Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots December 20, 2018 - A Long December?

Episode Date: December 20, 2018

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A long December and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving. The days go by so fast. Hey there, everybody. Welcome to Locked on Patriots for Thursday, December 20th, 2018. Yes, a little bit of a different intro. We're going to talk about the theme for today's show in a little bit. Excited to be back. I will tell the story of why I was out on Wednesday here in a second. What we're going to do today, today usually take

Thursday, but because of the sort of the schedule changes this week, I've gone in a little bit of a different direction. We'll dive into the December theme a little bit later. I didn't really put out the clarion call for questions because, look, the past couple of days, past 24, 48 hours or so, even picking up the phone was a struggle. Again, I'm going to talk about that in a second. But first, before we do anything else, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like insidethepylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue Review, part of the SB Nation family of websites. As I've long said, if there's an outlet cover in the game of football, chances are I'm doing some work for them. Let's get into it. First, today's show is going to be basically a story time with Uncle Mark, so to speak. First, the story of my past 48 hours,

and then secondly, something I'm calling a December Carol. More on that in a bit, but first, look, as I teased in Tuesday's show, wasn't really feeling too good Monday, Monday evening. Woke up Tuesday, fever, body aches, was in agony. For those of you that have kids, you know that sometimes, especially around changes of seasons, holiday time, et cetera, they can be a little bit of, what's the right phrase here? Germ-infested carrier monkeys. That's kind of the phrase that I like to use. And so stuff's been running around my son's school who he was out friday last week he was out monday and i just knew it was coming stuff was also going around my daughter's school she wasn't feeling well over the weekend and sure enough it hit me like a ton of bricks was running like a

fever of 102 body aches the whole stuff so tuesday i was basically laid up in bed. We live in a split level. So you come in in the front door and then there's a playroom and stuff like that downstairs. You go up like half a flight of steps. You go onto the main floor with the living room, kitchen, dining room. And then you go up another half flight of stairs and you're into the bedroom areas. And so basically all I was doing Tuesday during the day was going from the bed down to the kitchen to get water and back upstairs. That's all I was

doing basically when I wasn't trying to sleep. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, and I hope that's all of you, at Mark Schofield on Twitter, you know that I've had this long running thread dedicated to our cat, Presley, and his various attempts to murder me. He almost pulled it off on Tuesday because at one point I was making that trick from the bed down to the kitchen to get more water. And as I was going down, we have, you know, hardwood flooring, I'm going down the steps. I'm just wearing socks. I don't have shoes on. I'm fully dressed, but I'm not wearing shoes. Let's put it that way. And as I'm walking down the stairs, I've got a glass from Jillian's down on Lansdowne street of all places from back in my days, running around

Kenmore and my phone on the other hand. And as I'm going down the stairs, I see what looks to be a sweater or sweatshirt like folded on the stairs. And as I'm about halfway down the stairs, the sweatshirt moves. It's my cat. And so I try to step over him, miss, go head over heels, up into the air, come crashing down on the bottom stair, that little edge of it right in the middle of my back. The Jillian's glass was flying into the air, come crashing down on the bottom stair, that little edge of it, right in the middle of my back. The Jillian's glass was flying into the living room. I don't know how it doesn't shatter into a million pieces. It doesn't even break. My phone goes down into the playroom that's down in the basement. I'm fully expecting when I get down there after riding around in pain for

about 10 minutes that it's going to be shattered. It doesn't break either. And the cat, just oblivious to it all, just keeps chilling on the stairs. So it was Tuesday afternoon. Sure enough, woke up Wednesday morning and I couldn't move. I had hoped that I would be able to get a show out Wednesday morning. Couldn't do it. So I took the afternoon, just took Wednesday, shut myself down for the day. It's now Wednesday night. Feeling back to normal, but still not 100%, but good enough to get here and do a show. What we're going to do in this show, we're going to do a December Carol. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, again, hope it's all of you.

You probably know my affinity for a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. And so we're going to talk the ghost of December past, the ghost of December present, and the ghost of December future, or yet to come come as it relates to the New England Patriots. And we'll start with the ghost of December past. And we've beaten to death the New England Patriots history in December on an earlier show from a couple weeks ago. I don't need to go down that road again. But I do think it's sort of important to take stock of where this Patriots team is from the last two games we've seen them play in December. And in the wake of that loss to Pittsburgh, I took the very sort of pessimistic approach talking about this team on Sunday night in that melancholy in the infinite sadness show. Basically said, you are what your record says. This is a three and

five team on the road. And that probably tells you what this team is as a road team. And so I took the pessimistic approach on Sunday night. I feel it's only fair that I try to take a look back at the last two weeks and try to pull out some optimism. Again, not exactly what Dickens did in the Ghost of Christmas Past, but if you look at these two games, if you look at the game against Miami, the game against Pittsburgh, the positive to take away from that Miami game is this. Arguably, Tom Brady's best game of the season. You know, when you look at what Tom Brady was able to do against the Dolphins on the road, it was arguably his best game of the year. Complaints 27 of 43 passes for a 62.79%, 358 yards, three touchdowns, no interception, quarterback rating of 112.4. The only game in which he had a better quarterback rating was that game against the Jets in week 12 where it was 115.4. He had an adjusted yards per attempt of 9.72. That was bested only by week six against

Kansas City where it was 10.29 and week 12 against the Jets, yet again, 10.42. So by any metric you want to point to, this was one of his best games passing of the year. On the road, against a team that historically has given him some fits, in an atmosphere and an environment that has historically been his house of horrors, he goes out and plays one of his best games of the season. And so there's that. There's the fact that it took a fluke, absolute fluke play that was a coaching mistake more than anything else

for the Patriots to lose that game. And yes, there were some problems with how they played. The athleticism or lack thereof at the second level, giving up long runs to Brandon Bolden and some of the other players from Miami. And that's not a good sign. You know, the fact that Brandon Bolden rips up a 54-yard run for a touchdown.

I mean, that's not what you want to see. But still, they should have won that game. And it was a game in which they struggled to run the ball. They still should have won that game. And so I think you look at Rob Gronkowski, eight catches on eight targets for 170 yards and a touchdown. That's kind of what we were hoping to see from this team. And so the optimistic approach tells us, look,

Brady was getting back to form in that game. Gronk was getting back to form in that game. Then you go up against Pittsburgh, a team that had lost three straight, a team that was playing for its playoff lives at Heinz Field, backs up against the wall. And again, it comes down to the final play. And we beat to death the final drive. There's no real reason to do that yet again.

And so I don't think it's full-on time to panic. I think the ghosts of the past two games are telling us that, look, two road losses to two teams also in the playoff hunt, two teams that they're basically in win or die situations, and both games come down to the final play. You lose one in a game that Beatty played arguably his best game of the year on a fluke play at the end. Use the other basically, again, at the end where they had some opportunities, they didn't get the ball into the end zone. I don't think the sky is truly falling.

That's sort of the glass half full, that Jillian's glasses half full approach. So I think, and maybe it's the fever here, but I don't think things are as bad as they seem. Up next, we're going to talk about a ghost of December present as it relates to the New England Patriots. But first, friends, I want to thank everybody who joined the Locked On Network League over at DraftKings. You guys crushed it. It was fantastic.

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All at once, look across a crowded room. Mark Schofield back with you now on this take Thursday in front of Lockdown Patriots. And again, doing things a little bit different today. Even doing some bump music here. Doing things, you know, really differently. I'm going to talk about the ghost of December present. We've got four topics I think we've got to talk about here. First, we're going to talk about this week against Buffalo.

Then we're going to talk about the two teams we're chasing right now, the Chiefs and the Texans. We're also going to have to talk about Tom Brady for a moment. But let's start again with the Buffalo Bills because I think it's important to remember that when you look at that game back in week eight, wasn't the best offensive performance of the season. You know, this was a game that was 9-3 at the half, 12-6 at the end of three. Patriots got one defensive touchdown in that game,

a James White one-yard run. Brady in that game goes 29-45 for 324, no touchdowns, no interceptions, quarterback rating 85.8. And in terms of quarterback rating from Tom Brady, on a game-by-game basis, that quarterback rating was one of his lowest of the season. Only his games against Tennessee and Detroit were lower. And part of that probably makes sense. Look, you're talking about a team that is the number one pass defense

in the league right now. And Brady has struggled against Buffalo at times. You look at Tom Brady's average against the Buffalo Bills. He's obviously never played them in the playoffs. But he's played them 32 times, 29-3 overall. He's completed 64% of his passes for 8,122 yards, 68 touchdowns, 22 interceptions. Quarterback rating of 100.5. Adjusted yards per attempt of 8.3.

