Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 18, 2019 - Gameday Edition

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there everybody, welcome on into your AFC Championship game day edition of the Locked On Patriots Podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for today, Friday, January 18th, 2019. We are just a couple of days away from the AFC Championship game brought to you by our friends at Intuit and TurboTax. That's right. This is sponsored this week. We are just days away from the AFC Championship game.

Your New England Patriots, or I'd say for most of the listeners to the show, your New England Patriots traveling out to Kansas City to take on the Kansas City Chiefs in a game that might be marred by the weather more than anything else. We are expecting what they call an Arctic blast over the Kansas City area. I have been doing a number of radio shows nationwide, worldwide, talking about this show. Everybody seems to ask, what's the weather going to be like? Is the weather going to be a factor? Is the weather going to be, you know, the thing that decides factor is the weather going to be you know the thing that decides this game maybe if it is that might favor new england but

we're going to get into this game i'm going to talk about um i re-watched both that week six game as well as the chiefs divisional round game against the indianapolis colts so i've got some thoughts on you know when the chiefs have the football when the patris have the football, when the Patriots have the football, some lessons from week six. But I'm going to do something to start off this show that long-time listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast know that I'm loathe to do. When I took over this show over a year ago, before last season, when I did my first show, I kind of made my introduction and kind of said my what my vision for this show was and while the vision has changed somewhat it's remained largely the same that i am going to focus on the stuff between the lines you know there are

before every game before every season whatever there are always sort of off-the-field extraneous storylines, you know, Brady being unhappy, Gronk being whatever. I don't try to concern myself with that stuff too much because I don't get access to these guys. You know, I'm doing the show from the D.C. area, so I always sort of look at what I'm seeing on the field. And I try to bring that to you, bring that sort of schematic stuff, the X's and O's stuff, all the chess game stuff that plays out during the game, because I think that's the cool stuff. And it's cool because, you know,

I always love it when people come back to me after listening to a show or elsewhere, like, oh, you know, I saw that, you know, you were talking about that this week and I saw it and that was pretty cool. You know, I was telling my friends about it. I was telling my family about it. That's the stuff that I love. And of course, you know, the extraneous outside, you know, the field away from the field of play kind of stuff, that can be interesting at times. And look, if you're into that, that's awesome. I hope you still keep listening to the show, but there are other places, radio shows and elsewhere that get into all that stuff. And if that's what you love, then great. But this week has made it tough to sort of ignore

that because you probably, probably by now know where I'm going with this. There's been this sort of movement within the Patriots locker room and And you're hearing it from guys. We heard it from Tom Brady the second that divisional round game ended. We saw a video, now t-shirts from Julian Edelman bet against us. There's this idea that the Patriots view themselves as the underdogs heading into this game.

And technically, they would be right. They are the road team. Vegas has the Kansas City Chiefs favored by three. You can make the case that, look, Vegas gives the home team three points so they're basically making this a pick-em game so there's really no favorites but if you look at what people and even at times myself have said about this patriots team there are still some question marks i mentioned doing a bunch of shows this week every time i'm

on a new show or show i've been on before i always get asked can this team win on the road you know why do they struggle on the road they're three and five on the road the defense has been bad at home i mean on the road much better at home you know the dvoa on the road is like in the bottom five they have struggled defensively on the road can they do it again i always say look it is a question mark but when you see this defense down the stretch the emergence of jc jackson the way they've pressured opposing passers over the last couple of weeks, I think it's a different defense than we saw in some of those road games. I think it's a different defense than we saw, you know, obviously back to weeks two and three, back to that Tennessee game,

even back to those games against Miami and Pittsburgh that they lost where the defense struggled. I think it's a different defense now. We started to see the new defense in that game against Pittsburgh. You know, they didn't, Pittsburgh didn't put up a ton of points in that game because we saw the emergence and the growth of jc jackson for example and i always sort of come back to him and the pressure and stuff like that but still you know there's this idea sort of in the national media that the patriots aren't that good you know yes, yes, it's their eighth straight championship game, AFC championship game.

But look, they're going up against Mahomes. They're playing at Arrowhead. They're going to have a tough time. And so the Patriots have sort of bought into a little of this and started to use it as self-motivation. Now, you've made it to the AFC championship game, regardless of whether you're the Patriots or the Chiefs. If you need some help to get motivated for this game,

Tom Brady said it this week, you might not be in the best line of work because this is the kind of stuff you play for. When you're a kid, you dream of being in a game like this if you love the game of football. When you hear your name called on draft day, you're like, man, I want to play for a Super Bowl someday. I want to play on that kind of stage.

