Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 21, 2018 - Glorious Victory AFC Championship Edition

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

Mark Schofield breaks down the AFC Championship Game, and looks ahead at Super Bowl LII.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I Just want to use your love tonight. I don't want to lose your love tonight. Good evening and welcome on into, I don't even know the word for it. Just a glorious, glorious victory edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you on Sunday night, January 21st. Maybe you'll be listening to this Monday morning. Whenever you're going to be listening to this, you might notice the changed up intro.

Doing a little Your Love, Josie from the outfield. Pats fans probably recognize it if you listen to the show and you don't quite get the reference 2014-2015 season division around game at home against the Ravens Patriots color announcer Scott Zolak, former quarterback was calling for that song to be

played by the Gillette Stadium DJ, they finally played in the fourth quarter, the game's kind of been salted away Gillette Stadium goes nuts, they show Zolak,. They finally played in the fourth quarter. The game's kind of been salted away. Gillette Stadium goes nuts. They show Zolak. He's going crazy in the booth. Unicorns show ponies.

Where's the beef? All that stuff. Now it's kind of a fourth quarter staple. And so after a game like that, after a comeback like that, after an AFC Championship game like that, I felt the need to drop that in there. If I get fined, whatever. I'll pay it. It's worth it. Just an incredible

comeback. New England Patriots punched their ticket to Super Bowl 52 with a 24-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Hats off to Jacksonville, man. I'll say this. Since I've been doing this show this year, when I sit

down to watch Patriots games, I take the fan hat off. I put the analyst hat on. I sit down. I take notes. I study everything. I get ready to come and drop the knowledge on the mic. That Jacksonville game, the way this game started to play out, the analyst hat went off. The fan hat came on. I was doing what I usually do when I watch a game, which is if you ever watched a game with me, I'm a pacer. I stand in the back of the room and I pace. And that's what I did for basically two straight hours. Because this looked like the nightmare scenario when this game got underway.

Jacksonville gets out to a 14-3 lead. They're distracting Brady. They're flustering him in the pocket. Brady's shook. That's what the timeline's saying. They're running the ball. Oh boy, right? And the Patriots, they come back and win.

We'll dive into how that happened. Also, just shout out to Zach Goodall, Christopher Thornton, the hosts of Locked On Jaguars. They were great guests on the crossover show. They're great guys. I know I'm going to see Christopher down at Mobile this week. Tremendous season from Jacksonville. And Chris and Zach did a great job with that show this year. You should definitely check them out.

If you're a Pats fan, if you're not a Pats fan, give that show a listen. We're going to do today some bad and some great. I usually do when Patriots win some to do today some bad and some great. I usually do when Patriots win some bad, some good, and some great. Hard to just label things as good in a game like that. Hard to just say, oh, this was good. Everything was great. There is some bad stuff that we'll get to.

Also, we're going to have to peek ahead. Philadelphia Eagles. A rematch of Super Bowl 39. What other things you can do to peek ahead? Look back. Look back at the Super Bowl 39 revisited show I did during the bye week with Michael Kist, co-host of Locked on Eagles. You can check that out.

I'll be tweeting those out throughout the week. Let's start, though, with some bad. You've got to start with some bad stuff don't want to harp on bad stuff here i'll go completely away from the game for a moment the state farm commercials okay i loved them when they came out i thought they were hilarious i like the one with clay matthews in the room next to aaron rogers and senate i like the one with the dog as well with the greatest american hero theme until my daughter simone got that in her head because for the past week and a half, she's been sinning it nonstop. And it was hilarious and cute and adorable the first couple of times. But after a week and a

half, I'm starting to lose my mind. Okay. Now mixed in there, there have been some kids sick days. There's been some snow days. So I've been spending a lot of time with both kids home. So maybe this is more an offshoot of that. But man, those commercials have just destroyed my brain over the past couple of weeks. Other bad stuff. The Gronkowski injury. Rob Gronkowski being reported now still in concussion protocol took that shot from Barry Church shortly before halftime and I know that

Church was flagged for it we'll get to penalties in a second Church was flagged for it look Doug Marone said himself that was the right call and I think it was the right call. You know, the NFL has sort of legislated into the game a strike zone on receivers where you can hit them.

