Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 16, 2019 - Crossover Wednesday

Episode Date: January 16, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a crossover Wednesday here at Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield slotted into the big chair on today, Wednesday, January 16th, 2019. In a couple of minutes you're going to hear my conversation with Ryan Tracy and Chris Clark, the co-hosts of the Locked On Chiefs. They do fantastic work. You need to follow them on Twitter at RyanTracyNFL, at ChrisClarkNFL. We had a very wide range of discussion getting you ready for the AFC championship game between your New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs. We talked some Patrick Mahomes. We talked about the New England Patriots and sort of the shape their offense is in right now. We talked a little bit about the weather.

We talked defense, offense, everything you need to know to get ready for Sunday's AFC Championship game. Before we get into that conversation, though, 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. Also, I want to give a quick little update on what the shows are going to look like for the rest of the week. I got a ton of questions in from the Locked On Patriots listeners via the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, and I only got to a couple of them with our great guests that we're going to have on in a minute, Ryan and Chris. So we're going to do a Take Thursday show. I'm going to get to some of those.

I will have time for more questions, though, so please get some in at Mark Schofield on Twitter, mark.schofield, that's inside the pylon.com, if you want to do it the old-fashioned way. Friday is going to be a game day edition. We're going to talk a lot about the Chiefs on Friday, some film study on their AFC division around game. We're going to look back a little bit to week six. We're going to talk some statistics, everything you need to get ready for Sunday. And then we will be back on Sunday morning with a final last minute sort of Sunday morning tailgate installment of Lockdown Patriots. Probably won't be a launch show, might not even be 10 minutes,

but it's just going to be that last chance to sort of talk with you about anything that has broken over the past couple of days, any last minute news and notes, any last minute thoughts, anything else that I uncovered as I keep going through the game tape to get you ready for Sunday.

Without further ado, however, my conversation with Ryan and Chris from Locked on Chiefs. At this point, I think Mark's ready. And, you know, it's been a while. You heard us talk to him about Patrick Mahomes specifically. You heard us talk the week that they played the Patriots the first time the Patriots came to town. And if you're a Patriots listener, welcome.

This is a joint show that we're doing and we have plenty to talk about. Really, I think the first thing just quickly to mention, Mark, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Ryan, Chris, always good to be with you. Ryan, I know you're a little bit under the weather right now. We were talking about that before we hit record. So hopefully the family recovers.

I hope you guys are all doing well, especially come this weekend, because I understand it's a big weekend for a lot of reasons. It is. We're going to have a nice trip. The kids are competing in an invitational gymnastics meet. I'm going to be in New Orleans. So who dat? I'll be around. We'll go from there.

And honestly, it's going to be warmer in New Orleans, but I think it might be warmer in Boston than it's going to be in Kansas City. Yeah, it looks like it's going to be frigid. And I mean, I guess we can kind of start there, guys. I get a ton of questions via the LockedOnPatriots Slack channel. Can I ask you a quick question before we jump into that? Go for it.

I know you're going to talk about Mahomes a little bit from the Patriots perspective, but what have you seen from him over the past since we've talked to you last? I just want to get that out there because you've been so great talking to us about Patrick Mahomes and how he's grown. I'm just curious what you've seen over the past, you know, six, eight,

10 weeks. Well, see, see, I've kind of been playing the lawn game here guys, because I've really been playing them up just to come here now and say, look, what I've seen over the past couple of weeks is a completely human quarterback. He's a mere mortal. He's going to make a ton of mistakes on his, on Sunday and his friend.

No, I mean, come on. The kid is phenomenal. And I've spent basically the past 24, 48 hours trying to find a weakness in him, whether statistical, whether a coverage. I've had people doing some data mining for me and getting back to me like, hey, is there a coverage that this guy struggles against? And it's like, yeah, cover three. He's not the best quarterback in the league against it. He's the second best quarterback in the league against cover three this year, at least in terms of expected points added per drop back.

