Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots December 21, 2018 - Crossover With Locked On Bills

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

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Hello everybody and welcome on into a game day installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield with you for Friday, December 21st, 2018. We are just a couple of days away from New England's pivotal Week 16 game against the Buffalo Bills. We're going to dive into some of my expectations a little bit later. My conversation with Kevin Masseri from Locked on Bills. Doing a little crossover here on Friday. Before we do that, though, 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 View, part of the SB Nation family of websites. And if you heard me on the emergency podcast that I did yesterday with Josh Gordon, you heard me talk about the wall of uncertainty. And we had to add yet another brick to that wall late Thursday afternoon where word came out that two players who may now be pivotal to the New England Patriots and their offense down the stretch here with the loss of Josh Gordon were either absent from or limited in practice.

First, Rob Gronkowski popping up back on the injury report with a back injury. Again, the back injury has been an issue for Robert Gronkowski. The back problems, the surgeries, well documented. Now, one thing we have to worry about, is Gronkowski going to be able to go? It's never a good sign. Ask anyone. For example, Shane Brumell over at FootballGuys.com, who, you know, obviously a medical doctor, does a lot of sort of injury reporting type stuff over at footballguys.com

he will tell you as will most other people if you see somebody pop up on an injury report late in the week it is usually not a good sign so there's one thing to worry about the other thing is mr patterson himself who stepped in for josh gordon to the end of that game against pittsburgh steelers now he is on the injury report did not go to practice because of an illness. Now, hopefully he has what I had, maybe a 24, 48 hour thing. If so, I'm sorry. I didn't know that my germ viruses could make it to the New England area from D.C., but apparently, given how I felt over the past couple of days, they were pretty powerful.

So maybe it's possible, but not good to be entered the weekend with two pieces that might be big components of your past game of your offense headed into this game that you've got to win being question marks. Having said that, I want to sort of try to take a step back and again, sort of recalibrate everything and sort of recalibrate our frame of mind and our thinking headed into this game. Because like I said in the other show that I did for Thursday, things could look a lot different come Christmas Eve. We could wake up Christmas Eve feeling like things have sort of returned to order. The Patriots could take care of business against the Buffalo Bells.

The Houston Texans, they could lose in Philadelphia. The Kansas City Chiefs, they could also lose in Seattle. And that would bring the Patriots back into the two spot. Again, one game behind Kansas City with one game left. And then, of course, all three teams, I believe, have home games. So if there's going to be a move made it's gonna have to come in week 16 not in week 17 and when you look at sort of the history of these three franchises houston kansas city Houston, Kansas City, and the New England Patriots.

Which franchise are you going to sort of place your bets on, sort of go all in on, when it comes to sort of closing out what you have to close out at the end of a season? And let's sort of remember for a second how I began this month. Talking about New England being 58-11 in the month of December, the Tom Brady era. Yeah, they're just 1-2 this year.

But also remember, they just have four losses at home in the Brady-Belichick era. Four. Again, one in 2002. That's a team that did not make the playoffs. One against Colin Kaepernick. One against the Buffalo Bills in a game that Tom Brady didn't really play.

Jimmy Garoppolo saw most of the snaps in the second half. And one in that sort of fluke loss against the Eagles a couple of years ago while Chip Kelly was still in town. Are you really going to sit here right now, December 21st, 2018, and believe that even though the Patriots have lost their previous two games, that they're going to drop either of these remaining home contests against two teams with rookie quarterbacks. Rookie quarterbacks traditionally struggle against Tom Brady.

Maybe Deshaun Watson broke the mold on that one. Yes, Josh Allen is an athletic quarterback, but as you will hear me talk about with Kevin in just a few minutes, they're doing it with not a lot of help around them. Last week, they ran a fourth string running back out there. They expect to get Leshaun McCoy back this week, but that's a question mark. They're doing it with Foster and McKenzie, two guys they've sort of signed off practice squads and things like that. Zay Jones, Rayleigh McLeod, they don't have a ton of weapons. They're going to revamp the offensive line in the offseason. Will Josh Allen make some plays with his legs, perhaps?