It's basically, you know, below the neck, you know, kind of to the waist area. They don't call a lot of low shots, but, you know, they really don't want you going for the head. And Church went for the head. I know it's a bang-bang type play. I know Robert Gronkowski is 6'7", 295 of ridiculous muscle. He's a big guy to hit, and there's not a lot you can really do

to get a shot on him. Church went for the head. They flagged it. I think it was the right call. Marone said it was the right call. Marone said it was the right call. Rob Gronkowski in concussion protocol. He was ruled out for the second half of this game. And it did have an impact. It changed the game plan. But interestingly enough, it changed the game plan for both teams, I think, as we'll kind of get into. But we hope Gronkowski

is okay. We hope he's back for Super Bowl 52. Patriots are going to need him. So we hope to see him back. So penalties, okay. I guess we're going to talk about penalties again for the second straight week of playoff football. And underlying numbers here, New England flagged once for 10 yards. Jacksonville flagged six times for 98 yards. And if you want to go into it a little bit further,

three first downs from penalties for the Patriots, none for Jacksville. Those are the numbers. Now, I'm sure if you were on Twitter during the game, if you were scrolling the timeline, if you were scrolling the timeline after the game, you saw the sort of conspiracy theories start to emerge. And it just feeds this narrative that somehow is out there

that the league wants to help the Patriots, that the league wants to help them win games, get to Super Bowls. I don't know what happened during the Deflategate nonsense. Maybe there was a feverish bout of something, apparently, if you buy into this. But that's sort of the narrative, that the league's trying to help the Patriots. And cause we saw last week, cause we saw this week, a lot of people point to the pass interference call on Bouye against Cooks late in the first half that gave them a first and goal.

A lot of people thought that was good coverage. In the rules, it basically says if you sort of prevent an offensive player from getting towards the football, if you impede his path towards the football, that's pass interference. And Boullier, by sort of covering him and forcing him out of bounds, technically that's pass interference. So technically it's the right call. And then you see sort of people post it first, one was a still after White's touchdown before the half of a referee, and it looked like he was celebrating with the Patriots in the end zone. People said, oh, look, celebrating with his teammates. If you go back and look at that play, there was some jawn between Patriots players and Miles Jack and other defenders for

Jacksonville. Multiple officials were in the scrum trying to break it up. That one official in particular was sort of doing the, ha ha, that's funny guys, give me the ball and get away, give me the ball and get away, trying to break it up. Another thing you see is Cleet Blakeman, the head referee, congratulating Brady after the final kneel down. And there was a tweet that came out with somebody saying, oh, look who's the first person to congratulate him. His teammate number 34, which is Blakeman's referee number.

It just feeds into this narrative that the league is out to help the Patriots when there's explanations and innocent explanations for these moments. But in the Twitter era, that Blakeman video, as of the time that I'm recording this show, that has been retweeted over 16,000 times. That tells you sort of the mindset outside of the New England fan base that people have around this team.

So the fact of the matter is this. Home teams sometimes get the benefit of the doubt on calls like this. That's why home field advantage matters. That's why you want to have home games in the playoffs. That's issue number one. Issue number two, and this was something we talked about. I talked about with Jeff Lloyd on a preview show over on Locked on Browns. And Jeff brought this up.

What's going to happen to Jacksonville when a couple of calls don't go their way? And they get beat on some plays and calls didn't go their way. You have to be ready for that as a team. And if you're going to overcome adversity like a championship team does, you've got to be ready to overcome that situation, those kind of moments. And Jacksonville made some great plays in this game, but the Patriots made a couple more. So there you go.

Last thing on the bat, the Deion Lewis fumble. And I don't want to ding Deion Lewis too much because he's part of the reason the Patriots got to this point the bat, the Deion Lewis fumble, and I don't want to ding Deion Lewis too much because he's part of the reason the Patriots got to this point and he had a huge run to ice this game late. Running to the edge, east and south against these guys.

One of the things I got wrong this week. But, Jacksonville just kicked a field goal to make it 20-10 early in the fourth quarter. Patriots offense needs to get things going in a hurry. They dial up a trick play.

Brady to Amendola and back to Lewis with a convoy in front of him. Looks to be a huge gain. He's getting tackled down around the Jacksonville 33-yard line. He just falls down there. You're already at least in field goal range. Game could have been a lot different. I could have paced a couple fewer steps perhaps. But Miles Jack makes an incredible athletic play and strips him

of the ball. And that was the moment when you're like, okay, this just might not be their day. Patriots, though, they had the mental toughness to overcome that too. The defense makes the plays that they need to do after that turnover. And the Patriots, though, they had the mental toughness to overcome that, too. The defense makes the plays that they need to do after that turnover. And the Patriots are able to get the ball back and go down the field and score.

And, you know, again, not to crush Deion Lewis because he's a huge part of the reason that the Patriots got to where they are right now, which is playing with a chance to repeat as Super Bowl champions. But that certainly sort of changed the flow of the game to that point. Defense, though, does their job. That was a situation where Jacksonville could have really salted that game away. They could have had one of those six, know, six, seven-minute drives. But defense forces a three and out. So that was the bad from the game.

Next, we're going to do the great and also a quick peek ahead to the Philadelphia Eagles. And that's next with me, Mark Schofield in Locked on Patriots. Let's get into the great stuff now from this game. We'll start on the offensive side of the ball. And I think the place we have to start is TB12 with Tom Brady.

Because coming into this week, coming into this game, the first big storyline was how are the Patriots going to move the football against this historically great pass defense how are they going to attack this pass defense then with the Wednesday and the injury all the sort of speculation and intrigue about Brady's thumb leading up until today when we finally figured out what it was really bad cut needed multiple stitches at the base of his thumb I was kind of worried when that first came out because it didn't quite indicate

the first reports I saw, whether it was more inside his hand on his palm or on the outside. If it was his palm, I was going to be really worried because as somebody that suffered an injury to that area right before double session started my senior year of college, I couldn't throw the ball. I just couldn't throw the ball. I just had a brutal sort of set of blisters on the inside of my hand. I was building some furniture, moving into the house where I was going to be living my senior year, and couldn't even grip the ball. So I was worried about the grip. I was worried about Brady taking snaps from under center, but when you saw him come out, you saw it to the outside, felt a little bit better about that. What does Brady do with the injury, with the thumb,

against this historically great pass defense? 26 of 38 for 290 yards and two touchdowns. Here's the other thing. According to our friends over at Pro Football Focus, 12 of his 26 completions traveled 10 or more yards downfield. You know how many quarterbacks did that against this historically great Jacksonville defense this year having double digit completions of 10 or more air yards against this defense Tom Brady

that's it that's the list and he did get flustered early in this game there was sort of talk on the timeline all Brady shook shook he's worried and that's how you get to him. All the talk about Tom Coughlin and sort of what he could bring, the aura of Coughlin from those two Super Bowls with the Giants. Pressure with the front four, being able to drop Heepo seven into coverage. Taking away throwing lanes, getting pressure on Brady just rushing four. They got to him early, but he hung in there. And I thought perhaps the biggest sort of play of the game, that third and 18 completion where it looked like Brady was pressured a little bit,

slides a little bit in the pocket, moves the underneath defenders with his eyes and makes the throw. You know, that was the moment where you could sense, okay, game on. Here we go. It was one of those throws, one of those plays, one of those moments where you just saw that Brady was,

they were going to go down and score. He then hits Dorsett on that flea flicker. That was an interesting design too because James White sort of stuttered in the hole, made it seem like he was looking for a space to run it then. Pitches it back. Gets it down to Jacksonville's 23. Brady hits Amendola with a great catch. That was a small window Brady would throw that into. I don't know how Amendola came up with that,

but he did. 14-yard gain down to the 9. Amandola, another short pass for the touchdown to cut it to 20-17. Patriots still trail. Also, sort of in that sequence, you have Miles Jack go down. you have Marcellus Darius go down. That impacted Jacksonville as well. And you saw Jack get carted off, lowered leg injury.

Hopefully, he's okay. Great, talented young player. But Brady, you can't say enough about this guy. You just can't say enough about this guy. And at some point, two, three, five, how many ever years down the road, there will be a time when he's no longer the quarterback of the New England Patriots. And hopefully the Patriots figure out a replacement plan. But until then, just enjoy watching this guy play because he's just a master of the position. And you can quibble greatest of all time or not, whatever. He's a master at playing the quarterback position. And maybe there's no better way to describe him than that. Other

offensive things of greatness, Danny Amendola. We talked him up this week. I was talking him up here on various other shows saying that this game might be one more between White, Lewis, and Amendola against those guys in the middle of the field rather than Hogan and Cooks on the outside.

Amendola, man, two touchdown passes working underneath. It seemed like in this game, and if you want no better example of it than this, that third and 18 play, who was Brady looking for? It was number 80. Amendola, he comes out, seven receptions, 84 yards, two touchdowns, led the team in targets. Just a huge game from him.

And we'll need another one from him against this Eagles defense. But a massive game from Danny Amendola. And let's not overlook it. One pass attempt, one completion for 20 yards. Out of all the passers in this game, Danny Amendola had the highest QBR. No, Bortles had the higher QBR, 98.5. But Danny Amendola, quarterback rated of 118.8, led all passers in this game. Offensive line, have to give some credit to them. Brady was sacked three times for 12 yards of yardage lost.

That was okay, given what this defense could do. We'll take that, I think. So credit to the offensive line there. Guys get beat at times. Mason got beat a couple of times. But that, I think think was an impressive performance from that group up front Brandon Cooks

he had a drop I know he's getting crushed a little bit for that drop he had that could have been a big play at that moment but at the same time six receptions for 100 yards he was working that deep comeback route against Bouye

he was running it well. Something we've talked about on the show and even coming into this week. The ability to run that deep comeback route against cover three. Because that defense, that defender needs to respect

that deep route. Has to be ready for it. Cooks was able to make some plays on that route. Brady hit him a couple times on it. So, Brandon Cooks had a good game. Yeah, he had the drop early in the second half. But still, made some plays against Bouye, drew the big pass interference penalty as well. So he played a pretty big role in this game. Those are some of the offensive

things to break down. Let's look at defense now. Second half adjustments. Jaguars put two TDs on the board in the second half. In the first half, excuse me, looked like they were doing everything they wanted to do. They were doing some RPO stuff. They were running the ball effectively. They made some adjustments in the second half. Also, those crossing routes, that's where I want to start. Second half, they played some more zone to take those crossing routes away. They were getting crushed on those crossers.

They played more zone, but they also blitzed in front of it at times. They were bringing guys from the slot, boundary corners from the outside, and then playing sort of cover two looks, Tampa two looks behind it. Take away those crossers, but force borders to make quick decisions. Great adjustments made at halftime by Matt Patricia

and Bill Belichick. Also, the fourth down play, the breakup by Stephon Gilmoremore they played a coverage called one cross also hat tip to james light who's a must follow on twitter james a light on twitter he's a high school football coach brilliant sort of schematic mind and he pointed out the one cross thing it's a single high man free look free safety in the middle of the field but you switch it up so you have the free safety cover somebody, bracket coverage on somebody

from across the formation. That's why you call it one cross. And their strong safety rotates back to the deep middle of the field. That was the coverage on Gilmore. On the Gilmore breakup, which was obviously a huge play in this game.

That fourth and ten pass breakup. Bortles looking for D.D. Westbrook. Gilmore gets his right hand in there. Just a perfect, perfect play. And for a lot of the criticism that Gilmore

got throughout this year, and that drive started with a second and2 back shoulder throw to Westbrook against Gilmore. Patriots fans might be thinking there, oh, here we go. This guy's had some bad moments this year. He gets beat here. Maybe you even had a Manningham flashback in your mind.

But Gilmore makes the play on that one cross coverage concept on 4th and 15, gets New England the football back. Stopping the run. We had those three questions coming into this week. Will Bortles make audibles? Will Bortles be an active participant? Can the Patriots win those one-on-one matchups? They won some of those one-on-one matchups.

They won some. They took Bortles away in terms of his legs he had two rushing attempts both kneel downs but when they ran those sort of read options those read option looks those RPO type things

they always did scrapes where they took away sort of the keep read for the quarterback made him sort of hand it off which I know sounds a little bit crazy. Wouldn't you rather Bortles run it as a defense?

But sometimes that's what you want to do, and that's what the Patriots said. Also, would he audible? There were times watching this game where Patriots stacked the box or they rotated somebody into the box late. Bortles stayed with those plays. Prime example of that. After the Patriots Patriots get the ball. They're down 20-17

with 621 left in the fourth quarter. 621 left in the game. But remember they go after a pass interference penalty on Ramsey. They punt from the Jacksonville 45. The first play of Jacksonville's next drive is one of these plays where Chun rotates down into the box late. They slide the defensive front. Bortles stays with the play.

Chun makes the tackle for a one-yard loss. That sort of moment was a big question I had coming into this game. Would he audible? Would he catch those things? Bortles didn't catch it there. Helped set up a situation where New England got off the field

after a three and out. Gave the Patriots the ball back for the game winning touchdown. Some other things. We mentioned Gilmore. James Harrison. I thought it was strange how they adjusted

with Harrison too. On some of those mesh routes, those crossers, Harrison started this game, played more as a middle linebacker than they move him to the edge. And what does he do? Jacksonville's final drive.

Second and 10 at the New England 38. Harrison punches it out of Bortles' hand, forces a sack. Did anybody have any question in their mind that at some point in the playoffs, James Harrison was going to make a play like that? Sets up a 30-19 at the two-minute warning. And we know how the game ends. Harrison, great play.