I mean, he's just fantastic. And there's nothing you can do that phases him right now. There's no throwing lane that scares him. There's no arm angle that worries him. There's no defender underneath that he's concerned about having to throw around. It's a situation where you just wonder if you can get two

stops. I think that's the mindset that you kind of have to have as a defense going into this game. Like, look, if you could get two, maybe three stops and maybe hold to a field goal on another drive, you might have a chance because what I've seen from him, even as maybe the offense has gotten slowed down a little bit here and there,

is that he's still everything we thought he was, you know, back in week six, back in week 12, last time we talked. You know, I have to agree with you. I'm just going to give you that. I mean, I was going to be shocked, Rod, if you were like, wait, no, you know, here are a couple of things he does, Rod. No, I mean, look, he's as good as it gets right now. And I was on another show, and I kind of brought up the Marino comparison,

where, you know, Marino got to his first Super Bowl, and people thought, oh, you know, he lost it, okay, but he'll be back. I don't really have that kind of fear with Patrick Mahomes, regardless of what happens Sunday and beyond. He's just that talented. And I've written this year that he's sort of the paradigm shift quarterback. He's made a lot of people sort of rethink how to evaluate the position. You're seeing a trickle-down effect now when you look at this year's draft class. You look at guys like Kyler Murray, Will Greer, Drew Locke, more unorthodox guys from spread offenses.

Now they're being looked at like, oh, man, these guys might go top five. These guys might go top ten. Whereas I think years prior, people would have still laughed off the idea of a spread air raid type QB. I think Mahomes has sort of broken the mold. And now people are going to try to find the next Patrick Mahomes every single draft class. Well, and I like what you're saying there, but what I will say is I don't think any of those guys have an arm that Mahomes has.

They might have some strong arms in that class, but nothing like what I've seen from Mahomes and the way he's able to deliver the ball and the arm angles that he delivers it with is I think what really makes him special, but we need to go ahead and get into the game. I just wanted to get a couple of words from you on him because I know you've been watching him and really enjoy your takes on QBs in general. Hashtag spoiler alert, the guy's really, really good. And, I mean, you run out of things to say about him almost

because he's just that good. And, you know, as somebody that, yes, I'm a Patriots fan. Yes, I love New England. It's been a joy watching Tom Brady. Look, if there comes a point when Brady is gone, it's going to be nice to have a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes that I can just sit down and watch and just enjoy how he plays the position because that's how I felt about Brady for his career and for different reasons. Brady obviously does it differently.

He's not an athlete. He's not throwing around people he's not dropping it down quiz and barry style to get it around an edge rusher's in his face but he's still a joy to watch mahomes is a joy to watch it's just a different kind of joy it's a different kind of way to get it done well let me be the first to say welcome to chief's kingdom well i mean hey you know i looked at it red ryan i look at it in red, Ryan. I looked at it in red. Well, you got a long history there because this kid's only 23 years old. He's got a long career left in this NFL league, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Go ahead, Ryan. Sorry.

I wanted to grill you a little bit just because I've been watching the Patriots and their trends lately, and I realize they're not going to give anything away they're not going to say oh we're you know scared of the guy but they have been on kind of a roll lately uh pressures have been going up every week since week 15 they actually out pressured in their game last week then the Chiefs did 29 pressures from uh the Patriots defense and that's pretty it, can you tell me how they're getting that done? Yeah, what's the weirdest thing? And Dave Archibald, I've known Dave for years, writes with us over at ITP,

member of the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. He kind of threw this out Sunday night. He's like, look, you can make the argument that of all the offenses left in this final four, the Patriots have the worst offense, but they might have the best defense left, which is kind of a flip of the script if you thought about the New England Patriots and where they've been over the last two or three seasons. Because, look, last year they were top 10 offense in DVOA.

They were 31st in DVOA on the defensive side of the ball. But they've really gotten better this year. The leap that they've made under Brian Flores, their first-year defensive play caller, has been impressive. And what they really focused on last week against Phillip Rivers was the idea that pressure equals production. And when you looked at Rivers over the last five, six games of the regular season and into that playoff game against Baltimore, he was making some mistakes.

