Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 17, 2019 - Take Thursday

Episode Date: January 17, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a special Take Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots Podcast. Mark Schofield sliding into the big chair for today, Thursday, January 17th, 2019. We are just a couple of days away from the AFC Championship game featuring your New England Patriots going in to Kansas City in Arrowhead Stadium to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. What we're going to do today, as I said, a Take Thursday installment. I've got some Patriots-specific questions to get to.

I've got a couple of leftover questions that people wanted me to ask the Chiefs host when we did the crossover show. I figured I'll take a stab at answering some of those as well, albeit from a more Patriot-centric perspective. And maybe a little bit later, time permitting, a little tease there, some Gardner Minshew talk. That's right, Gardner Minshew helping set the stage, teeing it up for the senior bowl where I'll be next week down in Mobile, Alabama. But before we dive into all of that, 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. If there is an outlet that is covering the game of football, there's a good chance that I'm covering the game for them. Let's dive into it right now. And the first question I'm going to get to is a question from our great friend, John Limbarakis, via the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. He asked a bunch of them this week. I'm going to talk about this first one here for a couple of minutes. What are the top two or three most important units in this game against Kansas City?

And I think Alex, via the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, had perhaps the best answer. He immediately responded, in no particular order, I'd say offense, defense, and special teams. Alex, that's a fantastic answer, and I might just ride with Alex's answer, to be honest. But I think diving into this a little bit more, because I think just ride with Alex's answer, to be honest. But I think diving into this a little bit more, because I think John has something a little bit more specific in mind, the three units I'm going to be watching the most on Sunday night are as follows. The offensive line, the secondary, and the defensive line. And let me get into each of those here for a couple of minutes.

When it comes to the offensive line, look, you've got a fearsome, talented pass rush you're going up against on the road. And when you hear that, you conjure up visions of the past that might not be too kind for Patriots fans. But I do want to point one thing out. For example, not just for example, but specifically specifically this the last time we saw this organization this franchise in a road playoff game not talking superbowls on a neutral site was a game that probably has a lot of patriots fans a little bit wary right now that was that afc championship game at denver a game that they lost by two. And a big problem in that game was the fact that, and we wrote about this over at InsideThePylon.com, Philip Kibbe did a fantastic job writing this piece,

was that center Brian Stork was sort of telegraphing the snap count. And this was something that we had actually highlighted a season ago back in the game at Arrowhead, that Monday night, under the debacle on Monday night that led to the we're on to Cincinnati moment where Brian Stork was again telegraphing the snap and Tomahawley for example was just jumping the count because he read the head bob from center Brian Stork well massive difference obviously between that organization, that team back then and now, is the presence of Dante Skarnecke. He was not the offensive line coach during that period.

It was Dave DeGuglielmo. The Patriots have gotten better with Andrews and a snap count that's not telegraphed. And I mentioned this previously in the Sunday morning tailgate show after the Chiefs took care of the Colts but if you watch that game the Colts in their center did a much better job of sort of varying that silent count whether it's looking once to the side that's how they were doing that they would have the center look to the side when he comes forward with his helmet that's when the ball gets sapped. Sometimes it would be one look, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes more. And so that's obviously something that I'm going to be looking at. And I think it is a difference between, you know, the nightmare scenario of Vaughn Miller getting a running head start at Tom Brady back in that

AFC Championship game and what we hope to see on Sunday night. But beyond that, the offensive line is going to, I think, play a massive role in this game. And I will, again, highlight some numbers that Warren Sharp tweeted out. I mentioned him in the crossover show. Patriots this year from 21 personnel, 80% success rate when they threw the ball, 15.4 yards per attempt, zero sacks out of 21 personnel. Run on the football, 65% success rate, 5.1 yards per attempt zero sacks out of 21 personnel run on the football 65 success rate 5.1 yards per attempt i mean yards per carry excuse me and year to date the chiefs are the nfl's worst defense

against 21 personnel 65 success rate again success rate you know they define that as basically getting more than the yards that you need to keep things on schedule you know get in four yards on i believe first down five yards on second down and then get in a first down on third down that's what they sort of define as success rate i might have that wrong but i think i've got it right so i think the offensive line is going to play a huge role not looking at the defense i think it's the secondary followed by the defensive line The secondary it should be self-explanatory Look you've got Tyreek Hill You've got Travis Kelsey

You've got Sammy Watkins You need to be able to cover those guys as best as you can And I don't know how they're going to do it I know people have been put around a bunch of different theories out there Evan Lazar for example Over at CLNS He does some great work covering the Patriots as a beat writer does some film work as well he's kind of tweeted out that he thinks it's Stephon Gilmore against

Tyreek Hill with some help and you're leaving JC Jackson on Sammy Watkins that could be it because a big difference between week six and now is JC Watkins at least when the Chiefs have the football now in that game, the player they looked to stop was Travis Kelsey. He was the guy that drew the doubles, the triples, the chips. Dante Hightower walked outside when he was in the slot to get a chip on him. I don't know if they keep that or not. Again, the old adage with Bill Belichick is there's nothing more disruptive for an offense than a tight end that can do it all. This is a guy that sort of cut his teeth under Mark Bavaro. And so that's going to be something to watch. Does Kelsey still get the

bulk of attention or do they even play it more straight up? Do they double somebody? Do they play it straight up? And an interesting question that I was going to hold off on, but I figured I'll get to now since we sort of teed it up. The idea of Obi-Mella Fonwu. And this was a question that was posed to me by ataloudfool on Twitter. Great listener to the show, great friend of the work. Basically said, look, let's get crazy. Let's go outside of the box here. Is it time for the Pats to unleash Obi-Wan Fonwa

as a secret tight end destroying weapon that will shut down Travis Kelsey? I mean, just because he hasn't played since week 16, I mean, since week 13, doesn't mean he can't be the key to the Ac championship game right and it's a sort of a fascinating thing to think about and when you think about when we sort of saw him say last when we sort of saw him on the field for the patriots the last time like he says

it was sort of that week 13 game. That was against Minnesota. And one of the better plays he made in that game was on Kyle Rudolph. And when the Patriots acquired him, I immediately turned to, of all things, the inside the pylon draft guide, where we made the argument that he was designated to be that sort of tight end killer because of his size because of his athleticism because of his explosiveness and we thought that when he was drafted by the raiders it might be specifically because of Travis Kelsey. So if you were going to say place a wager on an unsung hero, a surprising X-factor in this game,

it could be Obi-Mellon Fonwell. Again, it's an outside-of-the-box thought. But wouldn't that be quite the story to get a guy basically off the scrap heap and he goes in and helps you shut down Travis Kelsey in the AFC championship game after being a healthy scratch the past couple of weeks. That would be a fantastic story. Finally, I look at the defensive line and it gets to the idea of shutting down this offense.

It gets to the idea of a pass rush and coverage working in concert because I think there are times when you're going to need to pressure Mahomes a bit and force him to make some quicker decisions. Younger quarterback, very talented, extremely dangerous as a passer, very athletic too. You might not get home, but if you can force him to make some quick artificial decisions, you might have a chance of getting some mistakes. And if you can get one or two mistakes from him, get a couple of turnovers, a short field here or there, that might go a long way to determining the winner of this game.

And so those are the things that I put out there in terms of ranking these units. Most important, one, two, three. There you go. It's offensive line. It's secondary. It's defensive line. Up next, we're going to get into some other questions,

some leftover questions about, you know, what people were wanting me to ask the Chiefs hosts, which I couldn't get to all of those. And a little bit later, I teed it up a little bit. We're going to start looking at the Senior Bowl. That's ahead on this Take Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Take Thursday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast.

