Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots February 25, 2019 - Mock Draft Monday

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a mock draft Monday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for today, Monday, February 25th, 2019. Happy to be talking football again, obviously on Friday. The big news involving the New England Patriots was the charging of Patriots owner Robert Kraft for soliciting prostitution. There might be more news on that today, as Kraft might get officially charged and arrested today. Obviously, if anything comes down, I will have that covered in tomorrow's show. What we're going to do today, though, it is Mock Draft Monday.

And the Kraft news kind of overshadowed something big for the New England Patriots, which was this. Four compensatory picks announced on Friday by the NFL. The Patriots now hold 12 draft picks. 12 overall, and they have three, excuse me, six

picks in the first three rounds. They got compensatory picks at 98-102, as well as a sixth-round comp and two in the seventh three rounds. They got compensatory picks at 98-102, as well as a sixth-round comp and two in the seventh. So that means we've got 12 picks to do today. So we're going to have to get into it. Before we do, 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 of websites now i'm going to set the framework here quickly we're using matt miller's most recent big board that came out february 20th team needs as voted on by the users over at fan speak the difficult setting doing all seven rounds and to sort of set the stage here we are going to assume obviously devin mccourty is back he said he's coming back gron here, we are going to assume, obviously, Devin McCourty is back. He said he's coming back. Gronkowski, we're going to assume that he's back. We will also assume that Trent Brown and Trey Flowers are gone.

So we're going to need sort of some edge help as well as perhaps some depth at the offensive tackle spot, address tight ends. So there are a lot of things we need to cover. But with 12 picks, we can cover a lot of ground. Now, we're on the clock here at 32. And there's a couple of options we could go here. As far as the big-name quarterbacks, Kyler Murray, he's gone. Haskins is gone. And so Daniel Jones is here.

Y'all know my feelings about him. So we're going to pass on him. Offensive tackle, I think we might address that a little bit later. I do think there are some names here that we could sort of bring into the fold, and so I'm going to address offensive tackle a little bit later. Some interesting safeties are available, but I think we can hold on that a bit as well. There's a couple of guys I'm eyeing a little bit late.

We assume wide receiver is going to be something they'll address, but I'll probably hold off on that for a bit. So that brings us to tight end. And we've been studying tight ends over on the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. If you'd like an invite, hit me up for your Twitter or email. And I think they might double down on tight end in this draft. So I'm going to go early on tight end and address it again a little bit later with more of a day three type guy. But this is a player that I think I described him in the Locked On Patriots Slack channel

as kind of if TJ Hawkins and Enoa Font had a baby, this would be the player. And that's Irv Smith from Alabama. So he's on the board here. He's Matt Miller's 30th ranked player. We're going to take him here at 32. He's got a nice mix of ability to block, some great yardage after the catch ability. Pretty good route runner. I think he could get better. We'll talk a little bit. Tuesday's show is going to

be a taped Tuesday show on the tight ends. I think he could be a better route runner. So we're going to go with Irv Smith to sort of kick things off here. Now the Patriots again. We've got two picks here in the second round. That first one is going to be coming up at the 56 spot. That is a pick that the Patriots acquired via trade from the Chicago Bears. And there are some interesting players available.

If you think linebackers are in need, Mack Wilson is there. He's a player you could think about. If you sort of like Jarrett Stidham, he's here at 51. You might think about him. We could look at some of the safeties. There are some players, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Juan Thornhill, Darnell Savage. They're available. I think with McCourty coming back, he might wait on safety a little bit. Offensive tackle has falled off a tiny bit,

but I think there are some players we could address here sort of on day three. So we'll come back sort of to the edge class. Look at that. Charles O'Menna, who is here at 75. He's 75th on Matt Miller's board. I'm going to hold on him for a moment. Let's look at the wide receivers here.

Keneal Harry, Hakeem Butler, Riley Ridley, Michael Hardeman, J.J. Ortega-Whiteside, David Sills. There are some interesting names there as well. Come back to the defensive line group zach allen's available terry beckner jr from missouri isaiah bugs anthony nelson so a couple of different directions we can go i'm going to come back though with trey flowers gone we assume that they're going to want to get some people in you know move up do their job kind

of situations with Derek Rivers, John Simon, and things like that. But I think you might want to add somebody. I keep coming back to Charles O'Manahoe. I think his length is something that the Patriots will value. So we're going to go with him and address edge here at 56. But we're going to be on the clock again pretty quickly here with that second pick in the second round.