With his arm? He might. Yes, they have the number one pass defense. Yes, the Patriots might struggle at times. They might go a couple of short drives, three and outs, four and outs, five and outs type of situations. I can't for the life of me, even with everything that is going on, even with the wall of uncertainty I've been talking about, I can't for the life of me sit here right now and tell you that I think the Patriots will lose this game. Would it surprise me?

I guess given how things have played out the past couple of weeks, it wouldn't. But I think when push comes to shove, the New England Patriots, this franchise, they've taken care of business. I think they'd do it again this weekend. Can you say that about the Texans? Can you say that about the Chiefs? Look, the Chiefs looked like one of the best teams in football last

year. And they lost in the divisional round. The Houston Texans, at times, they've looked really good but have they proven to you that they can take care of business down the stretch and they can win some sort of close out games and when you look at the houston texans this season the evidence kind of shows you that they've had some opportunities to sort of take care of business and get themselves into a much better position playoff-wise. They had a home game against Indianapolis back in week 14, and they lost. They had the three-game stretch to start in the season, and they lost all three of those games.

But you look at that Colts game, and again, the Colts might be that proverbial team nobody wants to face. But do you trust in Houston to sort of win a pivotal game on the road now? Look at that Colts game. And again, the Colts might be that proverbial team nobody wants to face. But do you trust in Houston to sort of win a pivotal game on the road now? Are you trusting the Chiefs to go into Seattle and win? Given their history, given some of the times that they've sort of failed to live up to expectations. Yes, Patrick Mahomes is playing incredible football. But Tyree Kill has banned up. They've got to rely on guys like Damian Williams now with Kareem Hunt out. Travis Kelsey's drawn a ton of coverage. Sammy Walkage has been in and out of the lineup.

I just, I come back to the idea that yes, there's uncertainty. Yes, this team might struggle to, you know, even get to a Super Bowl once they get into the playoffs. And they're still going to get into the playoffs. I don't think they're going to miss out on it. But I think for the next two weeks, we are going to see what this team has, what this team is made of. And I think we're going to see some of their best football yet. And so I'm choosing to be optimistic right now. I hope you'll join me in that effort.

Up next, my conversation with Kevin Masseri of Locked On Bills. Welcome, everybody, to a special Locked Over NFLills. Welcome everybody to a special Locked Over NFL Network crossover event. Mark Schofield here from Locked On Patriots joined by Kevin Masseri from Locked On Bills. You can find Kevin on Twitter at Kevin K-E-V-I-N-M-A-S-S-A-R-E.

You can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Kevin, how are you doing my friend this holiday season? Hey, doing well. Getting ready for the Christmas break here. Getting some time off and spending some time with the family. So that should be cool. And awaiting this matchup, this Bills-Patriots, should be, I think, better than the first match. I think this is going to be much better than the first meeting this season between the two teams.

And obviously, the place we can probably start is the player who wasn't around or just wasn't available for that first meet and that's quarterback josh allen who always sort of reignited bill's nation those mafia sort of with his play uh both with his arm and with his legs it seems like he's really sort of excited that fan base what have you guys seen from allen the past couple of weeks that has you guys so geared up about the future yeah so i went over on lockdown nfl with matt williamson to kind of discuss this topic and i think you see something that the bills are now the bills fan base is no longer willing to lose there they want to stack wins for josh allen it's an interesting place the team has you know quote unquote the quarterback of the future

um and they most of the fan base now i think is in support of winning football games you know they don't really care if we're picking third seventh tenth fifteenth uh i think more importantly josh allen's winning games and meaningful football games and i believe the next two are the two that bill's fans are pretty much targeting to you know always take down new england and then potentially maybe knock miami out of the playoffs in week. So he's been just a spark plug. I mean, the team's been in every game he's played, and even in that was including in the beginning of the year. He had one really bad game against Green Bay,

particularly a bad game where the team got shut out, and it just didn't work that day. But ever since then, and obviously since his injury, this team has been much better. I lost a couple close ones back-to-back against Miami and the Jets. I thought they should have won both of those games. And the Bills are playing with Josh Allen in the lineup, in my opinion, above.500 football.