When you're going through training camp and stuff like that, this is what you're working for. It's that old Bill Parcells clip from the sidelines. This is why you lift all them weights. It's for an opportunity to play in this game for the right to play for a Super Bowl trophy. That's the ultimate. That's the pinnacle.

That's the mountaintop of this sport. So if you need motivational help at this point, you might be in the wrong sport. You might be in the wrong business. You can come do what I do. That being said, this is an organization that even when they were the favorite, even when they were that team that was in the midst of a dynasty run or things like that and people thought that they were favorites or going to win 14-2, 16-0, all that kind of stuff. They found ways to amp up their self-motivation a notch.

Remember Bill Belichick before that Eagles Super Bowl. That was a game where he went into this team meeting on Saturday night and found the parade route and read it to the team the night before the game. This is a head coach who is a, at times, master motivator. Playing for him is a quarterback who is always going to be pick 199. He will go on to the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks when he is done. He is a first ballot hall of famer he is ridiculously good looking and married to a supermodel

like tom brady has it all but in his mind he has always picked 199 and people have always bet against him and he's seen that this year with guys like Max Kellerman and Rob Parker and Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharp and Mark Schofield at times questioning whether he can go out and deliver the type of performance that he did last week or that he might need to deliver this week. And yes, Tom Brady was going to be motivated for this game no matter what. But the great ones sometimes need that little extra kick of insanity i've talked about it before you know whether it's you know michael jordan

and how he got cut from his high school basketball team you know wayne gretzky and some of the stuff he did jerry rice and some of his workouts which were notorious and legendary nobody could hang with him he's the best wide receiver to play the position, and he's still putting himself through these workouts, season in, season out, off-season in, off-season out. The great ones tend to have that little bit of a nutty streak to them that makes them different, that sets them apart, and Tom Brady has that in him.

And yeah, he seems goofy at times on Instagram and putting out the videos post-game, and people are laughing at him. You're not an underdog. Stop with this. It's your eighth straight championship game. Believe me, if I've learned anything from watching Tom Brady over the past almost 20 years of my life

and studying everything that he's done on and away from the field, it's this. The guy has that sort of chip on his shoulder, that sort of drive, that when he is done, he is going to take it off of his shoulder and pass it to Baker Mayfield. Because Baker Mayfield is built the same way. Baker Mayfield will always be a double walk-on. Baker Mayfield is probably mad at the Browns that they didn't draft him

immediately when they were officially on the clock. And so, yes, it seems silly. Yes, it seems odd. Yes, it's a little awkward to say that the New England Patriots, nobody believes in them. Yes, they should be motivated anyway. But when you get to this point, when you get a chance to play for the ultimate prize, which is the Lombardi Trophy, sometimes the best at it, sometimes the greatest ever, sees that extra little bit to be able to deliver in that moment. And if that's what Tom Brady and Julian Edelman and company are doing this week, that's what they're doing this week. And it's easy to say from afar, oh, this is silly.

But then when you get into that locker room and you see these guys and you see what they've put themselves through just to get to this point, you kind of got to understand it. Up next, I'm going to do some nerdy football stuff, talk about what I'm expecting, what I'm looking for, what I learned from re-watching some of these games

from week six and last week. That's ahead on this game day edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Friday. Game day edition of the Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Friday. Game Day Edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. And going to run through some of my notes here from re-watching both the Chiefs back in Week 6 as well as their division around game. And, you know, as well as what I saw from the Patriots in their Week 6 game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Some of the stuff I've learned from there. As well as the Colts offense, some missed opportunities from Indianapolis. Let's start with the Chiefs offense. Looking at that week six game, a couple of things that when I sort of rewatched that game for what must be like the fourth or fifth time now, that I just wanted to make note of. Things that we haven't talked about a ton this week, I think.

One is the RPO game. We haven't talked about a ton this week, I think. One is the RPO game. We haven't talked about it a ton. I know some other people on Twitter and elsewhere sort of dove into how New England was pretty successful against the RPO game from the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, there was an early play, first quarter, a second and six on, I believe, Kansas City's opening drive at the 11.56 mark. You know, Mahomes meets Kareem Hunt at the mesh point, pulls the ball, throws to Travis Kelsey, and Kelsey's wide open. You know, that was an example where the Patriots didn't get it done. But with some of their man coverage schemes, they had these routes covered.