So he's put up good numbers against them. And he hasn't lost to the Bills since week 16 of the 2014 season. And again, that's a game we talked about. He barely played, just attempted 16 passes. And then his previous loss was back in 2011. So they've had success, but it hasn't always been pretty. And this week, going up against number one pass defense, there might be some hiccups along the way.

But I'd expect it to be more like remember that game back in week 15 last year it was christmas eve i remember it in part because i had to run out halfway through our christmas eve we were with my parents i had to run out and get a couple of last minute things at a target because some of the stuff got stolen. The media got shipped. I think some slippers or something for the kids. He had thrown the interception early in that game. And so I'm cautiously optimistic that Brady has a good game,

but I wouldn't be surprised to see some bumps along the way. And so tempered expectations for Tom Brady against the Bills on Sunday. One of the things I'm going to be watching is, and this was something that I talked about when we played them back earlier this season, back in Week 8, is this going to be a game where they get James White involved? Because the linebackers, they're young and dumb. Especially Edmonds, he's going to be a game where they get James White involved? Because the linebackers, they're young and dumb. Especially Edmonds, he's going to be great someday.

But there are times when you can run him in and out of zones. There are times when he reacts to the first face he sees in his zone. He'll empty his, he'll vacate his underneath zone. I think you can do a lot. I'd love to see a lot of cross and follow concepts where you've got a crosser from the slot receiver and then a Texas route behind him, run Edmonds out of there, get James White sort of on that Texas route, bank it outside and then cut it inside. I want to see that. So that's what I'm

going to be watching for. Now, when we talk about the Texans and we talk about the Chiefs, the Patriots have a very favorable schedule. Things kind of work in their favor vis-a-vis the two teams that they're playing and the two teams that they're chasing. They got Buffalo and the Jets, two teams with losing records, at home. Houston, for example, they go at Philly and then Jacksonville at home on week 17. And that game against Philly at Philly, similar to what the Patriots faced last week, facing a team that's fighting for their playoff lives. And do any Patriots fans want to bet against Nick Foles? So there's that factor.

As for the Chiefs, they take a trip to Seattle this week. Seattle, not an easy place to play. Seattle, a team that, you know, they're in the playoffs right now. You know, if things ended right now, Seattle would be in the playoffs. They would be the number five seed. But they've got teams like the Eagles chasing them. They've got teams like Washington chasing them. And so they still need to win games.

And when you look at all of this together, when you look at what those two teams, Houston and Kansas City, face come this weekend, it is not outside the realm of possibility that come Christmas morning, I mean come Christmas Eve, the Chiefs are 11-4, the Texans are 10-5, and the Pats are 10-5. It's entirely possible given the two games that these other two teams are facing this weekend. And of course, on the one hand, that will make you really angry about what happened down in Miami,

maybe slightly angry about what happened down in Pittsburgh. Maybe slightly angry about what happened down in Pittsburgh. You'd be kicking yourselves about games against Detroit and games against Jacksonville. But it would still be all there in front of this team with one game to go against the Jets at home. And yes, both of those two teams, the Chiefs and the Texans, have home games against bad teams too. But the world would look a lot different on Christmas morning if things break that way. Especially because of the fact that the Patriots have the tiebreaker over both of those teams. And so a win coupled with those two losses would get them right back in the mix. Now, will it break that way? We don't know. And possibly complicating that are the swirling rumors about the health of Tom Brady. And it's making things a little bit

nerve-wracking, New England Patriots fan base. There's rumors of an MCL tear, a knee injury, people are going back through game tape, trying to see, you know, is there a spot where he might have injured that knee? There's a fantastic account on Twitter that goes by FTbeard17. This account does such a great job of putting together clips from current games, past games, doing game threads, stuff like that. And he sort of put together a couple of clips on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon of spots where Brady might have tweaked his knee.

