Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots August 20, 2018 - Injuries, Listener Queries and Belichick

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

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Hello and welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Monday, August 20th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair after a fantastic weekend. I hope you all had a fantastic weekend out there. Happy to be back in the big chair hosting your favorite daily Patriots podcast. Reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the head writers. Got my new game script part three piece up. Some more pieces that I'd like to see inserted on third and long situations, some screen game stuff, as well as my gotta have it play. The one play that I'm going to go to if I need a big play,

whether it's third and four in the first quarter or fourth and three in the fourth quarter. Also, check out the work over at places like profootballweekly.com where I'm one of the features writers, the score where I'm a features writer, Big Blue View where I'm a contributor. As I've told you, friends, if they're writing about football, chances are I'm there writing about it for them. Loaded show for you today. We're going to take the first of what I hope will be many texts from a listener to the Locked On Patriots podcast

talking about my approach to watching some of these games as well as some roster projection stuff. Also, we're going to get into Bill Belichick, some comments that he made recently on a conference call with media members over the weekend that you may have missed, some stuff on Juwan Bentley, some stuff on Keonta Davis, and some stuff on the pass rush. But first, I'm going to turn to one of my boys. I'm going to turn to one of my close pals here in not just the Twitter world, but he's a fellow resident of Monkey County, and I know he's never heard that phrase, Monkey County. Maybe it's the fact that when I was practicing as a lawyer,

lawyers always referred to Montgomery County, Maryland as Monkey County. I don't know why. They just did. At Captain Huggyface, at C-A-P-N-H-U-G-G-Y-F-A-C-E on Twitter, loaded us into our first segment here of the show to talk about injuries.

And his question was do you think the pats will add a running back off the street giving the injuries to rex and sony michelle sounds like a 70s folk duo rex and sony kind of like it like sunny and chair what are you hearing will they wait till after roster cutdowns inquiring minds want to know and i'm going to get to that question in a second because i think the bigger injury to talk about in this quick little segment on injuries is Isaiah Wynn. Patriots losing, as suspected, Isaiah Wynn to an Achilles, a torn Achilles, as diagnosed by Dr. David Chow on Twitter shortly after Thursday night's game. Losing him for the season to that Achilles injury. And this, I made this point on radio Saturday afternoon.

I was on WGR up in Buffalo Saturday afternoon with my buddy Nate Gary. He and I used to do the Intentional Scouting podcast. I made the point that this injury is going to have a trickle-down effect of sorts on the rest of the Patriots roster because when you were looking at the offensive line group, you might have thought that they could perhaps really go thin and keep Wynn perhaps and maybe just one other tackle or one other offensive lineman, Ted Karras perhaps, and really gone thin with seven.

Now you might see them perhaps go with eight. They might decide, look, you know, with Wynn you've got a guy that they were looking to use as perhaps their swing tackle, but also with the versatility to kick inside. Now you're going to need to have both Adrian Waddell as your swing tackle, probably Ted Karras, somebody that can

also snap as well, and then you might have to go with another guard type inside. So because of this injury, which is bad on its face because you're losing your first round draft pick, your first selection in the draft, a guy that was looking to perhaps slide into the starting lineup at some point in the season, a guy that was a left tackle in the SEC, but has the versatility and ability to kick down inside. Losing him is bad enough, but it's going to have a trickle-down effect because if you have to now keep an extra offensive lineman, that impacts positions like cornerback,

it impacts positions like wide receiver, it impacts positions like running back, which we're about to get to. And so you might see this sort of trickle-down effect where because they have perhaps, perhaps have to use an extra roster spot on the offensive line group, a bubble guy at a different position might be on the outside looking in because of the numbers. And so this has a trickle-down impact on the entire Patriots roster so that's the first injury issue to get to now let's get to my boys question about the running back group with with Rex and Sony now Sony we're hearing maybe back for the regular season with Rex Burkhead we're here and we're reading that it's a tear but it's not one that needs surgery so they can rehab it

and get him back in that That sounds all well and good. But from people that I've talked to, not to vulgarity sources here, but it sounds like that might be a terror type issue, an MCL type terror type thing. I'm hearing that, again, external, not internal within the organization. And so you do wonder,

okay, now you've got Burkhead and Michelle both manned up do they look to bring somebody in my gut reaction to that is probably not I think that you know worst case scenario both these guys start you know on pump I think that's worst case scenario. But then, remember, this is a deep running back room to begin with. If those two guys are out, you've still got Jeremy Hill, James White, Mike Gillis, and then perhaps a Ralph Webb sneaks his way onto this roster as well as Brandon Bolden. Put it aside, James Devlin is more of the fullback type. So that almost might be a blessing in disguise if you're somebody worried about guys at the back end of this running back room getting on to the roster, like say a Ralph Webb.

