Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots December 11, 2018 - Tape Tuesday

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a tape Tuesday installment of the Locked On Patriots Podcast. Mark Schofield is back in the big chair. Yeah, the aftertaste is still with us in the wake of what we saw out at Hard Rock Field on Sunday afternoon, but as I said, we are moving on. We are leaving that game behind us. We are leaving it in the past. What is done, what is done.

We are on to Pittsburgh. We're going to talk some Antonio Brown, some Juju Smith-Schuster, some Steelers tight ends. We're going to talk cover one. We're going to talk cover two, man. We're going to talk about the Steelers and what they're doing in the secondary. A little bit later, get into some numbers and stuff like that. Before we do all that, reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at the places I do work for, insidethepylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation

family of websites. As I've been telling all of all you if there's an outlet cover in this game that we all know and love and agonize over at times chances are i'm doing some work for them about this game let's get into the pittsburgh steelers right now because again we are leaving them behind we are now Steelers focused. Our eyes are trained on the horizon with a steely glaze. Rich Parnell is a steely-eyed missile man. And I want to start with, I ran the polls. I appreciate all of you voting. We had winners on both the offensive and the defensive sides. For the Pittsburgh offense, people wanted me to look at Juju Smith-Schuster.

We got a write-in vote for Samuels on the tight ends. So we're going to do a little bit of that. And on the defensive side of the ball, they're pass defense. So we're going to talk about what they do from a coverage standpoint. I'm going to talk about some plays that have worked against them over the past couple of weeks. But I do want to start with this. There's been a series of pieces and perhaps a recent movement, shall we say, that perhaps is making the case that Antonio Brown is starting to lose it. That he's perhaps fallen off a cliff a little bit, that maybe he's plateaued, that maybe he's starting to regress.

And I'm not saying that I would buy into that, as we're about to discuss. But there is sort of that growth out there that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, this is something that people need to look into. And the main proponent of this idea that Antonio Brown's best days might be behind him is Matthew Freeman. Friedman, excuse me, over at the Action Network. He has a piece, Antonio Brown has fallen off a cliff and no one cares. He wrote this on November 30th, and he updated it in their Week 13 game.

He wrote this before their game against the Chargers. He updated it on December 3rd. In Week 13, Antonio Brown went off with a 10-catch, 154 yards, one touchdown performance on 13 targets. And he adds he still trails all the Steelers pass catchers with a 6.4 adjusted yards per attempt on Roethlisberger's targets. And then he

updated after the Steelers game, the Steelers-Raiders game from Sunday. Antonio Brown had a 5-catch for 35 yards performance, no touchdowns on 7 targets, and 24-21 loss to the Raiders, who entered the game dead last in Football Outsiders past defense DVOA, while fellow wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster, who we're going to talk about, went off for eight catches on 130 yards, two touchdowns on 12 targets.

So that's kind of the thought that's being advanced here, that Antonio Brown has his best days behind him. And he does lead the NFL, or at least he was tied when Freeman wrote this piece with 11 touchdowns received, and he obviously added two more in that Chargers game. Or excuse me, one more in that Chargers game. But his yards are down. Receptions are down. Freeman says that since Brown

has only three targets off the league lead, his receptions numbers, his yardage numbers, are what he calls embarrassingly low. And I think from a production standpoint, the thing to remember with Brown is that you're seeing a bit of a decline as well as a bit of growth with Juju Smith-Schuster. And I know that sounds a little bit confusing, but what I mean is this. Last year, Juju Smith-Schuster had 13.0 adjusted yards per attempt. That was his number. Big number.

Now that's dropped to 9.4. Of course, that's a big number last year, so part of it is just regression to the mean, right? But Smith-Schuster is also seeing a ton of targets his way, too. You know, Antonio Brown has 122 targets Juju Smith-Schuster has 109 you know and when you look back at the Steelers from last year you know in the 2017 2018 season Antonio Brown had a hundred and sixty three targets then it was Le'Veon Bell with 106. Nobody else was in triple digits.

Martavius Bryant had 84. Juju had 79. So we're seeing an explosion in the terms of targets to this point. And basically what you're seeing is Antonio Brown has 142 targets right now. Juju Smith-Schuster has 131. So Smith-Schuster is taking the bulk of the targets basically away from Le'Veon Bell, where he might have gotten those, but he's starting to chip into what Antonio Brown is getting. Now, yes, there's sort of that adjusted yards per attempt that you can look at and show you that, look, Smith-Schuster is probably being more productive in terms of his output.

Juju Smith-Schuster is averaging 13.6 yards per reception, whereas Antonio Brown is 12.4 yards per reception. Now you can make the argument that Jesse James is better than any of those guys, 14.3 yards per reception, but that's a different argument for a different time. I think the main point that Freeman is trying to make is maybe Antonio Brown is not the receiver that he once was, and that the decline is here. Patriots fans, we like, not necessarily we like hearing about declines, but we're used to such discussions.

So I went back and I looked at their past two games against the Raiders and against the Chargers. And the two things that stand out to me watching Antonio Brown are this. First, there are two things that will set him apart still. His savviness as a veteran route runner as well as his relationship with Ben Roethlisberger.

The first play I want to talk about is one of the first throws against the Chargers back in that Week 13 game. It's a first and 10 at the 10-10 mark of the first quarter. Antonio Brown faces off-coverage pre-snap, and he erases this cushion on a vertical route, gets open deep for a big play thanks to his creative use of pace.

There's a number of ways wide receivers can win on routes. You can beat the jam. You can sell with a fake. You can just use pure speed, footwork, getting in and out of cuts. Here he uses pace because as he releases vertically off the line of scrimmage, he sort of adjusts himself, getting fast and slow and fast and slow, and then explodes. And it's all he needs to erase the cushion he has from the defender

and get open down the field. And so that's sort of that veteran savviness that we see from Antonio Brown. And at the top of that route, when the ball is in the air, he does such a great job of using his body to sort of stack that defender on his back to prevent the defender from coming over and making a play on the football. So that's the veteran savviness from Antonio Brown that is still there on tape. Then there's the relationship between him and Roethlisberger.

Fourth quarter of that game against the Chargers. 658 mark. First and 10 play. They show a little RPO type look. But it's a back shoulder throw from Ben Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown. And the timing on this is just... it's like they're symbiotic. Because once Brown sort of realizes that the defender has that inside over the top leverage on him, he starts to look for the ball.

And sure enough, the ball is already on its way to him. That's the kind of stuff that veteran players, quarterbacks, and receivers can do on film and from a play-to-play basis that is so hard to defend. Another example of him using some veteran savviness is a 3rd and 10 play against the Chargers at the 12-15 mark of the second quarter. He's facing press coverage at the line, but the corner kind of bails and drops off. And he runs a deep curl. And he's really good and subtle on this road as he's coming into and out of his break with his hands to sort of create space. He gets a little bit wide

with the elbows and the wrists. It sort of creates a natural separation, natural barrier between him and the defender. He doesn't push off, but he just uses that upper body a little bit to sort of create that space. Now, in terms of that game against the Raiders, a lot of this was more Juju Smith-Schuster. A lot of this was James. Even Vance McDonald getting involved in the pass game, as we'll talk about.

For Antonio Brown, he saw some coverage rotated towards him. The Chargers were pretty confident playing one-on-one. Raiders rotated more stuff to him, worried about what he might do in the pass game, which opened up some opportunities for the other guys. Now, I was given an assignment of talking about Smith-Schuster, and I want to talk about him now because we are seeing similar growth and development to him.

You could see a great developmental path for him. You know, a play 13-46 mark of the second quarter against the Chargers back in Week 13. Does a fantastic job sort of sitting down against zone coverage. What's been interesting in watching how the Steelers seem to use these two players. They like Brown very much as the boundary and deep guy. They'll throw tunnel screen to him. They'll do stuff along the boundary.