Doug Kayed also has a piece. An opposing player told Nessun.com after the patriots lost to the tennessee titans week 10 that he heard brady injured his knee in that game and they mentioned that edelman to brady pass and again this account at ft beard underscore 17 reclip that play and there's actually still image where you can see his left knee getting bent a little bit weird we also saw him against miami go down. Maybe it looked at the time like it might have been a situation where he needed to readjust his knee brace.

It was after the touchdown pass to Gronk. But whenever there's sort of a Brady injury rumor, the first person I ask is Chris Gary. At Chris Gary Ortho, Chris is the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center. And I asked him, are you reading anything into these rumors? And he copied me on a tweet that he had sent to Mike Giardi. Looks to me like Brady has a meniscus tear, asymptomatic for periods,

but tweak it just right and it will take you down and make you pull off the leg. If that's the case, it will be an issue until the offseason when he can get it scoped. Yet one more thing to worry about. Just fantastic. Up next, the ghosts of December yet to come in Patriots

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this winter with Action Heat. And we thank them for sponsoring the podcast. Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after 2 a.m. And talked a little while about the year I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower

Makes you talk a little lower About the things you could not show her And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year Mark Sofa back with you now

to close out this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots and yeah a little long December from Counting Crows and now I sort of want to talk about

the ghosts of December is yet to come and you might be thinking oh gosh he of want to talk about the ghosts of December's yet to come. And you might be thinking, oh gosh, he's going to talk about draft quarterbacks right now, isn't he? And as much as I want to, there's going to be more than enough time to go down the draft quarterback road. But I do sort of want to talk about two players on the defensive side of the ball and some decisions that I think are going to be in front of the New England Patriots this offseason. First is Trey Flowers. And judging by the discussion in the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel,

again, if you'd like an invite, at Mark Scofield on Twitter, it seems that people really want Flowers to come back. People really look at him as the guy up on the defensive side of the ball that they probably want to get back into the mix.

And our good friend Miguel Benzon at Patscap on Twitter actually did a great piece over at Boston Sports Journal, which I would highly recommend you check out, both the piece in general and Boston Sports Journal. They do great work over there. And he really sort of went in-depth onto crafting a fair deal for Trey Flowers. And I would direct you to go read the piece. It's fantastic. But he really sort of lays out the numbers that would be a fair deal for Flowers from both sides.

Compares him to two players in particular, Olivier Vernon and Daniil Hunter. And basically where he comes down on us, where Miguel comes down on it is this. If you're looking for a fair deal, a Flowers deal with the Patriots in the 14 to 16 million per year average range would be fair for both sides and would recognize a couple of things. That he's the team's best defensive player and that he should be paid as such. That he's closer to free agency than guys like Adiniel Hunter when he signed his extension. And that his play is graded highly

by non-traditional stats, among other things. Now, it has me a little bit concerned that the Patriots might be looking to move on. Saw some rumblings on Twitter about some sources saying things like, he doesn't do good against the run when he's slid inside as a zero technique over the center, which if you're going to move on from an edge rusher,

from a 4-3 defensive end type player, because he doesn't do good as a zero technique, I'm not sure that moving on from a guy for something he's not great at on the eight snaps a year that he might do it is a good reason, but okay. But the kicker to Miguel's piece that has me somewhat pessimistic is this. He anticipates some questions and tries to answer them at the end of the piece. Question. If Flowers wants to maximize his money, do you expect him to be a Patriot? Answer. No.

I certainly hope that the Patriots figure out a way to get it done because I do think they need to figure out athleticism up front, and I certainly think that he's the guy that they can build around up front, but I'm not so sure. The other player I want to talk about is Patrick Chung. We've been up and down on him this year. He's been up and down this year. I was really high on him midseason, starting to sour on him a bit.

