Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots August 3, 2018 - Listener Questions Live from the Beach!

Episode Date: August 3, 2018

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Good morning and welcome to Locked On Patriots for Friday, August 3rd, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for this Friday installment of your favorite Patriots podcast. Do not adjust your audio. You might hear in the background the sweet, soothing sound of the Atlantic Ocean lapping against the beach. Here in Ocean City, Maryland, I am on vacation. I am currently in a room with a window open, overlooking the Atlantic. If nothing else, perhaps the sweet sound of the Atlantic Ocean rolling on in will lull you to sleep this Friday evening. You know, let the Locked On Patriots podcast be useful for something, okay? Reminder, follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield.

Check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the lead writers. You can follow the work over at the Matt Waldman RSP, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio. That's at mattwaldmanrsp.com, where I'm a contributor over there. Contributor as well over at the Big Blue Nation, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, and some other places that are still yet to be rolled out. Loaded show for you today. As I said, we're going to do some listener questions for this Friday Mailbag Show. But first, we're going to deal with some news. And let's step into your boys' life for a minute. As I let you guys all know, out here, a little family vacation time, a little R&R on the beach before this season truly gets going. So I pack the kids.

I get the car ready to go. I figure, look, we're going to be driving Wednesday afternoon. I'm going to want a Thursday show up. Who knows? I'm going to have time Thursday night when we get in, you know, unpack, get everything set up here in the condo. Am I going to have time to record a show? So I figure, you know what? I'm going to be the responsible podcast host that you guys rely on day in and day out.

I'm going to record my episode Wednesday late morning, go to the gym, do some last packing, and get on the road, right? So I get the podcast done. It comes out good. I'm feeling good about the podcast. We revisit the Chandler Jones trade because I've now read two, believe it or not, two pieces in the past two days, three days, ripping the Chandler Jones trade. So I felt I had to address that. So I addressed that. We do some Patriots over-under stuff. We do the 2018 draft class. We revisit that for a minute. I'm feeling good.

Got the podcast locked, loaded, uploaded, ready to roll, ready to drop Thursday morning for you guys because I know I've got listeners out in England and overseas that, you know, they don't like to wait. You know, that thing drops midnight on the East Coast. That's morning over there. So boom, they get their podcast, they get on the tube,

they get to work, right? No sooner do I upload it and get everything ready to go, I'm running around, then the news drops. The Patriots release Jordan Matthews. And I have that moment where I'm sitting there and I'm like,

do I scrap it? I'm supposed to be leaving for the beach in like 25 minutes. Do I try to record it? So I figure, you know what? We'll touch on it for Friday. So we got the Jordan Matthews release to talk about. And then, of course, news today, probably not surprising in the wake of the Jordan Matthews move,

that Eric Decker coming in on a one-year deal. Let's deal with Jordan Matthews first. And two things. One, got to take a little bit of an L. I told you guys I do that when necessary. I thought Matthews might be a guy that could surprise. I thought Matthews would be a guy that would fit really well with this New England Patriots offense. Hamstring injury that he's been dealing with, you hear it a lot about the game of football, the best ability

is availability. Wasn't able to participate, limited in training camp. Patriots move on. That's sometimes what they do. You know, I read a piece by somebody over at Fansided talking about some

of the moves in the Belichick era that have you scratching your head and talked about the Coney Ealy move last year where they trade for Coney Ealy, trade with the Carolina Panthers, and they cut him early in training camp. And people think that's a sign of a mistake. And yeah, but that's sort of the difference between how some teams handle it and other teams handle it and the New England Patriots handle it.

For example, right now, the Hall of Fame game is on. In the opening minutes of the Hall of Fame game, what did we see? We saw a doink shot interception and then another pass that's tipped through the hands of a receiver and intercepted. So the NFL is back, baby. And also, if you were playing the RPO drinking game, it didn't last long until you were a couple of sips in. Chris Collinsworth busted out the RPO reference early before the game even started. But anyway, the tipped pass interception, Brashad Perryman having trouble catching the football.

That's been part and parcel of who he is as a wide receiver so far in the National Football League. But because the Ravens used an early pick on him, used a first-round pick on him, I believe, somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, they've got to keep running him out there to see if they can recoup the value. Whereas a team like the New England Patriots, they might just say, look, we whiffed on this one, there's no sense banging our head against the wall for another season,

another couple of games, another week of training camp even. Let's just cut our losses and move on. They did that with Coney Ealy. Now they're doing it with Jordan Matthews. And it's surprising in a sense because many people, myself included, had some expectations for Matthews. But I think given how the Patriots handle these things, it shouldn't be surprising. Now let's talk Eric Decker. What do the Patriots get in Eric Decker? Well, it's a question.

