Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots August 2, 2018 - Timeline Takes: Patriots Edition, Patriots' Over/Under and the 2018 Patriots Draft Revisited

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

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Good morning, welcome on into Lockdown Patriots for Thursday, August 2nd, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair coming to you live from Ocean City, Maryland, down at the beach for a couple of days, but still rolling live. Happy to be here in the big chair, your host of your favorite Daily Patriots podcast. Reminded to follow me on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. You can check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the lead writers.

Pro Football Weekly, where I'm one of the contributors over there. Big Blue View, the Giants site as part of the SB Nation Network. The score debut piece is coming out shortly over there. Matt Waldman and the Mattwaldmanrsp.com. Going to piece up on Teddy Bridgewater and feel. That's gone up just in the past couple of days.

Big loaded show for you today. We're going to do some Patriots over-under talk. We're finishing up that series, looking at all 32 teams and their over-unders headed into the season. We've made it to the Pats over-under. In addition, we're going to finish another series today, looking at the 2018 Patriots draft. Again, can't really make any conclusions yet, although we can say this, Isaiah Wynn can catch a punt. We learned that at the Patriots season ticket holders practice

a couple of nights ago. But first, we're going to kick things off a little timeline take style, Patriots-centric timeline take style. We're going to start with... I read a piece recently at weei.com from Alex Reamer. You probably best know him as the WEI host who had some words to say about one of Tom Brady's children. Putting that aside for a second, Alex has a piece up recently. It is titled, In Terms of Belichick Blunders, Chandler Jones Trade Ranks Close to Jimmy G. Let me say at the outset that I think with so many of these Belichick blunder type trades, what it

really boils down to both with the Jimmy G trade and the Chandler Jones trade is this. The people are upset that the Patriots didn't get enough in return. Because if the Patriots had gotten a first round draft pick for Jimmy G, I think people might have been okay with it as it stood they got nearly a first round pick a very early second which might have been better had the 49ers not won 5 straight under Jimmy G down the stretch and with respect to the Chandler Jones trade

you know the Patriots sent Jones to the Cardinals in exchange for guard Jonathan Cooper and two draft picks a third and a fourth rounder. Had they gotten more? Had they gotten, you know, a second and a third? Or a first and a second in addition to Cooper? It's a different calculus. But I feel like people often,

when they look at these Belichick-type moves, they get upset that the Patriots didn't get a ton of return. And part of that, I think, is, let's be honest, we're looking at this through rose-colored glasses. There seems to be a sense that we should get more for our guys. But at the same time, when you're talking about established players, let's not forget the economics of it,

which we're going to get into even further in a second. You're looking at draft picks that you can get under rookie deals in contrast with guys like Garoppolo or Chandler Jones who are looking to get paid. So if you're the team acquiring that player, you know that you're going to have to pay this guy so it doesn't make sense to take on a guy that you're going to have to pay

and give up more in terms of draft capital. You see what I'm saying? Because you want to have those type of, you want to have that flexibility to, okay, if you're going to give up a first and a second round pick, that's a lot to begin with. And so as the team, say, for example, the Arizona Cardinals, you're not going to give up a first round pick and trade for a guy like Chandler Jones. You know, you're going to have to pay more than a first-round pick.

That doesn't make sense to them. Why would they do that? And, you know, I can hear people rumble, oh, Belichick's supposed to be this mastermind. He could only do so much given the structure and the economics of today's National Football League. You know, think about it this way. You know, if you look at roster construction

or roster construction standpoint, those rookie deals are important. We talked about Todd Gurley. We've talked a lot on this show over the past couple of months about how teams can make a run with a quarterback on a rookie deal. The economics matter.

In addition, Alex points out a couple of other things interesting with the Chandler Jones trade. He was due to be a free agent the following year and Belichick seemingly didn't want to pay him big money. The Cardinals inked Jones to a five-year $82 million contract in 2017, proving Belichick's apparent projection to be right. That should be the end of the analysis. But there's more. Jones was hospitalized six days before the Patriots' division-around playoff game against the Chiefs in 2016 due to a bad reaction to synthetic marijuana.