And next question comes to us from our great friend Reluctant underscore Trade and Mac on Twitter at Reluctant underscore Trade. Would the Patriots consider a defensive back heavy defensive scheme, not unlike the Chargers versus the Chiefs? That's the first question he asks. And it is an interesting thought, and it feeds into some of the stuff I teed up back in week six. The idea that they were going to go 3-2-6, play a little bit of a lighter box, let Kareem Hunt run wild if he wanted to, because what they wanted to do was take away

Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelsey. And the Patriots did do some of that back in that week six meeting. I think it's certainly an option for them to go, you know, 3-2-6, 4-1-7. You know, they've 3-2-6, 3-1-7. I mean, they've done stuff like that, 4-0-7. They've done, you know, these six and seven defensive back packages. I always bring up the play from last year against the Steelers in that regular season game when a third and sixth situation, I believe, they went 4-0-7. And they tried to get a stop on Juju Smith-Schuster on a crossing route,

and they got it. That set the stage for Brady's sort of climactic drive to take the lead. And so the Patriots have used that approach in the past. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Patriots do something more outside of the box. We just mentioned Obi-Mellon Fonwell. Well, maybe a 4-0-7 or a 3-2-6 or whatever kind of package you want to dream up might be the way for New England to show Patrick Mahomes something different. Because I think that's what you have to do up might be the way for New England to show Patrick Mahomes something different because I think that's what you have to do with him. You've got to show him something

that he hasn't seen before. Whether it's a pressure scheme, whether it's a personnel package, whether it's a coverage idea, something to get him a little bit less confident. Something that makes him start to think a little bit more. Start to doubt what's in his mind, what his eyes are showing him. I think if you do that against this second-year quarterback, you can, like I said, get those one or two turnovers from him that might sort of change the flow of this game. And a defensive back heavy approach might be the way to do it speaking of defensive backs reluctant underscore trade also has another question how about how good a pickup has jason

mccourty been i mean for the price of a pack of wrigley's and a can of coke they got a top 10 pff graded cornerback and pff grades aside jason mccourty has been pretty good at spots for this team and the patriots like reluctant, has basically got them for nothing. And there are some adages in sports, whether it's baseball and you can't have enough pitching, you can never have enough pitching. Whether it's basketball, you can never have enough scorers. Hockey, you can never have enough scorers.

Football, you can never have enough pass rush, you can never have enough cornerbacks. This is a passing league, and you need guys that can cover guys you need guys that can go out there and if not just lock down somebody at least be an effective cornerback and you know they spent a lot of resources on the cornerback position this offseason you know they bred in McCourty again they didn't use a lot in terms of getting him, but you use a draft pick on Duke Dawson. You bring in Keon Cross, and he's a late-round pick. You bring in J.C. Jackson, an undrafted free agent. It's the same kind of philosophy. You can never have enough cornerbacks in this league, and Jason McCourty has been a tremendous addition.

He's shown you some flexibility as well with the ability at time to time to play safety, even if needed. And so he's been a great acquisition for the New England Patriots. You know, did he end up being the number two corner opposite Stephon Gilmore? No, I don't think it was really signed to do that. I think they had designs that maybe Jonathan Jones would step up into that role. No, but it ended up being J.C. Jackson. And it took a while to sort of get to that point,

but that goes to how Bill Belichick views a football season. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. You know, you don't figure it out right away. Only the luckiest of staffs, of organizations, of franchises have it figured out on day one the 2007 patriots for example they kind of had it figured out day one who they were as a team in the 2018 patriots it took them a while to figure out who they were as a team on both sides of the ball and sometimes it takes some time to get there but they got there and their defense

is as we've talked about a couple of times this week by a number of different metrics the best defense left in the dance and maybe in a passing league in an offensive league that doesn't count for a lot but it counts for something and if you look at where this team is now as opposed to a year prior you know we knew that last year's defense was a liability you know we knew that and if we had rose-colored glasses on we took them off midway through that super bowl you know and maybe this defense rears its ugly head like we've seen in some road contests previously this year maybe it does but if you look at that game against Pittsburgh, defense played fairly well in that game. You know, you give up 17 points or so on the road. You know, most of the time with a Tom Brady-led offense, that's going to be enough to win. You know, and I think anybody right now,

any Patriots fan would take 17 points on Sunday night in a heartbeat. I mean, if the Patriots hold Mahomes and company to 17 points, New England better be winning this game. Otherwise, I'm not going to get through a glorious, I mean, melancholy and the infinite sadness installment of this show on Sunday night without about 15 of those. It's not even Spite Seltzer anymore. They changed it.