You know, somebody who's had, this will be his ninth NFL season, coming out of college, University of Minnesota was drafted in the third round by Josh McDaniels when he was with the Denver Broncos. He appeared in 14 games as a rookie, had six receptions on the season for 106 yards and one touchdown, only had three receptions while McDaniels was the head coach of the Broncos that season but then he went on to have two big years in 2012 and 2013 with the Broncos two years back to back 1,000 yard seasons first in 2012 and then 2013 gets you know moves to the Jets just misses out on a third straight 1,000 yard season comes, comes in at.962, which would have given him force rate

because 2015 was a very good year for him. Just over 1,000 yards receiving on 80 receptions. 12 touchdowns, which was almost a career high for him. 13 was his career high back in 2012. Then dealing with injury issues in 2016, pretty much a lost season, only appeared in three games. Last year with the Titans, appeared in all 16 games and

only started eight. Part of that is the Titans rely so much on multiple tight end looks. 12 personnel, sometimes 13 personnel. There wasn't a lot for the wide receivers in that offense. But what they're getting, first of all, in Decker is a receiver that's available.

That's the first thing they're getting. Obviously that was part of the problem here with Jordan Matthews. And I think that looking at this updated depth chart right now, with Edelman on a suspension, you slide Philip Dorsett into that slot receiver spot. You've got Chris Hogan, probably he's going to be your Z, you know, your flanker type. And then it's a question mark at that X spot. You know, and it's going to be a question mark for a while

until they figure out who can slide in there. Cordell Patterson's an option. Malcolm Mitchell's an option if he can stay healthy. Kenny Britt's an option. You know, they recently acquired Paul Turner as well. I'm not sure he's really an option there looking at, you know, some of the stuff on him, scouting reports and whatnot. You know, a guy coming in at 5'9", he's really not

your prototypical X guy. So he's probably more of a depth option. And then Eric Decker. So Decker has a chance to kind of slide in and really contribute for this team early. Perhaps win a starting job. And I know we talked a little bit in yesterday's show

about whether And I know we talked a little bit in yesterday's show about, you know, whether Bryn Decker makes sense from an Edelman replacement standpoint. I don't think that's the one-to-one type thing. I think if you look at, if you're given the exercise to construct your starting offense at 11 personnel with three wide receivers, a slot, a Z, and an X. Edelman's your slot when he gets back, but until then it's Dorsett. Hogan's got one of those spots, probably the Z,

and then you need somebody at an X. Other than Patterson, Mitchell, and Britt, there aren't too many options on this roster. And so Decker's got a chance to come in and potentially win a starting job. Now, what does this tell us about the overall health of this wide receiver group, which has gone from, strangely enough,

being perhaps a strength of this team now over the past five months, six months? It's now a question mark. Obviously, the Edelman suspension doesn't help. Cooks has moved on. Amendola moved on. Obviously, Cooks was traded, but these guys aren't here now. Mitchell's still battling injuries.

You bring in Matthews, you have to cut bait on him. Now you bring in Eric Decker. There are some question marks. Now, that being said, that's just the wide receiver group. It's not the entire skill set. Not the entire skill position group. Because you're going to throw Robert Gronkowski in that mix.

As we'll talk about here in a second. So my main takeaways are this. The Patriots do a Patriots thing. There's a guy that wasn't contributing. They cut their losses. And then they bring in a veteran, a guy that they've probably seen up close. The Patriots, for whatever you want to say about some of their misses, think about some of the guys that they've signed sort of

off the scrap heap that have really turned out to be solid contributors, if not more, because of their pro scouting department, which does a very good job identifying, if not just full-on players, but players that can contribute in specific roles, like a Kyle Van Nooy, for example, or Marquise Flowers. You know, guys that can, maybe they're not fully well-rounded players, or maybe they're misused in another scheme, but they've identified something in them from a trait perspective or otherwise that will make sense that will work in what New England does and what New England likes to do offensively or defensively and so we hope that that happens here with Decker but this wide receiver group it is a question mark right now speaking of questions that's what we're going to get to next I've been telling you guys

we're going to do some some listener questions we're going to dive into that that's what we're going to get to next. I've been telling you guys we're going to do some listener questions. We're going to dive into that. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you on this Friday installment of Locked on Patriots. And friends, I've got to say, I've never really said that my life is tough. And at this moment, it certainly is not because I've got the Atlantic Ocean over the right shoulder. I've got a TV that my life is tough. And at this moment, it certainly is not because I've got the Atlantic Ocean over the right shoulder. I've got a TV over my left shoulder.

Watching a little Hall fan game. We're all waiting for the debut of Lamar Jackson. Currently 10-7. Brian Urlacher being interviewed. I mean, this is as good as it gets for an August Thursday night. But what's even better is hearing from all of you. Got some questions we're going to dive into. First is from my buddy Ian McDonald.

He is at Ian, I-A-N-C-M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D. That's Ian C. McDonald, all one word, on Twitter. Give him a follow. He was kind enough to send in an email. But before I get to his question, which he emailed to me, a nice little brief installment of what I'm reading. I'm going to tweet this article out in a bit, too. It's an article that Ian wrote back in January 2017, titled In Bill We Trust, on his sports blog,

which delves into the economic side of sports, because that's kind of his background is you know in economics and fascinating piece on something we touched about this week the chandler jones deal and as ian writes about the trade the real coup was in the money saved in dumping jones' Jones' large $17.8 million salary. The salary cap savings allowed them to sign Shane McClellan and Chris Lawn while covering almost two-thirds of Martellius Bennett's salary. So that's in addition to the picks that they got, which were Joe Thune and Malcolm Mitchell.

And let's not forget, guys like Chris Lawn, Martellius Bennett, they were big contributors on that Super Bowl 51 team as well. So props to Ian for the article. Now to Ian's question. How would you rate this receiver core, wide receivers only or including tight ends and running backs, among the Patriots' Super Bowl teams? And I'm going to include, I'm going to go wide receivers

and tight ends to do this. Because you get into the running backs and, you know, I think it's cleaner and easier this way. I think you're going to look at, you know, those first three Super Bowl teams, 36, 38, 39, you know, as kind of the lower tier of talent. And I think we'd all kind of say that about, I think we could all kind of agree there.

I mean, you look at that Super Bowl 36 roster, you know, Troy Brown was basically kind of your go-to wide receiver. I mean, Terry Glenn did some things. David Patton did some things. You know, the tight ends weren't really anything to write home about. I mean, Jermaine Wiggins, you know, and then you get into the 0-3, 0-4 teams.

Yeah, you get Deion Branch in the mix. You get, you know, still some stuff from David Givens, David Patton as well at times. You know, the tight ends were still a question mark. Daniel Graham, Christian Fourier. So, I mean, I think those groups, you know, a little bit lesser talent-wise, you know, obviously still great NFL players, but when you're looking at some of the other skilled groups that we're going to talk about, then honestly, you might start to look at this group that we have right now. We were just talking about it. Nice little segue there. I mean, obviously, Edelman, I think as far as slot receivers go,

is one of the best in the league. Rob Gronkowski, one of the best tight ends to ever play the game. But the pieces around them, there are some question marks, like we just discussed. And then you get into some other teams. I mean, you look at the Super Bowl XLVI group, the team that lost to the Giants. They basically had a hobbled Gronkowski in that Super Bowl. You get Dion Branch, Julian Edelman,

Chad Otrusenko, who didn't do too much for the team. Wes Welker had the drop in that game. And Gronk and Hernandez. I mean, I think we could agree that that group probably more talented than those first three Super Bowl teams. You'd probably say it's probably a more talented group than we've got right now. Super Bowl 51's group.

You know, you're without Edelman no you've got Edelman you're without Gronkowski for that game but you know you look at the rest of the roster you do have Martellius Bennett but you're getting a big contribution from Malcolm Mitchell as a rookie the roster. You do have Martellius Bennett. But you're getting a big contribution from Malcolm Mitchell as a rookie. Amendola,

Michael Floyd, Chris Hogan. I mean, that's a tough group to rank. Then I think you get into Super Bowl 52. This group last year. Super Bowl 49's roster, you do get Gronkowski there. You get Edelman. You get Amendola.

You get LaFell, who, although he was just recently cut by Cincinnati, that's a good squad. That's a really talented, talented room. And obviously, I think the best that they've had, probably that 0-17 with a 16-0 season because you get Randy Moss. One of the best of all time. You get Wes Welker sort of in his prime.

Yeah, the tight end group wasn't as good, but the Moss then, I don't know, that's kind of the way I'd stack them. Maybe I'm completely I don't know, that's kind of the way I'd stack them. Maybe I'm completely wrong on this, but that's kind of the way I would do it. I think if you just go wide receivers, that Super Bowl XLII group is probably the best because of Mawson. Including the tight ends, maybe that was a little tricky because you might make the case, oh yeah, well, Super Bowl XLII wide receivers were great, but Kyle Brady, Benjamin Watson, those were your tight ends. You know, so really?

You know, maybe the 2011 team that lost in Super Bowl 46. You know, maybe one of the more recent teams that had a healthy Gronk is better. I don't know. That's kind of how he did it roughly. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last time. What can I say?

We've got two more questions. We're going to get to those next. We're going to talk Danny Etlin. And we're going to talk the running back position more philosophically. Those questions next with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this Friday installment and close out this week

here at Locked on Patriots. God, I've had a big week here. The numbers, I gotta say, I'm checking them out. Numbers are great. Everybody's getting back to football. We're back to five days a week, which feels good. Feels good to be back in that routine. Question here now.

We're going to talk philosophy. We're going to philosophize. He's a philosophizer. Some Dodge Wild Quotes there for you. We're going to talk philosophy and economics at the running back position. Question from Jack Duffin, at J-A-C-K-D-U-F-F-I-N. Huge friend of the show from across the pond. I'm sorry that it didn't come home,

Jack. My sincerest condolences. Jack's got a great question. Why did Bill take a running back in the first round? I still can't understand it. He has found great value in free agency and late picks to build brilliant committees

the way all the best teams have moved over the last few years. It has become a more easily replaceable position than ever before with rushing quality coming from the offensive line more than the running back. He has been the champion of running backs belonging on day three of the draft until now. Any idea why it changed and are we about to see some massive change in the National Football League?

And it's a fantastic question, Jack. And I'm going to start with an article that I talked about on this show just a couple days ago, and that, Jack, I know you read, because you and myself and the author of it, Joey Ferriola, over at Inside the Pile, and we're talking about it, and that's that Todd Gurley piece. Because I do think we're seeing somewhat, or at least the potential of, a little bit of a change in how the running back position is valued.

It comes with a twist, though. Because I think there's an idea that if you can get an elite, three-down, game-changing type running back. And I already know that Chris is the response that could come to this. But it makes sense to draft that person and get all you can out of them early in their career. We talked about the mortality of running backs. It's in that piece by Joey, which I highly recommend you read if you haven't read it yet. It's over at InsideThePylon.com.

And it talks about how once you get to, say, 28, 29, you can see sort of a phases, in all three downs, pass pro, receiver out of the backfield, and run on the football. Those are kind of the three phases of running back play. Then it makes sense to get that player and lock him up and get everything you can out of him for those first couple of years and then move on. Jack's right in the sense that it is an easily replaceable position. So if you get a chance to get a talent like that, great. If not, you can go the other route.

But I think we might see this change sort of arm-in-arm with the potential change at the quarterback position, which is something I've sort of been wondering myself, and I've talked about it here and elsewhere. You know, watch the Blake Bortles situation. If you see teams start to look at the quarterback position, kind of like teams have looked at the running back position in recent years, where if you've got a guy, great.

If you've got an elite guy, great. Otherwise, do it on the cheap. You know, whether it's a guy on a rookie deal or, you know, a scrap heap type veteran type guy. You know, because paying an insorbent amount of money to a mid-tier quarterback, maybe it's not the way to go. You know, look at sort of the joe flacco situation you do wonder about some of these recent ravens teams where you know there were some holes elsewhere had they done things differently and not spent so much money on a mid-tier quarterback or a lower mid-tier quarterback and maybe it was certainly unthinkable at the time but move on from a guy that recently

won you a Super Bowl and say, look, we're going to spend that money elsewhere. Because you've got 11 guys on the field at once, 22 starters if you look at the offense and defense, quarterbacks, one of them. Yeah, it's an important position, and if you've got an elite guy, pay him and hold on to him for dear life.

