Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots February 1, 2019 - Super Bowl Gameday Edition

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody and welcome to your Friday game day edition Super Bowl edition of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield in the big chair for today, Friday, February 1st, 2019, I can now claim, again, without absolutely no way to verify it, just my word, but I made it through the entire month of January without once having to re-rack a show with the wrong gear. I believe that deserves an internet pat on the back, my friends. But more than that, you know what else deserves an internet pat on the back? When the Patriots won the AFC Championship game, I put out the clarion call. Look, people, I know, I know I called this Rams-Pats Super Bowl before this year kicked off.

And I was scouring the internet. I was listening to old episodes of this show. I was listening to old radio hits I was done. I was looking everywhere. Without further ado, I give you this. From 97.7 Fox Sports down in Louisiana, it me, Thursday, September 6th, opening day of the NFL. We had that Falcons-Eagles game to start the season. I'll play a little bit of the first part because you hear my preseason MVP call, which clearly I got wrong, but it sets the stage for the clip I was looking for. Calvin, really it's going to be a great addition.

I think he's going to get back to that form that he had a couple of years ago. Maybe it's a dark horse pick, but I'll go with Matt Ryan. Probably not something you guys wanted to hear, but that's where I'm leaning right now. No, I hate it. And your Super Bowl pick? I'm going to go with a Super Bowl XXXVI rematch. I think we're going to see the Rams come out of that brutal NFC. It's going to be such a tough conference. You probably make the argument that six best teams in the NFL are going to be in the NFC. And I could understand people making that case.

I think in the AFC, it's obviously a down year for that conference. I think New England will have enough to get out of it. So we'll see a Rams-Patriots rematch of Super Bowl XXXVI. Boom. Boom. That sound you hear is me violently patting myself on the back. And look, I get it. You know, calling out your own takes when you nail one, maybe it's a little bit over the top.

But come on, you got to give me this. You got to give me this call, right? And of course, I'm asking you to ignore the fact that I predicted Matt Ryan to be your league MVP. But come on, I nailed it. So I'm going to take a little bit of a victory lap. Hopefully it's not the last victory lap I take. But that's what I wanted to sort of point out because, again, it took me forever to find it, and I finally did.

And maybe there's an audience of zero that cares about that. But you're a captive audience right now, so I'm going to take my victory lap. Today's show, after all, though, is your game day edition, Super Bowl edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast and our typical game day fair. We're going to talk about what I'm expecting when both teams have the football and a little bit later, some predictions as well as sort of, again, set on the stage for our Super Bowl edition of Sunday Morning Tailgate. Also a reminder that, look, Sunday Morning Tailgate, I want the show to be mostly all

of you. I've already got in some requests. morning tailgate, I want the show to be mostly all of you. I've already got in some requests. Daniel from SC, I got your text. I'm going to incorporate that into the Sunday show because I couldn't get it in to take Thursday. But, again, at me on Twitter, at Mark Schofield, where you can follow the work, of course. Send me emails, mark.schofield, that's insidethepylon.com. The Locked On Patriots Slack channel. The Locked On Patriots phone line, 240-670-6016.

Call, leave a message if you want, if you're willing. I'd play it on the air. If not, I'll just read text, whatever. But I want to hear from all of you. What are you thinking about this Super Bowl? What are your thoughts entering into this game, entering into Super Bowl 53? Are you like the many people that I've talked to,

or perhaps because of the many times I've been asked about it on other shows thinking that this is it this is the final ride you know the final countdown cue Europe you know the last hurrah whatever so you've got a little bit of a sentimental feeling entering into Sunday so again I want to hear from you so again hit me up and share your thoughts otherwise you're just going to get me droning on for about 12 seconds with some Aaron Sorkin type trumpet swallowing in the background. And maybe that's your thing, in which case, you know, I thank you for listening, Mom and Dad. Maybe not.

Either way, we'd love to hear from you. Let's start with, on our game day fair, when the Rams have the football. And this kind of grew out of a discussion I was having with some other media members, and then it morphed into a quick discussion that sort of took place in the Locked On Patriot Slack channel. And the more and more I've thought about it, the more and more I've come to realize that having tried to predict or get into the mind of Bill Belichick over the years, first as a fan and now as somebody that's covering him, it's often a fool's errand. It's impossible to do.

The man is the hooded genius and you can't figure out what he's thinking from week to week, from game to game, from drive to drive, from half to half, to quarter to quarter, to play to play, whatever. He's always all over the place. He's always got something up of his sleeve, be they cut or not. But I do think if you want to get perhaps some insight into Bill Belichick's mind and perhaps more accurately what Bill Belichick is thinking about when it comes to this Rams offense and what we should expect to see from it. The first thing that I'm going to be watching for Sunday afternoon and that I think you should pay attention to is whether Danny Shelton is active or not. And the reason I say that is this. Shelton down the stretch was inactive. I mean, weeks 12, 13, and 14, he wasn't active. He wasn't active in the AFC Championship game, but he played a lot against the Chargers. He was active in some other weeks. And over the course of this season, we've seen two different Rams teams we've seen the team that they

seem to want to be the 11 personnel outside zone run team or the team that they've morphed into perhaps due to injury or another reason which is this 11 slash 12 personnel inside zone north south run team with Todd Gurley and if you're Bill Belichick, which one scares you more? If it's that 11 personnel team, that outside zone team, well then chances are you're probably not going to have Danny Shelton active. You're going to want more athletic guys up front, maybe more edge guys up front. If it's that north-south 12-11 personnel team with C.J. Anderson, that's what you got Danny Shelton to stop. Or maybe you'd think two steps ahead. Maybe you plan for the contingency. Maybe you expect that Sean McVay is going to come out trying to get

that outside zone stuff going. And if he can't, he knows in his back pocket that he's got you know cj anderson in the inside zone stuff and the last thing you want is for them to start gashing you on the inside and danny shelton's over there in sweats you know the last thing i think the patriots fans want is another this guy didn't play and he could have made the difference on the defensive side of the ball situation not saying that belichick will even think that way. But I'm just wary of the takes, just putting it out there. And so that's the first thing I'm going to be watching for. I'm going to be watching for whether Danny Shelton is active or not

because I think that will give us some sort of insight into where Belichick's mind is when it comes to facing this Rams offense. The other things I'm going to be looking for. Exploit the hesitation. Can the Patriots secondary do that? I still think there's going to be three or four plays. At least in this game. Where Jared Goffin. You can count it.

Look for this. You can count him. When he hits his drop depth. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Jared would you please throw the ball. Even I'm getting nervous for you buddy. Can they capitalize on those moments. So exploit the hesitation? I'm going to be watching for that.

Similarly, pressure equals production. Talked about it yesterday. Talked about it a little bit as we got late into this week. James Coe put out those numbers. When pressured, Jared Goff turns into Josh Rosen. I think while we might be worried about Jared Goff at times in this game, if you were to tell me that Bill Belichick is going to be playing and facing Josh Rosen right now in Super Bowl 53, we'd all preorder our hats right now. So if they can pressure Josh Rosen, and before anybody gets anxious, no, I'm not telling you to preorder hats.

Don't jinx things for us, okay? But, look, if you get pressure on Jared Goff, he tends to make mistakes. So pressure equals production. Looking for that similar type game plan to what we saw in the division round against the Chargers. Man versus zone. We talked about it on the Take Thursday show. I anticipate that the Patriots are going to play a ton of man. Why?

The Rams receivers have struggled against it, partly because of Jared Goff. Again, if you're slow, you're obviously going to struggle thrown into tighter windows. Now, Goff doesn't scare you from an athletic profile as well, and so you might be more comfortable turning your back to him in man coverage situations and the other thing to remember is because of the emergence of JC Jackson the Patriots seem more comfortable with the matchups they can get in the secondary now where they might feel more comfortable with some of these guys just

playing man but we'll have to watch for that because when we come back to that sort of exploit the hesitation situation obviously it's easier to do that if you've got your eyes on the quarterback. And so that man versus zone breakdown and that ratio is going to be something I'm curious to watch. And finally, what does McVay have up his sleeve, number one? And number two, a unit that hasn't been talked about a ton is that Rams O-line. They've been pretty good too.

We shouldn't sleep on them. And so what answers does McVay have? What responses does he have? Does he do better in terms of halftime adjustments in the Super Bowl when you're going to have that extra 20 minutes while Maroon 5 sings about animals, animals, animals, animals, animals. So that's what I'm going to be watching for. So when the Rams have the football,

these are the things I'm going to be looking for. Obviously just throw a ton at you, as I tend to do. Up next, we're going to talk about what I'm going to be watching when the Patriots have the football. That's ahead on this Friday, Friday, game day edition, Super Bowl edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. All right, Pats Nation. Now I'm excited to talk to you about our great partners over at Low-K-I. You need a little extra swag for Super Bowl Sunday. Low-K-I has got your back with their brand new game day collection. If you haven't heard about them before, well, you haven't been listening to the show, but now you have. This company is amazing. I've been rocking their bracelets for a long time now. It's a bracelet with an amazing message and it supports incredible

causes. The Low-KI bracelet comes in Patriot's colors and holds water from Mount Everest, the highest point on earth, and mud from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth. It's a daily reminder to stay balanced during life's highs and lows. I wasn't a big bracelets guy until I discovered these and now I've been wearing the same one on my wrist for a long time now. It has an awesome message, which personally helps keep me focused during both the good and the bad times in my life. Since Low-KI is friends of the show, they are offering you an exclusive discount of 25% off all Game Day Collection bracelets.

This is an incredible deal. Just use the promo code PATRIOTS25 when checking out and boom, you can thank me later. Go to Low-KI, that's L-O-K-A-AI.com and use the promo code Patriots25 to take advantage of this amazing offer. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Friday game day edition, Super Bowl edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And we're going to talk about my expectations, what I'm going to be watching for when the Patriots have the football. And similar to what we were just talking about from a personnel standpoint, I want to see personnel-wise, is this Patriots game plan geared towards an 11 personnel offense,

a 12 personnel, a 20 personnel, a 21 personnel, or all of the above. Something tells me it's going to be an all of the above approach. They're going to try some different things. We've seen the Patriots sort of morph into this 21 personnel team over the course of this season. That's kind of how they started the game against Kansas City. I'd expect a similar start, similar open in 10-15 kind of script. But then when push came to shove, they went to that 11 personnel look, and they put it on Tom Brady's shoulders into the fourth quarter and into the overtime for the most part.

And so we start there. I'm curious to see the personnel packages. I expected it to be multiple. I'm curious to see that matchup between the D-line and the offensive line. I've said it to anybody who will listen. When the Patriots have the ball, resist the urge to just watch Brady and where the football is. Take some time. Take a couple of plays.

Watch what happens in the trenches. Watch that chess match between Wade Phillips and Dante Skarniecki. Again, that my friend Shane Alexander predicted would be the greatest chess match since the Cold War. A fantastic line. But I think this game is going to be won based on who wins that chess match. And it comes down to David Andrews. Is he asked to slide to Donald? And if so, does he provide the help necessary to slow down Aaron Donald?

And if he is asked to make that slide, the guys that he slides away from, whether it's Trent Brown and Joe Thune on the left side, or Shaq Mason and Marcus Cannon on the right side, whether they win their one-on-one matchups or not. This has been a very good offensive line. They have kept Tom Brady clean over the past couple of weeks during this playoff stretch. And so I expect that they're going to be up to the challenge. It is a big challenge.

But they've faced some big challenges over the past two weeks. I mean, over the past two games. Remember how much time I spent talking about that Chargers front four, front five, front six, however you want to term it, how often they got home with four, how they could get pressure without blitzing, how it was just one play this year where they got a sack without, you know, when rushing more than five. And even then it was on a goal line play,

and so it barely even counts because Jeff Driscoll can't run, you know. So I spent so much energy and time worried about that, and then they keep Brady clean in that game. You know, they give up one sack, I believe. And then, you know, in the AFC Championship game where you go up against a unit that in some ways kind of looks like what we're going to see in the Super Bowl with an interior talent. While Chris Jones isn't Aaron Donald, it's a good warm-up act.

You've got the guys on the edge like Dee Ford and Justin Houston. And so there's some talent in that group that he has to worry about. And they never got to Brady. They never got home. And so maybe this offensive line is going to be ready for this challenge. And friend of the show, Taylor Kyles, he did a great job breaking down that game a couple of years when the Rams came to Gillette, and they did a pretty good job on Aaron Donald.