And that's a pick at 64. Jared Stidham has come off the board to the New Orleans Saints. That's an interesting pick. That would give them Stidham, Breeze, Taysom Hill, and Teddy Bridgewater, potentially. And so now we're on the board. Again, second round pick. I think if you look at tight ends, there's a lot of value with tight end,

including some names that I really like that are day three type guys. And so I'm going to pass on tight end for a while. Wide receiver, all those guys I just mentioned, they're still here. Wide receivers are falling, at least in this mock. And again, mock drafts, what are they worth? Well, teams do mocks like this to sort of game out some scenarios. And so that's what we're doing. Defensive line. Defensive line talent has kind of fallen off a little bit,

but there's a player that I like, and I'm going to keep my fingers crossed to address probably next round. So then we come back to another position that I think the Patriots will address, and that is safety. You have McCourty. He is coming back, but you wonder about that. You have, you know, Chun with the injury. And so a player we took in the last walk, we'll take him again,

Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. We talked about it with Michael Kist. I think he'd be a nice fit. We're getting a pen here in the fold at the end of the second round. So that's not a bad start. Irv Smith, Omena Hu, Gardner-Johnson, I think that's a pretty good way to kick things off. And the Patriots, you know, they're going to be on the board a couple of picks here.

We're going to work our picks here in the third round. We've got three picks in the third round. And we will get to those next on this Mock Draft Monday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Mock Draft Monday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. And we're doing a simulated Mock Draft via fanspeak. We are into the third round. The Patriots have three picks in the third round.

We're going to do the third round picks and the fourth round pick here in this second segment of the show. In case you're just joining us, that would be weird. But just in case, Irv Smith, Charles O'Man'manahu and chauncey garner johnson the three picks so far now the patriots back on the clock with that first pick in the second round that's one they acquired from detroit and a lot of options still available at the wide receiver spot a couple of the bigger names have gone about michael hardeman jj artega white side david sills anthony johnson they're available but there are some later round guys that I think

I'm going to keep my eye on. That's kind of the risk we're running here because there's a lot of later round guys that we're keeping our eye on that maybe we should pull the trigger on, but we're not doing it yet. Defensive line, Zach Allen's there, but we addressed edge sort of with Charles O'Menahoo. Maybe you're thinking that

Allen's a guy who's going to kick inside. Another guy that I like is sort of sliding a bit. I'm looking at a couple of positions here. I think they've got guard and center locked down, but I do think they might want to get some depth at tackle. There's a name here, Max Sharpen from Northern Illinois. I've studied him a little bit. Now, I'm not Mr. Offensive Line or anything like that,

but I think he's Matt Miller's 90th ranked player. I think here it starts to really thin out at the offensive tackle spot after him, and so I'm not going to wait. I'm going to get an offensive tackle in. If Brown is gone, I assume they slide Isaiah Wynn in to that left tackle spot, and then you're looking at your offensive line is basically the same as from last year, but left tackle is a big deal. So you might want to get a plan B situation there,

and that's what the Patriots do with Max Sharpen from Northern Illinois. Now we're going to be on the clock again pretty quickly here. We get the first of two comp picks here in the third round. This is New England's second pick in the third round. They will have three picks in the third round. and according to at least the user voter team needs we still need to address quarterback wide receiver defensive line linebacker and running back running back i'm i don't think they're going to be drafted a running back you know maybe if somebody walks they do that um but i now i i think they remember they got jeremy hill that they might want to get back into the fold

I don't think running back is a need they've got linebacker here this is not the best linebacker class I think if they address linebacker they're probably going to do it via free agency maybe take a day a flyer on a day three guy defensive line you know they might address that depending on how things go now we're going to return to that in a second. Wide receiver, I think, is also a scenario where they might draft a day three guy that perhaps take a flyer on somebody via free agency. And then quarterback. And you know where I'm probably going to go with quarterback in this mock. So that means we've got a lot of flexibility here with this pick here,

the second one of the three picks in the third round. And I'm going to address defensive line, and I'm going to perhaps reach on a guy. It's Colleen Saunders, the small school kid from Western Illinois. You watch him on film. They do stuff with him in a two-point stance on the edge. They do stuff with him, kick him down inside. Really fascinating guy to study. Fantastic guy down at the senior bowl senior bowl to sort of

talk to so that's where we're gonna go we're gonna take a flyer on him so now third round picks we've got max sharpen and colleen saunders we've addressed some needs there remaining team needs as far as new england goes quarterback wide receiver linebacker running back at least according to this now we are on the clock again with that final third-round pick. And the quarterbacks who are available, Clayton Thorson, Tyree Jackson, Brett Finley, I mean Ryan Finley, excuse me, and Brett Rippon, those are the top four left on this big board. Seeing Matt Miller's rankings, I know I can probably wait on quarterback here.