And a lot of times it was because he was getting pressure in his face. He was getting quick pressure in the interior. He would underthrow some passes. So the Patriots basically said, look, we're going to do two things. We're going to pressure this guy with some blitzes here and there. They did some zero blitz stuff at times. And we're also going to do what we like to do with Trey Flowers, their best edge rusher. They use that amoeba or radar alignment where they kick him down inside.

They would use him against the center most of the time. They kicked him to over the right guard, Michael Schofield, who had some pass protection problems leading into that game. And they let Trey Flowers work against him. And like you said, they pressured him, I think, on 54%, on 55% of his dropbacks. They pressured him early. They pressured

him often. He missed some throws. He under threw a ton of balls. I don't think they're going to do the same thing against Mahomes because they're obviously two different quarterbacks. They're going to be worried about Mahomes and his ability to escape. So you might see more of a contain rush, more of a mush rush. But like you sort of alluded to it, Ryan, you know, anytime you try to guess a Browcheck game plan, a Flores game plan,

a McDaniels game plan, you're probably going to get it wrong because they're going to have something up their sleeve that you weren't ready for. Well, I'm glad you brought up the DVOA. I have to ask the question. Patriots defense is what, number two in DVOA at home, but 31st on the road. That does not spell good things for them this weekend, but maybe you can shine some light on to why they've struggled so much more on the road this year.

And their record is three and five on the road. Yeah. I mean, this has been sort of the ultimate fear for most Patriots fans going back into, say, early November, is that you look at this team this year, and they've laid some eggs on the road, both overall in terms of the win-loss record. They're a different team on the road. Defensively, they've given up.

Arguably, their worst game of the season was back in Week 10 against Tennessee, at Tennessee, where they gave up 34 points to a team that didn't make the playoffs. You know, they get blown out in back to back weeks, weeks two and three against Jacksonville, Detroit, two teams that didn't make the playoffs. And they definitely struggled on the road this year. And a lot of it has been they've given up big plays early that has sort of changed the flow and the pace of the game. This is an offense right now that wants to be a little bit more ball control. You're going to see a lot of 21 personnel. We've got some numbers we can get into there.

But if they get down 14, if they get down 10, if they get down 17, obviously it becomes more of a pass and script. And so it really changes the flow of the game. And so over the past couple of weeks, they had those two back-to-back debacle-type losses at Miami, at Pittsburgh. Obviously, the Miami one, they scored a ton of points, but they give up that fluke sort of fake Hail Mary with Gronk playing free safety at the end of the game, which Patriots

fans don't ever want to see again. And then they lose at Pittsburgh, two teams that didn't make the playoffs. And so that's the concern right now. Yes, this Patriots team looked great in their last three games, Buffalo, New York, and the Chargers, but those were all home games against two AFC East opponents. Now you're going up against the number one team in the conference, a team that dropped 40 on you at home back in week six.

It's going to be a tough ask for them to go into Kansas City and win. And folks, I think that's a good spot. We'll take our first break. We'll be right back with you. Make sure you check out the rest of the podcast network and make sure if you have one of those super cool newfangled kind of things that you can just talk to, say, hey, play podcast locked on Chiefs or locked on Patriots. We'll be right back. So along those lines, I can understand how it'd be tough going on the road. And I think you have to kind of hunker down, get into

what you're doing a little bit faster. And one thing that I want to know is as this pressure thing has come along in the last few weeks, it seems like they've been playing more cover zero. I can't imagine that that's a concept that they want to go with against Pat Mahomes. But what do you think?

You know, it's hard. It's hard to try to come up with an idea in terms of a coverage to play against Patrick Mahomes. I doubt they're going to go cover zero. I doubt you're going to see a lot of zero blitz. This is a defense that likes to play a lot of cover one. The problem with that is, you look at what Patrick Mahomes

has done against cover one this year, and he's carved it up statistically. He just picks it apart, and with good reason. You've got matchup nightmares, both inside and outside with Hale and Kelsey and some of the other guys. So it's hard to go play man coverage across the board, even with a free safety and expect to get results. So I'm very curious to sort of see what the Patriots do.

And, you know, to build off of that, you know, I've got a question from a Locked On listener, Locked On Patriots listener, Jrod15243, of the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. He wants to 15243, if you're the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. He wants to know, look guys, last game back in week six, Patriots took away Travis Kelsey

with double coverage. Belichick likes to do that where he tries to take away your go-to guy. But J-Rod thinks you can make the case that Tyreek Hill is probably the engine of the offense right now. Do you guys think the Patriots would try to eliminate Hill?

Or do you think they're going after Kelsey? Put your Belichick hat on for a second. What do you think he does? As far as I know, I think Chris will tell you. I was just going to say, I think they're going to try to take away Hill, and I understand why they would try to take away Kelsey, but to me, Hill can beat you quicker. He'll beat the Patriots, or almost beat the Patriots.

Sorry. He helped them almost come back against the Patriots in that week. Six game, 140 yards in the second half. I think just ridiculous numbers in the second half. If I'm Bill Belichick, I'm trying to take away Tyree kill because his speed is going to kill you a lot quicker than Travis. Kelsey is going to beat you.

But I do think that it's going to be very hard because what you had last week is you had Sammy Watkins coming back against the Colts and looking very good and looking back like he's healthy. And with Watkins in the mix, it's going to be very hard to be able to shut this offense down because you can take away one. You can maybe even at times take away two, but you're not going to stop all three. I think that's fair, but let me put it this way. What I see as I've watched these games go on and I don't watch Patriots film particularly just from what I see in highlights and whatnot. It seems like especially Gilmore,

but generally the corners have improved their play over the last eight ten weeks something like that so i wonder if they're not still more worried about that matchup with kelsey on safeties and maybe they do still focus on him i mean they might because you know an interesting aspect of what we've seen over the past say four to five weeks maybe you know we first saw truly emerge in that week 15 game against pittsburgh was the emergence of rookie undrafted free agent J.C. Jackson. You look at that game against Pittsburgh, and they left him basically one-on-one against Juju Smith-Schuster

and basically said, okay, you're covering this guy. And he had a pretty good game against him. And they've grown to sort of trust him to the point where the old adage that when it comes back to wide receiver-cornerback matchups, Belichick likes to take his best guy, put him on the number two, leave him on an island, and then get off a corner against the number one with some dedicated safety help. They're not worried about that as much.

They let these guys travel a little bit. And so J.C. Jackson, I think, you know, has given a nice boost to, you know, the Patriots' defense. But I did want to ask you guys, the Chiefs' defense, it seems like there might even be a similar sort of home versus away split. I know Seth has talked about this a bit. It also seems like that defense has come on. What has been the difference for this defense, either in a home versus away split type situation

or down the stretch where it seems like they've gotten better too? Well, I definitely think they've gotten better. I do think that you look at some of the players that they've got that are playing right now in Ward, the corner, and in Jordan Lucas at safety. And I think that those guys have really helped solidify this team. So I do think that that's a big reason that they've been better. Is it the whole reason? No, I think, you know, playing at home, I think, has also helped them, you know, the offensive line not being able to really get set and know what's coming

and the crowd getting into it. Arrowhead is a great place. There's a lot of things that play into this. I think that it's big that they could have a good game coming up against the Patriots. I think defensively, Chris know, Chris Jones and Justin Houston and Dee Ford is really what's turned this defense around with aggression. Yeah, and I'll echo that because I feel like when they made that change,

which was a couple of weeks ago, putting in these younger players who have been repping spottily all season, gotten a little bit of looks. And when they finally said, hey, we have to do this, I feel like it was out of a sense of urgency to notily all season, gotten a little bit of looks. And when they finally said, Hey, we have to do this. I feel like it was out of a sense of urgency to not waste this season, given how good my homes and the offense is playing. And it feels like the defense as a whole has responded to that because you've seen Houston and Jones and Ford step up their game with bit playing from a number of other players along that defensive front.

But overall, I think the whole youth movement has kind of given them a boost. And I think what you're seeing is them playing a little bit more aggressively because they feel like they can recover if they do get out of position. I think that's really the key. If they can be aggressive and have that crowd at home, that's the formula for success for this defense. So, guys, looking back to, say, week six and that week six matchup

between these two teams, got a question from Ricky Keeler via the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. Are there any takeaways from that game you think could be applied to this rematch, maybe just from a Chiefs perspective? Or do you think that, look, look, these are two different teams right now. For a variety of reasons, these don't totally resemble the teams you saw back in week six. And so it's a completely new contest. I feel like it is a new contest because you don't see over the last few weeks Mahomes make the same mistakes. Was it Hightower that got that interception when he was in?

He looked like he physically made himself smaller behind the line in order to hide it from a little bit. And you see that Mahomes has been a little bit more dangerous as his confidence has grown. Last week had what looked like almost a curveball pass to Travis Kelsey where he wrapped around a defender basically. And I feel like they're hoping that he is confident

in that kind of thing. And I think they're going to try to stick to some of that because historically where he makes mistakes is generally over the middle. Generally linebackers that he doesn't see, maybe some creeped up safeties. But if you allow him to look downfield and maintain his presence downfield, I think that's what you have to avoid if you're the Patriots defense.

Well, and I will say the one thing that sticks out to me that's going to be different in this game is no Kareem Hunt. And I do think that Damian Williams has played very well, but he's not the same running back that Kareem Hunt was, and that is a loss of a weapon. So it does change things from a Chiefs perspective a little bit. They're going to have to lean on their other guys a little bit more than they would have otherwise, but I still think they're in a good position

going into this game, but it is something that's going to be a big difference. I want to flip it on you, Mark, because there's still an offensive guy that I'm worried about, and what we saw was James White being featured when they played last. Obviously, Gronk seems to have aged really dramatically in one season. But then you get the youth movement of Michelle, and Michelle's the guy that scares the pants off of me. This is still a team that, despite a couple of good weeks on defense, has been really bad against the run this season.

Do you think that that's something Belichick's going to focus on? I think so. And, you know, it's interesting you sort of bring that out, Ryan, because, you know, one of the differences, I think, between these teams from week six to now is that this Patriots offense is a 21 personnel offense now. You know, they want to use that as much as possible with, you know, Sonny Michel behind James Devlin, you know, running it, using power run schemes,

using that to sort of set up some play action stuff. And one of the things that sort of sticks out from that week six game is when they did use 21 personnel in that game, and this was something that Warren Sharp tweeted out, you know, just an hour or so ago, they threw the ball, they had an 80% success rate throwing the ball, 15.4 yards per attempt, no sacks.

Rushing the ball, a 65% success rate, 5.1 yards per carry. Ed Sharp also tweeted out that Kansas City is the NFL's worst defense versus 21 personnel, giving up a success rate of 65% in terms of offensive success rate. And the Patriots run up the most, second most in the league. And so I think that there's a point to be made that New England might come into this game, try to really sort of feature Michelle, sort of grind out some drives, keep Patrick Mahomes on the sideline. And if they can get some 9, 10, 11 play drives going,

using that 21 personnel package and sort of keep Patrick Mahomes over there freezing cold on the sidelines, they will be happy to do that all game long. So let me get this right. A guy who makes his money looking at film of quarterbacks is telling me that the most important factor in this game on the Patriots offense might be the run game, right? It might even be the fullback, James Devlin. That's exactly what I'm saying.

He said fullback. Please don't play into this, Mark. He's setting you up. I know he's setting me up. I know exactly where he's going with it, but I'm happy to let him take me there because James Devlin, I think, in terms of unsung heroes for the New England Patriots this year, James Devlin, their fullback, has done a tremendous job. And the thing about Devlin is they can still go empty out of 21 personnel.