They did a really good job of it. So I'm curious, you know, if Kansas City rolls out the RPO game, if they do some of that stuff on Sunday, do the Patriots have the same level of success against it that they did back in week six? Tyreek Hill's speed. They had Jonathan Jones on him, for example, on that opening drive. He was running that over route from the right slot to the left front corner of the end zone. He got a free release off the line of scrimmage, and he was by him within a blink of an eye. His speed is something that you

have to obviously be wary of. Now, there are times when I can see him in late game situations, saw it a couple of times against the Patriots. Obviously, he had a big catch late in that game. A couple of times against the Colts where he does tend to lose a little bit of steam, just a bit, maybe like a half step, which for him still puts him two steps ahead of most other defensive backs in this league. But that is something to watch. That's something that I saw both in this week six game as well as the divisional round game. The radar stuff, the Patriots had some success with that and they did it in a different way. When they went radar back in week six, a lot of times the one down lineman was adrian clayborne and they had

him over the right tackle and then they moved everybody else around you had usually it was hightower chun van noy those three guys moving around the inside and then flowers to the outside i'm curious to see if they go radar if they do it that way or if they put flowers inside the issue is mitch morse their, is a very good center. Matter of fact, Pro Football Focus pointed out that three of their top six graded centers, David Andrews being number one, Morse being number two, are left here in the final week of the playoffs,

you know, in this championship week. So I do wonder if they looked at Morse, they saw how good he is on the interior and they said look when you take flowers we'll leave them outside another thing to note there was an example of this um it was a second and four play in this first quarter at the 336 mark um they show a sort of like screen to tyree kill a smoke screen to the right side of the offense. And Flowers is aligned off the right tackle in this radar look in a two-point stance, and he sniffs it out immediately. The pass is incomplete.

Hill kind of drops it. But the recognition and the awareness and the football intelligence from Trey Flowers to sort of see that play develop and immediately break towards the screen was very impressive. And so I wanted to point that out. Again, pay the man his money. Final thing to note from that game, the long Kareem Hunt touchdown, and I remember talking about this, you know, back when we did the postgame show and then the Tape Tuesday show.

You can't kind of get caught peeking in the backfield against a guy like Mahomes because in the blink of an eye he would throw the ball over your head and that's that happened no it was Jason McCourty who got beat in this situation it was a cover two look you had Tyreek Hill running a post route from the right side of the offense he occupied the safeties sort of a scramble drill situation and Kareem Hunt who had run a swing route to the right where Jason McCourty was in the flat, then took off vertically, and it took McCourty a second to realize what was happening. By then, it was too late. You've got to be mentally sharp against these guys.

You've got to expect the unexpected. Don't get caught peeking. Mahomes can throw the ball anywhere he wants to. We throw it over your head in the blink of an eye, so you can't get caught peeking in the backfield. Divisional round game. What was interesting about seeing how the Chiefs and the Colts squared off, we talked a lot about how Colts were a cover two heavy team. And early, they ran a lot of cover two and they made it easy

for Mahomes and company. You look at their open and drive, there was a ton of cover two stuff. There was a play at the 11-25 mark in the first quarter. Curl spacing against cover two, you get that soft cover two look. Travis Kelsey's wide open on a simple curl route, basically uncovered. They went to more single high cover three, cover one looks in the second half. And I know some people have been asking me, what was the reason that that offense kind of slowed a bit? Was it weather?

Did they take their feet off the gas pedal? What was it? I think it was that. And that plays to what New England does. They're a cover one one heavy team you're going to see a lot of man coverage you're going to see a lot of man free although maybe they do some some different stuff no help bell bello checkers trying to game plan for hale and kelsey but if that's what they want to do and they play cover one chief struggled a little bit with it in the second half once the colts made that adjustment so that will be something to watch on the rpo stuff if they do do that there will be opportunities for the backside defender this was something was called

pointed out to me paul alexander and offensive mind uh coach paul alexander was doing some stuff on twitter and he pointed out a play that I saw as well, partly because he had pointed me in that direction. But the backside tackle on these RPO plays has a tough, tough, tough assignment because you've got the dual assignment of having to make your block on a potential run but also protect hinge backside against any edge pressure. And so if that quarterback decides to pull and throw and you're the backside defensive end on one of these looks, you might have an opportunity to get a sack. against any edge pressure. And so if that quarterback decides to pull and throw, and you're the backside defensive end on one of these looks, you might have an opportunity to get a sack. And there was a similar play, second quarter is a 14-10 mark, where they went RPO,

and Mitchell Swartz, a very good right tackle, sort of got beat by Jabal Sheard, because he's trying to do both. He's trying to execute both, you know, the block flowing to the left, but protecting the backside, and you're basically having to serve two gods at that point. And he got beat, gave up a sack. So backside defensive ends might have some opportunities for cheap sacks if you get that RPO game from Kansas City. If Mahomes is going to do something crazy, he threw a pick that was taken off the board due to a defensive offsides. And he saw the flag, so we knew he had a chance for a free play. He rolled to his right. He threw back across his body to Tyree Kill down near the goal line.

It's one of those ridiculous Mahomes throws that goes for like 35 yards on paper. But from the right sideline to the left sideline, it's basically a 60-yard throw. It's something crazy. I can't do math, so the Pythagorean theorem is getting me right now. But that being said, if he's going to take those risks, you have to capitalize. If he's going to hang some throws thrown across his body and leave some in the air to be picked, you got to get those. The Autry sack, we all remember it for the dance, but this was an example of that cover one look. Third quarter, 840 mark. They go cover one.

Everything is covered. They just rush four. They drop seven. Everything is covered. It's a coverage sack. And this was a play where Tyree Kill was running a wheel route, and he didn't seem to have the legs under him. And this is, again, 840 mark of the third quarter.

He's still an explosive player, but the Colts, when they ran that cover one stuff, they were able to get some good coverage and force some pressure on Mahomes just because of the coverage downfield. And so that's going to be something to watch. Final note, got to tackle these guys. Saw too many missed tackles early and often against Kelsey, against Hill. They're shifty.

They're explosive. They get yak. You got to get them to the ground. I know it sounds strange, but fundamentals. It's a game about blocking, catching, running, and throwing, and tackling. You got to get these guys to the ground. So those are kind of the notes that I have from the rewatch. Some of the things that I'll be watching for on Sunday night up next. Things to look for when the Patriots have the football. Lessons from both that week six game as well as the division around. That's ahead to close out this game day edition of Locked on Patriots.

Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this Friday game day edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. And going to talk about what I'm going to be watching for when the Patriots have the football. Started with that week six game, that Sunday night that the Patriots have the football. Started with that week six game, that Sunday night that the Patriots won 43 to 40. And what was interesting rewatching that game yet again was Kansas City really was worried about Rob Gronkowski in this game.

You go back, you watch this game, you see them really sort of shading that single high safety to Gronkowski. And we're going to talk about what that means for this offense in a second. But that created a lot of one-on-one opportunities for Josh Gordon, for Julian Edelman. And so off the bat, when the Patriots look to throw, I'm going to see if that continues. Are the Chiefs going to shade coverage,

shade the safety, make the safeties wary about where Gronk is and what Gronk is doing? Or do we see more brackets and more shaded safety help over Julian Edelman? If that's the case, if they do the latter, if it's Edelman that gets the bulk of the attention, that might open up the opportunity for Rob Gronkowski to have the kind of game that we've all maybe waited for, for Rob Gronkowski. Just throwing that out there. I was asked on a radio show today, you know, could the Patriots have been

playing basically rope-a-dope with Gronk and going to unleash him in the AFC Championship game? I think that would be a little bit interesting and perhaps a little bit foolhardy in a sense because you've got some games that you need to win and you're going to keep them on a leash, but that is something to watch. Do they continue to shade

towards Gronkowski or not? We've talked about 21 not? We've talked about 21 personnel. We've talked about the numbers Warren Sharp tweeted out. They were very successful running 21 personnel against the Chiefs who have struggled this year against 21 personnel, worse than the league in terms of giving up success rate and plays and things like that. So I'm very curious to see how much 21 personnel we see from New England. I expect it to be a lot. One thing I did notice, late change of formation strength. When the Patriots were in 21 personnel, what I mean by that is they would come out

and have Gronkowski to one side of the formation, and then before the play, they would shift him or motion him to the other side. The Chiefs at times will flip their defensive front. And so if you've got your strength set to one side, to Gronkowski, and then he sort of shifts strength and you have to adjust your defensive front, the Patriots did that and got some good plays on the ground as that defensive front was getting back into their alignment and back into their stance.

The Patriots are able to sort of explode off the ball and exploit that. So I'm curious to see if New England does that again. If we come out in 21 personnel, two running backs set with Devlin on the field, you get Gronk shaded to one wing, then he moves to the other. You see that shift, or do they play it straight up? So I'm going to be curious to see. I bet Josh McDaniels does some early stuff with 21 personnel and some motion where you get that coming into play.

