Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots December 5, 2017 - A Tape Tuesday Ode to Shaq Mason

Episode Date: December 5, 2017

Mark Schofield has a Tape Tuesday edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast. He waxes poetically about right guard Shaq Mason. Plus, the debut of Timeline Takes: Robert Gronkowski edition as well as listener shoutouts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning everybody, welcome to your Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here in the big chair for this Tuesday show. We're going to do some tape stuff. We're going to do some different things here at the outset as well. First, I'm going to start with some shout-outs. As I've said a couple of times, probably more times than I even remember here on this show, this is your show.

I'm just here to try to give the people what they need, what they want, what they're looking for in a show about the Patriots five days a week. I'll talk about other stuff. I'll talk about draft stuff. Can't wait to get into the draft and the quarterbacks. Probably talk a little Heisman here in the next couple

of days. I'll cover fantasy stuff. I'll try to give the people what they want. But right now, I'm going to give some shout-outs to some big fans of the show. Some guys that have been reaching out to me lately on Twitter, sharing the show around, which I definitely do appreciate. So I'm going to show some love here, give some love back to the people.

First, I'm going to shout out Ian McDonald, big fan of the show. You can follow him on Twitter, at Ian, I-A-N, M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D. You know, give each other a follow on Twitter. Let's build a little network here of Locked On Patriots listeners. Also going to give a shout out Callum. He is at S-E-N-I-U-K-N-F-L S-E-N-I-U-K-N-F-L Recent fan of the show

created just an absolutely incredible photo that involves my face. I'm going to start using it as maybe a header photo maybe a photo for the Locked on Patriots podcast. It's me on a train, a Patriots train. It's incredible.

Thank you for creating that. Big shout out to Callum for putting that together. Matthew Cook. He is at TheMattCook. The M-A-T-T-C-O-O-K 13 on Twitter. Matt, I know I owe you a book. I know I owe you a copy of 17 Drives.

I'm going to get it out to you this week in the mail. I promise. I haven't forgotten. And to other listeners out there that want a copy of 17 Drives, it's a couple of years old, wrote a book, let me know. Just slide into the DMs. I am at Mark Schofield on Twitter. Happy to send you one.

Might take me a while to get to the post office, but I will get it out to you. And if you want to give it to somebody as a gift, maybe there's a football fan, a college football fan in your life, maybe an Alabama fan that you know. Let me know. Happy to sign it. I'll put whatever you want on there. Happy to get one out to you. So just if you're interested, you can check it out. It's 17 drives. You can find it on Amazon. You can Google it. Happy to send you one. Just slide into those DMs, which are always open.

Matt Johnson. He is at MattJ underscore sports. Big fan of the show. Reached out to me the other day about Rob Gronkowski, some other stuff. Give Matt a follow. Give everybody here a follow. And finally, Captain Huggyface, my man, follows the show for fantasy advice. Great guy, lives nearby.

One of these days, Huggy and I are going to get together and watch some games. Looking forward to that day. Follow Huggyface on Twitter. He is at Captain Huggyface, H-U-G-G-Y-F-A-C-E. Again, hey, if you'd like to be shouted out in one of these shows, share out some tweets, show the show some love. Happy to shout out my fans.

Happy to shout out fans of the show. Trying to build a little network here of loyal listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast. It's because it's a ton of fun to do this show. Every response, every retweet of the show, all that stuff, I see it. I love it. I love seeing that stuff. I like seeing that people are happy

when the show comes out each day and enjoy listening to it. That stuff warms my heart. This holiday season, it's great to see stuff like that. Now that we've had some fun, let's talk about some depressing stuff for a second. Rob Gronkowski. We had to get back to it.

Suspended for one game. That news came out, league offices, Monday afternoon, and not really surprised at this suspension. But it sets the stage for something new here at the Locked On Patriots. We get some theme music and everything. In the football Twitter world,

where the opinions and declarations come faster than a Tom Brady spiral, it takes a dedicated team to sort through the internet and bring listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast. Nothing but the freshest of takes. The dedicated men and women of the Timeline Takes division scour the internet to bring you nothing but the hottest football news analysis and opinion making this is a special robert gronkowski edition of timeline takes okay so we had a little bit of fun with that i had some spare time to put that together and i know please don't sort of overreact and say

I'm making light of this situation. I'm not, but there are a couple of things that we can say that are true. One, what Rob Gronkowski did was stupid. It was egregious. He should have been,

he probably should have been ejected at the time it happened. And He probably should have been ejected at the time it happened. And a suspension was more than warranted. Personally, the more and more I thought about it, I thought this was going to be a two-game suspension that probably gets, or maybe even just maybe gets, reduced on appeal to one. So the fact that he got hit with one out of the gate,

I think it's a stroke of luck for Rob Gronkowski. I thought he was facing more. Number two, it was a dangerous play. And the league does at least state that they're focusing more on player safety. And so

they had to do something. They couldn't just let it slide. They couldn't just let them get by with a fine. And three, this can also be true. And I think it is. Some of the takes in the aftermath of the Gronkowski incident and then in the aftermath of the suspension were a bit much. Now, I'm not going to really single people out here by names.

Because some of these came from people that I think the world of. That I know personally and think the world of. But calling for indefinite suspensions or suspension for the rest of the season and one playoff game, or suspensions where Rob Gronkowski doesn't see the field until Tredavious White sees the field again. Side note on that one, what if White comes back this week? What do you do then? I mean, I think people sort of, I don't want to say went overboard, because again, what Gronkowski did was stupid.

It was egregious. He should never have done it. And the sort of excuse that he was frustrated in the moment, well, you can't go off like that. I understand being frustrated. I understand why he was frustrated at that moment. You watched that entire play. White's all over him.

Okay, it wasn't called. Okay, you're still winning 23-3. There's no reason to react the way you did. If you want to scream and jump up and down and yell at a ref and get flagged for yelling at a ref, fine. It'd still be dumb, but it would be more understandable than launching yourself at a player that's lying on the ground. But some of the takes were a little bit too much.

Here's one last thing, though. Gronkowski's apparently going to appeal this, and this reminds me of back in the day when I was a lawyer. One of the gigs I had, I was representing police officers here in the D.C. area. I was assistant general counsel for the D.C. police union. And I had some cases, some bad ones, where guys get fired punching out their 18-year-old daughter. That was one case. I mean, I represented some guys that another guy that was working private security detail.

He gets fired when he's on camera stealing goods from the store where he was working security. I mean, some bad cases. And sometimes these guys were facing termination and I saved their jobs, saved their badge, even though they might have been caught on camera doing something stupid. And every once in a while, I'd get this guy who would come in and I'd have just saved his job and say,

well, I'm still suspended for 30 days. I want to appeal that. And I wanted to look him in the eye and say, are you crazy? Are you nuts? Don't give them a chance to revisit the situation. Suddenly, they're going to attack on a couple of years to that 30-day suspension.

Don't do that. So to Rob Gronkowski, take the game and just be better. I know that there's probably some sort of thought process where players with the NFLPA, you've got to appeal things like these. You don't want to set precedents. But this is one of those situations where maybe it's just time to take the L. You did something stupid.

Let's move on. So let's move on here as well. On the other side, we're going to do our usual Tuesday fair, some taped Tuesday stuff. I'm going to tell you why not only was I impressed with Shaq Mason after watching that game live, got a chance to go back, look at the All-22. I was even more impressed after looking at that.

We're going to dive into Shaq Mason and his great game against Buffalo ahead on the Locked On Patriots podcast. All right, let's talk some Shaq Mason here. And in conjunction with this, this episode of the Locked On Patriots podcast, there's a piece now up on the site titled Shaq Mason Taking Care of Business. And we're going to go through some of the stuff I talk about in that piece.

First, I'm going to talk about Mason in pass protection. Because I didn't really talk about that too much. Actually, I didn't talk about that at all in the glorious victory episode. But I want to talk about that here. There will be more covered in the piece online. But I want to focus on just two plays. First is a play where he's matched up against Aldophis Washington, who's a second-year player out of Ohio State.

This comes later in the first quarter. The Patriots face a second and 15 on their own 42-yard line. They line up with Tom Brady in the shotgun. He's flanked by James White and Rex Burkhead. Patriots have 21 offensive personnel on the field. So you have the two running backs. You have Danny Amidola and Rob Gronkowski in a very tight slot to the left.

And then you have Brandon Cooks in a tight alignment to the right. Patriots going to look to throw the ball here. Brady's eventually going to hit Danny Amendola on a deep corner route along the left sideline. They basically run a dual smash concept. So you're going to get Amendola on a deep corner route with White releasing to the flat. And on the backside, you're going to get Cooks on a deep corner route with Burkhead releasing into the flat.

Gronkowski, he starts tight in the wing, and he just runs sort of a sit-down route over the middle of the field. This is a great passing concept. I love these dual or mirrored passing concepts. We've got basically the same design to both sides of the field. I think it's a great way to help your quarterback. Saw this a lot the past couple of years when Sean McVay was in Washington. This is something he did with Kirk Cousins.

Had a tremendous amount of success with it. Now he's doing similar things with Jared Goff. It's a great way to sort of simplify the read structure for your quarterback. And I'm all about team help your quarterback. And Patriots give Tom Brady help with the scheme, with motion and stuff we talk about. But that's the passing concept they run. But I want to talk about what Shaq Mason does against Adolphus Washington. Washington's lined up on a two-eye technique.

He's on, Shaq Mason is the right guard. He's on Mason's left shoulder. He's in that A gap between Mason, the right guard, and David Andrews, the center. The Patriots slide their pass protection here to the left. They leave Fleming on an island, but he gets help from the running back who chips there. But this means that Mason is basically one-on-one with Washington. And he just stonewalls him. You can watch the play.

Washington maybe gets a yard into the backfield, but that's it. Other guys get closer to Brady. Brady is under a little bit of duress from Shaq Lawson, who's working against Cameron Fleming. Even with the help, Fleming has a bit of a tough time with him. But Mason just stonewalls Washington on this play. And Washington gets a sack later in the game. Washington gets a sack working against Joe Thune.

You know, there's another play that I talk about in the article where Shaq Mason's going against Kyle Williams. Williams got a sack in the game, again working against Joe Thune. But Mason handled both of those guys on the plays I talk about. He does a great job against Washington here.

The other pass play that I want to talk about is a screenplay that comes in the third quarter. Patriots face a second 15 on their own 25 yard line they line up with Brady in the backfield again flanked by Burkhead and James White so they're using that 21 offensive personnel once more two running backs one tight end two wide receivers they have Cooks and Dorsett in the game Gronkowski sort of in a tight alignment to the right with Dorsett outside of him. Cooks is split wide to the left. Dorsett will come into a little bit of motion towards the football. He and Gronkowski run sort of crossing routes. They're just running away,

looking to bring defenders with them because they're going to run a running back screen to white to the right side. And Andrews and Mason are the two guys, the two offensive linemen who are tasked with getting downfield, stretching their legs a bit, serving as lead blockers on this play. And what really blew my mind watching this play was, Mason gets downfield and the first guy he sees is number 24.

That's Leonard Johnson. He's a reserve defensive back, reserve cornerback. He's listed at 5'10", 202. And Shaq Mason listed 6'1", 300. And Mason has a chance to just, well, he has a chance to knock Johnson into the cheap seats but he cut blocks he takes Johnson right out of the play

he just cut blocks him White's held to only a 5 yard gain on this another defensive back makes a great play rotating it up to stop this before it really has a chance to get going. But that was just an incredibly athletic block from Shaq Mason. And it reminded me of when the Patriots drafted Mason. You know, Mason was an offensive lineman at Georgia Tech. And not to get too football nerdy here, but Georgia Tech, under Paul Johnson, right on

the flex bone, triple option stuff, they need their linemen to be athletic, guys that can pull, guys that can trap block, guys that can get out on the edges, that can do things that are perhaps a little bit more athletic than you expect offensive linemen to do. And seeing this cut block, it's just a five-yard gain. It's an incredibly athletic play, and it's just evidence of all the reasons why the Patriots made Shaq Mason a Patriot. The athleticism that they saw in him, that they saw in the scheme that he was running at Georgia Tech shows here

and in a moment when we start talking about run game stuff, we're going to see it double fold in the run game but there's just two examples of Shaq Mason helping in the pass game. For more on that, again, LockedOnPatriots.com that piece is up right now. You can check

that out. Don't forget, bookmark LockedOnPatriots.com. Tell your friends. Tell your loved ones. Bribe people into bookmarking that site as well. Putting more and more stuff up there all the time. We're going to have some fun with that when we get into draft season. When I get down to Mobile for the Senior Bowl.

Looking forward to all that stuff. But up ahead, we're going to talk some run game stuff. I know I talked about these two plays during the glorious victory edition. Again, seeing the All-22 on it, they looked even better. I'm going to break those down. Coming up next here with me, Mark Schofield, in Locked On Patriots. Okay, let's talk about two plays in the run game. These are the two runs from Deion Lewis, from Rex Burkhead.

I know I talked about those in the Glorious Victory Edition, but getting the chance to see them on the end zone camera, getting a chance to see them in a different angle gave me an even deeper appreciation for what the Patriots did on these plays and what Shaq Mason did on these plays. And first is that Deion Lewis 44-yard run. Now that came in the second quarter. And as I said in the Glorious for Three episode, it's a lead zone block and play with fullback James Devlin leading Lewis to the right side.

But seeing how the blocks come together and seeing again the athleticism and the process and speed from Shaq Mason on this play is impressive to watch. I talk about process and speed a lot when I talk about quarterbacks because it's a critical aspect to playing the position. Reading the defense, diagnosing what they're doing in the secondary, and making the right decision with the football. That's all processing speed. And I know it's a weird term.

We're talking about guys like they have computers, but that's what you're asking them to do. Take in information, process it quickly, and make the right decision. It happens along the offensive line all the time. I love when there are broadcasts where the microphones are really good and they pick up a lot of what you hear pre-snap. All the communication, the verbiage that's relayed from player to player, up front,

from the quarterback and all that stuff. I love that stuff. You're probably not surprised. I'm a football nerd. But the calls that are made along the offensive line and the processes that those guys need to execute on any given play is impressive as well. And we'll see that from Mason here.

On this lead zone block and play, the Bills have a defender right in the A-gap between the center, David Andrews, and Shaq Mason, the right guard. Now they're going to be running the ball to the right. A quick refresher for those that might not know off the top of their head zone blocking plays you're seeing everybody flow in unison up front to the right so everybody from the left tackle nate solder to rob gronkowski who's the tight end here in the wind everybody step into the right sort of flow in that way and then you're sort of brought blocking that first guy that comes across your face.

But that guy in the A-gap poses a problem. Because in a vacuum, you're asking David Andrews, the center, to perform a reach block. To get across that guy's face. And to put himself between that defender and the ball carrier, Deion Lewis. But that's a tough block to make for any lineman, that reach block. It's even tougher to ask a center to do that because he's got to snap the ball. Brady's under center here on this play. He's going to make sure Brady gets the ball more than anything else.

Otherwise, the play's going nowhere. So that means he might need some help. That's where Shaq Mason comes in. Because as this play begins, everybody does a great job flowing. On the backside, Nate Solder, great cut block. We get Thune up to the second level. That backside looks great. On the outside, you get Fleming.

You got Gronkowski working to the outside. Devlin's leading Lewis to the right side. But you need that block near the point of the attack. That A-gap defender poses a problem. But Mason's got two responsibilities here. First, he has to help on that A-gap guy, make sure Andrews can get him handled. And once Andrews gets that guy under control,

he has to get to that play side linebacker. Because if he gets to that play side linebacker, this play is set up to work. Because now you've got James Devlin, and he's hoping to get to that play side linebacker, this play is set up to work, because now you've got James Devlin, and he's hoping to get to that third level and lead Lewis to the third level, and that's exactly what happens. Ball is snapped.

Andrews tries to get outside. He gets maybe half that defender, but then Mason uses that left side, that left arm, helps him, slows that defender down in the A-gap. Andrews is then able to take over. That allows Mason to get to that second level. He handles that play side linebacker, turns him away from Lewis, and then the ball carrier is, like we hoped, to that third level.

So that's a great example of process and speed at the offensive line position. You know, because you're seeing that defensive lineman. You're diagnosing it pre-snap. You're reacting to it as the play begins. Carrying out two different assignments. You know, so if somebody tries to tell you offensive linemen aren't smart, just send them my way. I'm happy to set them straight. But a great play

from there, from Shaq Mason there. Finally, the Rex Burkhead run. Another great example of blocking and execution here. And this was an interesting play, one that took some time to diagnose because you get almost

almost like two different blocking concepts here. Now, it's basically a power run and play, but it's interesting the way it's set up and executed because it's a run to the right edge. Brady's in the shotgun. Burkhead is standing to the left of the quarterback in the backfield. They run it to the right edge, but get almost zoned block and execution on the back side Solder gets to that back side linebacker on the second level Thune has to execute sort of that reach block

Because he's got a defender in the A gap between him and David Andrews But he executes that reach block And it's not as pivotal a block here Because it's not play side But it's still great execution. Andrews, for his part, after the shotgun snap, he gets immediately to that Mike Linebacker and cuts him. Again, something else you see in zone blocking schemes.

But back play side, you get three different down blocks to start. Dwayne Allen, he's in the game. He aligns in the wind. He gets a down block on the strong safety. He's rotating towards the line of scrimmage before the snap. Gronkowski, he has a defensive end inside shade on him. Down block from him. Fleming, he has a defensive tackle inside shade of him. Get a down block from him. Who's left? Shaq Mason. Pull it to the outside. Again, back to Georgia Tech, asking athletic guys to get out, to move around in that flex bone triple option offense. Here we see it because Mason pulls to the outside. And we sort of start where we began

because it's Tredavious White who's on the outside edge. And this time, Mason's not cut blocking anybody. Now, he basically swallows White whole. And the play comes together incredibly well. You can watch the video over at LockedOnPatriots.com. We get that backside block from Soldier, that reach block. But yeah, White basically just surrenders. He sees Mason coming his way, and he just gives himself up, hoping that somebody runs that alley and fills that gap.

But the problem is because of that alignment, because the Patriots have two tight ends on the play, they have a slot formation to the other side of the field, there's nobody really there to fill that gap you know they called this play and at the after the two-minute warning you're expecting the Patriots to throw the ball they must have seen something on Buffalo on tape that when they face the formation like this there was gonna be nobody and run support on the outside because once Lewis hits the a I, excuse me, once Burkhead hits the edge, there

is nobody. I mean, nobody within 20, 25 yards of him. I mean, this play, when you see it on the end zone angle, it really could have gone the distance. The safety comes from the backside and does a good job of forcing Burkhead out of bounds, but there was nobody within 25 yards of Burkhead once he got the edge. Great blocking up front. Mason on the edge on white. Big play for the Patriots offense. Now, those are just some of the plays. There were more that I could have talked about,

more that I could have written about, but those ones really stood out to me. And again, it's another example of you can see some things on the broadcast angle, but when you get a chance to see that all 22, it really brings some things into focus. And it brought Shaq Mason's huge game into crystal focus when I got a chance to rewatch it. So glad I gave him the game ball on the Glorious Victory Show because he certainly, certainly earned it. That's been your Tape Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Wednesday's show, going to take some questions. I'll throw out a request on Twitter,

but hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. On Facebook, I'm Mark Schofield over there. You can hit me up with an email, mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com. Ask me your questions about New England Patriots, about the season in general, about any other teams you're curious about, draft quarterbacks, anything you want. Legal questions, whatever. Happy to answer your questions. That will be for Wednesday's show.

Again, hope you enjoyed the tape Tuesday edition until we talk again keep it locked right here to me Mark Schofield and Locked on Patreons