Maybe I just need to desour in Sweden. But if the Patriots want to move on from him or get a potential replacement in for him, there are one or two sort of interesting free agency type names out there. I've been told by sauces, I've got a couple, that Derek Kindred won't be back in Cleveland. And that's a name to kind of consider. He's just 25. He was drafted in the fourth round in the 2016 draft. The Browns have made some

upgrades at the safety spot, so it seems like they're going to move on from him. He's a guy that could sort of fill that box safety type role, if you think that that's what they need to do. You know, another thought is, look, what they need to do. Another thought is, look, what they need to do more than anything else is get a more versatile safety because Chun's role is rather niche. He's a more traditional box safety. Now, the Patriots do so much with three safety looks anyway that they can afford that. But if you're starting to think about life beyond both Chun and Devin McCourty. I think the trend in today's National Football League is to get safeties that are versatile. I mean, obviously, the template for that back when they were doing it with the Legion of Boom was having the two safeties that they had.

Earl Thomas, Cam Chancellor, those were versatile even though they typically had Chancellor down in the box he was the more down in the box type he could play that center of the field role and with offenses today that do so much in terms of motion and shifting to really try to change the strength of a defense change the strength of the offensive formation

thereby making the defense adjust I think you've got to have safeties that can do both. But if they do decide to go the more box-type role player, maybe Kindred, Glover Quinn, obviously, it's rumored that he's not going to be back in Detroit next year. Now, he's older, so maybe they decide not to go with an older player like that. There are some interesting draft prospects to look at.

We can go down the draft road a little bit. I've been asking around for players that might sort of fit that role for the New England Patriots. I've got a couple of names to share with you before we really start diving into tape. A name I'll throw out early in the process here is Juan Thornhill from Virginia. John Ledyard, Joe Marino. Kind of talk him up a little bit over at the Draft Network.

You know, when Ledyard talks about him, he closes his sort of right up on him this way. Excellent size and length for the safety position makes him capable of several different roles has played everywhere you can possibly play on defense outside of the defensive line often use it linebacker playing in the box and read the keys to come downhill against the run played cornerback for a couple of years has seen time in the slot consistent reliable and deep coverage as well so that's a player to keep in mind maybe you want to watch some virginia tape when you get a chance and there's another name that's really sort of catching fire in the draft valuation community, and that's an FCS player, Nasir Adderley from the University of Delaware.

And I've started to watch a little bit of him. Michael Kist has a great thread on him on Twitter, at MichaelKistNFL. You can check out over at the Draft Network. John Ledyard is right up on him. That's just from a couple of days ago. Basically says this about him. In terms of run defense, outrageously physical taking on blocks.

Feels cracks coming and will take receivers apart if they challenge him physically. Stood up an offensive lineman and rocked the world with two tight ends when Delaware played North Dakota State. Despite his team, get him blown out. Will fly up to the edge and turns runs back inside by blowing up the perimeter blocker. Uses his hands to shed, but also knows when to lower his shoulder and leverage a gap with some knockback. Takes mostly good angles to the ball occasionally slightly aggressive in his

pursuit to the perimeter. Plays single high in the box and occasionally in the slot for Delaware showing the ability to do all three at a high level and he concludes it by saying this. He's incredibly physical, bringing the fight to everyone on the field without sacrificing technique or responsibility. I think he'll check in around 205 pounds with an ideal build for a deep safety, yet perfectly sized to slide inside the slot against all types of receivers when a team needs that role filled

as well. The only real question mark is the level of competition he faces, as he wasn't targeted a ton and will need some time to adjust to the speed of the NFL game. His traits and intangibles seem to be perfectly in line with top safeties in the league today. And as long as he checks boxes at the senior ball and combine, he will likely be a top 15 to 30 player on my board. If you were thinking that the Patriots want to go early on a safety, this might be the guy to watch. That will do it for today's show. Covered a lot of ground today.

I will be back tomorrow. Schedule a little different since I was out of commission on Wednesday. We're going to do Crossover Friday. Kevin Masseri from Locked On Bills will be joining us. We'll have a little conversation with him. And yes, Miguel et al who were missing it on Sunday.

Sunday morning tailgate will be back this week. So, getting back into the mix of things, a little all over the place today, but hey, trying to piece it all back together. 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 P. Yeah. Yeah, yeah Yeah Yeah

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah