Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 29, 2016 - Let's not get crazy: Jacoby Brissett should not be starting over Jimmy Garoppolo

Episode Date: August 28, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe breaks down the performances of Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett against the Panthers and explains why it's crazy to think Brissett should start in Weeks 1-4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is Locked On Patriots, Monday, August 29th, and this is a big week for the Patriots and everybody else in the NFL. There are going to be a lot of unemployed players by the end of this one, and the Patriots have to cut from 82 to 75 on Tuesday and from 75 down to 53 on Saturday so there's going to be a lot of movement and we'll get to that stuff as the week goes on but right now I gotta get something off my chest and I'm Jeff Howe from the Boston Herald your host of this daily podcast welcome aboard if you're a new listener welcome back if you are a loyal listener but again I gotta get something off my chest today.

We got to talk about some quarterbacks. And I think some people lost their mind a little bit this weekend, quite frankly. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I think some of you went off the deep end. And I'm a little concerned. So let's extinguish that right now. Jacoby Brissett should not be starting over Jimmy Garoppolo in the first four weeks of the regular season. That's nothing against

Jacoby Brissett, who has had a nice summer and had a really nice game the other night, completed nine and nine passes against the Carolina Panthers, while Jimmy Garoppolo had probably his worst game of the preseason, at least made more mistakes against the Panthers than he had in his previous two preseason games combined. But again, let's not reach any drastic conclusions here that because Jim, uh, Jacoby Brissett played well and Jimmy Garoppolo didn't, that all of a sudden you got to flip-flop these two guys and you got to throw the rookie out there for the first four weeks. Now, remember, this was about a week removed from Jimmy Garoppolo playing so well against the Bears that people started looking ahead and saying, well, shoot, Jimmy Garoppolo looks like the quarterback of the future.

He looks like the guy that you're going to use to replace Tom Brady when he rides off into the sunset. So you can't have it both ways. So again, this is not about one night or one week defining whether or not Jimmy Garoppolo is ready for weeks one through four. This is a broad view. Three years in the making, Patriots have kept Garoppolo moving in the right direction from his rookie season to last season when he really started to show some promise, and then this summer when he's been good a whole lot more often than he's been bad. That's not to say Garoppolo's not going to struggle at some point in the first four weeks. He's probably going to struggle frequently over the course of those first four weeks while Tom Brady is suspended.

But, I mean, you can't just sit here and say, all right, well, Tom Brady looked better than Jimmy Garoppolo. That's not supposed to raise any red flags. Tom Brady is going to look better than, 99% of the time, he's going to look better than every single quarterback who's on the field with him. So that's just, again, we're not, let's not, let's not say anything stupid here. All right. Tom Brady, Tom Brady struggled at times against the Panthers he completed three and nine passes now one of those three completions was a ball that the football

gods dropped out of heaven into Chris Hogan's hands just an absolute beautiful touchdown throw there but the entire offense struggled and part of it was a Jimmy Garoppolo problem part of it was rust Julian Edelman didn't look like Julian Edelman he looked like the 2009 version of Julian Edelman so that that's not going to carry over into the regular season this is a guy who just needed some game reps and is going to be just fine Rob Gronkowski still hasn't been out there uh I mean this Dion Lewis is going to be back we think in a couple months things are going to get better but let's not pin this entire thing on Jimmy Garoppolo. Now, if you're sitting here some three, four minutes into this

podcast and you're saying, Jeff, I know, I agree with you 100%. Why should I continue to listen? Well, okay, here's why. Because I'm going to break down what Garoppolo did against the Panthers, and I'm going to break down what Jacoby Brissett did against the Panthers, and then I'm going to continue to wrap up my point that Jimmy Garoppolo is your starter through the first four weeks of the regular season. Now, let's get to Garoppolo's night. He played seven series, or at least parts of them, and I'll get through the mistakes. He basically made one mistake a series, and when you're going against an elite defense like the Carolina Panthers who have right now the best linebacker in the NFL Luke Keekly and Thomas Davis who is like 75 years old but still looks like a 22 year old and a front four they can get after you as good as about any front four in the NFL, look, if you start to make mistakes, it's going to put