And so maybe it's nothing to worry about, but it still, I think, is kind of the marquee matchup. Or if you look at McVay versus Belichick as the marquee matchup, this is definitely that final, final undercard, you know, on the fight night. So excited to see that. Route concepts, you know, I know we talked about how it seems like that Rams secondary doesn't really bait you. They don't really get you they don't force some mistakes in terms of you know tricking a quarterback or anything like that their interceptions have basically come from pressure or quarterbacks being slow and dumb and if the protection the pressure issue the protection issue is taken care

of you know then i think that brady is not slow and dumb you know he's not going to make the mistake that I saw quarterbacks you know like Mitchell Trubisky or Case Keenum or Nick Mullins make you know against this ramp secondary you know the only quarterback that really got like I said was Nick Foles with Aqib Talib sort of jumping around and peeling off a post route quicker than Foles expected him to. So I think provided the protection holds up, if Tom Brady's given the time to throw, I feel pretty good about how things are going to go down on Sunday night. And so with route concepts, we've talked about them somewhat, you know, the cover three beaters, work in the seams, get some cover one beaters,

those crossers from Edelman, you know, that wheel series that I talked about earlier this week where you might see the outside receiver run and go and the inside receiver run that wheel route. That's something the Patriots call goalie. You might see reel, which is that outside receiver runs that return route where they start inside on a slant and then break out, and then the inside receiver runs that wheel route. Or you might see peel, which is post and wheel.

So I think you're going to see some of those concepts. You know, gaudy, OPEC, some of those go in option or vertical and option routes from the slot receiver. I think you'll see those as well, particularly those where you run off that cover three outside corner and then the slot receiver then breaks to the outside, maybe away from an underneath leverage defender. And so the Patriots, of of course will turn to hoss hoss wide juke mirrored hitch seams we we've talked about the show at that route concept a ton on this show um so so they've got the wealth

of knowledge necessary to beat a cover one cover three team that's what they've played this post season so route concepts if if Brady's given time, I'm pretty comfortable that he'll be able to execute in the passing game. And finally, something we haven't talked about a ton. We've ignored the run game when the Patriots have the football. It's like the one thing I haven't really gotten into this week because there's people like Zach Dunn, who has a great thread, ZachSDunn, at Zach S Dunn on

Twitter uh he's a fantastic football mind Patriots mind he has a great sort of you know thread on how the Patriots are going to run this week I know Taylor Kyles again at TKyles39 I believe is his Twitter handle he's done some great work on the Patriots and what to expect from a run game approach so I almost felt like look man, man, they got you covered. You don't need me for this one. And plus, let's face it, I'm more of a pass game guy. When it came to the running game, I was just handing off and kind of getting out of the way. I didn't want to get stepped on by the big guys.

But I think, are they going to be able to run? In the regular season, the Rams were pretty susceptible to the run. In postseason, they've been a bit better against the run. So which Rams defense shows up and are the Patriots effective when they look to run the football? If they have another one of those, look, seven, eight-minute drives to start the game, and then they force a three and out, say that's how this game begins, again, I'm not going to say go buy the hats,

but we'll feel pretty good about where things are at. So those are the things I'm watching for when the Patriots have the football. Up next, I'm going to close it out with a prediction that you've already heard, but I'll just remind everybody of where my head is at on this game. You'll hear more about where my head is at on this game as we get into the Sunday morning tailgate Super Bowl edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Again, let me know your thoughts.

I want to hear from you. I want this show to be more you guys than anything else. I'll drone on for 20 minutes. Believe me, happy to do it, but I'd I want to hear from you. I want this show to be more you guys than anything else. I'll drone on for 20 minutes. Believe me, happy to do it. But I'd be much happier hearing from you. All right, let me talk to the guys for a second because I know what you've been doing since the playoffs started. You've been waking up, getting yourself ready for work,

going to work, eating, going home, sleeping, and all those moments in between, you've been doing everything you can to consume every little bit of information about the NFL playoffs. Hopefully by listening to every episode of Locked on Patriots. But I also know what you haven't been doing. You haven't been getting ready for Valentine's Day. So let me help you out. How about giving your wife or girlfriend something totally different?

Something romantic that celebrates the unique connection between you and her. I'm talking about a luxury gift service called Enclosed that delivers designer lingerie to your lady month after month. Enclosed is like a flower of the month or a beer of the month, but instead of flowers, she gets surprised with ultra high-end lingerie. Seriously high-end stuff. The kind of quality that will really impress her. Enclosed was designed specifically to help guys find gifts for their wives or girlfriends. Enclosed is all about helping you make her happy. And Enclosed is effortless. Every month Enclosed sends your wife or girlfriend a custom curated lingerie gift selected just for her. And they back the gift up with a 100% size guarantee so you never have to

worry about fit. You can join more than 30,000 couples that love enclosed and I'll give you a little gift. Right now you can get $35 off your enclosed gift. Just go to enclosedlingerie.com, enter the code PATRIOTS at checkout to get $35 off any enclosed multi-month gift. Why not give your wife or girlfriend something that really reflects and deepens the connection between the two of you, something that you would never give your mother that's enclosed in lingerie.com with the code patriots for 35 off the best gift ever mark scofield back here to close out this friday game day edition super bowl edition of the locked on patriots podcast and there'll be time for some more sentimental stuff from me in the Sunday morning tailgate show.

But seeing how we've come here basically to the end, the end of the season. Look, this is it. Final game on Sunday. I did want to take a moment here before re-upping the prediction to thank all of you. When I took over the show, again, I had never flown solo on a podcast before.

I was always sort of the sidekick. Whoever I was on the podcast would sort of run the show, and I would drop my knowledge. I had no idea what I was getting into. I had no idea the workload that would ensue. And look, there are times when it can be a grind. When you're up till two in the morning or so putting together a post-game episode because the Pats played in primetime, it can feel like

a grind. But at the same time, it is absolutely, absolutely a joy to do every single time. I get excited about sitting down in front of the microphone and talking to all of you. I get excited for the feedback, the banter, the DMs, the tweets, the mentions, the scrubs gifts, the total references. It's a blast. It's a blast that people around the world listen to this show. I still don't understand why. I still don't believe how the numbers grow over the time. I figure people would have gotten sick of me at this point, but here we are. And I cannot thank all of you enough for, again, welcoming me into your workouts, your commutes, the birth of your children. In a recent case, we just talked about

it on with David Ackman. Again, it's a joy to do this show. I love each and every one of you, some more than others. No, I love all of you. It's a blast to do this. I hope, I truly hope that we get a glorious victory Super Bowl edition because, you know, that's the one thing we didn't get from last year. Doing that show was bitter. It was tough to sit down after what we had seen

and then try to put into words and verbalize it for all of you. But if that happens to be the case again Sunday night, you know full well that shortly after the game ends that you'll have an episode to listen to. And maybe you won't want to listen to it Sunday night. Maybe you won't want to listen to it Monday morning. Maybe you won't want to listen to it ever, but just know that I'll be there. No matter what happens on Sunday, I will be there with an episode, win or lose. As for the prediction, you know where I am.

I've said it before. I think that this is one of those moments. This is one of those opportunities in life where you get the chance for things to come full circle. That the dynasty sort of, and I don't want to say ends, because even if, you know, if they win, there's no evidence that it truly would end. Even if everybody walks, there's no evidence that it would end. But I think the idea of the Patriots beating the Rams in another Super Bowl, you know, almost, you know, two decades later by a score of 20 to 17, matching the score from Super Bowl 36. And then seeing some of the players that have meant so much to us over these past 5, 10, 15, 20 years almost, decide that this is the time that I think that would be a beautiful ending. I think

it would be a beautiful story. And whatever we want to say about sports, it's entertainment. It's magic. It can be absolutely mind-blowingly magical at its peak, at its best, on its biggest stages. And I think we're going to see one of those types of moments, one of those types of stories started with Sunday night and into the days that follow when the Patriots have that win. They get that 20-17 sort of mirror image victory, in a sense. And then some of the names, like I've said, that we've grown to love, that we've grown to just joyously watch from week to week, decide that this is the time to walk away.

This is the time to hand them up. We've heard it from McCourty. We've wondered about Gronkowski. The rumors have always been there about Belichick and Brady, and there might even be others. And if that's the way that their story ends, that's not the way the Patriots' story ends. Of course not. There will be games to come. There will be games that follow.

There will be new players to watch, new numbers to cheer on, new glorious victory episodes to record, new melancholy and the infinite sadness episodes to record, and perhaps more than we'd be accustomed to if that is truly how this ends. But either way, it has been a magical ride. And I will have more on this and more thoughts on that in the Sunday show. But I do want to say that, look, no matter what happens, you know I will be here Sunday night to break it all down. Again, it has been an honor this season, as it was last year, to be part of your lives for just 20 to 30 minutes a day. I love the banter with all of you. I love the feedback from all of you.

It is overwhelmingly positive, much more so than I could have ever imagined, and that's probably pretty good because I don't have the thickest of skins, to be honest. But it's been a joy doing the show each and every time. It's been a blast. I can't wait to have another glorious victory episode. I certainly hope it is Sunday night. I will talk to you next on Sunday morning. Get your stuff in for me.

And then after that, I'll see you all on the other side. But until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Sch after that, I'll see you all on the other side. But until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield in Locked on Patriots.