The pass rusher reportedly showed up to the Foxborough police station shirtless and got on his knees with his hands behind his head. That's another reason why you might want to move on from a guy, especially when you're facing perhaps paying him big time. And not paying guys and getting what you can from them is the ultimate Belichick MO. And whenever economics come into it, I turned to my friend Miguel Benzon at Patscap on Twitter, and he tweeted out a response to this, quote, in terms of ignoring the salary cap in order to fit a narrative, this piece ranks near the top. Mic drop? But he goes on, let's not forget that the Pats won a Super Bowl and went to another one after trading Chandler Jones. Are the Pats perfect? No. But

to call the Chandler Jones trade a blunder is a stretch. And I would agree with that. And part of me wonders if Alex Riemert didn't write this piece just in response to a tweet that he saw put out by the Arizona Cardinals where he, Chandler Jones, destroys a tackle and sled. I mean, okay. So he broke a tackle and sled. The Patriots do this. Remember, and Reamer pointed out,

the Patriots shipped Richard Seymour out of town receiving a first round pick in the 2011 NFL draft, again, before the new economics. And they drafted Nate Solder, a slightly better Holland, Cooper, and the two picks that they made with those third and fourth-round picks, Malcolm Mitchell and Joe Tooney, both of whom played big roles in Super Bowl 51. And, you know, you could say that, oh, you know, well, look, they got a first for Seymour. Again, that's before the new CBA,

before the rookie contract structure and things like that. So I don't think that this is a blunder by any stretch of the imagination. It's just part of the new economics of the NFL. Draft picks are valuable because of the economics of it. It's going to be hard-pressed for a team to really give up big-time draft picks, to get a big draft pick haul in return on a trade like this, because if you're an NFL front office, you want to hold on to those draft picks as best as you can because it's cheaper.

It's cheaper for you. You can address five different positions if you hold on to those draft picks and you hit on a couple of them. So to call it a blunder, I think that's a stretch. Other quick stuff to get to. I want to give a shout out to my boy, Taylor Kiles. Writer over at Pat's Pulpit. He will be on the show next week to help us preview preseason game one. He has a great piece out over at patspulpit.com right now. How fullback James Devlin

gives the Patriots a winning edge. It's a fantastic look at how Josh McDaniels uses James Devlin in a number of ways in their offense. And what's fascinating about reading this Devlin piece, I'm coming off doing a piece for the score, which is going to be up soon, about Kyle Shanahan's offense and how effective they are throwing with two back, two running back formations. And using Kyle Jusiewicz, I know I butchered that name, doing this on the fly here. We're doing it live. But using their fullback as a weapon in the pass game.

And we all probably remember, or some of you probably remember, the little back and forth between the 49ers fans and Jalen Ramsey this offseason when Ramsey this offseason when Ramsey came out and said, look, let's tap the brakes on Garoppolo. Look, he's good. But when he sort of carved us up, us being the Jacksonville Jaguars, they were thrown to the tight ends of the fullback a lot. They were doing it scheme stuff.

It wasn't like he was pushing the ball downfield against that secondary. And that was part of the inspiration for my piece because Shanahan does a great job getting the fullback involved. And Taylor in his piece highlights that as well. You know, not only is Devlin a fantastic lead blocker, but you can spread him out. You know, you can line him up all over the field as well, and you can do some different things with him.

They can flex him out wide. And you can throw the ball to him on quick hitch routes. He's obviously great both in pass pro and as a run blocker. So it's a fantastic piece from Taylor. You should definitely check it out over at patspulpit.com. James Devlin is one of the unsung heroes for this New England Patriots offense. Finally, last thing to talk about, Eric Decker.

There's some talk that the Patriots might want to bring in Eric Decker, given the fact that Julian Edelman obviously facing suspension. Cody Rivera, another piece over at Pats Pulpit, making the case that signing Eric Decker would be very Patriot-like. I agree with thepit, making the case that signing Eric Decker would be very Patriot-like. I agree with the premise that making a move to sign Eric Decker,

who the Patriots recently worked out, would be very Patriot-like. My question would be is sort of how Eric Decker fits into the Patriots' offense schematically. You know, when you look at, look, he's 6'3", he's more of a bigger body type receiver. I think the plan would possibly be, if you're looking at the New England Patriots right now,

we're hearing how they're using Philip Dorsett more as a slot type guy, which makes sense with Edelman perhaps being on the show for those first four games. You need to replace that. Then on the outside, you expected Chris Hogan and perhaps Jordan Matthews. Matthews being sort of banged up, hasn't really shown so far in camp. Doug Kayette, as we talked about yesterday, thinks he might be a cut.

Malcolm Mitchell also sort of on the bubble. Cordell Patterson's more going to be used as a special teams guy than you're looking at Kenny Britt. So there's some question marks on the boundary. So I think the idea of Sina Decker makes some sense, and I think it would be a Patriot-like decision. I just don't think it's more to replace Edelman. I think it's to look at what hasn't materialized on the outside,

on the boundary with guys like Matthews and Mitchell and try to get somebody to help in that capacity. Because then when Edelman comes back, perhaps you move Dorsett back outside to more of a Z flanker type guy, move some pieces around that way. So that's kind of how I look at it. I think it would be a Patriot-like move. I just, I don't think it's kind of a one for one replacement for Julian Edelman. Up next, we're going to talk Patriots over under. We

finally made it to the end of the over under series. And then a little bit later in the show, talk 2018 draft. Revisit that quickly. Also, a reminder to get your questions in for Friday's listener mailbag show. Hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can email me mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com. But first, friends, this is the Thursday show. And you could probably tell it's not just the fact that I'm at the beach that has me geeked today, okay? And I am geeked. You can hear it in my voice. I'm very excited. It's not just the fact that I'm at the beach that has me geeked today, okay? And I am geeked. You can hear it in my voice. I'm very excited. It's not just the fact that I got a chance to, you know, throw the weight around a little bit, you know, talking about this Chandler Jones thing. And anytime I get to refer to work or information from my friend Miguel Benzon at

Pat's Cap, it's a good day. I love my boy Miguel. He's been out at Patriots practices. Find him if you can. Give him a shout out. Thank Miguel for all the work he does. Just a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous, tremendous resource for Patriots fans. It's not just all of these reasons why I'm excited. It's the fact that tonight we get actual, actual, actual, actual, actual. Okay, well, not really actual football,

but it's football and they're going to keep score. It's not just training camp videos or footwork videos or, ooh, wow, that's seven on seven. That's fantastic. No, it's real-ish football. We get Bears. We get Ravens. We get the Hall of Fame game tonight.

And that means the NFL season is right around the corner. But here's the thing. You don't want to be stuck watching the game on TV, you know, sitting on the couch, scrolling through the Twitter timeline, waiting for, you know, silly little tweets from me. You want to be at your let. You want to be watching the

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to the game. Up next, Patriots over under. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you on this Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. And it's time, friends. We've made it.

Little drum roll, please. We have made it to the end of our over-under series. And you're New England Patriots. And let's dispel with the niceties here, okay, friends? This is locked on Patriots. The over-under for the New England Patriots, it's 11. We're hitting that over because that's what we do here.

We believe in our team. I'm not usually the homer type. I usually call the balls and strikes how I see them, friends. We're going to go a little homer action here just because it feels good here. It feels good. Let's get into it though. Patriots schedule. And surprisingly, again, with the usual caveat, strict of schedule isn't the end all and be all of how this breaks down. For a first place team, not the toughest schedule. Part of that is, look, you're in the AFC East. Part of that is, you look at the schedule of some of the teams that they play outside of the division the Colts they struggled last year

the Texans they struggled a little bit last year after Deshaun Watson Deshaun Watson went down the you know they get the NFC North which has teams that also struggled last year like the Chicago Bears and of course the Green Bay Packers who lost Aaron Rodgers and so they get a little bit of help now that doesn't mean that the schedule is going to end up being that easy but sitting here today it's not the toughest schedule ever but who cares we're batting the over because that's what we do here. Let's go through the schedule, though. Tough, tough, tough stretch, I'd say, to open up the season. You get that Houston game.

Deshaun Watson will be back. J.J. Watt will be back. That should be tough. Week two, you go down to Jacksonville. That's going to be an AFC Championship game rematch. That's going to be a tough game. You know what that environment is going to be like. Duvall is going to Jacksonville. That's going to be an AFC Championship game rematch. That's going to be a tough game. You know what that environment is going to be like. Duvall is going to be hype.

Our boys Chris and Zach over at Locked on Jaguars will probably be there. Maybe Zach will be doing the one chip challenge again, which was hilarious. A little tangent there. But you know that that place is going to be going crazy. And then they get a Sunday night game at Detroit. A tough little stretch to open the season. Then you get three straight home games. You get Miami at home. You get a Thursday night against Indianapolis.

Look at that roster. Come on. You get a game against Kansas City at home. Again, another Sunday night game, but Pat Mahomes. That's a little bit tough. And you get a kind of mini-bye for that one, too, because you get the Thursday night or against the Colts you get you know 10 days until you play again which is nice then you get two straight road games at Chicago at Buffalo games which don't look tough on paper at least sitting here right now home against the Packers

which is nice too another Sunday night game those are three nice Sunday night games for the Patriots right there gotta mean some late nights for your boy, but that's how we roll. Then you go to Tennessee. A little bit of a tough game there. And then a bye week. Coming out of the bye, at the Jets, home against the Vikings, at Miami, at Pittsburgh. And then home games against Buffalo and the Jets to close it out.

So, you know, there are some tough stretches. Like you see that first, you know, three game stretch and then coming out of the bye, you get three out of the four games on the road, including two divisional games, as well as a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. But I don't care. We're throwing all this stuff out the window. It doesn't matter. We're rolling with our boys right until we die. We're going to hit the morning, not the morning. We're going to hit the over on that one. Because let's face it,

all of this stuff, looking at schedules, looking at games, looking at all that, as long as you get TB12, as long as you get Bill Belichick, as long as you get Rob Gronkowski, this team should be okay. It helps to have the games you have in the division. It certainly helps to have a Hall of Fame quarterback

and a Hall of Fame coach and a Hall of Fame tight end. They've made some pieces. They've brought in some pieces. That defense should be improved. And so we're going to ban the over. We're going to say, look, Patriots, 11, you know, an 11 over under 11. We're going to say, look, Patriots 11, you know, an 11 over under 11. We're going to take the over.

That's how we're going to roll. Up next, the 2017, no, excuse me, the 2018 Patriots draft. We're going to look at that class very briefly because, look, these guys were just drafted. We know Isaiah Wynn can catch a punt on his second try. We know that Sonny Michel has, you know, some fumbling problems at times, but something that he's going to be working on, even though he, for example,

seems to be getting better and better at it. We'll see. All that's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield's back with you now to close out this Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. And we're going to look ever so briefly

at the Patriots 2018 draft class. The guys that we literally just got done talking about, it seems like. Let's roll through it here. Obviously, their first pick, pick 23 overall, that pick in the first round, Isaiah Wynn, offensive lineman from Georgia. A guy that if you listen to this show, you know I was high on going into and coming out of Senior Bowl week. I thought he would make a perfect fit for the New England Patriots. Apparently, Dante Skarnecchia, Bill Belichick and company,

they're also loyal listeners of the Locked On Patriots podcast because that's where they went with their first pick in the 2018 NFL draft. There were concerns, obviously, about his size. People projected him as a guard, a guy that could kick inside. But remember, I played for you during rookie minicamp. Remarks from Dante Skarniecki or himself talking about Matt Light. And he had small arms,

but he was nothing but a pro-bowl, all-pro type of offensive tackle. And look, if he can do it with small arms, so can Isaiah Wynn, a guy that played left tackle in the SEC. Pick 31 overall.