Bon and Viv. Bon and Viv Seltzer now. New look in the new year here. But I'm going to need a couple dozen of those to get through a show if the Patriots hold Mahomes to 17 and can't pull out the win. I'm just saying. Just setting that one up for you guys and girls. That would be bad.

Anyway, so that's kind of how I view those two questions from At Reluctant Trade. We got one more from John Limberockis basically asking this question. How do i feel about the offensive line going up against guys like you know justin houston guys like chris jones the pass rushers that they are going to run out there on sunday night you know how do i feel about them up against houston jones and ford and as john points out pass blocking on the road has been inconsistent this year. And it has been. But I think that a couple of things are going to come into play here. I think we're going to see a lot of 21 personnel. I think we might see more of Rob Gronkowski, the chip in late release to the flat guy,

than Rob Gronkowski, somebody we're looking to in the pass game, particularly when we have 11 personnel on the field. And so sitting here right now, Wednesday night, recording this for a Thursday show, I feel pretty good about the pass protection. Ask me this time Sunday night. It might be a different story. But I think between Dante Skarnecchia's influence on this offensive line,

this offensive line, for the most part has been unsung heroes for this team. I think they're going to put in a good performance. I really do. Up next, a couple of other questions to get to. So I'm going to try to answer some Chiefs one

and I'm going to do a little tease, just a couple of minutes on Gardner Minshew, why I'm really, really, really excited to see him down in Mobile. That's ahead on this Take Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. Going to kind of rapid-fire some of these Chiefs questions that I couldn't get to with the great guys, Ryan Tracy, Chris Clark, over at Locked on Chiefs.

I'm going to kind of see if I can chime in on some of these. Matt Cook, 13. Matt, great friend of the show, great friend of the work here. Can you ask about the potential impact of the weather on Mahomes and the Chiefs offense? I think if you watched that game against Indy, you saw a couple of missed throws from Mahomes, and you do sort of wonder about one thing.

Was it weather-related in the sense that, look, that was a wet game at times wonder about one thing was it weather related in the sense that look that was a wet game at times you know was it a slippery roll situation or was it a hand size situation and again Mahomes measured in you know he hit that nine four nine and a quarter inch hand size that is kind of sort of a benchmark threshold whatever you know if there's a hand size issue here remember this guy the playing in the big 12 playing in texas didn't have a ton of cold weather games you know if is there a grip issue is there something that we could hopefully watch for if it's frigid you know maybe there's a grip issue just something to throw out there now i have tiny hands i don't even hit the nine-inch threshold. I got baby hands.

I seriously do. And for me, cold wasn't the issue so much as moisture. If it was wet, forget it. I was shot putting the ball out there. If it's cold, for the most part, I could grip the ball, although NFL-sized ball is still a little bit tough. I'm really going to have cold. You could you could still do it moisture was more the issue and so since it's going to be dry on sunday i'm not sure it really affects the pass and offense

unless there is a grip issue with my home so you know that will be something to watch do the chiefs plan to move around the jones around the defensive line and use interior pressure to get tom brady off his spot he's an around the defensive line and use interior pressure to get Tom Brady off his spot. He's an underrated defensive tackle and extremely disruptive. That from Jim Reynolds, also via the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel. And, Jim, I think we will see Jones move around a bit. They've done a little bit of that this year with him. The thing that he gets to take advantage of is with guys like Houston,

with guys like Ford, he gets a lot of one-on-ones on the interior. With guys like Ford and Houston coming off the edge, you get protection shaded towards them who get chipped, who get running backs designated to help in protection schemes against those guys. That gets Jones some one-on-ones on the inside. And so I think that we might see him move around a little bit on the interior. Maybe they try to get a matchup against Dooney, see how that goes against Mason a little bit later.