I think a couple bounces go their way. It's an 8-9-7 team. You know, Kevin, when I've looked at Allen, and I know we talked about this a little bit, even though he wasn't going to play the last time we chatted, but I've seen some development and some areas of concern that I had with him. I've seen, you know, the development in terms of using touch, using placement, using, you know, taking a little bit off on throws

because he loves to throw the fastball. And I've seen some development sort of in the areas of process and in decision and sort of making some throwaways. I know he had a throw last week where they were looking to throw that wide throwback. It wasn't there, so he threw it away. Have you guys seen sort of the same stuff from him where he's starting to show you some refinement and play in the position that people wanted to see from him coming out of Wyoming?

He's definitely shown a lot of improvement. He quotes to the four games, one of them being the last New England game that he had to sit out and learn from Derek Anderson and Matt Barkley. And his development has been wonderful to this point. He's finally clicking with Brian Dable. Many thought he could be one and done after they went one and done with Rick Dennison last year. And the team's been a little bit worse, a lot worse on offense this year. However, I mean, he was thrown into new acquirers and new receivers across the board.

I mean, he's got some drop problems. He has some receivers that just don't run good routes. Had to cut Kelvin Benjamin. You know, his fifth and completion percentage is on him. But, I mean, with a better football team, adjusted completion percentage should be somewhere in the 60s. You know, he's shown more poise. He's a leader.

I mean, that's the number one thing I think that people like out of here already at such a young age um they're they're playing for him i mean once again he's he's had three straight weeks of coming back in football games back to back to back he has that really good uh poise at the end of a game the defense actually we can get into the defense a little bit but you know they let him up let him down in the last two games, and they held on against Detroit to take that win. But Josh Allen has done everything right. He has moments where he doesn't look great. He's still throwing it into the dirt. He's still throwing fastballs, but he just clicks with wide receiver,

undrafted free agent Robert Foster, who's already eclipsed his total yardage out of Alabama, a guy that the Bills are going to probably build around at the receiver position, as well as Isaiah McKenzie, a great third or fourth receiver that they plucked. They've been trying to get from Denver since last year. Finally, practice squad. He finally got waived by Denver. The Bills plucked him. He just fits with Josh Allen.

He fits in this offense. You have two receivers that they're going to build around, as well as Zay Jones, a guy that they've drafted and obviously traded out for. And he's always been an okay second to third receiver. He's better at times than others, but the team's going to make obviously a really big push to sign a number one receiver this offseason, whether via the trade market, someone that gets cut, or in the first round of the NFL draft. But they're going to build this team around weapons.

They need a tight end. It's a big, big problem spot. Didn't anticipate it with Charles clay, but he doesn't have much help around him, you know, to make a long story short and his 50% completion percentage is a little bit misleading. If you're going to look at box scores and or watches from the minimal film. So Josh Allen's a guy Mark that I think is,

it could be a future portion of this AFC East as well, as well as, you know, potentially Sam Darnold. And I think that as you know potentially Sam Darnold and I think that you know on the Patriots end they should be watching him and and you know kind of seeing what what what we have in this division out of Josh Allen you know kind of as the quarterback of the future so this team's not very good offensively they don't have a lot of talent last week they were running their fourth running back this week it does look like La leshawn mccoy is going to go which is which is always better teams always have to at least account for him but um he's i don't know what's going on in mccoy just this offense is not good i mean they're going to need to overhaul about three offensive line spots too i was going to ask you about foster and mckenzie because you know watching this team

on film past couple of weeks you, that game last week against Detroit, those two guys do really seem to have a good relationship with Allen and they're doing a good job of sort of getting open and sort of tracking with Allen in those scramble trail situations. Do you think you seem to intimate that they're going to really sort of build around those two guys, Zay Jones and maybe one more receiver? Is that sort of your understanding of where they're going? Yeah, it's definitely. I wouldn't be shocked to see them either spend a major asset at the receiver position trade a major asset um to one that

might become available veteran i mean brandon beans already alluded to looking at the market you know your aj greens of the world you know whoever might pop available for a decent draft pick i i there was rumblings around here we don't we can't confirm them that they were calling atlanta for julio jones at some point last year um and into this year so i we can't confirm that but i do believe the interest in a real veteran number one receiver is there uh they'll send specific us you know a lot of money and asset to get require that but then yeah then you're looking down the depth chart robert foster's a guy this this coaching staff will not give up on i'm actually shocked they waved him at one point this year he made the team coming out actually not running