Sonny Michel, running back from Georgia. and i'm going to be talking about this a little bit more tomorrow you know in our listener feel bag episode for friday you know shout out to my boy jack duffin at jack duffin on twitter d-u-f-f-i-n putting in a question about you know how the patriots might be maybe sort of new vanguards at looking at the running back position. But Patriots going out and getting a first-round running back. And Sonny Michel is a three-down threat. He's a home-run threat. I think there's a potential for this to be a home-run pick

for the New England Patriots. He can do stuff for you in the run game. He can do stuff for you in the pass game. He's a good receiver out of the backfield. Does a great job sinking his hips, cutting on routes. Very effective in blitz pickup as well. And protecting Tom Brady,

protecting TB12, his job one. Because as I was saying at the end of the last segment, as long as you have TB12, you get a shot. But you need him. So you got to protect him. Second round pick, pick 24 overall. Duke Dawson, cornerback out of florida the hope here is that he sort of comes in and stabilizes perhaps

you know the secondary perhaps you know in the slot you know when you look at this secondary right now obviously cb1 stefan gilmore you know jason m McCourty and some other guys, Eric Rowe perhaps battling for that CB2 spot, Jonathan Jones. You want to hopefully get Duke Dawson to come in and lock down that corner slot. So that's sort of the expectation there. Rolling through

the rest of the draft, Juwan Bentley didn't pick again until the fifth round, leaving many draft watchers, particularly myself, who was waiting to write up a pick. Pulling our hair out, wondering what in the world the Patriots were going to do next. Pick in the fifth round, pick 143 overall, the sixth pick in the fifth round, Juwan Bentley, linebacker from Purdue,

who I saw at the Senior Bowl, more of a downhill thumper type. Had a lot of people scratching their head when you think they got to get athletic at the second level you saw this team get ripped apart on rpo and misdirection type plays in the super bowl at varying times throughout the playoffs even jacksonville did some stuff against the patriots on those designs so you think they got to get athletic this might not be the guy but maybe they got the athletic guy in the sixth round. Christian Sam, linebacker from Arizona State, more of an athletic type linebacker.

So maybe they did it overall. The other sixth round pick, pick 210 overall, Braxton Berrios. I need some theme music or something for whenever we do a Braxton Berrios. We need like a little sound drop or something. Again, similar to when a player I was touting heavily coming out of Senior Bowl week. Thought he made a ton of sense with the New England Patriots. And again,

Belichick and company must listen to the show. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Really appreciate it. Great to hear you guys got this pumping in the weight room at Gillette. It's just fantastic. Happy to come up anytime and, you know, say hello. Three seventh-round picks.

Danny Etlin, quarterback, LSU. Keon Crossan, defensive back from Western Carolina. And Ryan Izzo, tight end from Florida State. Obviously, with Etlin, Patriots were rumored to be in the mix for a quarterback. Yeah, and it's probably not the guy that people may have hoped for, but who knows? So we'll see what the Patriots get from Danny Etlin, who still has yet to be given a number.

Same with Sonny Michel, for example. The other seven-round picks, Ryan Izzo might be part of a crowded group at tight end. Belichick seems to be very high on Jacob Hollister. He's been talking about him a lot recently. So if this team keeps three tight ends, you probably expect it to be Gronkowski, Dwayne Allen, Jacob Hollister.

Maybe they stash Israel in the practice squad somehow. They might only keep two. And if they only keep two, look for Dwayne Allen to perhaps be a roster cut, cap casualty type move. Doug Kaye had said that in his Nessun piece yesterday, which I didn't dive into that much. And then Keon Crossan, defensive back from Western Carolina,

who, again, part of another crowded position group at that cornerback spot, but you can never have enough corners. You can never have enough players, but corner is another position where you need as many bodies as you can get. But we'll wait to see, obviously, how this all pans out. The 2018 draft class.

For now, though, they're all stars in my book. This has been a very optimistic episode of Locked On Patriots. Partly because I'm taking in that vitamin D out here at the beach and it's making me happy. That will do it for the Thursday show. I will be back tomorrow. Need your questions though. Need your help. Get them in at Mark Schofield

on Twitter. Mark.Schofield at InsideThePylon.com. I already got some questions. I alluded to one from Jack Duffin on Twitter about the running back position. Got another one, which I'm always happy to address. I mean, anytime I get asked a quarterback question, very excited to do that. And so there's a quarterback question that I'm going to get into as well. Get some questions in, though.

Help me help you. Help me, though. Help me help you. Help me help you. Help me help you. Until next time. Oh, wait. Before I go, check out our friends, VividSeats.com. Get yourself some memories that will last a lifetime. Use VividSeats.com, that promo code LOCKEDON when you do.

Now, the words to end the show. Until next time, everybody, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.