So because the Patriots have such depth at this position, I would be really surprised if they decided to go ahead and make an addition. Now that being said, there are there are always always always some surprise cuts you know if you look around the landscape of the National Football League right now there are some interesting perhaps cuts out there that

could be made you know right now we're looking at perhaps Mike Gilleslie being that guy. If you read early pieces from early back in June, there was obviously speculation that a guy like Gibbs might

be cut. I mean, excuse me, not Gibbs, Mike Gilleslie. But there are others out there around the league. Greg Allman looked at Charles Sims for Tampa Bay. He's more of a third-down back type, but Tampa Bay brought in Ronald Jones. They've got Peyton Barber,

Jaquiz Rogers, Sean Wilson, Jaquiz Rogers, excuse me, Sean Wilson, and Charles Sims are basically your third down running back types. If Sims is a surprise cut, you know, maybe the Patriots kick the tires on it. So, I mean, that would be one possibility. You know, another team to watch would be Philly. Philly's got a deep running back core as well. You look at that running back room,

and there are some potential guys that might be on the outside looking in when it comes down to cut day. Obviously, you've got JGI. Nobody's expecting him to go anywhere. Donnell Prumphrey, Corey Clement, those guys are probably solid. Then you get Wendell Small with Darren Sproles. and him to go anywhere. Donnell Prumphrey, Corey Clement, those guys are probably solid. Then you get Wendell Small with Darren Sproles. And you kind of look at what they do,

especially with Sproles dealing with injury. There's some redundancy there as well. So one of those guys might be on the outside looking in. So there's a potential that there's some intriguing veteran running backs out there. But I still think that given how the Patriots have depth at this position, it would really sort of surprise me if they go ahead and bring somebody in. But never say never, especially with Bill Belichick. So that's sort of my long-winded answer to my boy Captain Huggyface. Give him a follow on Twitter at C-A-P-N-H-U-G-G-Y-F-A-C-E. Up next, listener text that I'm going to get to.

My two surprise cuts for New England. One offense, one defense, as well as how I approach the season. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you here in this Monday installment of Locked On Patriots. And feels good to get back in the studio. Spent the weekend at Hershey Park up in Pennsylvania with the family. You know, trips like that, even if it's just for one night, go up Saturday, stay the night, go to the park Sunday, come back late Sunday night type of

situation, man, they drain the life out of you, especially chasing two kids all over Chocolate World, two kids all over Hershey Park. And what's interesting is our son Owen is starting to get to that age where, look, the kiddie rides, you know, they're okay. He'll go on with his sister, but he keeps looking over at the big coasters. And so as somebody that is terrified of heights, but yet surprisingly kind of enjoys roller coasters, I know I'm like just a year or two away from going on those things again. You know, because when you've got kids,

you're not going to walk away from my wife and be like, hey, watch the kids for a couple of minutes. I'm going to wait in line for 45 minutes or so to ride this roller coaster. They've got one, Fahrenheit at Hershey Park, which is one of those you go straight up and then it's 97 degrees. You don't go straight down. You almost come inward as you go down. Really wanted to get on that bad boy.

But back at it here on this Monday. And first listener text of the 2018 season came in. Remember, we've got the Locked on Patriots hotline set up. 240-670-6016. Again, 240-670-6016. Always love hearing from you guys. As I tell you, this is your show. I'm just the caretaker of it.

I'm just presently keeping the hot seat, the big chair warm. But it is your show. I want to hear from you guys as much as possible. And we got a repeat customer. This is somebody that reached out during the Super Bowl. Fantastic to hear from him again. The text is, hello Mark. This is Ricky from Staten Island at R-I-C-K-I-N-A

T-O-R 55. That's at Rickinator55 on Twitter. Two-part question for you. I know you have only done the one roster projection. Spoiler alert, roster projection 2.0 is Tuesday's show, FYI. But right now, which player in offense or defense could be a surprise cut? Second question is about preseason. As someone who does scouting, what is the one thing you look for most in these games?

