Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 13, 2017 - Glorious Divisional Round Victory Edition

Episode Date: January 14, 2018

Mark Schofield has his instant Great, Good and Bad from New England's 35-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good evening and welcome on into another glorious victory edition, a playoff glorious victory edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you and the New England Patriots punch their ticket to the AFC Championship game with a resounding 35-14 victory over the visiting Tennessee Titans. That game just going final. We're going to have your great, your good, and your bad from this game. And what was basically, I would consider, a statement win for the New England Patriots. Obviously, you have the bye week.

Tennessee coming in, they were big underdogs, 14, 13.5 point underdogs, somewhere in that range. But the Patriots came out and they went down early. A lot of people wondered, oh, the Titans are going to make a game of this. But the Patriots did what they needed to do. They take care of business. Now they await the winner of Jacksonville Jaguars and the Pittsburgh Steelers that will take place on Sunday. But a great win from New England.

Starting with some of the great, the good, and the bad in this game. We'll start with the bad. Might as well get that out of the way first. And I do think that we do have to start, as crazy as it sounds in a game like this, but we do have to start with the officiating. Because if you were on Twitter during this game, if you were scrolling the timeline during this game, you probably saw a lot of people questioning some of the calls in this game, particularly the offensive pass interference on Eric Decker, which really sort of took a drive away from Tennessee,

as well as near the end of the half, that long lingering second on that throw to Danny Amendola, where it looked like the Patriots might have run out of time at the end of the first half as it is they settle for a field goal try Steven Gostowski misses a 53-yard field goal attempt but the officiating was an issue and so I think we should get that out of the way and say look the Patriots got some breaks in this game I think you can say that the the penalty on Decker looked to be one that probably shouldn't have been called. If you wanted to throw a flag there, maybe you throw it for hands to the face because it does look like Decker gets his hand on Malcolm Butler's face mask at one point. But this stuff happens in games. We've

seen bad officiating throughout the league this year. Obviously, people point to catch-type situations, the Jesse James play, for instance, between the Patriots and the Steelers. But that's what happens. Teams face these type of things, particularly when you're on the road. Calls might not go your way when you're on the road, just human nature. Maybe officials don't throw flags when they should in these type of environments. Whatever it is, teams have to overcome that. And that was head coach Michael Malarkey's message to his team at halftime, overcome everything,

and they couldn't do it. And, you know, that's just simply the way this game goes. That's the way this game goes sometimes. If you're a road team in a playoff environment, in an environment like this, calls might not go your way. You've got to overcome those situations. Titans didn't overcome that.

Patriots, one of many reasons why they were able to pull out the win in this game. As far as some other bad stuff, I don't want to harp too much on bad stuff here because this was a great game and I want to get to the really good stuff. A couple of things early in the game patriots how they were playing mariota they didn't use as much of a spy on him that much early it seemed like they let him have some runs early in the game that sort of hurt them a bit there was obviously that that scramble on a third and seven play they weren't spying them They choose to play zone coverage because if you're playing zone, and Romo pointed this out as well, you're not watching a receiver. You're watching the quarterback, and you're watching

guys come in and out of your zone, so you do have your eyes on the QB, but you don't have somebody dedicated to spying him out of the backfield who's down near the line of scrimmaging, much closer to the pocket. Mariota was able to scramble and extend the drive there. There was also a run by Hamill in the first quarter. They had a read option play where Mariota was able to pick up a first down with his legs. They didn't scrape. They didn't exchange on that.

They just sort of played it straight, crashed inside as well, and Mariota was able to pull, keep around the edge, and pick up a first down. They did adjust to this you know as that game sort of wore on they made some adjustments they did some different stuff they showed some spy looks that did some stuff up front with the pass rush which we're going to get to so they were able to get pressure on Mariota and sort of take his legs out of the game and force him to be more of a pocket passer. So that was one thing. Gustowski, the miss before halftime, hard to truly, you know, dang a guy for missing a 53-yarder. That's a tough attempt, and, you know, on a night like that,

probably didn't feel that great kicking the football. Just had to mention that. The Patriots had done a pretty good job, perhaps with an extra half second in there to get into position to try that. But in closer games, you know, every point's going to matter. So frustrating to see that miss from Kostowski, but a tough, tough, tough kick. Finally, and this is sort of something we talk about, all Patriots fans talk about it, and it's one of the aspects of rooting for this team, following this team during the Brady-Belichick era,

and it's seeing Tom Brady drop back and throw deep balls when you're up 35-7 and a playoff game is six minutes to go. Those are heart-in-your-throat type moments, and particularly on those last two passing attempts he had, the sort of awkward-looking check down to Hollister behind the line of scrimmage, as well as the deep shot to Brandon Cooks, his final throw of the game from Tom Brady.

He got pressured on both of those. And this is the way that the Patriots have been over the past 16 years. They keep Brady in the game until it's truly in hand. Brady did not play on the final drive, basically a kneel down. But they keep their starting quarterback in. They keep throwing the ball downfield because this is what they do. This is who they are as a team.

This is sort of the identity they have forged. They're heart-in-the-throat type moments. I don't always agree with it. I would have liked to have seen. I honestly thought that what they were going to do on that second to last drive was bring Brady out for first down, then bring him off the field, and then Hoyer come in and let Brady get an ovation. I was looking for something like that.

But again, that's what I'm looking for. That's not the way they do it. So scary. But again, nothing happened. Just wanted to mention it. We can move on. Up next, I'm going to dive into the good and the great.

A lot of stuff to get to. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield in Locked on Patriots. Okay, let's dive into some of the good stuff that we saw from New England's 35-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Divisional Round. I'm going to start where I start on

a lot of these shows and talk about Tom Brady's movement in the AFC divisional round. And I'm going to start where I start on a lot of these shows and talk about Tom Brady's movement in the pocket. Again, another very, very, very strong game. 35 of 53 for 337 and three touchdowns. Quarterback ran it of 102.5, averaging 6.4 yards per attempt. But they did a lot of stuff. You know, they threw the ball a ton. There were some plays that didn't pick up yardage,

some plays that went for negative yardage. That's why the yards per attempt were kind of down there. Again, three touchdown passes for Tron Brady. Yes, there was one that came on the Bob Stitt fly sweep, which was a beautifully designed play we're going to get to that some might have mocked and said that Y.A. Tittle could have thrown that from the grave, but then there were some other throws throughout this afternoon and evening that Tom Brady made that not many other quarterbacks,

living, dead, anywhere on the planet, anywhere in the universe could make. So some of you might know who I'm talking about there. Let's talk with, again, Brady's pocket movement. And look no further than drive nine. Okay? The game's basically decided. But Patriots, you know, they're doing their thing. The throw to James White on a third and five where he's moving around in the pocket,

sort of makes a jump pass. And then the third and ten throw to Danny Amendola on the same drive where he's pressured. He climbs the pocket to his right. He tacks the line of scrimmage. But you know Tom Brady's not going to run for it. Or if he's going to run for it, he's not going to pick up 10 yards. But then he makes a sort of cross-body throw, floats one, to Danny Amendola to pick up the first down. You know, those two plays just sort of exemplify Brady's ability

to sort of move around in the pocket, extend these plays with his legs. Nobody's going to confuse him with Marcus Mariota, but his ability to keep plays alive with his legs, it's been impressive all year. It was impressive again tonight. And he did it also on a couple of plays that I'm going to talk about from a play design standpoint, but the touchdown throw to Hogan. First, beautifully designed play, well executed, because you had a switch concept to the left with Gronkowski running sort of a slot fade route. And as they had seen on the previous play, you get what Tennessee was doing.

They were having the free safety sort of jump that route because the previous play was that incompletion to Cooks where it looked like Brady and Cooks weren't on the same page. Brady opens to his left first. He wants to throw that fade to Gronkowski, but Cipri in the free safety jumped it and double covered it. So he had to look elsewhere. He got a similar look from the Titans on the next play and McDaniels knew they were going to get that. So when you have that sort of seam slant from Chris Hogan, that's where Brady goes with the football for a touchdown. But again, on that play, you have to have good pocket movement.

You get a perfect throw from Brady. Great recognition from McDaniels, seeing how the Titans were playing that and running that play. Also, in terms of play design, the fly sweep that they ran for the touchdown, the first touchdown pass to James White. We've talked about the fly sweep before on this show. Roman mentioned it as the play was unfolding, that Patriots love to do that in the red zone, on the goal line.

You start the play with the backfield empty, and then you bring the runner back in. You see how the defense reacts to it. Do they simply side around and let you know it's zone? Do they trail somebody with them? Then you know it's man, sort of the motion stuff we've talked about here. Well, this time as they're bringing White back in, he simply just continues and they snap the ball. It's basically like he's in motion and they snap it and they go beautifully designed, well executed, get a nice block sort of on the edge of Nate's shoulder,

touchdown. So I thought, you know, pocket movement, play design, two of the things that stood out, you know, in the sort of good category. Some other stuff that stood out sort of in the good category, and this is kind of going to go in chronological order. Gronkowski hit a trap block on a Deion Lewis six-yard run to end the first quarter. If you watch the Patriots run game, they're doing a lot with sort of track blocking with Gronkowski. And what was interesting about that was, you know,

later they showed a trap block from Gronkowski, similar on that screen play that looked like he might have gone for a touchdown to Deion Lewis. And so I thought that was a good block from Gronkowski. We talked during this week about Patriots needing to get pressure up front to slow down the run game from the Titans, to slow down the ability of Tennessee's offensive linemen to work those combination blocks.

Malcolm Brown had a perfect example of that. Tennessee's open play to start their third drive, had some quick penetration, was able to force Derrick Henry to make a cut in the backfield. That's the kind of stuff I was looking for and we saw it. Steven Kostowski getting down in on a tackle on a kickoff

after the touchdown that made it 14-7. Always good to see Ghost getting his nose in there. We'll talk more about the pass rush but the Butler sack to force a punt on Tennessee's open and drive of the second half. You don't want to let Tennessee get back into it quickly.

And Butler comes out, has the sack to force them off the field. If Tennessee goes down the field and scores and makes it a 21-14 game, who knows how the game looks from there. But the Butler sack was big in that spot. Brady pre-snap. We see this a lot with him. There was a second-and-one play on New England's open and drive of the second half where Tony Romo had been talking about it earlier.

They were getting some sort of bubble looks, some looks from the Tennessee defensive front where the Patriots had a numbers advantage to one side of the formation, usually the left, and they were able to run the ball to that side. We'll talk about one play like that in a second. But on this particular play, the second one play in the second half, Titans shifted things up and there were even looks to both sides. So the Patriots didn't have the numbers advantage they expected. So what does Brady do? He recognizes it, brings the receiver in motion to sort of that same side to really sell the Titans on, oh, yeah, we're still going to run it this way.

But then the adjustment is you run it weak side. Lewis rips off a nine-yard run for a first down. And it's just those little things, you know, a little play like that, a little adjustment like that from the quarterback pre-snap, that might mean the difference between another first and 10 or perhaps a third and two or third and three because you might lose yardage on that play. And you stack those up over the course of a game, over the course of a season, over the course of a career, and that might be the difference between a team, you know, being in and out of the playoffs every now and again and a team

headed to their seventh straight AFC championship game. Final thing I want to mention here in the good category, Bolden's touchdown. That sort of walk-in touchdown that he had. Great job blocking for both David Andrews and James Devlin, the fullback, on the lead block. It was a cross-dog blitz. They picked it up well. Andrews basically walled off his defender towards the left side on the lead block. It was a cross dog blitz. They picked it up well. Andrews basically walled off his defender towards the left side of the offense, left Devlin to lead into the hole. He meets the linebacker there. I mean, that play just parted perfectly for New England.

Great block, and particularly from those two guys for the touchdown run. That's some of the good stuff up ahead. The great stuff, and there was a lot of it, from New England's 35-14 divisional round win over the Tennessee Titans. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Okay, let's dive into some of the great stuff, and there's a lot we could cover, and I guarantee I will miss it all, which is why we will be back with a tape Tuesday show to pick up stuff that I missed from this tremendous win

from the New England Patriots. Obviously, we mentioned Tom Brady. We'll just mention him again quickly. 35-53 for 3-37, three touchdowns, no sacks. We'll get to the offensive line in a second. Other guys that stood out from a stat standpoint, Danny Amendola, 11 receptions on 13 targets for 112 yards, huge game from him. So those two guys really stood out from a statistical standpoint.

Some defensive guys that stood out as well, Grissom had two sacks. Dedrick Wise had two sacks. Pass rush was great, which we're going to get to. Those were some of the stats things that stood out. But the Patriots' pass rush. I mean, I believe it was, let's see, eight sacks, a New England postseason record. We talked in the bad portion of the show about how Patriots seemed to let Mario to get his legs going early in the game.

Well, they clamped that down in a big way in the second half. And just a couple of the particular sack plays that stood out. I mean, you had the Tennessee seventh drive of the game. This is where they had those back-to-back sacks. At first, you had a twist between Trey Flowers and Ricky Jean-Francois. That's on the left side of the Titans' offense. You have Taylor LeJuan and Quentin Spain, who I talked about a lot, wondering if he could go.

They don't communicate on that twist. It frees up Ricky Jean-Francois for a big sack. Then on the very next play, you get a delayed blitz off the edge from Marquise Flowers. And it's off LeJuan again. They go after LeJuan. He misses it. He can't rotate over late. And you get back-to-back sacks there.

The Patriots have put together a pass rush down the stretch here which has been impressive obviously look they just set a New England postseason record for sacks in a postseason game with eight coming into this year it's been a question mark coming into the year throughout the year with guests I've always been asking them where are they going to get pass rush how are they going to do it they seem to have put it together now and they put it together in a big way so pass rush really stood out obviously the offensive line offensive line, you know, no sacks of Brady. Brady got pressured a little bit, had to move, had to slide, all the things we've talked about. You know, but the Patriots' offensive line stood up in a big way as well.

Adrian Waddell did go down, left the game with an injury. Cameron Fleming stepped in, but the offensive line still, you know, really sort of had a strong, strong game. Another sack to mention was on Tennessee's opening drive. They get a double team on Delaney Walker. You get a sack from Dietrich Wise and Trey Flowers sort of end that drive

as well. So, you know, a great job from both the offensive line and the defensive front to handle pressure, get pressure generated. The second touchdown drive of the game, just a really good, good drive from New England, the way they were sort of able to punch that in. And the way they punched it in, you know, the James White touchdown,

get Nate Solder sealing Brian Arakbo on that play. Great effort there from Nate Solder. Tackling. I know I'm sort of floating around here, but I'm doing this somewhat chronologically. Some great tackles in this play on those crossing routes, things we've mentioned throughout the show this year. Eric Rowe had a couple of those.

He had one on Taewon Taylor on a third and seven on the fourth drive of the game for Tennessee. And one on Junu Smith on a second and 11 play, similar type play, a crossing Smith on a second and 11 play, similar type play, a cross and route on a second and 11. Butler had a similar tackle on Decker on a cross and route on a second and 13 play. Those are the type of plays where you guys, you know, as a defense, you've got to stop that receiver from getting upfield, getting that full head of steam.

Think back to that Juju Smith-Schuster play, that 3rd and 4 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where you get the quick tackle there between Rowe, between Harmon rotating down from a safety spot to shut that play down. Those are the types of plays that you need to make as a defense to get off the field, to end drives, to get the ball back to Tom and Brady. Some great stuff there. As long as we're mentioning great stuff, look, you've got to tip your hat to Corey Davis and Marcus Mariota on that touchdown.

That was a beautiful throw and even better catch from Corey Davis, his first touchdown in the National Football League. So that was a great play. Finally, great plays. Look, I don't think it was any sort of surprise that near the end there, the Patriots ran a little Y-ISO.

They saw Bayard one-on-one on Rob Gronkowski. I don't think it was any surprise to anybody that when Tom Brady saw that, that's where he was going to go with the football and throw his third touchdown pass of the night to Rob Gronkowski in that situation against a young, extremely talented second-year safety who did make some comments this week. And we've seen Tom Brady do this before. He knows

these things. He's aware of them. And that's where he's going to go with the football when he gets the chance. And so, you know, a lot of great stuff that I could talk about. I could sit here for hours talking about great stuff, but let's face it, we're now on to the AFC championship game. But before we do that, let's give out some game balls. I want to give a game ball out to the offensive line. They did a fantastic job blocking for Brady. We were wondering about pressure schemes coming into this game. They sacked this Titans defense, sacked Alex Smith four times for a loss of eight yards. And we talked about the impact it had on Smith from a mental standpoint. He started dropping his eyes in the second half.

Their second-to-last offensive play of the season, a third and nine. He's got a relatively clean pocket, but he drops the eyes, ends up getting sacked for a no-gain type situation. But that didn't happen to Tom Brady. Even when he was pressured, he's still able to do the things where he's moving around, keeping his eyes downfield, scramble drill type throws. So offensive line gets a game ball. I think we got to give a game ball to Deion Lewis.

Sort of sparked this offense, that sort of, you know, a couple of runs earlier than that screenplay where he thought he wasn't down that really started getting that offense going so we'll give a game ball to Deion Lewis Brandon Bolden let's give Brandon Bolden a game ball as well had touched a run could just see him sort of get involved in the offense and finally this might seem like it's a little bit bittersweet in a way given the sort of news that's circulating around the NFL right now. But I'm going to give game balls to both Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels. I thought both coordinators had great game plans. From Patricia's point of view, you wanted to stop the run.

What did Derrick Henry do? 12 carries, 28 yards. You stopped the run. Next thing you really want to do, slow carries, 28 yards. You stop the run. Next thing you really want to do, slow down Marcus Mariota's legs. Don't let him hurt you in those scramble door situations or on the edges. Make him be a pocket passer. He got a couple of runs in early, but four carries for 37 yards. I mean, didn't really do too much damage.

Yeah, he threw two touchdown passes, the second one coming late in the game. But Patricia had a great game plan. I love some of the twist stuff they were doing up front, some of the stuff that we talked about. And Josh McDaniels, great game plan from him. And what I thought was interesting, Jeff Schwartz, former NFL offensive lineman who you should be following on Twitter, now he does some media stuff for SB Nation and other places,

talked about how the Patriots are sometimes able to take on the identity of their opponent's offense you know and when you think about the Titans you think about screens ball control type stuff running the football taking the occasional deep shot getting the backs and the tight end involved and you know that sounds a lot like what New England does but it was a very similar type game plan that what you might expect from the Tennessee Titans. But McDaniels also had a good game plan. I really thought the play calling, particularly after they got down, really sort of opened up just a great game plan, I think, from Josh McDaniels. His ability to, again, things we've been talking about all season long, find the best matchup for your quarterback using motion, shifting, doing everything you can to help your quarterback.

And why do you need to help Brady? Why not? Who cares if he's the greatest quarterback of all time? You can always make things easier on your offense when you give your quarterback help. And the Patriots do that. Sometimes it doesn't work. There was a third down play where they shifted emotion and then went empty and they got Cyprian covering James White which is a matchup you probably want to take advantage of it was a low throw and they couldn't complete it and they had to punt but as a offensive

coordinator Josh McDaniels did his job there. Another great example was they used a stacked slot to get Gronkowski matched up against Jonathan Ciprian. You don't get the completion, but you get the penalty for a fresh set of downs. And then some of the other plays we talked about where they do the things, the shifts and the motion. Again, you've heard me talk about it for an entire season, but McDaniels did a great job of it. So game balls to the two coordinators.

Hopefully it's not the last set of game balls we give out to those guys hopefully we get a couple more in there but wanted to get that in because in all likelihood those two guys those two young coaches will be moving on so just wanted to throw that out there because I thought they did a good job as well but we are now on to the AFC championship game what that means is I will be back tomorrow night because I'm not going to let you guys wait. I'm not going to let you guys wonder. I'm going to be back tomorrow night with an early preview at New England's opponent

in the AFC Championship game. Could be the Pittsburgh Steelers, could be the Jacksonville Jaguars. I do think Pittsburgh wins this game, but I think it's going to be really close. I think it's going to be a good one. Either way, I'm going to have some quick thoughts on the Patriots

opponent in the upcoming AFC Championship game. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.