great routes dropping balls there's no doubt about that but then just clicked and just figured it out believe he's top five in the league in the last four or five weeks and receiving um i mean he's had back to back to back hundred yard weeks and then had a 120 yarder in there um but he's been a really good football player i mean he's a guy that's developed his route running uh he can beat the best cornerbacks in the league crushed uh savion howard earlier josh allen missed him on a throw on a 75 yard touchdown um he's a guy that can run good routes i mean he's not just going to go deep he'll he'll do stop and goes he'll he'll run a nice curl i mean he's a receiver that allen will look to in crunch time as you saw last week against detroit as well as isaiah mckenzie he's going to work over the middle uh he's a receiver that Allen will look to in crunch time, as you saw last week against Detroit, as well as Isaiah McKenzie.

He's going to work over the middle. He's a little fragile. He's always he got carted off last week when looked like a major injury. And we are pretty bummed about that in the last two weeks and comes out in the next series. So a little fragile, kind of in the mold of a Marquis Goodwin is kind of who I relate him to covering Marquis pretty, pretty in-depthly. So, I mean, those are the kind of things you can expect from this Bills offense. A lot of McKenzie, a little bit of McCoy coming into this, and I would envision five or six shots at Robert Foster. You know, switching gears a little bit, Kevin,

I want to talk about this Bills defense, and it's sort of built itself into the number one pass defense in the league, giving up less than 190 yards per game, giving up an opposing quarterback rating of 86.6. How has that sort of developed over the past couple of weeks? Because when we talked last, it seemed like the Bills' defense was good, trying to get better. It seems like they've done that. Yeah, I mean, the defense is really good in stretches, so that's the number one thing I can note. There's times in the game, and they showed it in that New England game, that they just had no offense the last time that these two teams matched up,

but kept the game close just out of pure, you know, really good defensive play, including, you know, really tough field position throughout that game. I mean, it's a great unit. They've lost their nickel corner and Taryn Johnson, who's been, who was really good, ranked top three by PFF in rookie corners, and they lost, like, their just, just like developing linebacker matt milano to a pretty gruesome injury along the lines ish of a um you know the bills have had two him and russell boda in their starting center ish alex smith type of injuries you know with the fibula break wasn't quite as bad as alex's but it's similar they were pretty gruesome so matt milano they

actually um facetimed him in the locker room after the win last week against Detroit. He was a pretty big part of this defense. But the front seven is pretty good. Tremaine Edmonds is developing. I have my moments with him where I'd like to see him a little bit further for the assets they spend on the linebacker. But he flashes that same type of potential, and Lorenzo Alexander just doesn't. Him and Kyle Williams are just ageless, it's, you know, they're kind of, they kind of follow. I would wonder if they follow Tom Brady's path of just, I mean, they just get better as the, as the games and the seasons go on,

but their past defense, legit Trey White's got picked on just a little bit by Robbie Anderson and Kenny Galladay. But don't let that fool you in, in, in other plays. He's, he's pretty locked down there at the, the outside cornerback spot. Yeah. That was going to be my next question, Kevinvin because it seems like from scanning through bill's twitter there's been a i don't want to say a lack of confidence in trey white but it does seem like there's a certain section of bill's twitter that seems to be a little bit down on him is that

merited or it seems to me that you think that that's not merited he's still kind of a locked down corner i struggle with a little bit because know, when you're watching it, you know, you're trying to take take some notes and you do see a bad player to kind of just elapse, you know, his ball skills. They can be a little bit iffy at times. Coverage is amazing. I mean, he has zero problems staying with any receiver in the league. I mean, I think I think I mean, Matt Stafford's a good quarterback. Kenny Galladay has proven that he can be a good receiver, and he's his number one option right now. I mean, plays happen. I do think Trey White should have made a better play against Robbie Anderson

and ended up losing the game because of it. The defense did not do their job in the fourth quarter in back-to-back weeks. They did do their job last week against Detroit, albeit with a missed field goal in there at some point in about seven minute mark. So it's a good defense. It's a defense that's very deserving of being in the top two in the league, one that should be a playoff defense on most teams, just with a more competent offense and one they really like their safety play and they love their undrafted free agent, Levi Wallace.