Thanks again, and always enjoy the show. Thank you, Rick, for reaching out. Again, follow Rick on Twitter, at Rickinator55. Please give him a follow. And as he said, thanks so much for listening. He enjoys the show. If you enjoy the show, it'd be fantastic

if you could go leave some reviews over on iTunes. Five-star reviews only. I'm kidding. Kind of. But let's get to his question here. Two-part question. We're going to deal with surprise cuts first. And I'm going to give you one on each side of the football.

Started on offense. And I look at Dwayne Allen. I look at the emergence of Jacob Hollister. I look at the fact that the Patriots seem to use him in that move tight end role, similar to Gronkowski, but they still put him in line at times. So they do trust his block well enough, even though he's not your prototypical 6'7", 255 type tight end like a Robert Gronkowski, who's another worldly type player. So I look at Dwayne Allen as somebody that if you really want to keep a third tight end, I mean, that's fine.

You can do that. But the issue sort of becomes, what is that third tight end going to bring you? You know, what is that third tight end going to do? Is he going to be somebody that is going to help you in the passing game, which the Patriots do a ton? You know, maybe you find a way to get a contributor in the past game on the roster. But, you know, let's look at Allen.

You know, obviously didn't do a ton for this team in terms of the past game last year. He's an excellent run block and tight end. But when you look at him from a cap savings perspective, no dead money if you cut him. You save about $5 million towards the cap on a team which is somewhat stretched right now anyway. You look at the Patriots' current cap position right now. They've got, according to the latest update over at our friend Miguel Benzon at PatsCap on Twitter, his Twitter handle now reads cap space equals $7.631 million.

Almost $7.632 million. Almost $7.632 million. That's their cap space right now. So the Patriots need to free up some cap space somehow. And Allen would be a logical place to start. Especially if you remember, and I mentioned this before, you look at the Patriots and how they structure things. One of the things that's interesting about understanding where a football team is right

now and where they're going is watch how they practice. James Devlin works with the tight ends. And I've mentioned this before. They could take the approach where if they want to go heavy, if they want to go jumbo, you put James Devlin in as a blocking tight end.

You know, and so for a team, for an organization that stresses versatility, you know, that might be a way to do it. And you would save, you know, five million against the cap or so. So Dwayne Allen, I think, maybe he's not even a surprise at this point, given some of the economics at work.

And he's also due, I think it's north of seven million next year and so Allen's days no matter what I think Allen's days in New England are numbered on the defensive side of the ball I think because of the emergence of Juwan Bentley I gotta watch as a Landon Roberts you know and Roberts has kind of worked into a you know started role over the past season or so. But because of the emergence of Juwan Bentley and because of some of the other linebackers in this group that you might want to keep, maybe a Christian Sam, maybe a Marquise Flowers.

Obviously, guys like Van Noy and Dante Hightower are on the roster. Maybe you want to keep another special teams guy like a Grigsby or a King. You wonder if a Landon Roberts, there's overlap there with him and Juwan Bentley. The Patriots, as we're going to get to in the third segment, the Patriots are very high on Bentley. Belichick, very high on Bentley. Everybody watching the Patriots right now.

Evan Lazar, for example, over at CLNS. I hope I got that right. At E-Z-L-A- EZLAZAR on Twitter follow Evan of course you know everybody's really high on this kid right now and he seems like he's up to the task of playing linebacker and every down linebacker in the National Football League

and so because of that I look at Alandon Roberts and he might be a guy that could be on the outside looking in what does that sort of do for you in terms of a cap number? Well, you know, looking at it right now, you know, Landon Roberts isn't really sort of

a guy that's going to free up a ton of money for you if you're looking to move on from him. So that's probably not the biggest of considerations there. But you look at sort of a Landon Roberts and his cap number. If the Patriots do decide to cut him, you know, you're looking at about, let's see, I just

had it here, a dead cap of about $25,000 of dead money. Cap savings about $630,000. That's if he's cut in that post-June 11th time, which we're in right now. In sort of a trade situation, again, this is from overthecap.com that I'm getting this from, you'd have dead money of about $145,000, but a cap savings of over $55,000. So it's not big money, but given the Patriots where they are sort of cap-wise, it might make some sense as well. So those are some surprise guys that, maybe they're not surprises, particularly Allen,

but these are guys that might be on the outside looking in. I still think Roberts probably makes the roster, but it's closer than I thought it was going to be a couple of weeks ago, given the emergence of Bentley. But anyway, that's the first part of this question. Second part is, how I approach watching preseason games, you know, given the fact that

I do a lot of scouting work. And Rickinator at Rickinator55, please again, give him a follow. He's right. I do a ton of scouting work. I spend as much, if not more time, actually, a lot more ton of scouting work. I spend as much if not more time actually a lot more time doing scouting work than I am watching the Patriots. And I still watch

the Patriots a ton so that probably tells you how much I do scouting work. I sort of approach it in a two-fold sense. I want to see execution and not perfect execution. I want to see guys executing their assignments.