Now, I will say if they pick Brett Rippon here at 108, I'd be fine with it, but we're not going to do that. We're going to roll the dice a bit. Let's go back to tight end, and there are some names here that we could probably wait on. You know, so I'll probably just wait. Again, since I know the rankings with these players, I'll pause a bit, but players that are still available, Isaac Notta, Caleb Wilson, Zach Gentry, C.J. Conrad, Josh Oliver, Jay Sternberger, who a lot of people really like. He's going to move up boards, I think, after the combine, but he's Miller's 189th player. So you look overall, Darnell Henderson, who's getting a lot of attention from Memphis, the running back there,

Travion Williams from Texas A&M. Justice Hill from Oklahoma State. There's some nice running backs here if you did want to go that route. But I don't think the Patriots will do it. And so I guess you look at the wide receiver position. And there are a couple of options here, including a name that has been linked to the Patriots. It makes some sense. But he's not the guy he's being calm to do but that's Andy Isabella from UMass and we're to take him here you know at the end of the

third round and I think it makes some sense because he's a versatile wide receiver he's gonna get pegged as inside slot guy Julian Edelman 2.0 but he's much more than that you study his film at UMass they used him almost exclusively on the outside. Yeah, they did some things at times with him with motion and stack slots and things like that, similar to how the Patriots use Edelman. But you watch him

against teams like Tennessee and Mississippi State. He played some SEC competition and he played pretty well. And so I'm comfortable drafting him here. I think, depending on how they handle Dorsett, Patterson, Hogan, they're still probably going to want to get a wide receiver in via free agency, a veteran-type guy.

But I think Isabella is a nice value here at the end of the third round. So we'll do that. Now we are on the clock again. In the fourth round, we are on the clock at pick 134, and now we just have two quarterbacks left. Ryan Finley and Brett Rippon, the two that I would be most interested to. They're very similar quarterbacks. So much not surprisingly, Matt Miller has them at 215 and 218 respectively. I'm not going to wait. Fourth round, Brett Rippon. There you go. It's going to be similar to last year when I kept

mocking La Letta to the New England Patriots every chance I got. So there we go. We are through four rounds now of the 2019 NFL Draft. Up next, we have four picks left. The comp pick in the sixth, the three picks in the seventh. Four picks left. Those are coming up on this Mock Draft Monday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Mock Draft Monday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. And we are working our way through our second Mock Draft. This is Mock Draft Monday 2.0, so to speak. And the way I do these, I basically do a fan-speak simulator live,

work my way through it. We game out some scenarios. We see where different players fall as we get more big boards will be more interesting and once the guys over at the draft network get their mock draft machine up and running will you that use theirs too i might even get some of those guys on to do one of these with me that might be pretty fun in case again you're just joining us which via podcast would be kind of weird but it sounds sounds cool to say that, so I will. In case you're just joining us, we have some selections down,

eight selections down, specifically four left. We have Irv Smith in the first round, Charles Omena, who the edge from Texas and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, the safety from Florida in the second round. In the third round, we went Max Sharpen, Colleen Saunders, and Andy Isabella.

And then with our fourth pick, I mean, excuse me, our seventh pick, that is Brett Rippin from Boise State. And so we have some picks left to get to here. We've got a pick in the sixth round and then three in the seventh round. And we're now on the board. And we're going to go right to the tight end category here. And there are a couple of names that I am very interested in. Kenan Brown from Texas State.

I know the guys over at the Locked On Patriots Slack channel have been excited about him. I have yet to study him. He is on the board. I will pass on him. Alizi Mack from Notre Dame. We talked about him with Brad Kelly. But I'm going to go to Dax Raymond, and I'm going to take him here in the sixth round. I just got done studying him.

I really like the raw talent there. His biggest game production-wise was against Michigan State, their best competition in Utah State. They used him all over the field. And for lack of a better phrase, again, I'm going to be breaking these guys down a bit more on Tuesday in a Tape Tuesday show dedicated to the tight end class. He plays the game pissed off. There's no better way to say that.

He will block you through the whistle. He will play angry. He's an angry blocker, always looking for work downfield. But he's one of those guys that will knock your head off and then help you up and give you a pat on the butt. I like the way he plays the game. I like him in scramble drawer situations. He shows good winners there.

So we're going to take a shot on him. Now we're into day three. We've got three picks here in day three. And so there's a lot we could do. We can go in a number of different directions here. And we are now on the clock. We are on the clock at 239 here. I think some of the fan speak numbers

and where I'm at other places I'm looking are a little off but we're getting a good feel for it let's see some names here not a lot of stuff that you could be interested in that Keenan Brown guy is still available if you want to go that route not a lot

there's a player here that I do like in Alexander Madison from Boise State. I'm not so sure that they would go with him. Easton Stick is still available. That's an interesting name. You look at quote-unquote positions of need for the Patriots. Linebacker, Drew Twanquil. I know we've talked about him a little bit. Khalil Hodge.