you in a hole. And that's just, I mean, whether you're Jimmy Garoppolo or Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers or Brock Osweiler, it doesn't matter. This is, it's a good defense. They were flying high and they put the Patriots at a disadvantage in certain plays. In the first series, Jimmy Garoppolo picked up the pace, was moving really well. They've done a good job with Garoppolo when they've accelerated the play, and he moved the ball pretty well when they were trying to go up-tempo, or some version of their up-tempo offense, a couple times against the Panthers. Ditto the week before in the two-minute drill against the Bears, and that's how the Patriots, I would assume, are going to try to start off in Arizona in a couple weeks.

Moving the ball quickly, trying to get Garoppolo in and out of the huddle as quickly as possible, if he huddles at all. And I think you're seeing him look more comfortable when the pace is at a higher tempo. But that first series ended when there was a miscommunication with Edelman, who started to cut off his rope

because he was going back to the outside, and Garoppolo led him a little too far, and the incompletion bounced off Luke Keekly's hands. Should have been an interception, and then Steven Gostowski missed a short field goal on fourth down. So ultimately, they should have gotten three points out of it. Or if you want to say the ball don't lie, and Keekly should have had an interception, and Gostowski missed the field goal to kind of keep the score honest, then fine. I get that too. But when you're going to have, you're going to have more reps with Garoppolo and Edelman at higher speeds and those guys are going to be on the same page. I'm sure they've already had a hundred conversations since that night about why they weren't on the same page on that particular

play. Garoppolo came out after the game and took sole responsibility for it. So again, just two guys who weren't on the same page. Edelman cut his route short. And if that's not something I'm worried about, I will really never worry about Julian Edelman when he's on the football field. He's,

he's as good as, as advertised. I still think that he is a legit number one wide receiver. Even if he's not a prototype like a Julio Jones, he is still a number one guy. And when he's out there, he's going to make everybody better, including Jimmy Garoppolo. So that was the mistake in the first series. The second mistake or the second series was when he started to feel the pass rush a little more. And that's Garoppolo's biggest weakness, as it is for every

unproven quarterback who has ever played in the NFL. These young guys, whether they're a rookie or they just have yet to start a game that means anything like Garoppolo in his third season, when the pass rush is bearing down on you, it's hard for these guys to keep their head downfield. When Garoppolo does it, he does a really nice job because he's got an electric arm. He can push the ball into the second and third levels of the defense, whether it's Chris Hogan or Aaron Dobson. Eventually, it's going to be Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman and so on and so forth.

So those are just the inconsistencies that you're seeing. So he got hit once. He scrambled another time. If he feels the rush better steps up into the pocket doesn't panic so quickly then you're gonna see uh better results and one of those that scramble was on third and 18 so ultimately and this is kind of tough because game rewinds in the preseason which is how i rewatch these things doesn't have the coaches tape so i couldn't see what garoppolo was looking at down the field. But he might have

just made the quick decision, hey, it's third and 18. Nobody's open right now. The pass rush is coming down. I'm just going to eat this thing and try to get back to the line of scrimmage. If that was the case, then I'm not going to hate it. But third and 18, you know, scrambling a little bit and not converting is a whole heck of a lot better especially on your side of the field than throwing one up for grabs and giving a team like the panthers a short field especially when your defense is rolling the way that the patriots were so that was garoppolo's second series the third one was his worst mistake of the night the intentional grounding that lost them 16 yards and it kind of ran backwards just

like you were playing an old school video game you know the pass rush is coming down just run back as far as you can and then just you know hit the c button and hope the thing comes down in your your teammates hands but it's just it was uh it was ugly and it even looked like he saw legar blunt in the left flat and didn't throw it for who knows what reason. Maybe he didn't see him. Maybe he thought the rush was closer, didn't want to extend his arm, risk losing a fumble, and backed up and took a grounding call, which you can't be doing. You can't put yourself into a 16-yard hole at any point and expect to continue to move the ball.

So that was the issue on the third series uh fourth series later in the second quarter after tom brady's night was over he missed chris hogan down the left seam and closer to the left sideline would have gone for a long game overthrew him by a couple yards uh was between two defenders would have been a big game would have put the patriots in a really good chance to put together a scoring drive before the half, but missed them. You know, just a bout of inaccuracy. Sometimes these things happen. Tom Brady misses guys too.

I mean, he almost threw an interception when he was stepping up into the pocket when he saw Martellus Bennett deep down the right sideline about a series or two earlier. So again, you know, every now and then you're just going to shank a throw. That brought the Patriots to their fifth series. Actually, you know what? That was one play before, which was one of the craziest athletic plays of the night, especially from the Panthers' defense when Darrell Worley jumped off the top rope into Garoppolo's shoulder. I don't even know. It didn't even look like he was trying to jump over anybody.

And if he was, the lineman moved at the last second. But Darrell Worley just jumped out of nowhere and chased Garoppolo out of the pocket. It was a nice job by Garoppolo to hold onto the ball, keep the play alive for the time being. But then Garoppolo started to escape the pocket, was probably a little frantic, as really anybody would be if a guy like Worley jumps off the top rope at you like that, rolls to his left, doesn't see anybody open, and then Thomas Davis comes out of nowhere and strips the ball. Garoppolo kept it, so he didn't allow it to turn into a disastrous play and give the ball to the Panthers on a really short field. But, you know, again, I'm having a hard time criticizing Garoppolo for that one because it was

just such a crazy play that happened really quickly a very quick breakdown but if you're Josh McDaniels or if you're Tom Brady and you're going through this thing in the in the film room in the coming days if you're Bill Belichick if you whoever I mean even if you're Jimmy Garoppolo you're gonna know you're gonna be smart enough hey, all right, I'm rolling to my left. Nobody is open in front of me. Just throw the thing out of bounds before this thing gets a whole lot worse. So if he made a mistake on that play, which obviously he did, that's the one that you've got to make a quicker decision as you're running for your life, especially as you're rolling to your left because there aren't a lot of good things that come from stuff like that. Then you look at the fifth series. The Patriots take over

with 56 seconds to go and three timeouts at their disposal, and Bill Belichick ordered Garoppolo to take a knee. Not a good sign in terms, not a vote of confidence, I should say, from Belichick after seeing his offense, whether it was Garoppolo or Brady in the first eight series combined, not move the ball all that great. They had a 9-0 lead at that point. You're looking at this as a situation where, all right, you got a chance to win the game. Not that it really matters all that much, but you just don't want to let things go off the rails. So they took a knee, they brought it to halftime and look i understand i'm not not going to criticize that decision the way the offense struggled uh as a whole there were some breakdowns with the offensive line not too too bad but you know james white a lot of quarterback

hit at one point he was the guy who got beat by thomas davis on that strip sack uh right before the half nate soldier allowed another sack another sack on a tremendous pass rush. Chris Barker was playing right guard. He's not going to be on the 53-man roster unless the injuries to Klein and Mason are a whole lot worse than we realize. But they had an issue at right guard. Marcus Cannon, quick tangent, was really good. Yet again, two weeks in a row now, Marcus Cannon's had a clean game. The only mistake he's made in the last two weeks was a false start. He has not gotten beat by any pass rushers, has not had any bad run blocks. So look, I'm not going to tell you that you have to have faith or confidence or trust in Marcus Cannon after what

we saw him put on the field last season. But I have to tell you, and you have to consider it, he's played well two weeks running now. So we'll see if this is a guy who has started to figure it out as their right tackle because he's their guy this season. So, again, there were issues, whether it was Garoppolo or Brady, running the offense in the first half. The issue on the sixth series was not Garoppolo's fault. They were at third and three, got stuffed in the run.

They were at fourth and one and got stuffed again. They gave the ball to LeGarrette Blount, and Joe Tooney had a welcome to the NFL moment when Luke Keekly just undressed him and then got off that block, stopped Blount short of the sticks. A.J. Derby didn't have the greatest block on that play either. So Garoppolo didn't get a lot of help on the sixth series. And then the seventh and final series for Garoppolo, again, he didn't handle the pass rush well, didn't get the ball out the way that he should have, so they were scoreless on that drive.

Jimmy Garoppolo didn't score any points during his seven series. Now, again, he got bitten by a missed field goal, a gimme from Steven Gostowski, but that's what happens when you make mistakes against an elite defense. They add up, it looks ugly, and you're going to get criticized for them, but it's a good learning experience for Garoppolo to have. I think if you use this adversity as something that can help Garoppolo become a better player by the time week one comes around, then they're all the better for it, as opposed to just not really dealing with a whole lot of issues. So then we'll move to Jacoby Brissett, who played, once again, with the backups and against the backups,

third stringers in a lot of cases. And that's an important point to make before I break down his night. Jacoby Brissett, in every single practice, all 16 training camp practices that we were able to watch, played with and against third stringers or backups, whatever you want to call them. He never ran the starting offense. This is pretty significant here.

When you're talking about, you know, being an armchair quarterback, you're saying, all right, Brissette looks better than Garoppolo. I mean, if it's not me sitting here telling you, hey, he's doing this against third stringers. Now, the counter to that I've seen is I kind of, you know, I went back and forth with some people on Twitter on Saturday well yeah but he had third stringers playing with him that doesn't really like you know that's you can't just say oh well because he did it with lesser players against lesser players it's all right no the speed's going to be different and ultimately if you're not going to take my word for it if Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels thought Jacoby Brissett was the guy to lead this

offense in the first four weeks of the season he would have taken at least one period of team drills with the starters or against some starters during the what foreign change days of joint practices with the Saints and Bears or at some point along the way in the first three preseason games. That hasn't happened. So that's Bill Belichick telling you they don't believe that Jacoby Brissett is on the level of Jimmy Garoppolo. So if you don't want to take my word for it, Bill Belichick's been doing this quite a while, seems to know what he's doing. Jacoby Brissett has thrown, now this doesn't take into account the last week of practices because we haven't seen them. Because the Patriots have shut us out, they're at that point in the year when we only see stretching.

But those 16 practices, Jacoby Brissett was 69 of 119 with three interceptions. So he threw 119 passes in team drills at seven on sevens and 11 on 11s. And every single one, once again, was with backups. Now, just to put that in a little bit of perspective, 119 attempts in team drills. Tom Brady had 274 and Jimmy Garoppolo had 293. So almost a third of the work as Brady and Garoppolo had, they kept him a lot of the times that Jacoby Brissett was out there, it was for like just one period at the end of practice. And of those 119 pass attempts he had, there was one day, it was that Gillette Stadium practice for the season ticket holders when he threw 34 passes so almost what like 25 percent of I said 25 percent of his

passes pretty much came in one of the 16 practices so just he hasn't gotten a lot of work certainly not consistent work as the Patriots have tried to get Jimmy Garoppolo ready or as ready as possible for week one. So Jacoby Brissett's not there yet. Now, that's not to take away what he's put out there on the fields. One thing I love about Brissett and Garoppolo, neither one of those guys has committed a turnover in the preseason. So that's what you're looking for, especially when you've got a defense that's rolling the way the Patriots have. So when you're a young quarterback, a rookie quarterback, those turnovers tend to come in bunches. And Brissette has done a good job of making sure that hasn't happened. And he's scrambled quite a bit, too.

Somewhat, sometimes, or sometimes somewhat erratically. And he hasn't allowed the ball to get free where a defensive end could come in and knock it out. So you like that about it. Now let's go through the 9-of-9 performance against the Panthers. There were two screens, one to DJ Foster to start it off for 11 yards and another one for 13 yards, and then there was a designed swing pass to DJ Foster for nine yards so the first two called passes that Brissette had were a screen and a design swing to get the ball

into DJ Foster's hands who had a nice night by the way so trying to get the ball out as quickly as possible for Jacoby Brissette get him into a rhythm the next throw was the best throw that he had all night it was a slant to deandre carter for a 12-yard touchdown quick read found carter he was open carter in a nice route and then took it the rest of the way the last few yards into the end zone really good job by brissette there hats off to him for that one again best throw of the night and it's good to see him make a quick decision to get the ball to Carter for that touchdown. Started the next drive he had a 20-yard pass to A.J. Derby up the right seam. Completely blown play by the Panthers backup defense. Easy pass, easy gain. I'm not going to

take anything away from Brissette for noticing the blown play. I mean, how many times do you see Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski hook up because the defense, for whatever reason, decides to take a nap on Gronk for a play? So I'm not taking away from Brissette for noticing the blown play, but that's still 20 yards. His longest pass of the night was because of a blown coverage. And the next one, now Brissette and Bill Belichick said in the day after the game that Brissette made some mistakes or he could have done some things better. It's probably a more accurate way to put it. I think this is what he's talking about. Brissette's fifth throw of the night, he hit Chris Harper for two yards on a third and three. I think some of that is because Harper's route wasn't perfect. If you're the wide receiver and you run a two-yard route a third and three. I think some of that is because Harper's route wasn't perfect. If you're

the wide receiver and you run a two-yard route on third and three, you know, what are you doing there? The defense did a pretty good job of having a little picket fence going there right at the sticks, so maybe Harper got his route shortened more than he wanted it to, but it's not like they're not coached to find ways around that. And if Brissette maybe hangs, you know, Brissette gets the ball to Harper and just a little more space, maybe they could ask for a little more patience to see if he can get singled up with a linebacker as he gets closer to the middle of the field. Maybe that's one of those mistakes that Bill Belichick is talking about. Or again, one of those things that Brissette will eventually be able to figure out

and get better at on an NFL level. So, just the third down failure there on a completion there was a designed rollout for a sixth throw six yards to Joey Josefa you know not a big game but again designed rollout got the ball out quickly didn't push it downfield I couldn't tell if there was anything better downfield it was open the next one was that 13 yard screen that I discussed earlier and then there was anything better downfield that was open. The next one was that 13-yard screen that I discussed earlier. And then there was a, you know, a nice pass, or I shouldn't say a nice pass. It was a 12-yard pass on a slant to Devin Lucien. This is another one of those throws that Brissette could have done better. He saw Lucien open right away,

got a lot of padding from the cornerback on the left side of the field, or the right cornerback, if you're looking at it from that angle. Just took him a little while. He kind of went through his progression, tried to see if there was anything better. Ultimately went back to Lucien, made a guy miss, gained 12 yards. So it looks good in the stack column, but I think you want a quicker decision out of Jacoby Brissett on that play. And then his final pass was no gain to Bryce Williams.

That play basically just blew up in the backfield. Not a lot of protection. And Williams ran a submarine route. Couldn't beat it. Just a good defensive play. But a completion nonetheless. So I'm not doing this to nitpick. Well, I mean, I basically am nitpicking because it's hard to criticize a 9 of 9 performance.

But I just want to, again, highlight the fact that, you know, I'm hearing that from people on Twitter, oh, well, Brissette has better pocket presence. You know, Brissette's getting the ball out quicker. Brissette's doing this better than Garoppolo. He feels the rush. Look, Patriots are designing ways for Brissette to get the ball out quicker. You know, they're designing these screens and these swing passes to get the ball in the hands of the playmakers. That's not a bad thing. I'm just trying to unveil what I'm seeing. I'm trying to get you guys to, you know, see what I'm seeing. Be on the same page with me. You know, you can reach your own conclusions. I'm just trying to give you the information that I'm trying to process as I look at these quarterbacks. And I'm just trying to tell you, the big point Bill Belichick has kept Brissett with the