But maybe the thinking is to move on if you don't. And so that's what I'm kind of wondering. You know, I do, Jack, I do think we might see some massive change in the National Football League. I think it's possible. I think moves like drafted Sonia Michelle in the first round by Belichick signal that it's at least possible and teams are

at least thinking about that. Saquon Barkley, second overall. Leonard Fournette last year, fourth overall. Eon Barkley, second overall. Leonard Fournette, last year, fourth overall. Ezekiel Elliott, fourth overall. If you've got guys that can do things in, you know, like I said, those three phases of running back play, maybe it makes sense to get them. So that's kind of how I'm looking at that.

Again, maybe it is what's happening, maybe it isn't, but I think it's at least possible. Finally, we're going to close it out with some quarterback talk, which is, as you all can probably tell by now, my safe ground. My safe firm, terra firma below me, where I feel most confident drop it takes. And this is a question from David Ackman, at David, D-A-V-I-D, A-K-M-A-N, on Twitter. Give him a follow.

Thanks for getting the question in and for listening to David. Is there anything specific you would need to see Danny Atlin improve on this camp and preseason to feel he could become a backup that we should look for? And it's a great question. I think it's sort of a twofold thing, but they're intertwined. When you look at what the Patriots want to do schematically, get the ball out of the quarterback's hands quickly.

Quick reads, quick decisions. You know, sort of that you know, there are, you know, their offense is varied. They do stuff down the field, but we all know sort of the base elements of the Patriots offense from reading the playbook,

from seeing them over the years. They want to get the ball out of Brady's hands quickly. They love those option routes, those pivot routes, those shallow crossers, things like that. They'll bring in the deep shots. There are sections of the Patriots playbook, literally sections just called shot plays, where they know they want to take a couple of shots down the field. And I've talked about, you know, how they want to do it a a couple times a game for a number of reasons. And it makes a ton of sense. But because that's what they do offensively, what you need are a couple of things.

You need quick decisions, which he needs to improve on. You need accuracy in the short and intermediate areas of the field, which he needs to improve on. It's something that he's been struggling with so far in camp. And you need consistency. Those are the areas I really want to see Danny Etlin sort of improve upon. And if we start to see that as we get through training camp and into some of these preseason games, then I'd feel pretty confident about him. He's a very effective play-action quarterback.

Very, I'd say, underrated but solid. You know, he probably doesn't get enough credit for what he does in the deep passing game and we've seen that already in some of the plays during camp, I mean there was a treat I think it was Doug Kayad where he had been missing throws short underneath all day which again is the concern and the thing he needs to improve upon

but then he hits a deep shot to Lucian on a vertical route a 50 yard strike and so he's underrated in the vertical pass game David Lucien, on a vertical route, you know, a 50-yard strike. And so he's underrated in the vertical pass game. But that's just a small component of what the Patriots do. So I want to see that consistency with accuracy and ball placement in the short areas. If we start to see some of that, I'd feel pretty confident about him. You know, he's facing a severe numbers crunch.

We talked about it already this week where we talked about numbers crunches at a bunch of different positions. There's a number of crunches at the quarterback room. Is he going to show them enough to justify them carrying a third quarterback? Are they going to try to stash him

on the practice squad? Will they be able to? Sometimes we see when a guy comes through the patriots you know it's kind of like money launder in a sense once that gets nice and clean you know people are excited to get their hands on it so maybe somebody thinks oh maybe some of that tom brady mojo will have rubbed off and they can't stash him on the practice squad because he gets signed to another team via waivers and so you do wonder about that but But if he shows you enough consistency, shows you enough development in that short and intermediate area, you know, with accuracy and ball placement,

then I think we could get excited. But you know what else is exciting, friends? That's going to do it for this week. We are full on into weekend mode now. I'm going to be uploading this and boom, plopping myself right in front of the TV, getting ready for some LJ8, some Lamar Jackson.

Hopefully, hopefully we get some fun stuff to talk about when we get back to it on Monday. Until next time, guys, thank you so much, so much, so much for listening. It's great to be back to five days a week. Check out our sponsors, VividSeats.com, NordicTrack.com. Go to NordicTrack.com slash locked on. Get that $75 off and use that promo code locked on when you get yourself. Check out that Fusion CST series. Seriously.

And then VividSeats.com. Again, promo code locked on. That's good for $10 off a ticket. You know, good for the month of August. So definitely check that out as well. I will be back Monday. Until then, stay safe. Have a fantastic, fantastic weekend, everybody.

Talk to you soon, and keep it locked right here to me, Mark Scofield, and Locked on Patriots.