bucks. You can thank me later. So download the

SeatGeek app and enter the promo code LOPatriots today now there is a football game tonight so why don't we get to that biggest news I think that came out of yesterday just in terms of actual football stuff Tom Brady made the trip to Charlotte we're not entirely sure on the extent of his playing time at this point against the Panthers in the third preseason game I'm not totally enthralled with the idea of Tom Brady playing in this game I think it would have really benefited Jimmy Garoppolo to go out there be the first guy to deal with that loud noise that the Carolina Panthers fans are undoubtedly going to have again it's their preseason home opener it's their first chance to welcome back the NFC champs after their Super Bowl loss to the Broncos big expectations for Carolina really good defensive front can get after the

passer a lot of talent up there it's an opportunity to put Garoppolo in and face some real adversity and by starting Brady you take away from some of that and I I think really the bottom line, let's just say Tom Brady plays three series and I don't know how much he's going to play that. I don't know if the Patriots know how much he's going to play, but let's just use three as the magic number for this exercise here. Is Tom Brady really going to be any better in week five because he plays three series tonight? I don't think so. I would say I know so. The guy's a 39-year-old four-time Super Bowl champion, two-time MVP. He's been really good this summer in practice, albeit. But what are these live reps going to do for him? Now, he's a maniac and the live reps are probably going to be therapeutic

for him. So that's nice. And it'll help him carve out a little frustration that he's undoubtedly had from the last two years of the the manufactured controversy but in terms of Garoppolo in terms of the priority of getting Garoppolo ready for week one again you give him a chance to go out there those first few series let's say you know what almost ideally he gets his head knocked around a little bit and has to figure out how to recover. It's a lot easier for him to do that or to learn how to do that in a situation where he's got extended playing time. As opposed to, let's say he gets in there at the beginning of the second quarter, has a tough series, Panthers have a long drive, maybe he doesn't get a chance to run his traditional offense until his second chance. Let's say there's four minutes left in the second quarter. Then you're not running necessarily the best offense that you want to run,

depending on your field position and all that stuff. So you kind of can't control every situation that Garoppolo is going to be in. Not that you can anyway, but it just gives you more opportunities to face real-life game situations. And now let's say the Panthers have a good first half and Ron Rivera wants to pull his starters early in the third quarter then all of a sudden you've got Jimmy Garoppolo playing against backups toward the end of the third quarter or into the fourth quarter depending on how how long he ends up playing in this game so that's why I think Jimmy Garoppolo getting the chance to start this game would have been important and in the atmosphere plays really plays into it at least for me because you know they're going to

go into that Sunday night game at Arizona jacked up crowd big expectations for the Cardinals too they were in the NFC championship game and lost to the Panthers last year they could very well be right back there I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting to the Super Bowl this season Cardinals are going to be jacked up Patriots are going to be back there for the first time since winning the Super Bowl two years ago and you just give Garoppolo the chance to say all right you know what I'm going under center for the first time you got 70,000 people here who hate me they want to see me fail but I did this two weeks ago albeit a different sort of environment in a preseason game but at least he heard it he understood what it meant to have that many people want to see you get your head kicked in so it's

again that's why I've mentioned this a couple times this week so I don't want to drag it out too much more but that's just why I believe it would have been better for Garoppolo to get the start against the Panthers and then moving on a few other things that you want to look at I'm really interested in the right guard spot because we know it's Nate Solder Joe Tooney and David Andrews at left tackle left guard center we know it's Marcus Cannon at right tackle and he's going to face a huge test tonight against whichever pass rusher the Panthers throw at him on any given play. And that's going to be a fascinating episode to watch because Cannon's coming off a really good game against the Bears.

I broke that down earlier this week on Locked on Patriots. If you want to go back and check out some shows that you might have missed, everything's archived on iTunes. Everything's on Audioboom. Everything's on my Twitter feed. There's really nowhere on the internet you can't go and look and just say, oh, shoot, there's Lockedoboom. Everything's on my Twitter feed. There's really nowhere on the internet you can't go and look and just say, oh shoot, there's Lockdown Patriots. It found me again. But anyway, I digress. The right guard spot is really thinned out because

of injuries. And I'm very curious to see what Josh Klein looks like Friday night. Just because, again, he's been hanging the shoulder, or he was hanging the shoulder a couple times after some plays against the Bears last week. Didn't play a great game. Have to wonder if it's really the shoulder again. He had that off-season surgery. And shoulder injuries, James Aheadabo is the best example from a few years ago. Shoulder injuries just don't go away, especially if they're bad ones.

So what do the Patriots have in Josh Klein while Shaq Mason is out with a broken right hand and Jonathan Cooper we haven't seen him since July 30th since he injured his foot during the first padded practice Trey Jackson isn't coming back anytime soon after offseason knee surgery and I would expect him to start the season on the pup list so you're down to Klein who is a damn good fourth option I don't want to call him the fourth option that's not fair he would have beat out Trey Jackson probably would have beat out Jonathan Cooper too but at this point he is he it is what it is in terms of the

amount of guys they've used at that spot and I'm also going to be looking at Ted Karras the rookie who got a vote of confidence somewhat this week when the Patriots traded Brian Stork to the Redskins Karras so looking at the depth chart right now assuming Klein is healthy enough to play Klein is the backup center to David Andrews Klein also for the moment is the starting right guard at some point one of those things would have to give if there was an injury Ted Karras is basically backing up Josh Klein in both of those capacities I'd call him third string center the second string right guard at least in terms of the able bodies for tonight's game so I want to see what Karras is made of and I don't know I broke this down earlier this week

too Ted Karras in my opinion is either the last guy in or the first guy out in terms of making that 53 man roster. So he is right on the, as close to the bubble as you could be without having the thing pop on him. A big guy, violent player, nice guy too. And he is, again, I just want to see what he's made of. I want to see what he's got because we just don't know a lot about Ted Harris. So that right guard spot, even if Ted Harris is coming in and playing against the backups, I just want to see what he's got because we just don't know a lot about Ted Karras so that right guard spot even if Ted Karras is coming in and playing against the backups I just want to see more I think this is he might have been a guy that I was overlooking earlier this offseason earlier this preseason because I just didn't think there was a spot for him and now that there is I want to see more about him I want to learn more about what Ted Karras can do in a situation against

a really good Panthers defense some other guys you got to watch for Anthony Johnson had a terrific game last week against the Bears had a half sack two pressures a run stuff and a pass breakup in his first game since losing 50 pounds or his first extended action since losing 50 pounds this offseason really cool story wrote about him in today's Herald, the Friday Herald in my Patriots notebook. Just in terms of everything that he's dealt with, he's in his third year and really flew under the radar. And I love the quote that Bill Belichick had last week

because he knew of Johnson because he was at LSU with Mingo also. But Anthony Johnson weighed 260 pounds in middle school so this guy has been huge his entire life big guy at lsu played around 300 pounds dolphins asked him to get to 325 so now he's in about the 275 range bill belichick brought him in in may and was like we have the have the right guy here? And I think he was being serious. So, and Johnson had an injury at the beginning of camp, really came out of nowhere. I gave him absolutely no chance to make the 53-man roster, but with a performance like

that, now he's in the mix. But it's got to be more than just one game. And for the Patriots to potentially cut a guy like Marcus Kuhn, or maybe, which I don't think is going to happen, but maybe Terrence Knighton, Anthony Johnson's going to have to do it off of more than just one big performance. So we'll see what he's made of, if he can make this more of a consistent matter. And if he can, he's going to be on the team. Because you can't cut a guy like that because you'll lose him on waivers. So, Johnson's a big one.

D.J. Foster. Not 100% sure he's playing playing it but he had returned to practice this week at least on a limited capacity so it's now or never for him it really is he has done nothing he's been hurt so electric great footwork fast great agility can make people miss can embarrass people in space when he's got the ball, catch a ball in the flat, a little juke move, make somebody look foolish, probably embarrass their parents. But that's what we got to see out of DJ Foster. This is all hype. This is all talk. We got to see what DJ Foster is capable of on an NFL field. If he can't play tonight,

I wouldn't be surprised if the Patriots just put him on ir next week and said all right time to red shirt you because what's the point in throwing him out there uh once against the giants i guess but the patriots are i i strongly believe the patriots have three running backs right now and they're still looking for their fourth lagarrette blonde james white brandon bolden should be safe tyler gaffney's their fourth for now but i'm not entirely convinced that they're going to keep him on the first 53 man roster i wouldn't be surprised if they caught him brought him back to the practice squad because the running back talent it's almost like a dime a dozen at that point so that's if dj foster can come out play well put some highlights on tape, it's going to be hard to sneak a guy like that onto the practice squad just because he's just so electric.

So we'll see what he's made of, especially between the tackles. I don't know what he's capable of running between the tackles on an NFL field. So that'll be fun to watch too. If you missed it on Thursday, I broke down the Stephen Ridley release with the Lions and his chances to return to the Patriots. So I don't want to spoil that if you missed that show. the Stephen Ridley release with the Lions and his chances to return to the Patriots. So I don't want to spoil that if you missed that show. So make sure you download Thursday's episode to get more on my take on the running back position.

I also want to see what the first team defense is made of because they caught some flack last week, which I tried to extinguish because I didn't think it was warranted. They gave up 11 points on two drives or two early drives. But, you know, look at those drives closer. Yeah, you know what? It was the Chicago Bears. They gave up 11 points. And you can't take those points off the scoreboard. There's no style points in the NFL when the regular season starts.

And 11 points is 11 points. But Justin Coleman got beat twice in the first series by Alshon Jeffrey they gave up a field goal how often is Justin Coleman going to face a guy like Alshon Jeffrey in the regular season unless there's some injuries here so it's just you know Coleman right now is the fourth cornerback on the death chart Logan Ryan wasn't playing in that game Logan Ryan should make his debut tonight because he shed the non-contact jersey. So you're going to find a way to get a better matchup than Justin Coleman on a guy like Alshon Jeffrey. I know they're not going to see the Bears this year, but the point remains when you've got an elite talent like Jeffrey who was beating everybody in practice. I'm not going to say

that you can put Malcolm Butler on him in that game and just wipe them out but it's a more competitive situation at least and then the next drive they had two the touchdown drive they had two defensive holding calls on third down that wiped out failed third downs by the Bears one was on Justin Coleman one was on Patrick Chung and then there were two long runs that the Bears had or one was a long run actually through Joe Villano's gap and then the touchdown run was through Joe Villano's gap Joe Villano's not going to make the team so those two plays you just take those two plays out right there because you're going to have a better defensive tackle in with the first team defense when the regular season starts but you know that's not to say the plays happened the Patriots still allowed those 11 points and it was due to guys who probably more often than not

wouldn't be in those situations so the Panthers are going to give you a good test Cam Newton ran all over the Pats defense a few years ago different defense but still had some good success on that Monday night game that crazy Monday night game one of the best football games i've ever seen and ended controversially but it was just a fun game to watch so we'll see what cam newton's able to do he's got a pretty good offense and if the patriots defense bends or breaks a little more than than i would expect him to then maybe he'd throw those excuses from last week out the window and say all right you know what we looked at these guys as a top five defense but they still have room to grow or the patriots could come out and really harass cam newton

make life miserable for him take away his top receivers shut down that really strong powerful running game and then we sit here and we say, all right, this Patriots defense is legit. They can win games for Jimmy Garoppolo to start the season. And so that's why it's going to be a good test for them. Now, Drew Brees only played one series against them in the preseason opener. Jay Cutler, he sucks.

So how much stock are you going to put into that game and then cam newton's legit and we're not sure if we're even going to see eli manning next week so this is the best quarterback that they're going to face for an extended amount of time before the lights come on in week one and you also finally you want to look at who's out there late in this game terence knighton got a lot of pub because he was out there late in the fourth quarter last week against the Bears for what I believe was conditioning purposes you could also read into it that he's he's in more jeopardy to make the team than I think he is which is possible you never know and you you want to see if Clay Harbor is out there late I mean AJ Derby's been

better than Harbor nobody would argue that so what's what are clay harbour's chances of making the team aaron dobson's another one he uh looked like he was gonna make a he was gonna make a role for himself early in the summer and he's tapered off considerably so can aaron dobson save himself here aaron dobson might make the team anyway because i still don't know if the patriots are going to start i don't know if the patriots know if they're going to start danny amandola on the pop list malcolm mitchell figures to be out until the regular season opener with the dislocated elbow keishon martin is hurt again we haven't seen him in weeks almost a month now at

this point and with the amount of injuries Aaron Dobson's there healthy now that I think Aaron Dobson does need to be careful of guys like Chris Harper and DeAndre Carter who have had nice summers as well and probably have slightly more special or you know Aaron Dobson doesn't play special teams so they slightly more is that that was the wrong wording they have more special teams value than him so if you're dobson you really don't want to mess up this chance and get lapped by those two you know it's not going to be nate washington he was caught earlier this week the patriots are going to have some young guy probably a young guy who wasn't expected to make the roster but because of injuries ahead of them on the wider wide receiver depth chart,

might be around a little longer than they thought, or at least planned at the beginning of the summer. So there's a lot of stuff to watch for tonight against the Panthers. Again, this episode of Locked On Patriots was brought to you or sponsored by SeatGeek. If you are interested in sponsoring a future episode of Locked On Patriots, hit me up at jeff.howe at bostonherald.com. You guys enjoy the game on Friday night. Have a good weekend.

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