Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots February 3, 2018 - Super Bowl Saturday

Episode Date: February 3, 2018

Mark Schofield takes your takes, and then talks about family, fandom, and legacy, on this Super Bowl Saturday edition of Locked On Patriots.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into a special Super Bowl Saturday edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you for Saturday, February 3rd. We are now hours away from the kickoff of Super Bowl LII, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles, and I promised everybody your Saturday show because look, when your team's in the Super Bowl, you go all out. That's what we've done here at Locked On Patriots this week. This is now the eighth podcast of the week.

Lost count of how many articles went up. I think it was eight, probably more by the time this piece, this podcast comes out over at LockedOnPatriots.com. More analysis on the Twitter at Mark Schofield. But this is what we do, right? Your team's in the big one. You go all out. Win or lose, I will be back

tomorrow night as well, breaking it all down with an instant reaction show. Hopefully the final glorious victory edition of Locked On Patriots. And as I said, something a little special today. I opened up the phone line, the text line to all of you guys. Put it out there.

Opened it up. And I have to say, I'm impressed with the Eagles fans out there. Because I got dozens, dozens, maybe even more, I forgot to count, of text messages. They were mostly text messages. In fact, all of them were text messages. They basically said, well, I'm not going to read them all, but I figured I could give you a little taste of them. And here's kind of what that sounded like. Fly, Eagles. Fly, Mark. Fly, Eagles. Fly, Mark.

Hit him with the caca. Hit him with the caca. Yeah, you kind of get the idea. Eagles fans definitely hyped up for this one. Obviously, the voices you heard there, Benjamin Solak, Michael Kist, the co-hosts of the Locked On Eagles podcast. That was during one of the two crossover shows that we did this week.

But that wasn't all we got. We got some other stuff from Pats fans as well. I'm going to respond to those now. Thank you to all the people that sent in some stuff. You've got that number now. Depending on how things turn out, maybe we'll open it up again for another show sometime early next week.

You know, a little reaction to Super Bowl 52. But now I want to respond to some of the texts we got in. First one comes in from a Ricky Keeler. He is at Rickinator555 on Twitter. Please give him a follow. That's at Rickinator555 on Twitter. His text is, I think Patriots win 27-24 with a late Brady touchdown to Amendola. My question for you for tonight's podcast is,

do you think the Patriots running backs will have more success with yards after the catch this week compared to the AFC title game? Thanks for answering my question and always enjoy the podcast. Go Pats. Ricky, thank you so much for listening. Again, all of you guys have no idea just how much that means to me that the people out there listen to this, that would take the time to even just send in a text. As I've always said, there are so many great options out there for you guys to listen to for Pat stuff. So just the fact that there's even like one person out there that listens, it always blows me away. And I kind of like Ricky's score.

I said 28-24. Ricky says 27-24. I think Ricky's pretty much in the ballpark of what I'm expecting from a score standpoint. As to whether the Patriots will have more success after the catch, particularly the running backs than they did in the AFC Championship game, I think they will. I think there's some evidence for that to be the case.

Eagles allowed 5.6 average yards after the catch in the regular season. That's 26th in the NFL. They're also giving up an average of 5.2 yards per catch on passes to wide receivers. I know that's a slightly different point than Ricky's question, but that's 30th in the league. Why is that? As we've talked about this week, they'll play off coverage.

I'm expecting the Patriots to do some empty stuff. We're going to see off coverage in those situations. There are opportunities for yardage after the catch. So I think Ricky's point is a valid one. They're going to have more success getting yardage after the catch particularly more success than they did last week against the

Jacksonville Jaguars and now two weeks ago so I think it's a good point and every yard is going to help as we've talked about Schwartz's philosophy and mentality on defense keep things in front of you get pressure with the floor. Make the offense matriculate the ball down the field.

I think the Patriots will be fine doing that. They are glad to take what a defense will give them. They will take their double-shot opportunities at times. But they'll be happy doing that. Maybe this play comes down to one broken tackle. Nora Princiotti back on Wednesday said tackling might be big in this game. Maybe it comes down to somebody like a Brandon Cooks or one of the running backs, to Ricky's point,

breaking a tackle and turning short of a short throw into a big game chunk type play. So I think that was a great point from Ricky. Thank you so much, Ricky, for chiming in. Again, please do follow him on Twitter. Another text to get to is from another friend of the show, Ian McDonald. Please follow him. He is at Ian, I-A-N-C-M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D on Twitter. And he reaches out,

I'm doing everything in my power to fully appreciate another Super Bowl and not take this run for granted. We've been so lucky. We're the only fan base that can fully enjoy their team 52 weeks a year every year. Obviously, the thrill of a Super Bowl is amazing, but to know that we will wake up Monday morning knowing our team will be competitive next year and likely make another great playoff run gives us so much optimism to blissfully enjoy whatever hurdles the offseason brings.