I don't want to see route miscommunications. I don't want to see blown coverages. I don't care if a guy gets beat per se, but I want to see the mental side there. It flashes back to my time as a weak, hidden shortstop. I mean, you want to talk weak, hidden shortstop. When I was in high school, before I just gave up

the ghost of playing baseball, the days that I would play, they'd use the DH for me, not the pitcher. That's how I couldn't hit. Now, what was frustrating was, at the same time, I was in travel leagues and stuff like that,

not for the high school team, but in travel leagues and stuff, I could hit the ball fine, but couldn't do it in high school. Anyway, regardless, one of my coaches growing up taught me that he instilled this in me. He was like,

I will never get on you for a physical mistake. Like a physical mistake such as an error or an overthrow or something like that, not going to get on you. And that's kind of the approach that I take, at least with respect to preseason games. I don't care about physical mistakes. You know, guys that get beat,

like obviously you want to see improvement in that area, but I'm not going to get so much upset about physical mistakes. I don't want to see the mental mistakes. And that's what my coach said. He said, I will be all over you for mental mistakes, throwing to the wrong base, you base, missing the cutoff man because you don't want to throw it there. Overthrow is fine, but if you deliberately don't hit the cutoff man,

I'm going to be angry. Not knowing the right rotation on bunt plays, things like that. Same thing with the approach of the preseason when it comes to football. I don't want to see mistakes on coverage reads. I don't want to see mistakes on coverages in the secondary, blocking assignments up front. If you're a running back tasked with pass protection, I don't want to see you whiff it on a blitz.

That's the stuff I want to see from an execution standpoint. I want to see the mental part is there. Because as you get through practices and the rest of the preseason games and back into games, if you're doing the mental stuff right, more often than not, the physical stuff will fall. So that's sort of approach number one. Approach number two is that I want to see development. I want to see that upward trend of development. For example, you take a player, and I'm going outside the Patriots right now, but a player that a lot of people are talking about, perhaps being a week one starter, Josh Allen.

Okay. And if you follow my work, listen to this show, welcome new listeners. Thanks to having you all aboard. You know that one of the areas of weakness I identified with Josh Allen, you know, pre-draft was his reliance on the fastball. Compton, Danuk, Lelouch. Everything was a fastball. Everything needed the fastball. It's kind of that expression, when you're a hammer, every problem is a nail. That's kind of how he approached playing the quarterback position. Every problem was a nail, and the only solution was him throwing it as hard as he can.

So I want to see him start to get away from that. And while Josh Allen has done some other things that show you that the development is coming, that show you that the development is beginning, that he's getting better at stuff like this, there are still some areas where he needs to improve. And one of them is this over-reliance on the fast fastball and while he played great for the most part against cleveland on thursday friday night friday night there was still that one swing pass that has bedeviled him throughout his time at wyoming and now into the nfl it seems where you need to have a little touch on it it's it's a short quick throw you got to put a little touch on it. It's a short, quick throw. You got to put a little touch on it, make it easier. And he threw it 8 million miles per hour right behind

the running back and it fell incomplete. So you want to see development in those areas. And so for guys that are coming into the league, I want to see some development in the areas of weakness. For veterans, I want to see some sort of development in areas that have given them trouble. And so that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for mental execution, and I'm looking for some development. You don't always get it, but that's kind of the stuff that I'm most concerned with when it comes to watching preseason games. Anyway, at Rickinator55 on Twitter, please give him a follow.

Thank you so much for reaching out. Again, I love hearing from you guys. 240-670-6016. Again, 240-670-6016. That is your Locked On Patriots podcast hotline. Please use it early. Use it often. I'm toying with some other ideas of getting some guys, the men and women, the loyal listeners, the men and women that listen to the show.

I love all of you, of getting you guys involved more and more as we go. But for now, we're going to roll with the Locked On Patriots Podcast Hotline. Again, 240-670-6016. Up next, some thoughts from Bill Belichick on his recent conference call. But before we do that, I want to remind everybody of the great things we have going on at the Locked On Podcast Network, including Locked On NFL, which is becoming Locked on NFL Draft. Matt Williamson, who does tremendous work. I've worked with Matt before over at Inside the Pylon when he co-hosted one of our podcasts.