They'll do stuff with him deep down the field. With Juju, they'll do some of the stuff underneath, smokes, tunnels, things like that. But they like him more working over the middle. So on this play, he does a fantastic job sitting down against zone. Then later on a third and two at the 12.58 mark of the second quarter against the Chargers, they put him in a stack release, three receiver bunch,

get him running that shallow route. It's the same exact play. If you remember to this meeting between these two teams last year, the Patriots had that critical third and seven in the fourth quarter. They threw that underneath shallow to Juju Smith-Schuster. That's Harmon breaking downhill to make the tackle in a seven defensive back defensive package for the New England Patriots. It's a play that I talked about a ton.

I talked about it in the offseason. It was one of the best defensive plays England Patriots. It's a play that I talked about a ton. I talked about it in the offseason. It was one of the best defensive plays the Patriots made all year because they had to get off the field in that moment. They're still coming back to that design. So you know full well they're going to use that, getting him a stack release on that cross or Juju Smith-Schuster. They like him. They trust him underneath. But he's also physical with the upper body. 6'15 mark of the fourth quarter against the chargers he runs a comeback route very physical with the upper body does a great job working back to the ball low throw scoops it off the turf for a big first down conversion

these are the types of things he can do and roethlisberger trusts him one of the first passing plays against the raiders a third and 13 13, 9-24 marker the first quarter. Deep car route. It's basically a 50-50 ball. But Smith-Schuster is trusted by his quarterback to win, and he does. But the thing with him is, since they trust him underneath, since they trust him working over the middle, part of that is because of his play strength as a wide receiver. 7-0-5 marker the second quarter against the Raiders. It's the second and four. He just runs a simple hitch route versus off coverage, zone coverage. Great play strength.

Great play strength to break through the tackle as he's coming out of the catch point. Picks up yardage after the catch. They will beat you with yardage after the catch if you don't make your tackles. Last thing with Juju Smith-Schuster that I want to mention. He can beat the press.

Very strong receiver with the upper body. He will beat press coverage. He will beat jams at the line of scrimmage. You've got to be willing to really get into him because if you just really throw a cursory jam at him, he's going to beat you with that. Other things I'll mention. Samuels, obviously taken over in terms of James Conner.

He's a converted tight end. He's a bigger bodied guy. Not a lot of change of direction, cutting, moving footwork to his game. He's a downhill runner, effective receiver. He's a bowling ball type guy. Arm tackles are not going to do the job against him. So you really got to sort of hit the strike zone with him,

get the legs, chop him down. Don't worry about, you know, there was a play against the Raiders near the end of that game. It was a first and 10 in the fourth quarter, the 447 mark. He was sort of trying to put the ball away, coming out of the catch point on a little check down route. The defender thought he might be able to punch the ball away. Forget that stuff. The defender tried to punch the ball away. He stayed up high with an arm tackle type move. It turns into a big game because he can't make the tackle. Forget about stuff like that.

Just get him to the ground. That's what you're going to have to do. They will love going screen with him. Vance McDonald, they put him in the backfield a couple of times, used him on some running back screen stuff, put the tight end out of the backfield. That's something to watch for. Jesse James, they put him in the apex of that 3x1 bunch of times.

He's usually used more in terms of getting stack releases for Juju Smith-Schuster But he's effective in scrambled road type situations Ben Roethlisberger, he's going to be there Forget all the stuff about him being injured, whatever You know he'll be there So I don't feel the need to get into that That's kind of a quick overview type look at their receivers Check out that freeman piece if you want to read more about you know the idea that antonio brown's best days might be

behind him i wouldn't go that far i think he's still a very savvy route runner he's a veteran player can still get open downfield i think part of the reason that his production might not be in line with what we're used to seeing from him is the emergence of judas from the schuster more than anything else up next we're going to talk about the Steelers defense a little bit later do some stuff about numbers to close out the show but first we are in the throes now of holiday shopping season matter of fact last night was finally what is a green Monday or whatever the last big online discount day of the season if you're still looking for gifts perhaps the outdoorsman or woman in your life you you've got to know about our friends over at Action Heat. Their clothing

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Now, they've got a special deal for our listeners to save 20% off your entire order. Just go to ActionHeat.com slash LockedOn to check out everything ActionHeat has to offer. That's ActionHeat.com slash LockedOn, or use the coupon code LockedOn at checkout to save 20% off your order. Stay toasty warm while you enjoy all your outdoor activities this winter with ActionHeat, and we thank them for sponsoring the podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tape Tuesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast, again taking a look ahead at the Pittsburgh Steelers rather than behind us at whatever that was. Let's talk about the Steelers' defense, and it's good to sort of set the table with a discussion about how these games have panned out over the past eight years or so. Because if you remember the run-up to last year's installment of this rivalry game between the Steelers and the Patriots,

I spent almost the entire week talking about cover three, cover three beaters, beating spot drop in coverages, beating spot drop in secondaries, because that was how traditionally the Pittsburgh Steelers would play Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. And as we've seen over the years, you decide to sort of spot drop against Tom Brady, he's going to find a way to sort of carve you up. That's kind of what has happened. But Keith Butler, for whatever reason, had insisted on doing it. And that was the big discussion in the lead up to that game but what we saw from the Steelers in that matchup was a change in what they did in the game particularly in the second half when the Steelers took the lead for a time and started to maybe pull away in that game they switched to more cover two man underneath and you remember Tony Romo talking about cover two man and yelling about two man and Romo doing what Romo does

so well in the booth, which is basically calling out things pre-snap like he's back under center again. And so one of the first things I wanted to look for was what are the

Steelers doing this year? What are they doing this year from a sort of coverage philosophy? Because that's a good place to sort of set the stage here, set the table for what we're going to talk about. And looking at the data that has been made available

to me, thanks to a wonderful little birdie who shall remain anonymous, the Steelers are primarily this year a cover one team. This is a big jump from years past. Followed by cover three. And just right behind cover three, cover two men. Whereas years past they were a cover three team.

Now cover one is their primary coverage. And their combined snaps and man coverage doubled their snaps in cover three. So this is a man coverage team now. It's a big difference from years past. And if you sort of look at them on tape, you see the usage of man sort of standing out. First play of the game against the Chargers, it's a cover one

package. They rotate the free safety pre-snap towards two receivers because there's a 12 personnel look from the Chargers. They got two tight ends to one side, a slot formation to the other. So pre-snap, they just take the safety and put them over the two receivers.

They're like, look, we'll go straight cover backside. We don't need safety help against two slow tight ends. This is what we're going to do. A play at the 1-12 mark of the first quarter against the Chargers. It's a 3-by-1. Chargers go wide iso. Here we see cover three. But it's sort of a pattern match cover three.

So the inside receivers, they're facing slot defenders this year from the Pittsburgh Steelers that are going to do more in terms of matching those routes, running with seams. This has been their sort of adjustment. When they go cover three, they're really trying to get those safeties to sort of run with those seam routes, run with those post routes. There's an even better example of it at the 541 mark of the third quarter against the chargers. They show cover two, they rotate it to cover three. And what happens is the slot corner at one side and the safety who's high, who's rotating down over the slot to the other side, they really

sort of run with those vertical releases, run with those seam routes. One's a seam, one's a post route from the other side. And they're really stressing carrying those vertical routes up to the seams when they go single high, when they go cover three. Because think back to last year and all the stuff that I was talking about, how to beat cover three against the Steelers, Gronk up the seam. This is what they're doing. This is sort of the adjustment that Butler and company have made with the Steelers. Get those inside defenders, whether it's your slot corner or safety rotating down,

to really carry those vertical routes. So that's going to be something to watch. They will do some cover three Mabel type stuff like we talked about with Alabama, Rip, Liz, Cause, all that super nerdy stuff will be cover three, but they will leave one defender just isolated backside. Sometimes it's Joe Hayden. Sometimes it's one of their other defenders, whether it's Sensenbaugh,

whether it's Artie Burns at times, Mike Hilton. Usually it's Hayden, though. They'll put him one-on-one backside and just leave him on an island. So that's going to be something to watch. Morgan Burnett, they use him in a couple of different roles. They use him when teams go wide iso. They'll take him and put him over the tight end, isolated by himself on the three-by-one side.

Raiders saw that look a lot. Jared Cook had a huge day. Jared Cook had a fantastic year but he beat up on the Steelers in this game one of the first plays that he made he gets Y ISO lined up against LJ Fort backup linebacker was previously with the New England Patriots and he just beats him on an easy route. Another play, they go trips to the left, the Raiders do. They put Cook in the middle of the trips. They run basically slant flat.

He's running the slant route to the middle. The Steelers try to switch it up, but it gets Cook isolated on an inside linebacker, John Bostick, and he just runs away for a moment on slant route. Then Steelers make the adjustment. They say, look, if we see Y-ISO, now we're going to use Edmonds. We're going to get, I mean, not Edmonds. You know, we're going to use Burnett on him.

This happens in the second quarter. They go Y-ISO. Now you get Burnett. And he doesn't seem comfortable here. The Raiders are going tempo as well. Simple little curl route. Burnett just gets beaten on it. Then on 38 on that same drive, a 9.53

mark of the second quarter, get Cook isolated on Burnett again. It's just a simple out route, but Burnett just cannot cover him. So then in the third quarter, what do they do? They take Edmonds. You know, they're Terrell Edmonds, the safety they drafted way too early.

They put him in place of Burnett. They use him to try to cover Cook in a wide-eye situation, and Cook just bosses him with the line of scrimmage, just beats him with a strong jam off the line of scrimmage, gets open on a route, easy throw, easy catch. If you were hoping to see more of Gronk like we saw last week on the offensive side of the ball, forget the defensive play at the end of the game. If you wanted to see more big games from Gronk, the tight end receiving threat, this might be a game to tune in for because the Raiders

just, Jared Cook had a field day against the Steelers. Now look, they're a defense that has 41 sacks, most in the NFLfl hayward is having a fantastic season edmunds for all the things you want to say about him in coverage at times and when he maybe he was a reach for the steelers in the first round that's fine they do some stuff with him blitz and they do some stuff with him and sort of green dogs you look at that game against the steelers i mean against the chargers excuse me 839 mark-39 mark. It's a second-and-ten play. The Chargers have 12 personnel in the field. Steelers come with eight in the box.

They bring Edmonds down late. It's a green dog look. The tight end that he's down there to cover doesn't, he stays in the block. So he comes, eight-yard loss on a sack from Edmonds. So they will do some stuff with him. But I think the player to watch, even with the change in coverage scheme, is Gronkowski.

Whereas last year it was, look, cover three, you're going to work the seams. This year it's, they've struggled against tight ends. They struggled against, you know, Jared Cook last week. And yes, Cook is having a fantastic season.

But I think Rob Gronkowski is still a better tight end than Jared Cook and sort of if you look at numbers per game look the Steelers are giving up 12.8 points per game on FanDuel to tight ends and this is one of those moments where look fantasy stats can help you sort of think about how these games are going to play out from a schematic standpoint they've given up 105 targets 73 receptions 853 yards seven touchdowns to tight ends this year those are pretty good numbers from an opposition standpoint if you've got a tight end that can make plays, I think that's something that you might be successful at.

And so, yet again, Gronk could be in line for a huge game, and he typically does have big games against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Up next, I'm going to quickly close out the show, just do a couple minutes on some cool stuff I saw from my great friends over at NFL Matchup on ESPN. That's ahead

on this tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you. I'll quickly close out this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. And before we do that, promo of the week ahead. Look, we're going to do some crossover stuff on the Steelers for Wednesday's show. Thursday, Take Thursday. Get your questions in. Had a ton of questions last week.

Would love to get some more questions in from all of you. Hopefully, you can keep your eyes on the horizon, eyes looking steely glazed ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers. But if there are still some things you want to address from the Miami game, I will do it. I won't go as far as to say I will be happy to do it. But, look, if you still have some stuff you want to get off your chest, please, by all means, send us some questions about the Dolphins game

or whatever. If you want to go down the video game road, look, I'm more than happy to talk about how to find the legendary animals and get them hunted in Red Dead 2. Or, you know, finding all the sage and the oleander sage and the vanilla and the rest of the berries that you need to find if you want to complete the Herbalist Challenge, which is what I've kind of been spending way too much time doing. Why were you playing video games until 3 in the morning?

Look, I had to find all these herbs. But I digress. Let's close it out. I want to run through a couple of numbers here from my great friends over at NFL Matchup, at NFL Matchup on Twitter, the NFL Matchup show on ESPN. Some of the best football work that is out there, period. Full stop. And they always put out some interesting stats and numbers, and I just wanted to get to a couple.

Quarterbacks rating on play action. They tweeted this out Monday evening before the Monday night football game. Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, two of the best passers, top 10 passers according to quarterback rating on play action plays. But in number 10, tied with Jared Goff, is Tom Brady at 110.4. Probably not a surprise. Look,

the Patriots doing a ton of stuff off of play action this year using Sonny Michelle, running the football to set up the pass, stuff like that, showing run to set up the pass. Patriots are doing a pretty good job on that. Catches allowed. This is an interesting one. Percentage of catches a defense allows per pass and target.

Now, the way it works is the higher the percentage here, the chances are your defense is not doing a good job at preventing completions. For example, the Buccaneers, 75.5% of passes get caught against them. Lowest percentage of catches allowed, this is where you want to be as a defense. Ravens, the best, 61.8%. Just 61.8% of throws get completed against them. Then the Jets, then the Jags, then the Browns, and the Patriots. 64.2% of passes get completed against the Patriots.

Interesting company there with the Jets, the Jags, and the Browns. Three teams with losing records, but pretty good for New England there. So I thought that was pretty interesting. And this one still surprised me, given what we saw against the Dolphins on Monday. Best-worst pass defenses

in the league this year, according to a Posier's passing rating. The Patriots checking in ninth at 89.1. Just one-tenth of a point ahead of the Vikings. The Bears, though, the best in the league, allow an opposing passer rating of just 73.4. On the other end of the spectrum, teams that we've been talking about on our Sunday shows when we talk DFS, the Buccaneers, of course, 112.1.

Then the Raiders at 107.5. Those are some teams that are struggling. And this was also done after the Miami game. Fewest yards after catch allowed, and this is where I wanted to finish because it leads us to what's going to be big on Sunday, is Yak. Two teams that do not give up a ton of yak, yardage after the catch. The Steelersers they are lowest in the league at just 4.5 yards per reception allowed by them per each catch after

the catch excuse me and then not a tenth well one two three four basically tied for fifth but they're tied with two other teams they're tied with the bears they're tied with the ravens other new england patriots who are allowing just five yards after the catch per reception. So that's pretty good from the New England Patriots. So Yak might be a very interesting thing to watch on Sunday. Which team gets it, which team doesn't. That's one of the many things we'll be watching

as we get ready for this huge, huge, huge game Sunday at Heinz Field. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow doing some crossover stuff, get some questions in for Take Thursday. Big week ahead of us. Putting Miami in the rearview mirror. Hope you enjoyed this show. If you could, leave a review on iTunes. Got over 100.

Very pleased about that. You guys have been crushing it with the listens. Tell your friends. I know the holiday season is around. You're going to be spending more time with friends, family, whatsoever. Spread the love. Spread the word about the show. I almost forgot.

I took some time, and I actually sat down and figured out that this is the 455th episode of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Historically speaking. But for me, this is episode 331 that I've done of this show. We're closing in on almost an entire year worth of shows, which is kind of cool. So we'll close in on that one. We will hit that one, that mark, probably before this season ends. Pretty cool to think about.

But yeah, this is my 331st show in the studio, in the big chair. Been keeping this big chair warm for a while, but I thought that was interesting, so I just figured I'd throw that out here at the end. But like I said, that will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.