Now back to stressing about Sunday. Thanks for a wonderful season of Locked On, Patriots. Enjoy the game and save your voice for a glorious victory Super Bowl edition. Ian, again, thank you so much. Ian has been a huge, huge, huge friend of the show. I can't thank him enough. He's also given out some incredible book recommendations. If you're a history buff like I am, you need to follow Ian, dropping some great recommendations on Friday. And Ian's right. I'm

going to talk about legacy at the end of the show here and sort of try to encapsulate what this run has been like. But I don't want to tease it too much, but this has been just such an enjoyable run. And it, you know, you don't want to take them for granted. You know, I still remember, and I've told this story before, but when Vinatieri split the uprights in Super Bowl XXXVI, I was just delirious at that point. And I raced upstairs to try to order a Patriots hat. And after fumbling around, and yes, I had had an adult beverage or more than two perhaps. But after fumbling around for a while, the woman I was dating, who's now my wife, came upstairs and thankfully caught the fact that I had about like 15 Rams hats in my shopping cart back in the early days of the internet.

But I was just delirious for a variety of reasons, but we didn't expect that. It was just unbelievable moment, you know, but now it's sort of become a norm. And I'll talk about this a little bit later in the show, but I've spent so much time this week on so many different shows nationally, globally. You know, you get asked that question, you know, do you get used to this? And no, you'd never get used to this. We've been incredibly lucky. And that run will end at some point. And maybe it's going to end sooner than we think.

Well, we hope it doesn't, but it might. And maybe there's, as I'm going to talk about, maybe there's something to that sort of in all of the collective back of all of our minds. Maybe this is near the end. Maybe the window, it's still open open but it's closing at some point and so we don't want to take this one for granted at all but again thank you so much to Ian for for all of his support throughout the year please do follow him on Twitter again you can follow Ian on Twitter he is at I aA-N-C-M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D.

Next, voicemail from someone I've known for a long time, from John. That's next with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Don't hang up. I know this is a 215 number, but I'm a Pats fan. This is John. I've been following you on Inside the Pylon, your days on Sons of Sam Horn. I love what you guys do with Locked On NFL Draft. Just really, you guys have done such a terrific job.

Back in 2002, that was the first Patriots Super Bowl I watched with my dad. And now I get to watch the same Brady Belichick with my children, one of them as a teenager. You know, how special is that, man? That's not supposed to happen in football. And look at us, we're about to have it for the third time in a row. Thinking back to it, I can't imagine life without Brady and Belichick. Look, no matter what song, it could be Monopoly, Battleship, Billiards, Baseball, I don't care. If it's masters of the strategy playing against each other, I want to see it. That's just another form of great art to me, and I'm engaged.

And watching that, man, it never gets old. This whole comeback and winning thing, every single time, I'm a nervous wreck on the couch, and I can't believe it's happening. As for this game, I think it's going to be close. And there's just so many variables I could discuss on how it could play out. You know what? It has the makings of another classic. And if I have one wish, it's that we have one last glorious victory edition

to look forward to coming up. Mark, thank you so much, man. You keep those weekdays interesting and always full of the best Patriots discussion out there. Thank you, my friend, and I hope you enjoy the game. That's John, who's somebody that I've known sort of in the virtual sense for a long time. He references Sons of Sam Horn,

and that is sort of the website where my second career, in a sense, was born. You know, when I made the switch from being a practicing lawyer it was to start writing and the people I started writing with

that grew into inside the pylon and then for me extended into other places, including here at Locked On Patriots, there were people like John and others where we had had similar type debates and breakdowns and stuff like that on message boards. And that's kind of the new world

where you can take something that you did almost as a hobby, almost just in your spare time, and build it into a second career. And John's somebody that has seen sort of inside the pylon grow and has he sort of referenced there, seen sort of my sort of second career grow and has been supportive of all of that from beginning. And to have somebody like John reach out the way he did,

again, it just means so much to me, to John and Ian and Ricky and so many people that have supported the show this year. It's just touching. It's incredible. And John's point, watching the first sort of super bowl run when you're the son and then now we're here again and now you're the dad

you know a lot not many families not many people get that sort of run like this and I'm in a similar boat you know I'm flashing back right now to the Super Bowl against the Panthers I'm living in DC trying to make my way as a lawyer and throughout the game texting with my mom and dad you know my mom and dad two huge patch fans obviously two huge supporters of this show and supporters of me of course and I'm blessed to have had their support through this entire career and this run and everything. But now, come Sunday night, we're going to be sitting in my living room with my parents, my mom and dad here, and my wife and my two children,

our two children watching the game. And now, you know, it was two generations and now three generations. Although, quick sidebar, my son, Owen, comes home from school on Wednesday and he's like, Dad, I hope the Eagles win the Super Bowl because they've never won one before. And it would be nice if they get to win one. And that's one of those moments where you're like, it's touching and it's sweet that he wants to see another team win, but he might want to keep that quiet on Sunday night. I'm just saying,