If you see a 21 personnel package with Devlin and Michelle, Devlin and White, Devlin and Burkhead, there's still that potential where the Chiefs might decide to go base. They're worried about run defense. And then you go see them go five wide and you've got Devlin now running hitch routes and Brady will throw it to him. And so it's going to be interesting to see how that 21 personnel package is used on Sunday. Because I think you might see some times where if the Patriots get the run game going, you get more base defense from Bob Sutton in Kansas City. Then they might say, let's go tempo, let's spread it out a bit.

That wouldn't surprise me at all. I think it's really interesting because I think these two teams have the fullbacks that are the most versatile in this league. And like you said, the Chiefs will do the same thing. They'll put Sherman in the slot and attack with him in the pass game as well. So I'm really interested to see how they both use the fullback. You had to just play right into that, didn't you? That's okay. I know.

I knew where Ryan was going with that, but with the way James Devlin is playing, I'm happy to go there. No, I get it. Let's take another quick break, and when we come back, we will talk about predictions. But I have another question for you going into this game, Mark. We have a powerful new feed to tell you about. Check out LockedOnNFL.net on Twitter. It is all the inside information from our hosts for all the Locked On shows

for all of the NFL teams in one Twitter feed. That's LockedOnN NFL dot net on Twitter. Check that out today. All right. So if you are Bill Belichick, what are you doing to try to stop Patrick Mahomes in this game? You know, it's tough because, you know, you can't just play, you know, cover one like the Patriots tend to do.

You can't just play even a couple of different coverages because at this point, he's seen basically everything that you've done. So you, I think, as a defensive mind, have to really go sort of outside the box. I think you're going to see a lot of that radar slash amoeba look. I think you might see a lot of three, two, six. Patriots used some in the run-up to this week six game where you've got six defensive backs. You might not be worried as much about the run game like you pointed out with Williams,

being the running back now instead of Kareem Hunt. That gives you a little bit more flexibility. So if you want to do something completely outside of the box and you have six defensive backs on the field, you could double Kelsey, you could double Hill. You can go that little double-double look and make Mah have six defensive backs on the field. You could double Kelsey. You could double Hill. You go that little double, double look and make Mahomes go somewhere else with the football. But I think you really have to change things up.

You know, you can't give him the same look, you know, forget drive to drive, play to play. You know, you've got to really make him win with his mind, you know, because he's an incredible, exceptional, athletically talented quarterback right now, but he's still a second-year quarterback. This is his second playoff game. And for all the great things that he's done and that he will do in his career,

there's still an opportunity to show him some different looks that might confuse him. You look at the two interceptions when these teams played in Week 6. One was the Hightower play where, like Ryan kind of pointed out, it seemed like Hightower got small and Mahomes just missed him. The other was a play where they flushed him and they were basically triple covering Kelsey and Mahomes on the move, tried to force a throw to him anyway and got intercepted.

So you've got to do some things that he might not be expecting. You've got to get him, have to think that extra half step and that pre-snap to post-snap when those looks don't match up and try to make him make a couple of, you know, second year quarterback type mistakes. Will he make them? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, recent play tells you he probably doesn't, but I think that's what you've got to try to do.

Makes a lot of sense. Try to make him make the mistakes and hope that you can get him to just make a couple. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think for Bill Belichick and Brian Flores, their goal here is, like I said, get two to three stops.

Two to three stops gives you a chance to win this game because if you don't, they're going to put up points in bunches. My last question, and that is because, again, of the youth movement the Chiefs are featuring at the cornerback position and how savvy Julian Edelman is.

We've seen all kinds of things happen. I think Chris Hogan's last touchdown came against the Chiefs, if I remember correctly. But Edelman's the guy that I keep coming back to, without Gronk being what he was. I'm sure he'll have one big play at least. But how do the Chiefs, what's the best way that you've seen of any other defense attack and take Edelman away?