There's a player that I think Bill Belichick might like. He's more of a thumper type guy. When I studied him, linebacker from Buffalo, there are some things that he does. More of a two-down thumper, I think, in the NFL, but there's some potential there. You look

at corner, I don't think they go corner, but some interesting names, including Tyler Horton from Boise State. He was an interesting player to take a look at tight end is still deep so like i said keenan brown is still available alizie mack foster monroe um but i'll come back to wide receiver for a second some interesting names here include stanley morgan well we drafted him in the first one i think i'll pass on him alex ingold a fullback from Wisconsin. We might take a flyer on him in the seventh round. I'll say that right now. A defensive line, probably not a position we'd double dip at. Not a lot here anyway. This kind of does seem to thin out. So I don't know

if we're going to get a lot of day three gems on defensive line. So we'll come back to the running back spot. Why not? And there's a player that I think might be a Belichick type, and that's Bryce Love, who got a ton of attention last year. He's obviously got the injury situation that he was dealing with, a guy that got some Heisman buzz. We're going to take a flyer on him. So we'll go Bryce Love here with his first pick in the seventh round, back on the clock again. Wide receiver, as I've said, that's kind of thinned out. Tight end, some of those interesting guys are still available. You look at the offensive tackle position, maybe you take a flyer on some guys.

Derwin Gray from Maryland, perhaps Brandon Knight from Indiana. Those might be some names to consider here. Let's take a look at edge. Edge, not a lot that really sort of thinned out. So we'll go back to the linebacker spot and Khalil Hodge is here staring me in the face and since I kind of liked him we'll go with Khalil Hodge so that's the second pick in the third round we've got one more here Patriots going to be on the clock and as I'm doing this there's no way they're picking 12 players I

mean let's just face it they're going to move around they're going to trade way they're picking 12 players. I mean, let's just face it. They're going to move around. They're going to trade up. They're going to trade down and things like that. I can't imagine they pick 12 players. But if they do, you can see how things kind of thin out here. And so we are back on the clock and not a ton to look at. Deshaun Davis, a linebacker from Auburn, he might be interesting to consider, but we just did linebacker.

So maybe not. Max Crosby, an edge from Easternurn. He might be interesting to consider, but we just did linebacker, so maybe not. Max Crosby, an edge from Eastern Michigan. He's an interesting player. But I think looking at what's left, taking a flyer on a guy with Keenan Brown sitting there at Texas State. I'm going to show some love to the guys over at the Locked on Patriots Slack channel and take a flyer on him. So there you go. Those are 12 players. Again, Irv Smith, tight end from Alabama at the end of the first round.

Charles O'Menehu, the edge from Texas, and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson from Florida. Those are the two second rounders. Max Sharpen, the offensive tackle from Northern Illinois. Colleen Saunders, the defensive lineman from Western Illinois. And Andy Isabella, the wide receiver from UMass. Those are your three picks in round three. Pick four, I mean, excuse me, round four,

final pick in that round, Brett Rippin, Boise State. You're going to keep banging that drum. More and more people getting on that Brett Rippin hype train. You know, Evan Lazar, Phil Perriott, Mark Rippin to the Patriots. He's going to catch buzz here. And it's just me standing on Rippin Hill for the past three years, just waiting for everybody to buzz here. And it's just me standing on Rippon Hill for the past three

years, just waiting for everybody to come aboard. And it's finally happening. Dax Raymond, tight end from Utah State. Bryce Love, running back from Stanford. Khalil Hodge, linebacker from Buffalo. And to round things off, Keenan Brown from Texas State. And suddenly we're back on the clock again. Again, I'm looking at two different places for picks so the patriots we do have 12 picks one left to make we're gonna go just throwing darts at somebody andrew wingard the safety from wyoming he was a player that got a lot of attention last year when people were studying josh allen's tape they kind of liked this kid. So, yep, they're double dipping at safety, but the Patriots, they like having multiple safety packages. So, there is your 2019 Mock Draft 2.0

safety class. Again, you're adding Kenan Brown at the end, the tight end, and then Andrew Wingard, the safety from Wyoming. So, that will do it for today. Nice, tidy little show, breaking it down at Mock Draft Monday here. Like I said, tomorrow I will be back. A tape Tuesday installment. I'm going to have tape assessments on a bunch of the tight ends. We're going to talk about those guys. Wednesday show is up in the air right now. Thursday show, we're going to have Shane Alexander,

formerly of Inside the Pylon. He and I are going to do some game theory stuff on Patriots, different ways they can handle the offseason, the draft, and things like that. Then we'll be off Friday. Then next week we are back to it. After post-combine, five shows a week all the way up to the draft. Caught our breath just for a little bit. It was nice to get those Thursday nights back again.

But now, boom, we're going to sprint through the draft, run through the tape, finish strong, and then maybe we'll see what happens after the draft you know we'll probably dial things back again because look there's not

going to be a lot to talk about May and June okay June is like the month to take a break and then we'll be

back to it but that will do it for today I will be back tomorrow until then keep it locked

right here to me Mark Schofield and Locked on Patrons.