Van Noy, nine tackles, five solo, one sack. Trey Flowers, nine tackles, five solo. Huge games from those guys as well. You can't say enough about the offense. You can't say enough about the defense. can't say enough about the defense just a tremendous effort and job all around up next some quick thoughts on Super Bowl 52 and then Philadelphia Eagles that's ahead with me Mark Schofield and locked on Patriots. So with two minutes remaining in the NFC Championship game, as the Fox broadcast crew and production team cut to commercial for the two-minute warning,

they were shown the Eagles in the stands and their fans. There's a man in one of those Eagles masks, the black and green, holding up a sign, praying on Brady. And that's what they're going to get. Kind of reminds me of those fans that, you know, like Division III schools that win a game and they hold up the, you know, we want Bama signs.

Well, that's what we're going to get. We're going to get a Super Bowl 39 rematch between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. Eagles just totally taking care of the Minnesota Vikings 38-9 and I did not have that one at all and not a lot of people did I don't think. Kind of thought that Minnesota was going to come in and take care of business but they had that letdown. That was what some people wondered. This game can go one of two ways. Minnesota could win it or they could just have an awful letdown after that miracle win, and it kind of seems like that's what happened.

But tremendous credit to the Philadelphia Eagles, to Doug Peterson, to what he's done with this offense, to Nick Foles, the way he's run it over the past couple of weeks. And as we start to get ready for this Philadelphia Eagles team, it's similar defensively to what we saw this week. They can get pressure up front. They can win in the trenches. They've got guys that can get after the quarterback.

They've got some coverage guys. Ronald Darby's a good player. Jalen Mills is a rookie corner, but he's good too. And when you look at this offense, the first thing, you're going to hear these three letters all two weeks long. RPOs, run pass options. You know, they use that incredibly effectively with Bortles over the past couple of weeks.

And that gets back to when, excuse me, not Bortles over the past couple of weeks. And that gets back to when, excuse me, not Bortles, Foles. And when Foles was playing his best football, that's kind of what he was doing. What does he do today? 26 of 33, 352 and three touchdowns. Quarterback rated of 141.4. But he's making throws from the pocket too.

He had a deep shot to Alshon Jeffrey where he's pressured. He's sliding in the pocket, but he makes the throw downfield. They ran a flea flicker as well. Torrey Smith with an incredible route where he makes it look like he's blocking and then just outraces the defender.

Harrison Smith recovers, but it's just a couple of steps too late. Smith gets inside the pylon. So RPOs. I expect a lot of covered two man under. This is just quick off-the-cuff analysis. I expect a lot of covered two, two high safety looks,

man underneath. Try to make sure you've got every player accounted for. Do your job type situation. Don't get sucked up with your eyes if you're a linebacker. If you're Patrick Chun, the strong safety. Don't buy into the run looks. Let the guys

up front stop the run. Do your job. That's what the Patriots do. That's what Bill Belichick that's his mantra. Do your job. That's what the Patriots do. That's what Bill Belichick, that's his mantra. Do your job. So I expect cover two, man under. Make sure everybody's accounted for.

It's like going up against a triple option team in high school. You want to run man coverage. Make sure whatever you do, you make sure that your guy's covered. Forget about everything else. And trust in your teammates to make their plays, to do their jobs. That's my off-the-cuff look at this Eagles offense

and what the Patriots have to do against it. When the Patriots have the football, I think it's a similar sort of game plan. You want to get the ball out quickly. You're probably going to want to attack the middle of the field. Similar type game plan against this Jacksonville defense. Get Danny Amendola involved. Hopefully they get Gronkowski back to work the middle of the field.

But this is going to be a fun one. And as you know, we will have this game covered for you. I'm already chatting with the boys over at Locked on Eagles, Benjamin Solak, Michael Kist, doing some crossover stuff. We're going to have this game covered for you. I'm already chatting with the boys over at Locked On Eagles, Benjamin Solak, Michael Kist, doing some crossover stuff. We're going to have this covered. Also, speaking of schedules, I will be down in Mobile for the rest of this week. We'll be doing some stuff down for Mobile, getting some guests on, maybe some player

interviews, because while we've got Super Bowl 52 to look forward to, Super Bowl 53 is a year away, and we've got to get ready for that too, right? So we'll be starting some draft coverage as well. We'll be down in Mobile. We'll be doing some stuff from down there. Maybe finding the next Tom Brady. For right now, let's keep enjoying the Tom Brady we've got, because he's a pretty darn good one.

That's been your glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you enjoyed the games. Now go relax. Maybe have an adult beverage or two. I sure will. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me,

Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patriots. I don't want to lose your love tonight