Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots February 7, 2018 - Quasi-Emergency McDaniels Edition

Episode Date: February 7, 2018

McDaniels? Staying. Butler? Probably not. Schofield? Still here. A crazy day in Patriots Nation broken down.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, so did anything happen today, guys? Mark Schofield here with you on Tuesday night, February 6th, 2018. Had some stuff happen today, huh? So we're going to do a quasi-emergency edition of Locked on Patriots. As always, follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Follow the work over at InsideThePylon.com. LockedOnPatriots.com as well. Check out the YouTube page for Inside the Pylon.

YouTube.com backslash Inside the Pylon. Drop the video today on Kyle Lalletta. Obviously, there was a lot of hype about Lalletta during and after the pylon. Dropped a video today on Kyle Lalletta. Obviously, there was a lot of hype about Lalletta during and after the Senior Bowl. He may be the next quarterback for the New England Patriots. We'll find that out later on in April.

His offensive coordinator might be Josh McDaniels after all. An interesting day in the National Football League. We're going to talk about the Josh McDaniels decision. We're going to talk about the Malcolm Butler saga, which rages on. Just a crazy day in Patriots Nation. And let's sort of start with the McDaniels stuff because I'm recording this now. As I said, it's Tuesday night.

It's almost 9 p.m. And about 10 hours ago, the Indianapolis Colts made it official. They announced Josh McDaniels, former offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, will now be our head coach. We have agreed to terms. Press conference tomorrow. This was the move that we all sort of expected. Patriots fans,

we've all kind of come to realize that when the Super Bowl was over, we were going to lose McDaniels, we were going to lose Matt Patricia. McDaniels was apparently going to bring the special teams coach, Joe Judge, with him to Indianapolis. So you're losing basically three of your top coordinators.

Coordinators in the three key phases of the game. So it's time to start thinking about replacements. We're hearing about Greg Sciano possibly coming over as defensive coordinator. Maybe Brian Flores gets promoted to defensive coordinator. And Sciano comes over as linebacker's coach. And maybe they tack on an assistant head coach type role for him. Now you're wondering about potential offensive coordinators. Maybe Chad O'Shea gets it.

And then Adam Schefter drops a Schefty bomb. Drops it around 8 o'clock tonight. Basically saying that McDaniels told the Colts thanks but no thanks and of course that touched off rampant speculation on the timeline some of which we'll engage in in a few minutes because it's the offseason and it's fun

but Schefter then came up with a long story that basically said that look McDaniels was wavering on this. More on that in a second. But McDaniels was sort of wavering on it, and Robert Kraft kind of sat down with McDaniels over the past couple of days and more or less made him an offer he can't refuse. And McDaniels was wavering on it in part

because he wasn't sort of comfortable with the idea of uprooting his family to Indianapolis. That's what Schefter says in the story on ESPN.com tonight. And so now the Colts start their head coach search again. And what's awkward about this, and this is where we can sort of dive into the speculation, and it's pure speculation, but McDaniels is burning some bridges here, let's be honest.

This is one of those moves where you better make sure you're doing the right thing for yourself and for your family because this could come back and bite them. Not only has McDaniels now sort of burned a bridge with a potential employer in the Indianapolis Colts and other potential organizations might never consider hiring McDaniels or at least announcing it until you have a signed contract. But the Colts spent an hour on the phone with McDaniels working on staff and sending slips in

for potential assistant coaching hires. That's according to Michael Lombardi on Twitter, at MLombardiNFL. Mike Garofalo, he's reporting from the NFL Network that Colts assistants that you've seen reported have signed contracts such as Matt Elberflis as the defensive coordinator. So they've signed on, Matt has, as a defensive coordinator with the expectation that Josh McDaniels is going to be his head coach. Coaches left positions to be on the Colts staff

under the impression that they were going to be working for Josh McDaniels. Now they don't know who their head coach will be. And the head coach that they hire might have a different sort of vision for what he wants. You know, so McDaniels is burning multiple bridges now.

I mean, imagine if you uprooted your life, made a change with, you know, moving your kids into a different school, moving to a different city, to go work for a guy, and now that guy's not coming. You know, that can't sit well with a lot of people. And then, of course,

there's the Colts' angle to this. Adam Schefter also reporting that he got a text from a league source basically saying, this is Robert Kraft sticking it to the Colts because of the Flakey. And basically saying this is Robert Kraft sticking it to the Colts because of the flakey and maybe I'm sure people feel that way people tweeted that at me pretty much immediately when this happened all this is the crafts going back at the at the Col Deflategate, right? And maybe there is something to that.

Of course, then there's sort of options three and four, which have been talked about as well. You know, one is the fact that, is there something going on with Andrew Luck? You know, because if you're taking over the head coaching gig for the Indianapolis Colts, you want to be sure that Andrew Luck is fine given the issues with his shoulder,

given the fact he just missed a season. You know, that's job one as a potential head coach. What's his true status? And don't give me this, he's okay, I want to see the guy throw. So there was some quick speculation that this was related to Andrew Luck's shoulder just not being ready, not ready to go.

Now, I don't think that's really the issue here. I would believe that he got all the assurances that he needed when he immediately agreed to this or at least initially agreed to this that Andrew Luck was fine and he was going to be able to go come the start of the 2018-2019 season otherwise why would you agree to begin with

so I don't think it's the Luck issue the other sort of angle to this is the Belichick angle, which is this. I'll admit when this first came down, my first thought, this means Belichick's on his way out. I reached out to some quote-unquote sources. I'm not that connected people people, but I tried. And got back similar sort of sentiments. Maybe there are indications here that Belichick might be leaving sooner than we'd think. And you would have to think that if you're Robert Kraft, one of the things you can include in the proverbial offer you can't refuse is this, you're next.

And we've always sort of assumed that, that Josh McDaniels would be sort of the next guy up whenever Belichick wanted to retire, whenever he stepped away. Schefter's report in his story tonight said that if anything, that kind of assurance would have made McDaniels sort of accelerate his process to leave, sort of flat in the face of that line of thinking. That doesn't seem to make that much sense, especially when you consider the fact that if you really take a step back and look at this from 36,000 feet, Josh McDaniels is now almost radioactive.

These are Aaron Nagler's words. He tweeted this out, something very similar to this. He's basically radioactive to 31 other organizations. And if you want to be a head coach, you've now got one spot to do it. So you either stay and wait him out, or you've been told, wink, nod, handshake, whatever kind of agreement,

it's yours when he leaves. Because otherwise, unless it really boils down to the fact that Josh McDaniels and his family decided this was not the move they wanted to make. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe this is just an Occam's Razor situation where we need to take a step back

and realize that these guys aren't just names in a Madden game. You know, they've got families, they've got kids, they've got other things in their lives that would go through

a whole level of upheaval. You know, McDaniels has been through these situations before, with Denver and then out in St. Louis before coming back to New England. And maybe they just didn't want to go through another move like that. Another situation where three years from now, two years from now, things go wrong and

you're on the outs again. Life as a coach in the, you know, whether it's pro, whether it's college, even high school, it's tough on the coach involved. It's tough on his or her family around them. And maybe McDaniels and his family just decided, look, this is not for us.

So this has touched off just an incredible, capped off just a really strange day when they announced it around you know 10 or so in the morning that he's their new head coach and now they've got to cancel the press conference another sort of side angle to this Mike Florio over at Pro Football Talk was making noise over the

weekend saying that McDaniels was wavering and there were many people who said stuff like that never happened that they were just making it up from whole cloth. Chief among them, Greg Gabriel, former scout, now does some stuff for Pro Football Weekly.

Basically just out now called Mike Florio a liar for making it up. Allowing Mike Florio to just violently dunk on him on Twitter. Basically told him, well, I can't say it. This is a family show.

But, yeah. Just a stunning sort of set of circumstances. If you're going to ask me to sort of harbor a guess as to the situation, I think it's a mix of the family influence that he and his family just decided that this was not the move they wanted to make, plus some reassurances

from Robert Kraft, both financially and otherwise, that you are next. This is your team. And if you're Josh McDaniels, would you rather sort of go and try to rebuild the Indianapolis Colts, or wait a year or two or three

and take over the storied New England Patriots now? And you know where this roster is, where this New England roster is right now, even though there are some question marks. The roster is going to be in good shape when you take it over, number one. And number two, now you get a chance to sort of handpick or be part of the process of handpicking your quarterback. Because as listeners to this show know, New England's going to be in on a quarterback and

it might be early. So now McDaniels gets a chance to sort of pick and then groom his guy. Whether it's Mason Rudolph or Josh Allen or whomever it might be. Kyle Lalletta. If you think it could be Kyle Lalletta, I've got a great video you can check out. But that's sort of the situation where McDaniels now finds himself.

And maybe you put all that together and it makes more sense to him to stay put. To stay where he is right now because you've got a chance to mold your next guy and take over the franchise that has put you to this point. I mean, Josh McDaniels was a hot commodity head coach type guy because of his success in New England. Anyway, just a fascinating day.

Now we don't have to do a show on what the Patriots are going to lose with Josh McDaniels leaving because he's not leaving. And given how this went down, he's not going to be leaving anytime soon. Up ahead, we'll close out the show revisiting the Malcolm Butler stuff yet again because

social media, man, in this day and age, spending your time trying to see who likes and comments on Instagram posts, it's the new journalism. That's next with me, Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you here for Locked on Patriots,

quasi-emergency edition of Locked on Patriots. This is Wednesday's show from Wednesday, February 7th, but I'm going to drop it early on Tuesday night because of the McDaniels news, and of course now a little bit of Malcolm Butler news. We're all still trying to piece together what happened during the Super Bowl, leading up to the Super Bowl, after the Super Bowl,

why Malcolm Butler, who had seen 97% of New England's defensive snaps this year, was in for one play against the Eagles. And it was a special teams play. It doesn't make sense to anybody. Here's the extent to which this does not make sense. This morning, Tuesday morning, at 7.10 a.m., I was interviewed by a radio station

in Melbourne, Australia, talking about the Super Bowl. And what do you think the first question they asked me was? It was about Malcolm Butler. This is global sport-type news now. And it got kicked up a notch today because Malcolm Butler on Instagram released a statement. And you've probably seen it.

I'm not going to quote it or read it all. But basically he says that he wants to thank the organization. Says that he has always given it everything he had to play at a high level would never do anything to hurt his team's chances of winning a game including this year's super bowl where he visited with family every night during super bowl week i never attended any concert missed curfew or participated in any of the ridiculous activities being reported they're not only false, but hurtful to me and my family. And then he goes on to apologize for some of the language that he used after the game, saying how it was an emotional time. And it's a very sort of well thought out and put together statement. And, you know, that

sort of comes in the wake of reports last night, again from Ian Rappaport, saying that Butler was benched because of a perfect storm of issues, sickness, a rough week of practice, and a minor rule violation believed to be related to curfew. And there are also other sort of conspiracy or not conspiracy, but just wild theories out there saying that, again, he went to a concert and came back late. There might have been marijuana involved. Who knows? But now Butler's statement is out there and, quote, on the record. And it remains to be seen whether the Patriots will say anything in response, whether they'll confirm it.

Belichick has been clear that it was a football-related decision. But, again, if it's a football-related decision, it didn't seem to be working. Especially when you look at, again, not to dive into it too much because I don't want to relive Sunday night, but Nelson Aguilar on a crossing route against Johnson Badamosi, type of routes that Butler was good at all season. You can see him doing it against Jarvis Landry.

I even wrote a piece talking about slowing Jarvis Landry down on crossing routes and how Butler was helpful on that. You'd think if it were just purely a football decision, at some point the Patriots would have sat down with her at halftime or third quarter or at some point and said, you know what, this football decision isn't quite working out. Let's try him for a couple of snaps. I'll stop now. I don't want to go down that road too much. But what really sort of kicked things up a notch today, tonight, this afternoon was everybody mining through the likes. Who liked it? Who liked that Instagram post and first and foremost was Tom Brady you know and everybody sort of

then went through and saw and it almost seemed in a way coordinated because it seemed like every sort of patriot, recent patriot former patriot, LeGarrette Blount was instantly jumping on board and then Brady commented as well

on it and it just seems like we may never know. We may never know what actually happened. Maybe Butler's story is completely right. And it might be. We just don't know for sure. And Butler, as he sort of indicated in the post, he's gone. He's out.

He's looking sort of to the next challenge, and he's going to be ready for 2018. So the Patriots will have to be in on a cornerback, maybe multiple cornerbacks in this offseason and in the draft, because that relationship is fractured beyond repair. But given the fact that Butler needs to find a new home, he has to try to get out ahead of it. That's sort of PR 101. Given the sort of rampant speculation that was kicked off

in the wake of this incident, that he had to get out in front of it and say, look, I didn't do anything wrong. This was all the stuff that's being said, caught with weed, out at concerts, whatever. Not true. And he knows, as we all do, that the Patriots are notoriously tight-lipped about this stuff. And maybe they do say nothing and just stick with it was a football decision and move on. So, the saga of Butler goes on.

We may never know. If this were other organizations, we probably know right by now stuff would be leaking out, but it's the Patriots. This is the way they handle things. So, just weird, just weird weird weird strange times you know and

as we head sort of into this off season it's just obviously we're still coming off a Super Bowl loss so things are unsettled anyway it just seems like this off season the storm clouds are on the horizon this McDaniels thing feels a little funny It just seems like this offseason, the storm clouds are on the horizon. This McDaniels thing feels a little funny, at least to some level.

The Butler thing feels funny. We got Gronkowski hinting at retirement. The Wickersham story still lingers. It's just unsettling times in Foxborough. And what I do when there are unsettling times, when I'm stressed and down, I play some Toto. Hope you enjoyed yesterday's show. Well, today's show, since I'm recording it on Tuesday night.

The little Locked On Toto. Again, the people spoke. I honored the democratic process. Locked On Toto was the winner, so I did some locked on Toto stuff. Like I said, I had a ton of fun with that. Judging by the reaction to it, people seem to be digging it.

Half of my mentions on Twitter every day now are just various versions, various recordings, covers of Africa by Toto, which is amusing. But a man's going to have a brand, right? And apparently my brand is quarterback takes, scrubs gifts, and Africa by Toto. So I'll roll with it as long as I can.

And I'll be rolling with you guys four days a week now, up until the draft, and we'll kick it back up to five days a week when we get closer to the nfl draft we'll be getting more into sort of draft coverage here as we go forward start looking at some positions the patriots need help at obviously we'll spend a lot of time on quarterbacks again check out the inside the pylon youtube page for all my first silent videos. You can see breakdowns on Josh Allen and Mason Rudolph and Baker Mayfield. And if you have a quarterback that I haven't worked on yet, hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Again, follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Tell friends about the show.

Look, we've got one assignment here from the boss man over the Locked On Podcast network for the off season. It was this, build your brand. Apparently he didn't quite realize that my brand has already been built. It's Scrubs Gifts, Toto by African, Africa by Toto and QB Takes. But I got to build the brand.

Got to build the network. So if there's anything you want to hear covered, anything you want to see covered, whatever it is, hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Follow the work over at InsideThePylon.com. Follow LockedOnPatriots as well. Haven't written anything since the gamer I wrote about Super Bowl LII, but I'll get back to that as well.

Needed some time to ease back into it. Speaking of getting back into it, I'll be back tomorrow for a Thursday show. Until then, keep it locked right here. Me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.