On the Edelman touchdown that was at the 3rd and 10 early second quarter, 12.58 mark of the second quarter, this was sort of the Gronkowski effect that we were just talking about where he runs sort of a post route to the middle of the field. Safety breaks down. Single safety breaks down hard on it. Edelman runs sort of the wheel out and up to the left safety is nowhere near in a position to help and so do we see that or do we see it come down to brady's manipulation biggest play of this game might have been a 31 pass to chris hogan at the 720 mark of the fourth quarter the patriots

were down at this point they needed a big play and they get hogan on a go route and why do they get that it's a slot go slot seam slot fade whatever you want to call it brady takes a shotgun snap opens to the other side of the formation. He stares down. Philip Dorsett on a corner route. And the free safety jumps that, opens up this go route to Chris Hogan, and it's a huge gain and a

first down for New England. Brady's manipulation. I talked about that earlier this week. His ability to manipulate the free safety, the underneath hole defender, when the Patriots go cover one, is going to be critical. If you were going to place a bet on which body part wins this game, I think the two ones you would nominate would be Tom Brady's eyes

and Patrick Mahomes in his arm. I'm going to bet on the eyes. That's what I'm betting on this week. I'm betting on Tom Brady's eyes. Some notes from the divisional round game, and I'm going to title these missed opportunities. The Colts had some chances to make this a much, much, much different game. They didn't take advantage of them.

It started early, third and three on their opening drive. They get a mesh concept with the crossing routes underneath. Luck's throw is a little bit low. Receiver doesn't catch it. They're forced to punt. They had a third and six in the second quarter of the 1054 mark. It's against a zone coverage look this time. It's sort of a rotated zone. Chiefs did some pattern match stuff. Luck is a step late with this ball. It gives the defense time to rally to the receiver. Instead of a first down, the receiver, Eric Ebron,

has to stop for just a five-yard game because he's hit immediately on a third and six, and they're forced to punt the ball away. Now, as I said, they do some combo coverage, the Chiefs did, against the Colts. This might have been a game-specific thing, but you saw a lot of man coverage to one side and zone coverage looks. Attack that zone side. There were some chances where Luck was able to either make plays

or had opportunities to attack the zone side, and either he missed it or he took advantage of it. But attack the zone side. Luck took some shots in this game. We all know offensive line has to play better in this game than Indianapolis. Their offensive line protected Luck. Third quarter, 746 mark. This is a cover two look. Andrew Luck has a seam route open in the middle of the field. He comes off of it. He has a smash look with a corner route open. He comes off of it. He comes to the hitch, the third read. He throws it and it's dropped. You have two open

receivers and a drop on the same play. Patriots, they are going to get opportunities in the passing game to make plays. You have to take advantage of them. Final play I want to talk about. This is a big one. This is at the one minute mark

of the third quarter. This is post-Sammy Watkins fumble. It's a 24-7 game, but the Colts now have a first and 10 at the plus 20. You get a chance to make this a 10-point game. You're still in it. The defense has played better. They've made some adjustments.

It's time to put some Boyds on the board. First and 10. They run a little flood concept to the left. T.Y. Hilton on the corner route. That's what Luck throws. Again, it's late. The throw is not delivered with a ton of velocity, and it's broken up. So there right there is a missed opportunity. A better throw, and it's first and goal. If he doesn't throw that route, the receiver, the running back in the flat is wide open. You throw that, you're now looking at probably a

second and two, second and three type situation, and again, you're ahead of the chains. Another missed opportunity. So there's, again, two missed opportunities on one play. What happens the next play? The strip sack of Andrew Luck that gives the Chiefs the ball right back. Again, they had opportunities to make this a much different game. They didn't take advantage of them. When the New England Patriots have similar opportunities on Sunday night, and they will, they have to take advantage of theirs.

That will do it for today's show. Threw a lot at you. Even went off script. Talked about the stuff at the beginning. Some, you know, nobody believes in us. Us against the world. We all we got. We all we need.

Eagles type of stuff. Again, maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of it than people are. It's just my Twitter timeline is just all the Patriots. I can't believe they're doing this. Get over it. That's all I'm going to say. And we got you ready. You know, we talked a little Pat's offense, Chiefs offense, all that good stuff.

I will talk to you again Sunday morning. I'll talk a little bit about the NFC Championship game. Some final thoughts on Sunday night and then we're into it. And then I will be back late Sunday night with what we all hope is a glorious victory edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast. But either way, you will hear from me twice on Sunday. Until then, have a fantastic weekend.

Stay safe, everybody. Have a good time. If you're out with your friends on Saturday night, tell them about the show. Tell them to leave a review, all that good stuff. Spread the word about the Locked On Patriots podcast. I love doing the show. Love doing it for all of you. The more people that listen,

the better. Until Sunday, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked On Patriots. you