Now he's doing great things here at the Locked on Podcast Network, hosting Locked on NFL, Locked on NFL experts now. They've got a great lineup. You're going to have Mike Renner from Pro Football Focus every Wednesday, Mike Sando every Thursday. You're going to have Locked On local experts with hosts of some of the Locked On shows on each Monday. Breaking down some big stuff. So you're going to have amazing content over there at Locked On NFL.

So please follow Locked On NFL on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts. Get this amazing content. Up next, Bill Belichick. Why he's talking about linebackers? Well, we've got some interesting ones to talk about. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield is back with you

to close out this Monday edition of Locked on Patriots. And we're going to close it out with the words of Bill Belichick himself. His conference call on Friday. And he was asked about the pass rush because the pass rush, as we talked about on this show, as I was talking about,

wondered, do we finally have a pass rush? Well, according to Bill Belichick, not yet. Belichick asked about the pass rush, his response, well, we had our moments. We had some pressure from different players, so there were some good things there. We obviously allowed a lot of pass and yardage. There were times when the rush and the coverage didn't really marry up

the way we'd like it to. Pass rush is part pass rush and part coverage. I'd say overall our team defense was good at times, but we need to have more consistency. When you give up over 350 yards passing, that's not good. Knocking the quarterback down, that's good. We need to marry those two together because when we didn't have the coverage on the rush, we gave up too much yardage.

So, to all of us out there, myself included, who thought the long days of wandering the wilderness were behind us, I regret to inform you, we still are wandering the pass rush, not where Bill Belichick wants it to be. Also, talked about Keonta Davis.

Described Keonta as a player that worked really hard last year, even though he wasn't able to practice. He was on non-football injury all season. But he essentially went through two off-season programs, one during the season and then one in the off-season, because he was restricted to what his participation level could be. That changed this spring and then into training camp and so forth.

He's been able to work on those things. He still has a long way to go. He still has a lot of things he needs to improve on and refine and react quicker to and so forth. But that comes from not having actively played football for a year or a little more than a year. It has returned and hopefully those things will come back to him and his reactions

and all will continue to improve. He's done a good job. He's in good condition. He's worked hard. I like what he's been doing. And I think even more interesting than what Belichick had to say about Davis, is Keonta Davis a player that would have likely been drafted

if it were not for the injury he was dealing with at the time? Remember, Keonta Davis was a guy that was projected by some places to be drafted maybe, maybe on day two, more likely early day three. But he goes undrafted because of the bulging disc in his neck. But now, look, he's ready to go. And as we're seeing, you know, he's a guy that's making a play for a roster spot. And to Bill Belichick's point,

is Keonta Davis a player that likely would have been drafted if it were not for the injury he was dealing with at the time? His answer, one word, yes. Would that have been a relatively high draft pick? The follow-up question, I don't know. It's hard to's hard to say possibly i'd say he's in a different category but in situation and similar situation to marcus cannon i would say they're very similar in some other ways marcus was drafted in the fifth round kianta wasn't drafted but there's some similarities and so there you go look this was a guy that probably was going to get drafted maybe as early as late on day two,

according to some reports on him, has him have a third rounder, goes undrafted because of the injury. Patriots perhaps reaping the reward there. And finally, look, it would be now, maybe I'm moving away from Braxton Berrios, as we'll talk about in tomorrow's show, and more into the Juwan Bentley experience. Question, are you at all surprised about how athletic Juwan Bentley is and how well he's

performed in pass coverage? Belichick's answer, no, I wouldn't say so. He was a four-year starter at a Big Ten school. There's a lot of good players in that conference. You can watch the guy play for four years. So I wouldn't say it's a big surprise. He goes on to elaborate. He's a very intelligent player with good football instincts and a good background he can handle the communication and the signal calling and adjustments that come with playing the position he plays which

is generally right in the middle of the defense where a lot of things can happen but he sees things well and can sort them out and makes good pre-snap decisions to make good post-snap decisions to make them quickly those all play to his advantage guys bentley is going to make this team i think it's almost a foregone conclusion but speaking of making teams roster projection 2.0 that will be on tuesday's show that will do it here we are done on this monday installment reminder to follow me on twitter at mark schofield follow rickinator rick from staten island thanks again for reaching out. You can follow Rick at Rickinator555 on Twitter. Remember, you can reach out too. Be part of the show experience here.

2406-706-016. Love hearing from you guys. Again, that will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow with Roster Projections 2.0. That's ahead tomorrow on Locked On Patriots.