I'm just saying. But John's right in that we're watching mastery with Brady, with Belichick, the way that they can come back like last year against Atlanta, obviously in the Super Bowl, the AFC Championship game this year. We're truly blessed as sports fans and as Boston fans. Going back to the early 2000s, you get the Patriots run, you get the Red Sox in 2014 Red Sox again in 2007 obviously the Patriots again you know three and oh four you get a Bruins title in there Celtics title in their Patriots and Red Sox again it's just it's been an incredible run for Boston sports fans. You know, and family's a big part of that. You know, I remember for the Red Sox in 04,

my grandfather, who came home from World War II and started a career as a mechanic, that's what he was in the Army, and got season tickets in the late 1940s to Fenway that we kept in the family until the late 80s early 90s until he just his eyesight started going he didn't feel safe number one being out at night or driving to the games and number two these were really good seats you know he always would tell the story about how Ted Williams hit a line drive into the stands these were third base grandstand seats and hit the

railing right in front of him. And he was just afraid that something like that happened, you know, with his eyes the way they were, he wouldn't be able to react in time. And so we had to give him up. But, I mean, you know, 75 game six, my mom and my aunt were there. I remember being in the bleachers for one of the playoff games against the A's when we were all, you know, chanting steroids at Jose Quintanilla and it's me and my grandfather there. And, you know, sports kind of, you know, sometimes dovetail with family memories.

And I remember back for game four of the World Series against the Cardinals, we were all, my wife, you know, then girlfriend, now wife, and we were at a bar in D.C. and sometime around the seventh inning when it was pretty clear how the game was going to turn out, I said, look, we got to go home. And she's like, why? Why do you? And I'm like, I have to be able to make a phone call at the final out.

And, you know, when Folk went back to Minkiewicz, I was on the phone with my grandfather. And, you know, that's a moment I'll never forget. And over the past, you know, almost two decades, basically, as Boston sports fans, we've enjoyed many moments like that. And we have more moments ahead of us, I think. Even with this Patriots team, even though this window might be closing they get a chance to do something special again tomorrow night and we get a chance to be along for the ride and so I kind of want to close on

this sort of idea of legacy in a way because as I mentioned it's been just a whirlwind type of week and I'm not even out there in Minneapolis I mean I'm still home here in DC you know I could have gone out there I decided not to I had just made a trip to Alabama and you know even being here you know between these podcasts and radio appearances and other podcasts nationwide, worldwide. I get asked a lot, as Patriots fans, do we sort of expect this? Do we just think, oh, ho-hum, it's another playoff run? And I think at some point you might have been able to say, yeah, we just kind of do expect it. But in thinking a lot about the sort of path

this team took this year, and in some of the things that happened this year, both on and off the field, I think the ESPN story, the Wickersham story, obviously Patriots fans, Patriots Nation, we took a lot of exception with that story. I ranted about it a bit here on the show as well. And as Patriots fans, as Boston sports fans, we tend to be very protective at times of our own. And when stories

like that come out, we get our gin on, we get our guard up, and we take them on. But as I've been making the rounds this week and talking to different people, it started to sort of click in my head that maybe part of the reaction to that one was just that sort of that fear in the back of our minds that eventually, eventually this run will end at some point. And we don't want it to end. Of course we don't want it to end. You know, obviously with the Eagles being involved this week, there have been a lot of comparisons

to sort of Rocky Balboa. I've read stories about how at one point the Patriots were Rocky. They were the scrappy underdog. And now I've seen them compare to Drago this week. And the Eagles are rocky. No, but I've had another sort of comparison

to rocky come into my mind this week, and that's Tom Brady himself. And he was the scrappy underdog. But he's sort of never given up that fire. It's always been inside of him. He's a fighter. That's who he is. Right now, the ultimate fight in front of Tom Brady

isn't the Philadelphia Eagles. It isn't Jim Schwartz. It's time. The inexorable march of time. And if you think back to the first Rocky, Rocky didn't win that fight, but he took it the distance, and nobody had ever done that before, right?

Nobody had ever done that with Apollo, and nobody's ever done that with time. Nobody's ever taken time the distance. Father Time is undefeated, as they say, but nobody's taken it the distance, and it looks like Brady might be the first. And if there was a player who would do that, if there was a player who could accomplish that feat, would it not be Tom Brady? Wouldn't Brady be the guy to do that? And you might wonder, what would that look like? How would we know?

He's going to turn 41 this offseason. And he might turn 41 this offseason and haven't won a second straight Super Bowl. Haven't won his sixth title. He is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time. And he will tell you right now that his favorite Super Bowl run is the next one. And he might tell you right now that his favorite Super Bowl rant is the next

one. And he might win it tomorrow night. But that's the rocky comparison that's been in my mind all week. Tom Brady against Father Time and taking Father Time the distance. And if I were to place a bet on that fight if I were to put

money on whether Brady could take father time the distance there'd be no hesitation in my mind this is a guy that has meant so much to this organization to this region to this fan base when it comes time to put in my chips, I'm not putting them in against Tom Brady. I hope you've enjoyed this sort of special Saturday, Super Bowl Saturday edition of Locked On Patriots.

Thanks again to Ricky, to Ian, to John, to all the Eagles fans that chimed in, even to Ben and to Mike. Next time we talk, it will be after the Super Bowl. And I hope for a glorious victory edition, but I will be here either way. And then, the inexorable march of time continues. Because it will be draft season.

And I will be here for you along the way. Until next time, enjoy the Super Bowl and keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots.