Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 11, 2018 - Crossover with Locked On Titans

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

Mark Schofield has news and notes, plus his conversation with Terry Lambert and Jimmy Morris from Locked On Titans.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Thursday, January 11th, 2018. Mark Schofield here with you. We are getting close now. Saturday night's divisional round game between the New England Patriots and the Tennessee Titans just a few more days away. Big show for you today. We're going to do some news and notes here at the outset. Then a little crossover action with the folks over at

Locked on Titans. That should be a great show. Also, remind you can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work that keeps going up. Got some QB videos that dropped yesterday over at the inside the pylon inside the pylon.com's youtube page youtube.com backslash inside the pylon again patriots gotta be in on a quarterback you gotta believe that they will be two new videos that

dropped a part of my first sound series over there i did one on baker mayfield in anticipation that you should check out also one on luke Falk and his ability to sort of process information in Mike Leach's air raid offense. Falk is an interesting guy. I think if the Patriots consider waiting on a quarterback, Falk might be somebody that's in the mix. So check those out. Also check out the work over at Bleacher Report, the NFL 1000 project. I am the quarterback scout over there. Let's do some news and notes here at the outset. And I think probably the best place to start, perhaps the main focus, are injuries. Obviously, the Patriots coming off a bye.

Perhaps most notably, Tom Brady removed from the injury report. The Achilles injury that perhaps bothered him down the stretch a little bit seems to be seems to have gone away now some names it did pop up on the injury report Marquis Flowers did not practice on Wednesday due to an illness Mike Gillis Lee still dealing with a knee injury also did not practice Allen branch defensive lineman he was limited in practice on Wednesday. Seems to indicate that he's going to be able to go on Saturday, which would be a big boost to have Branch back again.

As we talked about, looking at the Titans and what they like to do offensively, it would be a big boost to that defense if they can get Branch back. I think quick penetration, particularly not just in the pass game, but in the run game, is going to be critical. If the Patriots can get that, that's going to really help them when they face this Titans offense. Rex Burkhead, limited still with a knee injury,

but he was available to the media, which is often an indication that he's going to be a go come game time. Chris Hogan, still limited with the shoulder. Eric Lee limited with the ankle and finger. Kyle Van Noy limited with a calf. Van Noy also available to the media this week, and it does seem like he's going to be fine. Reports and quotes from Kyle Van Noy seem to indicate that he's going to be ready to go.

Finally, James White limited on Wednesday with an ankle injury. Looking at Tennessee, there are two sort of names to really sort of look at. And that's beyond DeMarco Murray, who's already been ruled out with his knee injury. First, Brian Arakpo did not practice on Wednesday. It was designated as not injury related. That's all we have on that right now. Logan Ryan was limited. Familiar face to Patriots fans.

He was limited in practice on Wednesday with an ankle injury. But the one that I'm really intrigued by is Quentin Spain. Did not practice on Wednesday with a back injury. He was listed as questionable, headed into their game against Kansas City last weekend. But Spain performed very well. And I talked about sort of his ability along with some of the other guys up front to work those combination blocks, get two guys on one defensive tackle at the point, then somebody scraping up to that second level

and handling linebackers at the second level. Spain was in on a number of those plays, executed some very sound double-team blocks. He was critical on a number of their runs. And I think if he's limited or if he can't go on Saturday, that's going to have an impact on the Titans' run game. And so that's going to be a name to watch over the next couple of days. Quinton Spann, the left guard for the Tennessee Titans, is he limited? Will he be able to go on Saturday night?

So that's definitely something to watch. So those are sort of the injury updates coming out of Foxborough and Tennessee. Looking like the Patriots are perhaps almost back to full strength As we look ahead to Saturday night That's been a quick look at the news and injury news Up ahead, my conversation with the great guys over at Locked on Titans That's ahead, here at Locked on Patriots Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans.

I am Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing well. What's going on, Jimmy? Not too much. And we also have special guest Mark Schofield from Locked On Patriots with us tonight. We're going to ask him a few questions about his Patriots, and he's going to ask us a few questions about the Titans. So it should be a pretty good listen for everybody.

Before we do that, tell you, Terry and I write for musicmiracles.com, about his Patriots and he's going to ask us a few questions about the Titans. So it should be a pretty good listen for everybody. Before we do that, tell you Terry and I write for musicmiracles.com, cover the Titans for SB Nation, so you can find us there. You can also subscribe to the podcast, iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts, search Locked on Titans, do that. We would appreciate it. All right, so now we will bring in Mark. Mark, how are you doing tonight? I am doing well jimmy terry how are you gentlemen doing doing good and we really appreciate you uh

taking the time to jump on with us um i guess i'll start you know kind of the the biggest story i guess around the patriots is they haven't played a game in two weeks has been the espn article talking about you know the supposed fractures within the organization. Just talk a little bit about that. How much of that do you think is true? How much of it do you think is not true? And what effect, if any, do you think it's going to have on the Patriots going forward on the field?

I mean, I'll deal with the last part first, and I think with respect to on the field. It's not going to have any impact. I mean, you're talking about, you know, anytime you have a successful type operation in any walk of life, there are going to be sort of egos that get developed and guys are going to start to think that they deserve some credit and things like that will happen. And so I think the fact that we're now 17 years into the run that these guys have had, you know, Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and we're just hearing stuff like this now is a testament to the fact that whatever sort of away from the field issues there have had, you know, Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and we're just hearing stuff like this now, is a testament to the fact that whatever sort of away from the field issues there have been,

they've been able to put that aside and succeed on the field. So I don't think it's going to have any sort of impact on the field. Now, as to what's true and what isn't, I think it's one of those situations where if there's smoke, then there's got to be at least a little bit of fire. And I think Tom Brady's not a fool. He knows that they need to figure out life after Tom Brady because he's not going to play forever as much as he likes to believe that he can. Father Time is undefeated. And so the Patriots have to plan for an eventual replacement. And it also comes around the time where Jimmy Garoppolo is up for a new contract.

So there is going to have to be a decision made, and Tom Brady, as secure as you might think he is in his starting position, he's always had that sort of chip on his shoulder. He didn't want to make sure he had some sort of security. So I think that there was an issue in the sense that they needed to figure out, they needed to come to a decision what they were going to do with Garoppolo, what they were going to do with Tom Brady, what they were going to do with Tom Brady because one of those guys had to be moved and so it sort of developed from there but you know with respect to Saturday and going forward I don't think

you know it's going to have any impact on the Patriots level of play Saturday now if they do lose Saturday you can imagine that that's going to be what people point to, you know, regardless of how well the Titans play. You know, it's sort of a shame that if it does happen where the Titans come out and win this game, people will probably point to that ESPN story as being the reason why not the Titans going out and playing a very good football game. No doubt that storyline will blow up if that happens. Kind of transitioning to the on thefield stuff, I know the running backs have been banged up. We've seen Deion Lewis kind of fill the RB1 role for New England. Who's going to play?

What's the injury status? And will Lewis stay in that lead role? I assume that even if Burkhead plays, he was limited today with the knee injury. He hasn't played for a couple of weeks now. Even if he's back, even if Gilleslie's back, who's been limited as well as with the knee, he didn't practice on Wednesday. Indication seems to be that Gilleslie probably won't go.

Burkhead was made available to the media, so he was probably going to go on Saturday. This is now Deion Lewis' running game. He's been a tremendous weapon for them, and not just in the ways that you would expect from Deion Lewis, running outside zone, stretch zone, things like that, but really running between the tackles. They've been very effective using him between the tackles as in every down type back.

Now, they get to go up against a pretty stout run defense in Tennessee, so I'd be surprised if the run game is going to be new england's focus i think with lewis on the field they might look more to using him out of the backfield on pass routes because tennessee has had some vulnerability to running backs out of the backfield but it's going to be deon lewis getting the bulk of the workload at the running back spot. Okay. So if you think, you know, looking at this as a Titans team, obviously I think most people look at it and think that the way to attack this defense is through the air. You know, there's, there's been some talk,

I guess lately that this Patriots team is not as good as the, some of the teams in the past have been. And, you know, I mean, I think some of that talk goes to Tom Brady. What have you seen from Brady this year? Like, is he still playing at that elite level that he um and you know i mean i think some of that talk goes to tom brady what have you seen from brady this year like is he still playing at that elite level that he was you know two three four years ago whatever whatever it is um is he still there and what is i guess different about this offense than the ones in the past that you you've known we're going to come in and just you know slam i mean the tit Titans played a game up there.

I can't remember how many years ago. Lost like 59 to nothing. Those teams. So, you know, this team doesn't seem to be as much like that. What's different about this offense and how is Brady looking? Yeah, those are a couple of great questions. And with respect to Brady, I mean, over at Bleach Report, I was their quarterback scout this year for the NFL 1000 Project.

And he, to me, still graded out the best quarterback over the course of the season. But there was definitely a stretch over that five-game stretch where he threw interceptions in five straight games. Teams started playing a lot more man coverage. And when I start asking you guys some questions, that's going to be one of my main questions. Are the Titans going to roll with a lot more cover one man coverage type looks because that's where brady has struggled

this year when he's forced to sort of make throws into tighter windows and that gets to the fact that you know he's 40 now and you know maybe the arm strength isn't where it was say five years ago so when he's seeing tighter windows having to make throws to contested receivers and contested catch situations, you know, it's allowed for defensive backs to break on throws where maybe they haven't been able to do that in the past. So is Brady playing at the level where he was, say, five, six years ago? I don't think anybody would say that he is, you know, but he's still an elite quarterback. And I think in addition to that, he was dealing with an Achilles injury over

the final couple of weeks of the season that was I think impacting you know velocity and his ability to sort of drive into throws he's been removed from the injury report so I think he's back to 100% or as close as a guy can be you know here 19 weeks into a football season so I expect to see top rated play better than he had been down the stretch but there's definitely been some slippage and you would expect that with you know a guy that's been playing for 17 years now and now he's in his 40s uh switching gears the numbers say that the patriots are kind of suspect against the run uh that front seven isn't exactly what we're used to seeing out of New England.

Do the numbers, is that the whole story? Is there more to it? Can Tennessee make some hay with Derrick Henry on the ground? Well, I think they could definitely have some success against New England's defensive front, that front seven, running the football. And that's one of my main concerns headed into Saturday night. If they can get Henry going, if Tennessee's able to get those

common blocks like they were doing Saturday against the Chiefs, then they can really sort of establish the run. And that sets up everything that, as you guys know, that the Titans like to do offensively. You bring the RPOs into effect, play action stuff. That really drives Tennessee's offense, I think. Part of the issue there with New England statistically against the run is they've been this way for years now, have really sort of been a bend-but-don't-break type defense.

They give up a ton of yards. They're in a bottom five in terms of defensively. Might even be at the bottom right now in terms of yardage given up over the course of the season yards per game things like that but they're you know creeping into a top five scoring defense where they'll let you drive down the field but they'll tighten things up sort of when you get into the rent zone and they'll you know force you to settle for field goals and that's a way that new england's been able to win for years now is they'll trade field goals for touchdowns they're confident doing that they think they can do that they think they can

get off the field in most situations so they'll let you have a couple of you know you know six yards on first down maybe feel forced an incompletion or something on second down and then get off the field on third down that's kind of been their mo particularly this year all right last thing from me uh talk about the offensive line i mean you know the story is always if you're going to affect brady you've got to pressure him up the middle move him off of his spot um the titans you know i mean drill casey one of the best defensive linemen in the league so they they have that but they they've struggled to find a nose tackle really ever since they've moved to the 3-4. So they don't necessarily have that guy in the middle.

But can the offensive line hold up? Has that been a problem for this team at all this year, the interior pressure? You know, Jimmy, the offensive line was a big question mark, sort of that first quarter mark of the season. You know, Brady was on pace to be sacked more than he was last year. He was very much on pace to be sacked more than he was last year. He was very much on pace to be sacked more than he was through four or five games last year. As a matter of fact,

I think his sack numbers were almost approaching his numbers last year. Now, granted, he missed four games last year, but still, the sack numbers were big early in the season. Brady was taking a lot of hits. They seemed to tighten that up through that midseason stretch where they really performed well. They had some games against the Chargers, for example, where Brady got knocked around a

little bit. You know, they had a game against Miami, the one that they won at Foxborough, the one that they won fairly big, but he got knocked around there as well. There are some times when, you know, you can pressure Brady. I know, like you said, the sort of playbook is interior A-gap type pressure pressure but this year shoulders shown some vulnerability on the left edge at that left tackle spot they've also had some times where joe thune the left guard has been beaten both in one-on-one situations and also in situations where they show stunts or twists inside they've teams have gotten some pressure on brady doing that and that's something tennessee did against alex smith and the Chiefs last week. So there are,

I think, some opportunities for this Titans defensive front to, you know, scheme some stuff on the interior, get some twist games going, or even just trying to get somebody to beat, you know, Nate Solder off the edge in a one-on-one situation. So, you know, as with every sort of Patriots game and protecting Tom Brady, that's job one. If the Patriots can do it, they should have success, but there are some opportunities, I think, for the Titans to get pressure. I'm curious to ask you this. You've already mentioned your work with Bleacher Report. If you don't know Mark, you should follow him on Twitter, at Mark Schofield.

Schofield, excuse me. He is a quarterback guru. So I'm interested to get your thoughts on Marcus Mariota. He kind of took a step back this year. We personally have been frustrated with the offense. You see so many mistakes from the receivers. You see receivers in the same spot. It just seems like Marcus is a shell of himself

from what he was last year. What are your thoughts on him? What are your thoughts on this Titans offense as a whole? And is it something he can kind of come out of yeah and you know to sort of set it set the table at the outset mariota was my favorite quarterback coming out of college i had him above jamis winston and you know in the bleacher report work in the offseason headed into this year when i ranked sat down and ranked the AFC quarterbacks, it was Brady, it was Roethlisberger, it was Mariota. I mean, that's how high I was on him coming into the season

because I thought he was primed to have an incredible sort of third year here in the NFL. I thought we were going to see like a breakout-type season, and it just didn't happen. And I think everybody would sort of agree with that, that there was a little bit of regression here. I think part of it was, you know, when he had that hamstring injury, he did look to me at times, coming out from that,

that the lower body mechanically, he just didn't seem to have the same sort of ability to drive the football, sort of like I was talking with Tom Brady and the Achilles. It seemed like that sort of impacted his play. And as you said, route concepts, even looking at that game against the Chiefs on Saturday that interception he threw he had that sort of scissors concept that was a really compressed route concept where you know Marcus Peters was basically able to just sit there and the ball was thrown right to him and it was really anything that Marcus Mariota did it was just the route concept allowed him to just play two defenders and play two receivers right between them.

So I think the offensive structure has hurt him. There have been plays as well where receivers let him down, like that scramble drill situation where he hit Decker, who was wide open, and Decker just didn't complete the catch. And so I think it was sort of a perfect storm of things between an injury, between the offense sort of holding him back a little bit, and some plays being left on the field that sort of led to the regression but I'm still very high on Marcus Mariota and you know if he could get going Saturday afternoon that's one of the things guys that's keeping me up at night is you know his sort of ability to make plays extend plays that's given the Patriots fits historically quarterbacks that are mobile and if he could

you know play up to his level you, Tennessee could come in and win this game. I do have one more thing. Just quickly, I was reading some stuff today. It sounds like the two games where the Patriots played the Bills, they used a spy on Tyrod Taylor. One, is that true? Two, who was it? Three, do you expect them to do something similar

on Marcus Mariota? Yeah, they definitely spied Tyrod Taylor at times. A lot of it was Marquise Flowers. They used him at times to spy on him. Marquise did not practice today. He was out with an illness, but they used him to spy at times. They did it sometimes with Eric Lee, who's more of an edge type guy. They did that. So they used a couple of different guys. If Kyle Van Noy is back, I sort of anticipate he might be the guy that they used to spy Mariota. But yeah, I mean, that's what they're going to do.

I think from looking at what the Patriots will probably do on passing downs, on passing situations, they're going to have a spy. They're going to look to probably tray flowers off one edge and edge and you know whether it's flowers or eric lee or somebody else on the other it's try to keep mario in the pocket make sure he can't extend plays to the outside they'll let him climb towards the spy that's fine

but they don't they're not going to want to let him get outside of the pocket that's going to be their job on that's the defensive front's job on passing downs, I think. Terry, you got anything else? I don't. All right. All right, so like I said, coming up, Mark is going to ask us a couple of questions. But before he does, we are going to talk about MyBookie. You've heard me talk about MyBookie plenty of times on this podcast. They are the number one rated online sports books.

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where you play, you win, and you get paid. All right, so Mark said he's got some questions for us, so fire away. All right, gentlemen. I think the best place to start is sort of what we were talking about with tom brady and that's this well you know the last couple of games of the season where brady had that sort of down stretch it was because teams played a lot more man coverage against him and is that something you anticipate the titans do on saturday as well throwing man coverage looks at tom brady in this Patriots offense? Jimmy, I'll handle this one.

We've seen the Titans do a little bit of both. We've seen some of that famous Dick LeBeau fire zone not very successful against Travis Kelsey. I thought Kelsey ran wild over the middle, and the Titans just didn't do a very good job of handing off responsibility there. So that's a concern I've got with Rob Gronkowski because they are going to run some of that zone as LeBeau fires up some of the blitzes.

But they did run plenty of man, too. You saw them come up on the line of scrimmage and play man on Tyreek Hill. Adoree Jackson did a pretty good job in that spot. So I would expect Adoreory to handle Brandon Cooks, and hopefully he can have some similar success. But we've seen this defense, as good as it's been, against Jimmy Garoppolo in San Francisco. They went with a zone look primarily and got torched.

So they could not cover the middle of the field. It was a big, big problem. I think Jonathan Ciprian is a liability. So if you're looking for a weak link in this defense, I think it's over the middle when you get Avery Williamson, when you get guys like that, guys like Jonathan Ciprian, involved in the coverage scheme. Yeah, it's sort of building off of that then.

You mentioned the weakness over the middle. That brings into question, of course, Rob Gronkowski. Whenever I have these crossover-type shows, one of the questions I always ask is, what's the plan for Gronkowski? From an outside perspective looking in, I think Bayard, I think Ciprian, I think those are the guys that get first cracks at him.

But what do you guys think? How does Tennessee look to cover Gronkowski on Saturday? Yeah, I think one of the more frustrating things about this defense, and don't get me wrong, Dick LeBeau has done a great job with his defense this year because they're still lacking talent at quite a few positions. So he's done a good job overall. But he uses his safeties interchangeably.

So, you know, they don't play, you know, Cyprian strong, Bayard free. I mean, they mix them up. And so what we saw on Saturday against the Chiefs before Kelsey went out was, you know, they were getting him matched up on Cyprian and on Jayon Brown, who was the Titans nickel linebacker. You know, Cyprian is not good in coverage. He hasn't been good in coverage his whole career. They didn't sign him, I don't think, to come in here and be a coverage safety.

So I'm hoping that they're working on something scheming up where the primary guy that gets him is Bayard. Because, I mean, I don't know if anybody has a great chance against Rob Gronkowski. I don't think you count on anybody coming out and shutting him down. But

if they're going to limit Gronkowski, it's going to's gonna be it has to be with Kevin Byard um you know I would have said I would hope they will try to when he when Gronkowski lines up in the formation not letting him have free free release and all that kind of stuff but let me just tell you if they get Gronk matched up on either Brown or Ciprian he's gonna have a field day um because like I said Cyprian's not good in coverage. And Jayon Brown has been good, but he is definitely no match for Rob Gronkowski. Yeah, and guys, it's been interesting that, obviously, Bayard's comments about turning Brady into Blake Boulders,

those have gotten some attention, but it's kind of overshadowed, at least in my opinion, the fact that Bayard is one heck of a defensive player. And for the Lockedon Patriots listeners, please make the introduction as to why Byard is one of the better young safeties in this game. He does it all. You saw back at MTSU, he had 19 career

interceptions, didn't even get invited to the combine, and the Titans still took him in the third round. They use him, like Jimmy was saying, interchangeably. You'll see him play on the line of scrimmage. You'll see him rushimmy was saying interchangeably you'll see him play on the line of scrimmage you'll see him rush the passer a little bit you'll see him play zone over the middle you'll see him play free you'll see him play man so he's he can do a little bit of everything and the thing about him he always finds his way to the football it's just you know

some players just have that ability kevin byard has that ability to him so uh he you're gonna see him on gronk you're gonna see him playing zone you're gonna see him hovering center field he's going to be everywhere uh he deserves every bit of that all pro mention he got and uh it's kind of ridiculous that he's not in the pro ball yeah something else that sort of stood out to me was you know something there were a couple of snaps where the titans used him as sort of the robber in their cover three looks and dropped him down over the middle and i'd i don't know if you guys would agree with me but i expect to see a lot of that to use him down over the middle sort of take away those crossing routes from

gronkowski is that something you guys would expect as well yeah i mean i hope so uh like i said they're gonna they're gonna have to try to do whatever they can in my opinion to to get byard matched up on gronkowski and you know we talked about this last week heading into travis kelsey that we hoped they would do that and they didn't um they they kind of played the same style that they played all year and if kelsey if kelsey doesn't get hurt in that game if he doesn't leave it had to leave the game with a concussion we're probably not talking to you right now. Yeah.

Because, I mean, he was on his way to having a huge day. And then the Chiefs offense just kind of sputtered once he went out. So, I mean, hopefully, you know, Dick LeBeau has learned from that. You know, obviously he has forgotten, you know, way more about football than I'll ever know. But this seems pretty simple, like that would be the route you would want to take. Switching now to when the Titans have the football, and a name that was back on the injury report, left guard Quinton Spain.

He was questionable heading into last week. I thought when he played with the back injury, he was impressive to me working those combination blocks. Any sort of update on his condition, and if he goes, what do you expect from him, that left i would expect him to go uh he's kind of been banged up the last couple weeks but he's he's played in all the games uh he's a powerful dude he's a guy that really makes this this run game go playing alongside lawan you know they love they love running off left side behind him and lawanuan. So the weakness seems to be Josh Klein on the other side.

They typically move around Josh Klein, and he just doesn't have the strength to really move guys off the ball like Spain does. And the interesting thing about this run game is it's something that we've been clamoring for. They finally went to the power spread look against the Chiefs. So they've been lining up in jumbo. You know, you'll see plenty of two tight end sets. Well, that wasn't the case last week. You know, they went three receivers, four receivers,

and handed it to Derrick Henry up the middle when you get some of those big bodies out of the middle, and that really worked. So look for that on Saturday night. I really think they're going to try and spread out the Patriots. They're probably going to get down because this team has a problem starting football games for whatever reason. So expect to see that no huddle look.

But make no mistake about it, the Titans are still a power offense. Right. And do you sort of expect that to be the game plan at least coming out to try to sort of establish the run, establish that ground game? And if Tom Brady's sitting and watching, you've got a good chance to win this game? Yeah, absolutely. I think they have to like their chances a lot better with Brady on the sidelines.

So, I mean, that's their MO anyway, you know, the exotic smash mouth thing that I think Mike Malarkey kind of threw out right, you know, right when he got hired. Um, and sometimes it's been a little bit too much exotic, uh, not enough smash mouth or not enough being able to execute smash

mouth this year. Uh, I would say it's been better with Derrick Henry. Um, because just for whatever, when DeMarco Murray's didn't have it this year, he was great last year, but he's been banged up for most of the year. – DeMarco Murray didn't have it this year. He was great last year, but he's been banged up for most of the year,

and I think you're just seeing all the carries that he got, especially early in his career, start to catch up with him. So they're a more effective running offense with Derrick Henry. But Derrick Henry is a guy that needs to – he needs push up front to be effective. He needs holes. It takes him a while to get to full speed. Now, once he gets there, you're not going to catch him. And if you, you know, if you've got a defensive back in his way and he's running full speed, that guy's in trouble,

but he can get tripped up at the line and he, it takes him a long time to start up, but yeah, absolutely. They're going to, they're going to do everything they can to play a ball control offense. And just basically to play keep away. I mean, that's what this team has been built to do. That's how they've won games this year. Even when the run game hasn't necessarily been efficient,

they've been able to get enough because they played quite honestly, a lot of bad offenses. So even with a, with an inefficient run game, it was able to keep them in games. Now, if they can come out and have an efficient run game, that that's, that's been their plan all along. It just hasn't necessarily worked out all year but yeah they're going to try to do that to keep brady off the field because that's like you said that's their best chance to win now you guys asked me this question so i'll turn it back on to you from sort

of the inside perspective here marcus mario this season like what has it been like to you guys what were your takeaways from this season did you see it been like to you guys what were your takeaways from this season did you see that regression or do you think sort of like i did you know there was more to it than just him having a bad year oh man that's a loaded question uh we've talked about it at length on this podcast uh it's uh it's something for me personally i think it's just the mistakes piling up for this offense i think it's it that has spilled over to mario's head uh he's not really trusting what he sees you know last year you saw mario working with that excuse me working with his eyes uh looking off safeties you know undressing linebackers just just making people look silly out there. And then you look at him this year,

and he's throwing interceptions right into the linebacker's belly five yards in front of him. So like I said before, he's kind of a show of himself. But I just refuse to believe this is who Marcus is. So I think this offense is broken. I think you're seeing a lot of new blood at receiver. You're seeing them work Corey Davis, Taewon Taylor into this. Eric Decker is his first year in the system. Johnnie Smith. So I

think there's been a lot of miscommunication. Like you were saying earlier, not very good routes are being run by these receivers. The route concepts, you're seeing guys ending up in the same spot. So it's kind of like, what do you want Marcus to do? You know, he's got to still operate in this offense. So when the mistakes come from the receivers, it's going to spill over to Marcus. So long term, my faith in him has not wavered one bit. But this has kind of been a throwaway year for him. But it's strange because they're one game away from the AFC title.

Yeah. And just real quickly from me, like Terry and I have been, you know, we've been fighting people on Twitter all year about, you know, because they're like, we got to draft a quarterback. And, you know, he's done. He's no good. And it's like, look, go back and watch last year. Like, that guy is there.

And luckily, we've started to see a little bit more of that in the last couple of weeks. You notice the difference in him when he pulls down to run. Early in the year, and I think it was injuries, and like Terry said, just being uncomfortable in this offense. Early in the year, there were times where he'd see a guy coming at him, and it was almost like he would just kind of stare at him and fall down, you know, like an Eli Manning would do, not like Marcus Mariota would do.

