Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 31, 2016 - An untold story about Brandon Browner and Darrelle Revis, and a breakdown of the Pats' cornerbacks

Episode Date: August 30, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe leads off the podcast with an untold story from the 2014 season involving Brandon Browner and Darrelle Revis. Browner was released by the Seahawks this week, and Jeff discusses why he wouldn't be a fit to return to the Patriots' crowded depth chart at cornerback. 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'm your host, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald, and this is your show for August 31st on Wednesday, the day before the Patriots close out their preseason schedule against the Giants with a trip down to New Jersey. As promised, this is going to be a fun show. I want to tell you guys an untold Brandon Browner-Jarrell Rivas story from the 2014 season.

The reason why I'm bringing that up now is because Browner was recently released by the Seahawks. I've gotten a lot of questions about whether or not the Patriots would consider bringing Browner back for a second season or a second tour with the Patriots and why I don't believe that's a fit for football reasons that'll allow me to jump off into the cornerback position as the Patriots get down toward or closer to 53 in time for Saturday's deadline and then I'll recap a pretty quiet day a handful of expected moves Tuesday as the Patriots got down to the 75 man limit so let's kick things off with this Browner story now why am I telling this now I want to tell you the back story about how I came

across this information because obviously this happened two seasons ago and it's just coming out now so I want to just fully disclose that entire aspect of it before I get into the actual story so I was tipped off to this story last winter so you know a full year removed after at least after the story actually happened and then I was sitting there and I'm like all right you know how do I go about telling this story at this point? You know, there's no real direct connection to the Patriots current season. And then if I drop it, it's all of a sudden, I'm just kind of like seeking attention for the story or whatever. I just wanted to wait for the right moment in order to get this Browner story out there because it's a pretty funny one or an interesting one or however you want to term it. But I also want you to know that i checked this

with a couple people so this story does come from two people who saw it all go down so here we go this is again from two witnesses the patriots were walking out to practice at one point during the 2014 season when brandon browner and daryl revis spearheaded that secondary a super bowl caliber or a super bowl winning, and they're kind of jawing back and forth, talking a little trash to each other. I think they had some sort of pretty low-key argument and just going on and on and on, and it's lingering. Then they get out to the practice field. They're going through a handful of plays, offense versus defense, and Browner blows a coverage. So R on browner gets in his face oh you

know you blew the coverage this is the play call you missed the play call browner's going back at him telling him to get away from him and it gets to the point where browner actually wound up and cold cock revis right in the face knocks him down to the ground and those two had to be separated by the rest of their teammates so they they basically pick themselves up, realize, holy crap, what just happened here? What did we allow this thing to get down to? And then they decide, all right, they shake hands, they get back to practice, and they move on. And it was never a problem. So pretty little interesting story, again, that I heard a few months ago, checked it with a couple people, made sure it was legit. I heard the same account from two eyewitnesses. So again, just a funny story, I guess. Just the

amount of things that we don't hear about a team in any given season is basically incalculable, and that's one of them. So this was not anything sensational in terms of, you know, ruined any locker room chemistry or any friendship you know those two guys are cool now as far as i know uh there's there was never any issue with them in the locker room it just kind of shows you as these guys two very competitive cornerbacks going back and forth arguing arguing arguing and then bang little punch thrown at practice so all came out, I guess, out of nowhere, and ultimately, it was, aside from the fact that it's two star players, ultimately it's a non-story because it didn't linger beyond the practice field there. I guess Bill Belichick took good care of it afterward as those guys were walking back toward the locker room, and again, basically a non-story. That has nothing to do with why i don't believe brandon

browner is a fit for the patriots right now and now this really this goes back to the 2015 off season when the patriots had a choice to make before the start of free agency browner was due a 4.8 million dollar uh contract in the second year of his deal and remember it was basically a one-year deal and then there was a club option for the 2015 season so the patriots had to exercise that option it was going to come with a two million dollar roster bonus and that was going to kick in the 4.8 million dollar cap hit for 2015 the patriots allowed him to try to explore his trade a trade market that never materialized there was never any discussion or at least

anything close to the two sides agreeing to a lesser deal in terms of money. So the Patriots ultimately released him. Now, if they thought that Brandon Browner could be a top-notch cornerback, and if they thought they were going to be able to pair him with Darrell Rivas, then you eat that $ 4.8 million dollars you keep him on the roster because that's a pretty affordable number to keep a guy if you think that he's a top two corner but they didn't so they moved on and ultimately cornerback was one of the strongest positions on their team last year as Malcolm Butler really emerged became a pro bowler and continued his his rise to stardom after that Super Bowl game winning

interception against the Seahawks just a few months earlier and Logan Ryan was really good especially the first 15 or so weeks of the season dipped a little bit toward the end there but played high quality football and as we saw in his preseason debut against the Panthers last week is a guy who could really maintain that level so the Patriots are in good shape right now at the cornerback position with Butler and Ryan and then you just go down Cyrus Jones the second round pick who was really the Patriots first pick in this uh spring's draft has basically at least from my viewpoint my perspective i think he's been their third best cornerback i believe a lot of people would agree with me there so it looks like cyrus jones will be the team's nickelback whether it's in the slot or outside matchup base they're

probably they're going to play a lot of man-to-man so it could just be whichever matchup the patriots believe is best suited to Jones and then Butler and Ryan and and whichever safeties basically they throw their throw out there on the field too so they're gonna have their secondaries in good shape their front seven is getting a ton of publicity praise and all that because they're playing so well they're getting after the passer it's easier to notice those guys when you're watching games. But their secondary is in really good shape too, especially from a starting point. And then you filter on down the depth chart. I still believe Justin Coleman is their fourth best cornerback at this point.

Struggled at times in this preseason, no doubt about that. But he's still right there. I don't think he's in any danger of being cut this week. And then there are the three young guys, Craven LeBlanc, Jonathan Jones, and Darrell Roberts, who are there behind Coleman. Coleman's a young guy too. But I think the Patriots are going to have some tough choices to make in time for Saturday's deadline.

LeBlanc, out of those three, you're looking at LeBlanc Jonathan Jones and Darrell Roberts LeBlanc has been the best cornerback out of those three now Jonathan Jones offers more special teams value or the most special teams value out of those three and then Darrell Roberts has played pretty well over the course of the preseason yet again or is having another pretty good summer but who do you like better do you like LeBlanc or do you like Roberts and that's a tough choice for those guys for the coaches the front office to make I'm going to throw some numbers at you as you guys know if you've been following my work I track all of the the targets preseason and regular season games

so if if you're not familiar with my work, every time a cornerback or anybody on defense is targeted, when it's their man, this doesn't have to be man, it could be if he's in their zone, if the player has a reasonable chance to defend the pass, I include that as a target. So we'll start with Justin Coleman. Quarterbacks targeting Coleman through three games are 7 of 12 for 121 yards. Coleman has a pass breakup and two defensive penalties. So it hasn't been great, but he is also playing largely against first team offenses. So make sure you keep that in your consideration there when you're looking at these other guys numbers now we'll get down to dower roberts who has mostly played against backups those quarterbacks are one of 11 for

nine yards roberts has a pass breakup and he's been called for two penalties so far this summer the one of 11 number is outstanding of course it i don't care what level of competition you're playing with or against if guys are one of 11 when throwing at you now he's had some help there have been drops there have been overthrows that's a sign of the competition that he's playing against the it's not to say that he is completely blanketing uh the receivers that he's in charge of covering but one of 11 is oppressive nonetheless cravon leblanc quarterbacks are 9 of 19 for 95 yards leblanc has that outstanding interception in the end zone against the saints game as well

as another pass breakup now he's been targeted more than any player on the team this preseason because he was targeted 13 times by panthers quarterbacks the other night. LeBlanc got in with the Patriots pulled Malcolm Butler and Logan Ryan early in that game against the Panthers and put LeBlanc in right away. I think that was a chance for them to see what he could do with the first team defense. So he was targeted early and had some good success. And then he was targeted late by Derek Anderson and anderson and joe webb and they had mixed amounts of success against him you know those quarterbacks combined to go 6 of 13 for 85 yards with a pass breakup and you know leblanc has played well he's been right there more often than

not he actually should have had an interception in that panthers game that's what that pass breakup was it was you know you get credited for the pass breakup because you got your hands on it and it wasn't a completion, but ultimately he dropped an interception. But the kid's got good ball skills. Bill Belichick noted that earlier this week once again. You just can't teach instincts. You can't teach the fact that this kid is around the ball quite a bit. Jonathan Jones had a tough night in coverage,

should have given up a touchdown on a play that was overturned because the receiver did a sloppy job of getting his feet down in bounds in the end zone there. The Panthers quarterbacks, actually it might have been entirely Joe Webb. I don't have my exact game notes from that game with me. They're at the Herald office at Gillette Stadium, and I'm in the home office right now, but those quarterbacks were 0-3 throwing at Jones, and he had a pass breakup. Over the course of the entire summer, quarterbacks are 5-12 for 50 yards and a touchdown when targeting Jones, who has two pass breakups. Now, a lot of that damage was done, actually all of the damage, was done in the first game against the Saints when he allowed five completions on seven attempts for 40 yards and a touchdown.

The last two games, quarterbacks are combined 0-5 when targeting Jonathan Jones. Now, again, you've got to consider each individual throw. Not all of these incompletions are made equal. Again, you look at a missed opportunity when he should have gotten beaten for a touchdown so you know these stats are are used just to measure how a guy does over the course of an entire summer more appropriately you add them up over the course of the entire season and that usually gives you a good chance or a good really yeah a good chance to see how these guys are doing uh just you know from start to finish it's uh those guys usually come back down to earth if they're having a fantastic start or whatever

you know vice versa if they get off to a slow start but it's a good way to compare how guys are doing and and again you know you look at malcolm butler more often than not he's against the team's number one guy you know he played antonio brown in the regular season opener last year and allowed nine of ten so not a good night by any stretch but you show me a cornerback who has had a good night against antonio brown over the last two or three years and you know i'll call you a fool because nobody has so So you got to take these, you got to put these numbers in an appropriate context. But ultimately what I've seen over the first three preseason games, LeBlanc has been the best cornerback of the three guys who I believe are fighting for just one

roster spot. And then Jones has been a good gunner. But what do you do with Jones if you keep him as a gunner? Because you've got Matthew Slater, who's the best special teamer in the league, and then opposite of him, unless something crazy happens and they release Brandon King. I mean, Brandon King looks like he might be the second best gunner in the league from what we saw last year and then parts of this summer. So how many gunners do the patriots really need how many core special teamers do they really need when they've also got guys like nate ebner and brandon bolden and in a few more you know down the line who are clearly going to materialize

because they they turn out quality special teamers every single year down in new england so do you need to keep john jones when you could go after or you could make sure you don't lose Craven LeBlanc through waivers? Now there could be a bit of a wild card here thrown into the mix because Craven LeBlanc missed Tuesday's practice with a hip injury. I'm under the impression right now that it's not a serious hip injury. I did see him walking around in the locker room before practice. So this was something that he suffered earlier in the week and he was able to walk around again in the locker room. That's not always an indication that, you know, I saw Dion Lewis walking around last week and then, you know, shortly thereafter we find out he needed knee surgery. So that's not the end all be all. You can't just say, oh, the guy was walking around. He's fine. But if this is a situation where, you know, again, I'm just

throwing stuff against the wall with this one, but if the Patriots don't believe the Craven LeBlanc is going to be ready for a few weeks, they could put him on IR. Wouldn't be the first time we've seen that. I mean, Darryl Roberts last year dislocated his wrist in the first preseason game. Definitely could have come back at some point in the season. You know, James Devlin broke his leg in the third preseason game. Probably could have been back by October at some point. They put him on IR. So sometimes they just do that to preserve their roster spot. It could also be a situation, you know, Jeff Demps a handful of years ago. Now granted, Bill Belichick didn't love Jeff Demps and wherever his priorities were, but he had a very minor hamstring injury and they put him on IR. You

know, you could look at LeBlanc and say, all right, or Belichick could say, I've got Daryl Roberts, I've got Jonathan Jones, and I've got Craven on LeBlanc. Whichever one of those guys makes the team as the fifth cornerback, they're the fifth cornerback. What type of playing time are they going to get? And if you put any of those guys on waivers to try to get them onto the practice squad, there's a decent chance that one, if not all of them, depending on how many get cut, wind up on another roster by the end of the weekend. So tough situation. I wonder if they would put LeBlanc on IR just to keep him in the system for another year. But again, I'm just throwing stuff against the wall. That's just one of those things that you have to be on alert for as the Patriots or any team

tries to cut down to 53. And as some of those roster cuts make are some of those decisions are a lot harder to make. You've got to, you've got to make some tough choices. And sometimes it's not all about, you know, looking at a guy and saying, all right, you've got a season ending injury. It's more about, I don't want to lose you. I don't want you playing somewhere else. I just don't know how much you can contribute this year. I'm going to put you on IR. You're going to get paid and you're going to come back next season. We'll see what you can do. So that's what, you know, you've seen it before.

You'll see it again, and you just want to see. Who knows? LeBlanc could be out there Thursday night against the Giants. He could play well, and this could all be completely moot, and I would have just rambled for three minutes about absolutely nothing. But hey, here we are. That's the bet I've made. So you look at the youth that the Patriots have there, there's no reason to bring in a guy like Brandon Browner

because there's already a surplus of young cornerbacks on the roster. And even if you think Browner can still play, which, look, I didn't watch him last year from start to finish or anything like that. I heard good things. I heard bad things. But he just signed a minimum contract with the Seahawks this summer. Pete Carroll loves him, and Pete Carroll just cut him. So that's not a great sign as to where Brandon Browner's skill set is at right now. So I just don't think that he gives you much of an upgrade, especially since, you know,

you don't even have to look at it and say all right well he's better than the fifth cornerback they're going to have if you have brandon browner he's your fifth cornerback and he's on the bench you know you got to wonder about the locker room uh the fallout that that could have in the locker room would you see brandon browner being completely comfortable uh being at the bottom of the depth chart you know that's a another huge consideration you have to have because there's no way he's going to overtake logan ryan and malcolm butler almost certainly not going to overtake cyrus jones so you know at best is he the fourth cornerback so you just don't bring him in that's why i don't think the patriots

are interested and again i go back to last, last offseason or the 2015 offseason, when the Pats could have kept him for $4.8 million, which would have been, again, an affordable price to keep a top two cornerback if you thought that he could still play at that level, and they decided to go their separate ways. So there are my thoughts on the cornerback position. And again, I hope you enjoyed that Brandon Browner browner story came out of nowhere a little bit but i wanted to drop that on you because i thought it was timely since i got so many browner questions on my twitter feed at jeff p how since the seahawks released him a couple days ago so the other thing i got to get to is these roster cuts or the five transactions the patriots made on tuesday they opened the day with 80 players. They had to

get down to 75 by 4 p.m. So they put Deion Lewis on the pup list. They kept him on the pup list. It's a formality, really, for those who are not fully caught up to speed on the intricacies of the rule. You have to start on the pup list at the start of training camp. At that point, you're on the active pup list because you can come off at any point. Once you get moved to the reserve pup list, that's when you are automatically ruled out or officially ruled out for the first six weeks of the regular season. So they basically took Vollmer and Lewis from the active pup list to the reserve pup list, and you won't see those guys until at least week seven. Now, Lewis has a chance to be ready at the early part of that spectrum. And Vollmer, at this point, there's not a whole lot of hope that he is going to be ready to play in 2016

because of that hip injury that required off-season surgery and hasn't gotten a whole lot better. So there was also a report earlier this summer that Vollmer was going to go to IR. I think that was just a mischaracterization of the injury list because, again, when Vollmer was put on the POP list or kept on the POP list on Tuesday, people were saying, oh, well, why wasn't he put on IR? You're on POP. It's no different. You put them on, well, it is different in terms of salary, compensation, all that stuff. The fact that you're still going to count against the 90-man roster, but you're not going to count against the 53-man roster, or in this case, for the next few days, the 75-man roster, none of that changes. But when you're on the pop list,

you can come back. Let's say everything the pup list, you can come back, let's say everything heals miraculously, and he can come back in week seven, great. Otherwise, if you put him on IR, then if things heal miraculously, then you use the one IR return spot that you have. So there's no point in wasting that. There's no point in just shutting him down for the season,

putting him on IR, and telling him to go away when you have a much greater window and you don't burn that designation to return label that you could potentially use on somebody else because obviously at some point somebody's going to go down and the patriots are going to wish they had that back so that's why he's on pop and and not IR. The other three moves, the Patriots released Kevon Milton, who was the last offensive tackle on the depth chart. That was not a surprise. They released tight end Stephen Choi. He was the last tight end on the depth chart.

That was not a surprise. And the last move was Ramon Humber, the linebacker they brought in, who was actually the first guy that they signed in free agency this offseason, was cut. Just too much young competition. You know, Humber wasn't bad, but he didn't really stick out. He was basically vying to be the fourth linebacker at best on that roster. Right now they've got Hightower and Collins, of course, up top.

And then Jonathan Freeney just got a two-year deal, so he's number three. And then you're looking at Alandon Roberts and Kamu Grugier-Hill. course up top and then Jonathan Freeney just got a two-year deal so he's number three and then you're looking at a Landon Roberts and Kamu Grugier-Hill those two guys I don't know if they're both safe they've both had really good summers but Kamu Grugier-Hill and a Landon Roberts are four and five I'm not sure in what order they only keep one of those guys you know they're going to definitely hope to get the other one on the practice squad but that could be one of the tougher decisions the Patriots make in the coming days too. And then Brandon King, I guess you could technically call a linebacker,

and he's a guy that I'd be stunned if they released because he's just so good on special teams. So came down to three releases and two guys who you expected to go on to the reserve pup list on Tuesday. Nothing all that spectacular uh clearly not as as noisy as the previous handful of days had been when the patriots traded and then ultimately released brian stork uh released donald brown released terrence knighton they got some of the big moves out of the way early it could still be some bigger ones later in the week we've got a few more or we've got two more shows thursday and friday and depending on how saturday plays out we might have to throw an

extra one at you this weekend but we've got at least two more shows this week there's a lot of time to discuss the rest of the bubble spots we're going to do a lot of that in thursday's podcast just because you're going into that fourth preseason game i want to make sure that you guys are are well equipped with who you should be watching, which jobs are at stake. But right now, this is a cornerback-heavy show. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you liked the story that I led off with.

We'll see you guys on Thursday. What you doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting some stuff. By singing dog. By goal. Bye, goal. Bye, wedding ceremony. Stop. At MetroPCS, you get two free phones with twice as much memory. Really?

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