Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 14, 2019 - Glorious Victory Edition

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

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🎵 I don't wanna lose your love tonight to Josie. That's right. We're doing it up here on Locked on Patriots to bask in the glory of the New England Patriots punching a ticket to their eighth straight AFC championship game, taking care of the Los Angeles Chargers 41-28. We're going to talk the great. We're going to talk the good. We're going to talk about what lies ahead on today's show. But first, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites, friends as I've said. If there is a website talking about football, chances are I am doing some work for them.

And let's dive right into it. And normally when I talk about the grade, I go sort of like, you know, specific players or aspects of the game or pass game and run game. And we could certainly do that. We could talk about Tom Brady going 34 of 44 for 343 and one touchdown, not the 250 and one TD that Rob Parker from Fox Sports once would have predicted at halftime. He did a little bit better than that. We could talk about the run game, and we could say Sonny Michel, 24 carries and 129, and three touchdowns.

But I want to start with a couple of the themes that I highlighted during this week, and this isn't going to be solely me patting myself on the back and taking a victory lap upon victory lap upon victory lap upon victory lap. But it will sort of highlight how the Patriots were able to get this done today in a result that I don't think many people saw coming. Remember, I went through it this week. The public money was on the Chargers. Everybody was saying the Chargers.

People were saying the Chargers were the best team left. Rob Parker's out there saying, you know, Chargers are the best team left. The Patriots are the worst team left. We heard all of that. But let's look at the way the Patriots were able to get this done. And if you're somebody, and I kind of put myself into this category that truly believes in the idea of pressure equal in production. Take this game, cut it up, take all of the Chargers pass and plays, put a nice little video form, and just broadcast it to the world. Kind of like just making it rain.

Handing out the L's, however you want to describe it because this game this defensive performance is kind of like the prototype of pressure equal in production yes they sacked Philip Rivers okay they sacked him twice that wasn't the reason that Philip Rivers struggled the reason Philip Rivers struggled was because they pressured him early and often. They hit him a ton. Dave Archibald on the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel pointed out that they pressured him on over 50% of his dropbacks. If you are getting pressured half of the time you drop back to pass, you are not going to be an effective quarterback. I don't care who you are. It is going to take its toll. And the Patriots did it early. They did it often. They moved him

from his spot. They attacked on the inside. This wasn't the, we're facing a mobile quarterback. We got to contain him, rush from the outside. Don't let him get around. This was a, this guy can't really move. He will make mistakes if you pressure him. He will make mistakes if you get into his face on the inside. So what do you do? You attack him from the start and you never let up. It was relentless. It was relentless. And what did it do? It forced... I will have to go back and count the number of times Philip Rivers made a throw, either falling away or off of his back foot. And what does that lead to? It leads to underthrown passes and potential interceptions.

And that's something I talked about. When you watched the Chargers over the past couple of weeks, he was pressured. He would make underthrown throws, and they would be intercepted. And just look how it started. Their second offensive play, a second intent. He gets pressured. The pass is underthrown. Mike Williams can't make the catch. He was open. It's underthrown.

He works back to it, but he can't make the catch. That told the story of their passing game right there. And so pressure equaled production today, and the Patriots, they got it done. To that point, one of the things that I mentioned, Trey Flowers putting him inside over right guard Michael Schofield. And we saw that earlier, we saw it often, and it worked. Chargers' fourth drive of the game, for example. They had a second and ten

play. Flowers over Schofield. He gets pressured. A deep shot. It's underthrown and nearly intercepted. Third and ten. Flowers again over the right guard. Get some pressure,

the pass is incomplete, and they're forced to punt. It was part and parcel of their pressure package, and it wasn't just Flowers who had a monster game. But this entire defensive front got after Rivers, and they never let up. And yeah, look, look okay the chargers tacked on some touchdowns at the end of this game okay they tacked on 14 in the fourth quarter they outscored the patriots in the second half 21 to 6 you know if you want to make a case that the patriots perhaps let the foot off the gas pedal too much maybe this was a 20 i mean excuse me this was a 35-7 game and a half. I don't think anybody thought the Chargers were actually going to pull off a comeback here. And part of the reason was they had battered Phillip Rivers, who was limping, who was hurt. And yes, another sort of gutty performance from him in Foxborough against the Patriots in the playoffs.

But still. The Patriots pressure game got it done. James White, I don't see his snap number yet, but I assume it is going to be where we wanted it to be, sort of that higher end, and the touches and the targets. He didn't have any carries, but he was targeted 17 times for 15 receptions and 97 yards. He didn't have a touchdown, but look, he had a lawn of 25 on that running back screen play. That was a huge play. He had a huge day. And the Patriots and the passing game looked fantastic. We're going to talk about Brady in a bit, but I think James White and his usage was what we were hoping for. Also what we were hoping for. And this was done more in the terms of, you know, the weather might have been a factor.

The weather, I don't think, was a factor today. As Jim Nance so eloquently described it early, you know, when the game started, this was a blue sky, blue fingertip kind of day. I thought that was beautiful from Jim Nance to sort of open the game. But the weather wasn't a factor. One of the things we said might be a factor if the weather was, it still showed up. One, just one big special teams play. And who got it? The Patriots. Desmond Kane, all pro kick returner type guy, a guy we were worried about, has a fumble on a punt. Albert McLeon recovers it, plays reviewed. Patriots do get the recovery upon the review. Just a huge, huge, huge play in that game.

And what do the Patriots do with that? They get a touchdown to make it 35-7. That was probably the this is over moment. If you were just a casual fan watching this game, you probably thought, it's done. And I think most people felt that way. You could even bet in case the Chargers felt that way. Because the Patriots just went right down the field. Now granted, they started at the plus 35, but still, a crosser to Julian Edelman on a Mills concept with Kirk Patterson running the post, Edelman on the dig. That gets you down to the 16. Michelle, run to the right, plus three. Then a backside out to Dorsett with great velocity from Tom Brady.

Gets you down to the five. And then Michel, first play on first and goal, touchdown run. It was that easy. I had so many people on Twitter and elsewhere basically saying, look, it's over. They just surrendered. They gave up. They gave up.

But that one big special teams play was huge. Last thing sort of in the great segment i'll talk about zero blitz patriots did it more than i expected them to but it certainly worked and again it feeds into that idea of pressure equal in production they didn't care about getting home they cared about moving philip rivers off of his spot we'll see probably a much different game plan next week out in Kansas City. But for right now. That pressure equals production kind of game plan.

It certainly paid dividends. For the New England Patriots. Up next we're going to talk about the good. We're going to talk a little offensive line. A little Tom Brady. A little Sonny Michelle. How this was just sort of a multifaceted win. And a little bit later.

We're going to start looking ahead. That's next. on this glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. You know I'm going to stay for you Stay and never keep it under cover I just want to use your love tonight I don't want to lose your love tonight Mark Schofield back with you now, and let's talk about the good, okay? I could have spent this entire show just talking about specific plays and really getting into the weeds,

but I kind of wanted to keep it big picture as we start looking ahead at AFC Championship Week, brought to you by Intuit TurboTax, by the way. Don't forget. Can't believe those games are sponsored, but we're having fun. We're having fun. Aren't we having fun, Lane Johnson? We're having fun out here.

Let's talk about the Patriots' offensive line because headed into this game, headed into this week, myself and others, perhaps overly concerned about what the Chargers could do defensively, about how they could get pressure with four, about how they could get pressure with five, about how they could get after Tom Brady. And it's the blueprint on Brady and other quarterbacks. If you can get pressure with four, if you can get after Tom Brady, and it's the blueprint on Brady and other quarterbacks. If you can get pressure with four, if you can get pressure with five, you're going to have trouble. How many times was Tom Brady sacked today?

How many times? What's that? I didn't hear you. Can you speak up? Can you speak into the microphone? I can't. Oh, zero? Oh.

Oh, well, that's interesting. How many times was Tom Brady hit? How many? How many? What was that? What was that? Twice? Twice.

Well, that's a pretty low number for a defense that was so built to get after Tom Brady and to pressure him and to end the run. You know, like that Pittsburgh media guy who before the game tweeted out that, you know, this was going to be the day that the Patriots dynasty ends. You know, the exact tweet, and I'm not going to tag the account. I'm not going to mention the account by name. If you're a member of the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel, you know who I'm talking about. The quote was, the Patriots dynasty is in its final hours. Gronk's last game. Brady will get

beat up. Feel like Christmas morning. Last time we have to take the Patriots seriously as a Super Bowl threat. Well, the Steelers are home watching on TV, so we can start there. But I wrote this over at the score. Perhaps the unsung hero of this Patriots season was their offensive line and somebody who I trust implicit Patriots season was their offensive line. And somebody who I trust implicitly when it comes to offensive line evaluation and offensive line plays, Brandon Thorne at Veteran Scout on Twitter. And he basically tweeted out during the middle of the game that it's about time the big media starts to learn just how good this Patriots offensive line is.

It's one of the best in the league. I quote tweeted that out saying, you know, tell it, say it louder for the people in the background because this unit has been fantastic. And they were imposing their will on this defensive front for the Los Angeles Chargers, the defensive front that we thought was going to give us all nightmares.

And if you want one specific play, I don't have the exact play it happened on, but there was sort of a, you know, they did one of those clip montage type things about how well this offensive line was blocking. And there was one play where Trent Brown was going up against Joey Bosa, and he pancaked him, he got him to the ground, and then he fell on top of him, and he didn't let him up, and even when he got up, he shoved him into the ground one more time. You know, there's a great Twitter clip, another great offensive mind,

Duke Manningweather. He has an offensive line school, I believe, in the Texas area. I've worked with him over at Bleacher Reports, NFL 1000, and elsewhere. I remember when there was a discussion from some of the people from Pro Football Focus who talked about how finishing isn't an aspect of offensive line play. You know, when you finish your block and just drive the guy into the ground and, you know, sit on his face or whatever. And I'm starting to laugh because it is funny. But Duke was literally

in his car when that discussion was on the timeline and he pulled over to shoot a video about how finishing is non-negotiable. And I laugh because it's funny, but at the same time, it's true. If you're an offensive lineman and you are literally imposing your will on the guy across from him and sitting on the guy's face and shoving him into the ground and laying down on top of him right before the whistle and things like that, they're going to quit. They're going to give up. And that's what the Patriots offensive line did today. They imposed their will.

They finished. They laid down on these dudes after the whistle, and they just broke them. And we'll talk about McDaniels in a second, but I thought this offensive line deserves a ton of credit for the way they executed the game plan that was handed to them. Speaking of execution, Thomas Brady. There was a time on a Patriots podcast where the host, and this was after a win, posed the question that was basically this. If the Patriots need a big game performance in the passing game from their quarterback, are they going to be able to get it? And the host put it under the guise of a question.

But at the same time, implicit in the way he posed that question, you get the sense that this guy didn't believe it. I guess I got to take an L on that one because Brady had the type of performance that we might need to see again. 34 of 44 for over 340 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, 7.8 yards per attempt. QBR of 87.2, quarterback rated of 106.5 against a top 10 DVOA defense. Against a defense that was built to break him, to end his dynasty, to end his reign.

Tom Brady had the kind of performance that we expect from Tom Brady. And part of it might be health. We got some early reports before the game that his knee that was an MCL issue is fine. So maybe there was that aspect to it. Part of it was game plan and the things that they did schematically. Look, like we said, James White gets 17 targets. A lot of stuff to Julian Edelman, short and quick. This was a quick passing game.

They had some deep shots. They loved that sort of wide cross design with Edelman working off play action. Again, we're going to talk about the things McDaniels did in a minute. He was protected well, wasn't pressured, wasn't flustered, but Brady had an extremely good game. And for those of us, and I guess you could loop me into that category, that were a little bit wary about if he could deliver a game like this in the playoffs, we got the game we were hoping for.

So that was fantastic to see. Sonny Michel, a rookie running back, biggest game of his NFL career, 24 carries, 129 and three touchdowns, including a 40-yarder, 5.4 per attempt. Part of it obviously due to the offensive line. Part of it obviously due to the game plan and running against that defense. But Michel had the type of game that he was drafted in the first round to produce. And Jim Nance, Tony Romo, they talked about at some point again, they might need another run game performance like this.

Well, it looks like Sonny Michel can deliver another performance like that. Massive game from him. But more than anything else, look, this was a team victory. Yeah, the defense gave up some plays here and there, down the stretch, but still, this was a team win. You could point to whether it's Edelman in the game he had, whether it was Gronkowski. And when Gronkowski goes into the Hall of Fame, if he doesn't get the credit he is due for what he does as a blocker, both in the pass game from time to time, as well as in the run game. That would be incredibly upsetting because he was a dominant force in this game, not for what he did as a receiver.

He had the one catch on one target for 25 yards, and he drew a pass interference penalty in the end zone. Yes, two kind of big plays. But the contributions he added as a blocker were enormous and honestly there were a couple of times when you saw him on the sideline or in the huddle or after the whistle it seemed like he was having fun again and that more than anything might warm Patriots fans hearts right now and speaking of hearts I'm currently under a snow merge here in the DC area and my kids are going to be home tomorrow so I'm already a little anxious about the day because, look, I've got to get ready for

an AFC Championship game, too. I've got to study Week 6 again. How am I going to do that when I'm going to be watching either JoJo Siwa videos or trying to have a Beyblade battle with my son? I've got a big day ahead. We'll get it done, though. But this was a team victory. When you look at the defensive side of the ball, again, I'm not going to run through play-by-play and stuff like that because there's too much to talk about. But when you're seeing, you know, John Simons at the edge, when you're seeing, you know, the game that Trey Flowers had, or Keon Cross on a kickoff or a punt return,

Adam Butler getting some immediate pressure, JC Jackson, the game that he had. Look, this is a team game. They had a team win, and it was an impressive performance in a situation where people had pretty much wrote them off. And you've heard it from TB12 after the game with Tracy Wolfe was basically saying, look, everybody says we suck, but we're going to the AFC Championship game yet again.

And so I think that we're going to hear this week about how good Kansas City is. We're going to hear about how unstoppable they are at home and how many points Patrick Mahomes and stuff will put up. There's going to be some stuff said in that locker room by Bill Belichick that I'm sure was probably parallel to what was said this week. This team's going to be ready to play. I don't think we're going to hear, no matter what happens next Sunday night,

I don't think we will hear a single story of this team wasn't ready, they had a bad week of practice. This team looks dialed in right now. And yes, look, a huge task awaits them in Kansas City, as we're about to talk about. This team looks dialed in. Up next, we are going to talk about next week. We are going to look ahead a bit.

That's coming up on this glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. As you leave your place, watch your poster door. And don't forget what I told you. Just consider that you don't need a room. Another shoulder to cry upon. I just want to use your love tonight. Yeah. I don't want to show you. Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this glorious victory edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Yeah, I don't wanna lose my mind and I'm going to like another 80s band pop song type hit kind of thing. So, yeah. Yeah, we're rocking the juicy.

We're having some fun this week. We're having some fun out here. We're having fun out here, aren't we, Lane Johnson? We're having a good old time here in the 2018-2019 NFL playoffs. Aren't you having fun? Anyway, look. A couple of questions looking ahead now about the AFC Championship game. Now, we could look back.

We could look back at week six. We could dive into that film, and I'm sure I will do that this week. This is a bit of two different teams now. It was back in week six. There was the argument, look, this is still a Tom Brady team. They're going to win with their offense. They're going to put points on the board. They have problems on the defensive side of the ball.

Patrick Mahomes, mobile quarterback, is going to give them fits. But a very astute point was made in the lockdown Patriots sack final by one of the smartest football minds I know, Dave Archibald, at Dave Archie on Twitter, who brought up, in a weird turn of events, and I'm quoting from Dave, the Patriots probably have the worst offense and best defense left in the playoffs and before you sort of poo-poo that idea i want to point you to a tweet from justice mosqueda at j-u-m-o-s-k justice does great

work for places like optimumum Scouting and others. He's very smart football mind, both in the X's and O's and sort of the analytics. And he does something going, looking at adjusted net yards per attempt and value going into the conference round. And it looks at adjusted net yards per attempt for your offense and for your defense. And what he does is he takes your offensive A and Y over A value and your defensive A and Y, he adds them together and sort of gets you a total. And when you do that, your best team is the Kansas City Chiefs. Your second best team is the Chicago Bears. Their offensive A and Y over A is just 80.8, which isn't great, but their defense is an astounding 1,507.9 and just to give you a sense of where the Chiefs are their offensive 1,539.8 defensive is 68.2 that's a total of over 1,600

the Bears total of just under 1,600 then you get the Patriots and their offensive a and y over a is 672.5 their defensive is 298.3 okay obviously offense is behind the chiefs defense is better than the chiefs and then the rams offense 822 defense is minus 36.9 and then the saints offensive over a thousand ten ten point two defense minus 371.6 and so to dave's point yes it is technically at least by this metric the patriots have the worst offense left but the best defense left so that is something to think about so these are two different teams right now that met back in week six and of of course, there's other stuff to raise. Kareem Hunt is no longer there. You've got Patrick Mahomes.

Yes, he just won his first playoff game, but now he gets a chance to go to an AFC championship game, and now we're going to see what he's like in that game. And so what can you really sort of take away from that week six game? Another thing I'm very curious to watch. In that week six game, the focus was on Travis Kelsey. Is that going to remain the focus? Remember, they doubled, they tripled them in times. Is that going to be the same game plan?

Can they force one or two mistakes from Mahomes? He threw two picks in that game. And so it's fascinating to think that, look, going into this game, the strength of them is their offense. The strength of us is our defense, and oh, by the way, we still have Tom Brady, number 12, the greatest of all time, who is the leader of that quote-unquote weakness, which I would argue isn't really a weakness, but you're going up against three great offenses, so that's fascinating to think about as well.

A couple of things to talk about before we sort of wrap things up. Game balls. And this is one of those team wins and you'd say game ball for everybody, but I do want to mention Brian Flores and Josh McDaniels because if you want to talk about

defensive coordinators, defensive play callers, quote-unquote, and an offensive coordinator, putting together a game plan and just going out and executing it and calling it to perfection, those two gentlemen had themselves a day, basically had themselves a week and a half or two weeks.

Because look, what Josh McDaniels did, seeing all the hype about, basically had themselves a week and a half or two weeks because look what josh mcdaniels did seeing all the hype about oh man the chargers have this seven defensive back package well part of it again like we talked about was due to injury you know guys like brown and others were hurt so this is what they had to do they use safeties at linebacker and if you want to do that yeah you had some success stopping the run game from bal, but this is a different beast. And they just ran downhill on those guys early and often. Trent Brown, Gronk, Cannon, Andrews, Dooney, Mason, they were just throwing dudes out the club. I mean, they literally were.

The Burkhead touchdown, Melvin Engelman getting blocked back into the end zone, just driven off the ball. They were impressive. McDaniels' game plan was perfect. And then when you've got that run game going, the play action becomes effective. Again, not that you need to be successful running the football to get play action to work, but it certainly helps a little bit. It's not a prerequisite, but it helps.

You get those safeties sort of flowing downhill because they're getting knocked around, so they've got to be aggressive. They're going pre-weakness it, but it helps. You get those safeties sort of flowing downhill because they're getting knocked around, so they got to be aggressive. They're going to play zone behind it. What do you do? You run that little Y cross design. Edelman working the crosser behind those linebackers crashing downhill in front of those safeties and corners. Edelman was wide open on a bunch of those. Again, because of the game plan they put together. And then Flores with the pressure packages and getting after Rivers and forcing him off of the spot. Over 50% pressure rating on his drop backs.

So many back foot throws. Those two gentlemen had themselves a bye week and a half. Kudos to them on a job well done. But yeah, game balls for everybody. Take of the game. Andy Likens, I thought, had a fantastic point. You know, it was early in the game, but still, I think he sort of nailed it. You know, when he said this in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel,

they haven't, speaking of the Patriots defense, they haven't had this many third and lawns all season. We're really winning against the run and forcing incompletions. I also think they figured the corners will get beat by the big wide receivers, so the quicker they can force the throw, the better. And that speaks to the game plan they put together. And to Andy's point, they were 5 of 13. The Chargers were on third down.

You get off the field on third down, that's how you win games in the playoffs. And so a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic job by everybody. Look, everybody in the Slack channel. Again, if you want to be a part, I'm Mark Schofield on Twitter. If you want to leave me a message, the Lockdown Patriots phone line is up and running, 240-670-6016. We used it a ton last year,

late into the playoffs and into the Super Bowl week. So again, you can hit me up on there, call, text, leave a message, 240-670-6016. That will do it for tonight. I will be back for a tape Tuesday, a show. I haven't decided if we're going to look back or look forward. I'll think about that. Maybe I'll put it to a poll.

Again, check me out on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. And also, I'm supposed to remind everybody, we're doing this pushover at the Locked On Podcast Network. Smart speakers. If you've got one, you know, I'm not going to say them by name because I don't want to, you know, have it start playing something else. But look, tell your smart speaker

play podcast Locked On Patriots. Whether it's, you know, the one from Amazon or Google Home or whatever. Just say play podcast Locked On Patriots. Makes it super easy. You don't even have to click on anything. How easy is that?

So go ahead. Try it out. Trust me. You won't be disappointed. That will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow. The Outfield. Play us out.

I just want to use your love tonight I don't wanna lose your love tonight I just wanna use your love tonight I don't wanna lose your lovin' tonight I don't wanna lose your lovin' tonight