So I think we'll see Jones move around a little bit. They've done it a little bit this year. We'll probably see a little bit more of that. Chuck A. asked a question about pressing Tyreek Hill at the line of scrimmage. Is there any value into doing that to slow him down, or is he just too fast to try that against? Letting him get a clean release from the line doesn't seem to ever be a winning proposition. And I think the reason why you probably don't want to play bump or press against Hill is

if you lose, it's an easier throw. Think about it this way. If you try to jam him and you miss within five yards and he's got a free release now at a depth of about seven or eight yards, it's a gimme at that point. It's like a gimme putt whereas if you try to stay with him and yeah maybe he finally gets that top end speed that lawn speed so he's open now 35 40 yards downfield well okay but it's still a 35 40 yard throw and you bring the safeties into the equation and so i think that kind of is the thinking there

although i could completely be wrong about that but i mean that's kind of a layman's type of view of it. Let's close it out with a couple of moments on Gardner Minshew, who out of all the nine quarterbacks who are going to be down in Mobile, he's the one I had the least amount of experience watching coming into the season. I hadn't done any work on him. You know, every other quarterback down there,

from Tyree Jackson, the recent announcement, to Drew Locke, who's atop the board for some people you know and everybody in between Ryan Finley Will Greer Jared Stidham all of these guys I had a baseline of somewhere from like as many as four I mean as few as four as to like six eight ten games on some of these guys because they're multiple year quarterbacks multiple year starters things like that Minshew was a different story and I finally had a chance to spend some time Wednesday really sort of sitting down, got my hands on some All-22 via the draft Twitter black market of All-22 and sort of really studied what he was doing.

And I call him sort of a master manipulator, an influencer. We think of influencers these days and that sort of Instagram influencers who get paid money to sort of promote products via tweets and via Instagram posts and stories and things like that. But he's an influencer on the football field. And what was really interesting was there came out recently a story of how Alex Smith sort of tried to mentor Patrick Mahomes. And he talked a little bit about how, you know, coaches sometimes harp so much on footwork and precision footwork and things like that. But what really matters is the ability to manipulate, the ability to use your eyes, use other parts of your body to get defenders out of position. That's what really matters when it comes to playing the

quarterback position. With Minshew, you get a parent of the both. You know, he's in that Mike Leach air raid system. so there's a lot of mesh concepts and things like that, a lot of air raid stuff, but you can see him work through his reads, and what's fascinating to watch with him is you can see the footwork as he goes from left to middle to right to middle to left again, going sometimes two, three, four, five receivers deep into his progression. You see those feet sort of chop and move with him as he's making up his mind. His feet aren't in cement a lot of quarterbacks as they're working through reads with their minds they're not moving

their feet and then when they have to like move their feet finally when they've made up their mind to throw the football it slows things down he's always in that throwing position so that's one that i love with him the other thing that ability to manipulate that master manipulator that he is with pump fakes with his, with all sorts of even total body manipulation, getting defenders out of position, whether it's a free safety deep, whether it's an overhand defender against a pivot route, whether it's a linebacker against a post route and he's moving the linebacker away to create or throw in lane. He's very good at doing that. I haven't made up my mind on where I am on him yet. I've got some things that I want to see from him down in Mobile. I want to see a better scheme fit. I'm kind of bouncing between a couple of different offensive systems that he might fit in. I like him as a time and rhythm anticipation-based thrower. That kind of sounds like New England, but he's somebody that I'm truly excited to watch now down in Mobile. You know, we've got some really good quarterbacks that are going to be down there.

I'm excited to see all nine of them. But after spending some hours the past couple of days or so watching Gardner Minshew, he might be the one I'm most excited to see out of this entire group. That will do it for today. Hit a lot in today's show. Hope you learned something. I will be back tomorrow for your game. We are finally over already at our game day

edition for the AFC Championship game. I'm going to do some film review on both week six as well as that divisional round game between Kansas City and the Indianapolis Colts. Have some thoughts on Kansas City. Some stuff that I'm going to be looking for. I'll chime in a little bit on that Rams-Saints

game as well. And then I will be back for a very quick show Sunday morning, sort of your last chance to hear from me until either a melancholy in the Infinite Sadness Edition or hopefully a glorious Victory Edition. Either way, I will be there Sunday night, late night, breaking it all down. Until next time, everybody be well

and keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.