Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots December 25, 2018 - Christmas Tape Tuesday

Episode Date: December 25, 2018

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Merry Christmas! Tuesday, December 25th, 2018. What we're going to do today is, of course, at the top, wish you all a merry, merry Christmas. Those of you who are celebrating and observing the day today. I didn't want to leave you guys and girls out there without a show today, so I'm going to take a couple minutes here. And we're going to do some stuff about that game that we saw, particularly the pass game that we saw against the Buffalo Bills. But before I do that, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work in 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, friends, as I've said.

If there's a place that's covering football, chances are they've got me doing some work for them. And I'm going to do some Tape Tuesday stuff. I'm going to do a quick sort of one-segment type thing talking about the Patriots' offense. And we're going to start at a very, very different place than you might expect. We're going to start with Bob Wiley. Now, some of you may recognize that name. The bulk of you probably don't. Bob Wiley sort of grew into a little bit of a national star this past summer.

He's the current offensive line coach for the Cleveland Browns. And those of you that saw Hard Knocks on HBO, you probably saw some great footage of him talking about stretching, talking about how the guys that stormed the beaches at Normandy, all they did was jumping jacks and push-ups and sit-ups. They didn't need to do all this fancy stretching type stuff. And he became sort of a cult hero. There's obviously some great scenes of him, you know, barking out a cadence and his stomach seemed to sort of gyrate in rhythm to the hot hot he was making.

But before it became sort of a viral sensation, Bob Wiley was and has been a well-known, well-respected member of the offensive line community. And in preparation for doing the show that I'm about to do, I spent a good portion of my Christmas Eve reading through one of my many football nerdy manuals, the 2015 Offensive Line Coaches Handbook featuring lectures from the 2015 Kool Clinic. This is one of those nerdy football books that I pick up every year and this one in particular is focused solely on offensive line play. It's got things like Alex Gibbs on the inside and outside zone, Jim McNally on current trends in offensive line play, Ed Warrior from Ohio State on the Ohio and outside zone. Jim McNally on current trends in offensive line play. Ed Warrior from Ohio State on the Ohio State spread run game.

And at the very end, it talks about conflict of assignment using slide protection comments. Concepts from Bob Wiley. And I read that little segment with keen interest after watching the Patriots' passing attempts against the Buffalo Bills. And I'm only going to talk about five of their plays. There wasn't a lot to really work with in terms of good stuff to break down. But I do want to focus on pass protection Sunday against the Buffalo Bills because it wasn't great. And with the ability to sort of take a step back, watch this passing game against Buffalo,

see it from the all-22 angle so you can see the end zone angle as well, I came away with a concern more in the pass protection realm than the Tom Brady execution realm. And a play we can start with is the first play of the second quarter. This is a second and 12 at the 15-minute mark of the second quarter. And the Patriots were basically a half step away from getting a huge play. Again, it's second and 12, but they come up with Brady under center. a half step away from getting a huge play. Again, it's second and 12, but they come out with Brady under center. The Bills, they show pressure.

They've got two, three, four, five, six, seven defenders down in the box. Patriots show that little jet motion with Patterson. He comes across the formation from right to left. Brady fakes the handoff, and all he really wants to do is throw what's basically a wide option. It's, in essence, a one-receiver route. Edelman in the slot, working a crossing route over the middle, and it's there. Bills are in cover one, man free. It is wide open. The play action sucks down both linebackers, but Brady doesn't get a chance to pull the trigger. He almost does, but he just needs a half step more. And the reason being, it's basically twofold. One, Trent Brown gets beat on the backside of this. Jerry Hughes beats him with a speed move.

Trent Brown sort of gets into his kick slide. And he's slow. And he's late with his initial punch. And Hughes just beats him around the backside. So Brady's sort of forced to tuck it. And he's also forced to tuck it because on the front side, Poirier blitzes off the edge. And after carrying out the run fake,

Sonny Michel goes to meet him at the point of attack. But the problem is, there's this old expression in the game of pass protection. Pass protection is not passive. And what happens is Sonny Michel sets up, gets a wide base, tries to absorb the blow, and does a pretty decent job of it, but he still gets driven back into Tom Brady's lap. And Poirier finishes off the play for a sack. Brady does a good job of avoiding Hughes.

He sort of ducks under the backside pressure, but Poirier is able to finish it off for a sack. So you have Brown on the backside, slow with his hands, slow with his punch, getting beat around the back of the arc. And you have Sonny Michel, the rookie running back, playing pass protection too passively. He's got to be more aggressive there. Meet him. Go attack him. You know, pass protection is not passive. Go attack him. That's what he's going to do. If he does, maybe he still gets driven back a bit, but he won't get driven back right into Brady's lap. Then their last pass in the play of the second quarter. This is that third and four. Remember the Patriots,

they had a chance after forcing that incompletion on fourth and three at the end of the second quarter. They get a big run from Patterson, a 27-yard run that gets it out to the Buffalo 48 at the two-minute warning. They get a chance to take advantage of that field position. But they get third and four, a short incompletion to the left side in the direction of Patterson on sort of comeback route. And the issue here is we're starting to see some of the conflict stuff. Buffalo was able to sort of get offensive linemen and pass-protecting backs into conflict.

The play protection here is a 60-series protection where you've got technically six people that can block because the running back will check and then release. And so you have the five linemen and potentially that sixth blocker, in this case James White, who is in the backfield, standing next to Brady, who is in the shotgun, White staggered to his left. The Bills show pressure here. They've got one, two, three, four, five, six.

Six defenders down, but you've also got the safety, who's hovering over Gronkowski, so there's seven in the box, basically. And what happens is the Patriots have the numbers to block this, because they send five. It looks like they send five, that's right. But the linebacker really sort of drops and covers and runs with White after White checks him. So they're really only rushing four.

So the Patriots should have this blocked up. They slide the center to the right. And so David Andrews to center, Shaq Mason the right guard, Marcus Cannon the right tackle. They all slide to the right. And then Trent Brown, Joe Thune, the left guard and the left tackle, they slide to the left. White goes to the left edge. They should have this blocked up. Again, White will end up checking and releasing since that linebacker isn't coming.

They've rushed four. You've got five. Now what has to happen is the side that's a two-on-two, those guys have to win. That's also the side that happens to get a little bit of a stunt twist. Where Kyle Williams and Jerry Hughes, they cross paths. And wouldn't you know it, as they cross, Thune does a very good job coming off of Kyle Williams and taking on Jerry Hughes. And rides him well to the outside.

Well, basically to the backside, this becomes. Trent Brown, however, is slow coming off, slow scraping over. Kyle Williams gets into him, gets around him, and gets into Brady's face. Brady's forced to sort of chuck it and get out of the way because he's going to take a hit. And what's really interesting about this throw is how guarded Brady is of that lead leg, that left leg, because he steps into it and immediately after he releases, really sort of turns his body to protect that leg from getting hit by Kyle Williams. Now, Brady's gotten injured like that

before. That's how he lost his ACL years ago. And so seeing Brady in this situation sort of guarded above that lead leg, that isn't really surprising, generally speaking. But given all the sort of rumors that have been swirling about Tom Brady's health and his knee, it is something that I noticed. I'm not reading anything more into it than that. You can make of it what you will, but he did seem extremely protected of that league leg, which, given his injury history, might make a ton of sense anyway.

It might have absolutely nothing to do with whether he is or is not injured. I'm just putting it out there. Let's go to the third quarter. The third and four at the 518 mark of the third quarter. This is the play before the Edelman touchdown pass. This is another blitz situation. This is another situation where you're seeing people sort of put into conflict and Brady forces sort of chuck it and duck it. It's an incompletion to Edelman. And, again, you're seeing a blitz kind of look pre-snap from the Buffalo Bills. They've got multiple guys down in the box. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven down in the box.

Again, safety high. He's sort of over Gronkowski. Brady in the gun. James White staggered to his right. This is a protection again. The center. This is a 60-man protection. Gronkowski gets a release.

Left tackle. Brown, Thune, and Andrews. They all turn and fan to the left. Shaq Mason. Marcus Cannon. They both fan outside to the right James White is going to check he sees Lorenzo Alexander, the linebacker

he blitzes through the right A gap David Andrews does a pretty good job even though he's sliding away from him to get his right hand on him because he has to take on Larry Hughes who basically aligns off the line of scrimmage more like a linebacker, and he comes inside to the left A gap. And so on this left side, Patriots block it up pretty well.

Terrell Edmonds, he blitzes off the edge. Trent Brown handles him. Kyle Williams, he comes off, Thune handles him. And then Jerry Hughes, David Andrews handles him, even giving that punch to the right A-gap to help slow up as best as he can the run to Alexander. It's really on White to stone him in the hole. And now what's good about what White does, he's aggressive. He's not passive, he doesn't let Alexander come to him. He goes and attacks him. The problem is, he kind of gets run over.

Lorenzo Alexander just runs right through him. And so that's problem one. Brady has sort of immediate interior pressure. The other problem is, Marcus Cannon. He's dealing with a wide nine technique, and the wide nine defender just runs right by him. And so Brady doesn't even have a second to set up. The play is there. Edelman's running a crosser.

It's there. They get the secondary. They get the Bills in another cover one situation. It's there. They get the secondary. They get the Bills in another cover one situation. It's there. If Edwin catches it, he at least gets the first down. He might get down into the red zone. But Brady just doesn't have a chance to get set up. Next play.

This is a series of back-to-back plays. Fourth quarter. The first one's at the 12-14 mark. This one is a second of back-to-back plays. Fourth quarter, the first one's at the 12-14 mark. This one is a second and eight. And on this play, Brady tries to hit white. It's incomplete. What do we see here? We see Trent Brown get beaten again. This isn't a situation where they're showing pressure. They're showing a six-man box. It's second and eight. Trent Brown has Jerry Hughes in line sort of to the outside of him. He's got Robert Gronkowski is in line. So Hughes

is inside shoulder of Gronkowski but well outside of Trent Brown. Defender comes off Gets upfield And it's the same exact thing That we talked about earlier Trent Brown A little bit slow With his hands A little bit slow with his punch

Defender just arcs right around him Forces Brady to sort of set reset James White running a little Texas route He's open Defender just arcs right around him. Forces Brady to sort of set reset. James White running a little Texas route. He's open. But because Brady has to set reset because of the pressure provided by the man that Brown is supposed to block, passes incomplete. It's behind White.

Now the Patriots face 3rd and 8. And here's where we're going to sort of talk about conflict, where we started things. The next play, 3rd and eight. And here's where we're going to sort of talk about conflict, where we started things. The next play, third and eight. This is another sort of 60 protection, six-man protection. We've got James White helping in protection. Bill show blitz here again. They put one, two, three, four, five, six. Six men down in the box. Seventh defender is sort of on the outside, number 21. He's lurking across from James White. The pressure package that comes puts sort of White and Trent Brown into conflict

because number 21 comes as well. So they send five. Patriots have six to block it. You get David Andrews turns to the left. He helps out with Jerry Hughes. Then you've got Kyle Williams running into Joe Thune. Trent Brown also turns to the inside as well. And when he turns into the inside, he basically lets number 52, Corey

Thompson, run free. And so Corey Thompson gets turned loose, and now the player into a conflict situation with Trent Brown turning to the inside is James White. James White has to pick between two players, both of whom have a free shot at Tom Brady, and he takes the outside player. Now, I was typically taught, as a running back, you're blocking inside O. You know, the inside man, most dangerous man. Now, Bob Wiley in that 2015 clinic, he talked about how they have their backs reading outside in when the guard is uncovered. Now

on this play, the guard is covered. So I'm confused as to why, if they're going by Bob Wiley's rules, James White would be reading this outside in because that's who he blocks. He blocks the outside rusher and he leaves 52. My only thought is White assumes that Trent Brown is going to pick him up, but he doesn't. And 52 has a free shot at Tom Brady. Tom Brady doesn't have a chance. The Patriots go, why ISO on this play? He tries to go this backside hitch route to Rob Gronkowski. And he can't get it there. He's forced to chuck and duck. Pass never gets to the target. Patriots have to punt. The Bills did a good job on this play and others of putting Patriots blockers into conflict. Now, these were just five of a number of plays that I could have highlighted,

but they tell the story of a pass protection scheme that, through failures to execute, failures to diagnose, failures to decipher, failures to carry out your assignment, for whatever reason, failed on these five players to protect their quarterback. And on a couple of these plays, the Patriots had big plays dialed up they could have hit on, but Brady just never had a chance. And a theme over the Patriots' second half of the season has seemed to be a lack of confidence in pass protection. It might be the fact that, look, even though they've had some success,

what we're seeing, what we saw against Buffalo on these five plays and others is the fact that they are struggling to protect Tom Brady. And so if you're going to, if you still have time to make a Christmas wish, let it be this, that they figure out the pass protection stuff in a hurry because they're going to need to do that. That's going to do it for today. Like I said, I will not be able to get out of show on Wednesday because Christmas with the holiday and the kids and the family and all

that stuff, I'm going to be too busy. I will be back for a Take Thursday episode. I've got some questions already. Send in some more at Mark Schofield on Twitter. That will do it today. A Merry, Merry Christmas to all of you who are celebrating Christmas. All of you, I wish you nothing but the best this holiday season. I will be back Thursday. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patreons.