On the other side of Trey White, a guy that guy that i mean they think has played his way into you know cornerback two and potentially not being a huge need especially with a rookie at corner the third spot so i don't know i don't they don't anticipate major changes in the bills defense there's just really no one coming out of contract except kyle williams um and if they're going high in the draft and they do drop these two games i i would anticipate a um very very early defensive tackle mark scoffield kevin massari doing a little locked over at crossover action here little patriots bills talk for you we're going to switch gears and admit it but first we wanted to remind you folks it is week 16 of the football season and that means time is running

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Minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. Mark Schofield, Kevin Messier, back with you doing some crossover action here getting you ready for patriots bills this sunday and you know kevin one question i did want to ask is you know you kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier and from scanning through bill's twitter this week i've definitely seen this is the case it seems like a win this week for buffalo would be probably i don't want to say a season maker for them, but it would be huge.

Yeah, I think that I did kind of touch on it to where they're in the stage where it's scary. I don't want to use scary. It's an interesting matchup because as long as Sean McDermott's coaching, he's always claimed he's never, ever, ever going to lose for draft position. But I do believe that in Josh. and most of his fan base is looking forward to this game and i i would say both of these games honestly because they want nothing more than to beat miami just as much as new england um but i i do believe that this this team this fan base everyone is would look at this as their quote-unquote playoff matchup because um you know nothing more than to to kind of hit to kind of New England team um and I mean there's been some I guess

crazy news in in New England right didn't you have to do an emergency pod on Josh Allen or excuse me uh Josh Gordon um yeah what's going on over there offensively it's it's just as I called it on the emergency pod today it's just one more brick in the sort of wall of uncertainty facing the New England Patriots right now because you know let's remember this sort of offseason began in the wake of a super bowl loss with rob gronkowski hinted at potential to retire and then you've got offseason rumors about gronkowski being shipped around then you've got more rumors about brady being angsty about that and you know potentially threatening to you know retire himself

if the team traded tried to trade gronkowski you know whether there threatened to, you know, retire himself if the team tried to trade Gronkowski. You know, whether there was any truth to that or not, that remains to be seen. But that's been spun forward now to, you know, having to move on from Josh Gordon, who, you know, we do hope that he gets the help and gets the, you know, medical attention that he needs to sort of get through this. Because it does seem like there may have been a relapse type situation. You know, there's rumors of potentially another violation of the substance abuse policy. And so that's a concern.

There's been rumors swirling this week. Now, whether it's media invention or not, we don't know, but there's been sort of rumors about Brady perhaps having a knee injury. There have been some instances where people have gone back and looked at some of the tape

from the past couple of weeks, whether it was that Tennessee game or, you know, after he had thrown a touchdown against Miami, he sort of fell to the ground and seemed to be playing with his knee a little bit. We don't know if that was an actual injury or him just adjusting his brace, but there's just this air of uncertainty around this team right now. And it certainly doesn't help when the calendar flipped to December and people, myself included, were saying, look,

this is a team that's like, you know, 58 and 11 during the Brady Belichick time. You know, they've only lost four home games in the month of December and they've got a bunch of those, you know, they've got two home games at least, or two or three home games, you know, because they had that, the Vikings game in early December. So they had three of their five games, you know, to close out the season were at home. You figure, look, they usually play Vikings game in early December, so they had three of their five games to close out the season. We're at home. You figure, look, they usually play their best in December. They play great at Gillette in December.

And then they've lost two straight. And so this team right now is sort of, I don't want to say in a tailspin, but they're really sort of trying to figure things out. And a lot of people have made the analogy to 2009. There was a moment from A Football Life with Bill Belichick where there's a clip of him and Brady on the sideline of a Monday night game in New Orleans where Belichick was just saying I can't get these guys to do what I want to do I can't get them ready to play on the road and this is a team that was three and five this year on the road and so you put all that together there's a lot of uncertainty about

this team and a lot of people are really making that 2009 comparison where they went in had to play on the wild card weekend hosted the ravens got run out of the joint the ravens hunt 24 on them on the first quarter and lo and behold if the season ended right now they're hosting the ravens again in the first round so it there's just a lot of uncertainty right now about this team do you buy into these injuries i've seen talk about on my feed um i saw one i guess i don't know how legitimate you know patriots um reddit is but i i heard that there's some rumblings on brady's injury is anything of concern there i mean i heard i mean rob gronkowski jump back on the the injury report anything going on with those two um or aid i know the patriots aren't going to tell you anything anyways but but do you have, personally,

do you think that there's anything to these Brady injuries? I think there is. Somebody I've known for a long time used to do work for us over at Inside the Pylon, Christopher Gary, who is the head of sports medicine and orthopedic surgeon at Tufts University Hospital in the Boston area. He's done a lot of work with the Red Sox players, with some Patriots players. And I asked him, I reached out to him and was like, you know, is there anything to these

Brady rumors? And he believes it's a meniscus thing from watching sort of Brady and how he's been, you know, handling himself, how he's been moving, how he's been operating it in and around the pocket. So he thinks there's something here with the Brady D injury. And if you watch Tom Brady over the past couple of weeks, you do see him sort of step it away from throws, step it away from contact, not step it into throws.

You saw that interception he threw against Pittsburgh. He didn't step into that one, couldn't get it to the sideline. So it does seem like, look, there's something going on here. Now, there have been times throughout his career wheready has done a good job of sort of avoiding contact that's one of the big reasons that he's able to play you know into his 40s because he does a good job of sort of avoiding hits like that this seems a little bit different it does seem like there's something going on here yeah i think so too i've just watched brady and he's been great at times um but i mean in this year i i can tell that unless he's lost it,

I mean, you would know that. And I'll never ever can assume Brady's ever lost it until he says so himself. It does not look like he's there health wise. And I do think that he, it's a good game for him. He should be able to get right against the Bills in terms of, I mean, he's always had a really good read on this Buffalo team, regardless of what kind of defensive scheme we play in, probably mostly for every team.

But I think it's a good right game in terms of he's not going to get pressured offensively by the Bills team in terms of needing to do too much. I mean, I think they can home back. I mean, they're really run heavy against the blast time. The Bills have been vulnerable at times in the run. I mean, they play such good pass defense that sometimes they just say, sure, we'll let you run four to six yards if that's what you're going to do. I mean, we're going to lock down you on the pass D side.

So, you know, we don't really mind giving you up, you know, one Z, two Z runs. And the Bills will play like that throughout the game. And, you know, Tom Brady will take full advantage of that, especially with Sonny Michel. We didn't have him the first matchup around. But what's going on with the Patriots run game? Is it a lot of Michel? Is it, I mean, I've noticed even a lot of things going on there in the run game.

What's happening and what do you envision happening knowing that if there is a place to kind of gain some ground on the Bills, it's probably with some heavy run schemes. Yeah, and what's been interesting about the Patriots run game is since the return of Rex Burke and the Patriots have relied on him you know at the running back spot done some stuff with him both in the past game and the run game and that's he's kind of siphoned the the snaps as well as the action from James White instead of Sonny Michelle and there's sort of been an outcry over the past two weeks now that the Patriots need to get James White involved back into the pass game. This is somebody that, you know, earlier in the season, there was sort of this clamor that James White needed to be involved more. And that was spearheaded by none other than Tom Brady, who basically said, look, this is one of our best players and he needs to be out there.

And so if you can imagine for a second, Tom Brady and Josh McDaniel sort of sitting down and crafting a game plan, you've got to believe that, you know, Brady this week is going to be saying, look, we've got to get James White involved more. So I think you're going to see more of James White. As far as the Patriots sort of putting together a run-heavy approach, it does seem like at times they've tried to do that. They've done a lot with 21 personnel. They do a lot of power-eye game stuff. They rely on James Devlin, their fullback, a ton as a lead blocker

in front of Sonny Michel. But I think sort of the underutilization of James White over the past couple of weeks, you're going to see a lot more James White this week. Okay, I would envision it. We've always struggled here in Buffalo with a running back kind of like James White. Bills do very good against steady running backs like Derrick Henry, players like that that are pure runners who you know what you're going to get out of, what running style you're going to get.

The Bills always play them really tough. They've played a good gamut of running backs this year across the country and across the NFL, including Melvin Gordon. They play pretty well against him and others. But a running back like James White is obviously, especially in the New England scheme, a complete matchup problem. I mean, especially with Matt Milano out of this game. I would envision this game could come down to a lot of a heavy dose in the pass and run game of James White.

Even like a versatile guy like Rex Burkhead could come back to kill the Bills. Sonny Michel, that's kind of running back they're a little bit better with historically, or especially I can speak under McDermott the last year and a half. They, they, they tend to know what you're going to get out of a pure runner. I'm a guy that more, you know, up and down North and South, but is there any injuries to be concerned with on the New England end? Anything coming out of practice today? Anything you know of anything you expect not to happen or play? I mean, in terms of the practice report, you know, anything you expect not to happen or play i mean in terms of the practice report you know there was an addition rob gronkowski was limited in practice today with a back injury and with gronkowski that's sort of been the history with him you know the back has

been a problem he's had the surgeries on it so that is something to watch that just popped up today so that's something to watch you know with josh gordon now stepping away from football you would expect a player that might sort of step into his role, Cordell Patterson. Well, he was out today with an illness. That's also something to watch as well. Okay, very interesting. Good notes.

The Bills are pretty healthy outside of the guys I mentioned that just got placed on IR. They've been fairly healthy throughout the year. So that doesn't really affect the Bills game unless Josh Allen wasn't playing. There's really not an injury that would affect this team too, too much. They were playing with the fourth running back last week. Mark, any final nuggets, any final notes, anything else you have for us, anything you're watching for New England or Bills related?

All I can say, Kevin, is this. At this point in this season with the New England Patriots, almost any single result would not surprise me. I said this last week when I was doing the crossover with Tony Serino from Locked On Steelers. You know, almost any single result, I could see it happening. And even this week, like, if you were to tell me right now that Buffalo would somehow blow the Patriots out, I would be like, well, I mean, it's been a weird season.

So I, okay. I mean, maybe that's the least likely result, but could the bills come into Gillette and win this game at the way the past two weeks have gone? It certainly wouldn't shock me. What's your final prediction of this game and where does, where's New England go this year? Tell, I guess, tell us where you think they're going to. I mean, sitting here right now,

I still think that they find a way to get to the AFC Championship game somehow. I mean, it's hard to bet against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick when that calendar gets into December and January. But that being said, look, they're a very fine line now between being the one-seater, potentially even falling all the way to the four. And so things could go one of two ways you know they could find a way to get to the afc championship game and you know maybe they steal one or two games on the road to somehow get to a super bowl maybe they could also find themselves on the outside looking in come you know divisional round weekend so it's just been a strange year my friend and four's got to be scary because that'd be a matchup with la or kansas city yeah i mean you do not want to be

the four i mean i look they they could win this weekend and look kansas city they have to go to seattle houston they have to go to philly you know those aren't two you know those aren't gimme games and so you know they could be in a back into the two spot come christmas eve and then things would look right in new england yet again but this is the last time because you look Houston, I think they get either Jacksonville or Indy, but it's a home game for them. The Kansas city, they get Oakland at home.

And so this would be the time, this would be the week that if they're going to make up any ground, it would have to happen here. Yeah. I mean, Hey, it's against the bills. The bills want nothing more than to make the Patriots play in that four

spot. Um, you know, or maybe even the three. Um, and then, and then the three is not much, a lot better. I mean, that fourth spot, or maybe even the three. And then the three's not a lot better. I mean, that's Baltimore-Pittsburgh too.

So lots to happen and always love coming on with you. You give a great insight into other teams as well. So always love doing the Patriots-Bills crossover. As do I, Kevin. It's always fantastic. Folks, you have to be following Kevin on Twitter, at Kevin Massari, K-E-V-A-N-M-A-S-S-A-R-E. I am Mark Schofield, at Mark Schofield on Twitter.

Folks, that was pretty good. Let's do it for this week. Next time we talk, at least on my show, will be Christmas Eve or so. Happy holidays. Safe travels to all of you. Wish you all the best. Enjoy the football this weekend. I'm Mark Schofield from the Lockdown Patriots.

And I'm Kevin Massari from the Lockdown Bills. Have a good one.