And so over the last couple of weeks, we've seen a little bit more of the guy that breaks the pocket, keeps his eyes up the field, still looking to throw, but then, you know, tucking it and running it if that's what he needs to do. So we've been encouraged by that. But Terry and I both are huge Marcus Mariota supporters. And like he said, we haven't wavered in that this year. But it's been frustrating at times just to kind of see just when it feels like the offense

is not being tailored toward him. It's kind of like it plays all his weaknesses instead of any of his strengths. All right, gentlemen, I'll sort of let you get out of here on this one and you know obviously patriots 14 point favorites i think it's going to be a much closer game in that 14 point line that's just me you guys might feel the same way or differently but what would sort of have to happen maybe early in this game for you guys to start thinking all right look that 14 point line throw it out the window because this game's going down to maybe the final possession or the final play i said this yesterday on ours titans had to start fast and it's something they haven't done all year for whatever reason they don't show up until the the second quarter of

these games so they they can't allow brady 14 points they can't spot him 14 that's not going to go well for them so i think if they start fast uh kind of keep it close stay within seven uh before the halftime break and get the run game going uh i think the titans will have a shot at that now whether or not they can do that is a different story but that's the formula to me yeah and that's the thing we talked about last night i mean it's just scary because like terry said we've seen so many games this year where they've dug themselves in a hole, and then they've been able to fight and claw back, but you're not going to be able to do that against the Patriots,

against Tom Brady. So that's the scary part to me. The other scary thing is they said on the broadcast on Saturday against the Chiefs that I think it's the last four games now, the Titans' first series, they haven't even gotten a first down. So, I mean, that speaks to, you know, that's your offensive script, right? So that speaks to an offensive coordinator that has no idea what he's doing. How much of that can they change in a week?

I don't know. But, yeah, I don't feel good at all about this game. The more that I think about it, the more that I'm just afraid that Brady's going to go out there and carve him up. Because I think that the defense has played well this year, has played better than we thought it would at the beginning of the year. But when they've gone up against elite quarterbacks, they've just gotten towards them. I mean, go back and watch the Steelers game. It was Thursday night football. When they switched to just that quick- quick hitting passing game the titans had no

answers for it so you know that bill belichick is going to make those adjustments in game um you know that that's the kind of stuff that they're looking at they've seen all that so i just i don't know i feel like i feel like it might be more than 14 points and i'm gonna get killed for that like i did last week but um i just i just don I just don't think that at the end of the day the Titans have enough firepower to keep pace with what they're going to need that Tom Brady's going to have against this defense.

It should be fun Saturday. I'm definitely looking forward to it. I know you gentlemen are as well. Absolutely. So again, that is Mark Schofield. Mark, we really appreciate your time tonight and uh hopefully you've got some stuff that your listeners will be interested in as well um so that's going to do it for us tonight as well like i said at the beginning of the show

be sure and check out museummiracles.com we'll have a lot more about this game leading up to it and then all of the reaction afterwards uh again check check out Mark's show, Locked On Patriots, and his work at Bleacher Report as well. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorthmcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. So for Mark and Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked On Titans, and we will talk to you next week.

So there you have it, everybody. Just a great, great crossover episode episode one of the favorites that that i've done since i've been doing this show just really really want to thank terry and jimmy for for their the conversation and their insight i just thought it was a really really great crossover episode definitely follow them on twitter you can follow jimmy as you said at j morris mcm follow terry at t lambert fb check them out as as well as you said, at jmorrismcm. Follow Terry at tlambertfb. Check them out as well as you peruse the internet and go through your timelines. Definitely add them to your Twitter timeline.

That will do it for today's show. Tomorrow, Adam Kirchhen from the Boston Herald. He's going to come on for your game day edition. Look for that. Until then, keep it locked right here to me mark scoffield and locked on patriots