backups all summer and Brissett is doing a nice job he's he's if you are a really good backup as Brissett has been so far you should be better than your competition and right now he's completing 71 percent of his passes this uh summer in preseason. So that's good. And I've said it before, and I still believe it's true. Jacoby Brissett is better right now than Jimmy Garoppolo was at this point of his rookie year. So I like what I'm seeing out of Jacoby Brissett. And I just don't think he is there yet. He's not ready to be a starter. Not a huge criticism of Brissett. So don't take this the wrong way. I'm not saying Jacoby Brissett

sucks because he doesn't. I'm just saying that Jimmy Garoppolo is a better quarterback. And just because he made a handful of mistakes against one of the best defenses in the NFL doesn't mean that a nine of nine performance from Jacoby Brissett means that he deserves to be the starter so we'll see how the Patriots handle Garoppolo and Brissett in this preseason finale Thursday night against the Giants Bill Belichick has said they've discussed the possibility of playing Jacoby Brissett the entire four quarters so you know that'd be good to see him in more extended action. I'm not entirely sure how many other starters are going to play. We're still pretty early in the week, obviously.

So that's something that we'll take a closer look at as the days go by. But I think these are mistakes that Jimmy Garoppolo has proven to overcome at various points this summer this is not a new thing with him being able to you know not handle the pass rush he did a much better job of it against the Bears he had issues with it in those scrimmages against the other you know when the Patriots scrimmaged against each other twice a few weeks ago before the Saints came to town he had issues against the Saints in those joint practices in the preseason game. It's just he is improving.

He doesn't – this is not like it's happening 100% of the time. It's just one of those things that takes real-life experience when you're on the field to say, all right, you know, the pass rush is coming down. I know I have to step up into the pocket. I have to be better doing this. It's a learning experiment. There's a curve. Garoppolo's not going to be Tom Brady. That's about as obvious as a statement as you could possibly have. But you just want to see him learn from these mistakes.

I would imagine if he plays against the Giants on Thursday night that he'll be better. He'll probably handle their pass rush better than he did against the panthers and he should because they're not as good of a defense as the panthers were so this is something that'll probably be an issue with at various points against the cardinals who revamped their pass rush this offseason with chandler jones robert candice so they've got some good players in the front they weren't a good pass rush last year. But then you've got the Texans coming to town with J.J. Watt in week three. Rex Ryan and the Bills in week four. They're clearly going to be able to scheme up some things to throw Garoppolo off. But at that point, he's going to be, what, four or five weeks better than he is right now.

So these are just, he's got to be what four or five weeks better than he is right now so these are just he's got to keep his head up Patriots it's not like this is a new thing for McDaniels and Belichick to look at so it's just again those are the issues I think he'll ultimately be fine he's shown too many good signs he's had too many good stretches this summer for me to think Jimmy Garoppolo is going to go out there and just fall on his face. He's got a good electric arm. He thinks the game well. He's able to move the offense when they're moving quickly. And once he's got Gronk out there and then Edelman back at full speed, or at least once he's knocked this rust off, those guys are going to help him considerably too. So I hope I got my point across. I'm not going to help him considerably too so i hope i got my point

across i'm not going to beat this dead horse anymore but jimmy garoppolo is the patriots starter from weeks one through four excuse me there my lunch was coming up to me uh jimmy garoppolo is the starter from week one through four and jacoby brissett's going to be the backup the patriots don't want brissett out there at any point. So I think you guys should just, you know, if you're of the state of mind that Brissett should be out there over Garoppolo, I hope you could at least consider my points here as to why that should not be the case.

It's not to say Brissett can't be an NFL starter someday. That's not to say the Patriots can't figure out a way to put Brissett in successful situations if Garoppolo goes down at some point in September. But right now, you know, again, let's not lose our minds over one preseason game. This is a big picture sort of situation. And that's it for today. I'm Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald. Roster cuts coming up. We'll see if there's any activity Monday to discuss. Otherwise, you know, we'll hit you with some sort of,

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