The best way to do that is to be physical with him at the line of scrimmage. If you let him get sort of a free release and let him get into his route, that's what he's going to win. If you're more physical with him, jam him at the line of scrimmage and force him to try to win with some strength or beat your press at the line of scrimmage and force him to try to win with some strength or beat you with the beat your press at the line of scrimmage. That's when you sort of do two things. One, even if you don't win the jam, you've thrown off the time.

And this is an offense, the Patriots that is predicated on timing and rhythm in the passing game. You know, if Edelman's not what Brady expects him to be, you know, when he finishes his drop, he's going to have to go somewhere else. And so disrupting the time is one thing, But he's a receiver that they design plays and alignments and formations around him missing out on jams because they will use him in motion. They will put him in stacked slots. They will move him around to try to get him those free releases.

And so if I'm Bob Sutton and I see him not moving around before the snap, I'm going to have my corners try to press and be a little physical with him. Yeah, you might give up a play here and there, but that's going to throw off the timing of their offense, which this offense is built around. Well, and you talk about timing, and I have to just point this out. If Brady is able to do what he was able to do against the Chargers and get the ball out in 2.3 seconds, that negates the Chiefs' pass rush.

Anything that they can do to make Brady hold onto the ball for just even a half second longer gives Ford and Houston and Jones an extra opportunity to get there, and that could be huge for Kansas City. Yeah, and the difference between the game plan from New England's perspective on offense is that was going up against a cover three heavy defense, a lot of zone coverage there.

This is a Chiefs defense that's primarily a cover one defense, too. They're going to play a lot more man coverage, and so you might have some situations where the Patriots are going to have to have Brady hold onto the ball a little bit longer because he's waiting on guys to get separation, but that might play into some of the strengths of the Chiefs up front. Well, I certainly agree. And I'm hoping that's the way it comes down. It looks like it might be single digits when this happens. And I wonder if this does turn into, despite having two of the best

quarterbacks in the game, if it doesn't turn into a run fest. So with that said, let me put you on the spot. And how do you see this game working out? I mean, look, I am a Patriots guy. I'm the host of Locked On Patriots. I'm going to think that Brady and Belichick find some way to pull this out. I'm very curious, like I talked about with that 21 personnel package. I think that will be featured a lot. I think that's going to be a big part of the game plan.

As far as, say, a prediction, I still think it's going to be on the higher scoring side despite the weather. I'm going to go, we'll say, 31-28 New England. I think that's fair. Chris, what's your thought? Are we waiting? No, I'll go ahead and throw this out there. I think Kansas City finds a way to win this game, and I think they put up 35 points.

And that's not really a slight at the Patriots, but one thing. And actually, they might put up more than 40. And I'm really not trying to take a shot at your defense near as much as Bill Belichick's defenses have only given up 40.7 times in his career in New England. Andy Reid has three of them. That says something to me. And I think this offense is going to be able to find a way to get things done. And I think this defense is a lot better than they were when they played the first time and they're going to be more aggressive. So I think that really plays into it this week as well.

Yeah, I have to say so as well. And, you know, I'll do my prediction tomorrow, but Patriots fans, don't worry. I'm still going to be picking the Chiefs. So with that, I want to say, Mark, thanks for your time. Oh, of course, guys. It's been a blast this year. I think we kind of knew when we were talking earlier this year that we might end up back here, and here we are. I'm excited for this game, no matter the outcome,

because I think the AFC is going to have a tremendous representative in the Super Bowl, so it'll be fantastic to see whichever team moves on. I think we'll have a very good shot at securing that Lombardi trophy. Obviously, I hope it's New England, but either way, I think we're in for a great game. I have to agree with you on that one. And we're definitely going to have to have you back in the offseason regardless.

So thank you again for coming on, Mark. Really appreciate it. Of course, guys. Thanks so much. And folks, check out both shows, Locked On Patriots, Locked On Chiefs. We will be back with you tomorrow. Thanks for listening today. And we'll talk to you then.