Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 24, 2019 - Super Bowl Crossover the First

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

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Hello, everybody, and welcome into a special Super Bowl edition of our crossover series, typically on Wednesdays, but we're sneaking in a little bonus round here on the Thursday episode. I am Bear Motter, the host of Lockdown Rams. I'm joined by Mark Schofield of Lockdown Patriots. Mark, congratulations and how are you doing? Brad, I'm doing well. Congratulations to you as well.

I am coming to you from Mobile, Alabama. I'm down here for the Senior Bowl. And I can tell you and I can tell Rams fans that just from a quick sort of informal poll from other media members, people in the stands, it seems to be a very pro-Rams media contingent down here. And that's just not from the Rams media people. That's from everybody. So Rams fans should be proud to know that the majority of the country, I believe, is pulling for you guys over the next couple of weeks. So there is that to work with.

Yeah, it's something that I think we'll see over the next couple of weeks. So there is that to work with. Yeah, it's something that I think we'll see over the next couple weeks as well. I mean, it's hard when, you know, obviously the Patriots have gone three consecutive years. I think it's four out of the last five years. So the rest of the country starts to go anybody but the Patriots. I mean, we saw it in the NBA for a while when the Lakers had their dominant stretch and the Spurs had their dominant stretch. And you're just kind of you want someone fresh and new in there. And it couldn't be a better matchup as far as someone that's been there forever. Obviously, Tom Brady going to his ninth

Super Bowl, as well as Bill Belichick. And, you know, here come the young Rams, Sean McVay in his second year as head coach, Jared Goff, the first number one draft pick to make it to the Super Bowl in his first three years. So a very, very different side coming into this game, both teams as they look at this Super Bowl week. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's a very great point sort of about, you know, Jared Goff get into this Super Bowl in his second year. Well, I guess third year now. And, you know, it speaks to how the Rams have become, you know, so good, so quickly, you know, building around Goff, building around McVay. And, of course, I think it's an easy storyline to sort of bring up over the next couple of weeks. And I'm sure we won't be the first. We will definitely not be the last to sort of talk about things coming full circle

between Brady getting his first Super Bowl against the Rams back in that 2001-2002 season. And now here's a chance where the Rams are sort of the younger upstarts with a chance to knock off the team that people are pointing to as a dynasty-type team here in the New England Patriots. Definitely will be a storyline. Definitely something, obviously, you've heard heard the largest gap between starting quarterbacks. I think it's 17 years, something close to that, between the two. So, yeah, I think Jared Goff was seven years old when Tom Brady made his first appearance into the Super Bowl.

So, yeah, tons of stuff to get into throughout the next couple weeks. I'm sure that will be a storyline, something that I want to talk to you guys about, you know, especially since we've been so focused on the NFC and what's going on right in front of us. We haven't had a chance. Obviously, football fans were watching everything that's going on in the NFL. But I want to talk about something that will probably be talked about a little bit more as we start to get closer. But that's injuries of both teams and where we sit at that goes. The Rams released their first injury report, and actually, surprisingly enough, Greg Zerline is on that report as did not practice. They kind of came out and said it's not a big deal,

that he just kind of bumps and bruises. When you kick the ball four times and one 57-yarders to win it, you come out of the game a little banged up. So I don't think it's going to be anything serious. Blake Countless was on that injury report as well. He was a little banged up, expected to come back to practice soon. think it's going to be anything serious. Blake Countless was on that injury report as well. He was a little banged up, expected to come back to practice soon. But on your side, what do the injuries look like coming into this game? Is it a factor or are you guys coming in pretty healthy?

New England's coming into this game incredibly healthy. You look at the injury report that they released, there are no players listed with any designation. It's a completely clean bill of health right now for New England. And it's come at a sort of, you know, it's a very welcome bit of news for New England Patriots and New England Patriots fans. Because over the last, say, three or four weeks of the season, you know, when you looked at Robert Gronkowski, for example, you know, there were some concerns with him perhaps not being fully healthy. You looked at Tom Brady and there were some rumors swarming about a potential knee injury, perhaps a potential MCL injury. But it seems when they got that bye week and they had the chance to rest up during the wildcard week, you know, they did get back to sort of full health and they're a fully healthy team right now, which I think at this point in the season, you know, that's one of

those things that if you are lucky enough to be in that position, you sort of, you know, thank the gods for something like that. Because, you that because over the course of the football season, you're going to get guys banged up, but to be fully healthy is a great thing for this team headed into a Super Bowl. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's awesome to see both teams very healthy and coming into this game. Obviously, the best of the best kind of showing down. We've got C.J. Anderson who kind of claims himself to be the healthiest person or the

freshest person in the playoffs. He's only had about four or five games under his belt. So he's, he's claiming that he is the freshest coming into this, but it's going to be fun to watch these two teams fully healthy, throw it down for the Superbowl, Superbowl 53 down in Atlanta. What we're going to do is we're going to step aside, get a couple words from some sponsors. We'll be back on the other side, Thursday edition, crossover, Super Bowl edition, Mark Schofield, Bear Motter, right after this. All right, guys, we are back. This is our second segment. We are starting to break down this Super Bowl. I'm sure both of you guys, or both of us, have kind of talked about the games of past,

and both of us went in time. We had crazy games, some questionable calls in both games, but it doesn't matter. This is where we are at. These are the two teams fighting for a championship. And Mark, really quick. You said you're down at the senior bowl.

I know it's only been a day or maybe two. I'm not sure how long it's been going on. I think since Tuesday, if I'm correct. But any prospects kind of jumping out? I mean, me, me and you are going to be near the end of the draft.

I know we both have probably different needs coming into this, but any late round surprises you may see there? You know, it's been interesting. It's been a strange sort of week down here in Mobile because Tuesday the weather was a little drizzly, a little cold, a little overcast, but practices were open as they usually were at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, you know, the home of South Alabama here. But Wednesday's practices were moved inside to the practice bubble on campus.

It was basically closed to the media because we had thunderstorms rolling through Mobile basically all day. We're recording this now on Wednesday night, and there just was a clap of thunder that I think scared most of football Twitter under their desks or their beds in their hotel rooms. It was that sort of loud. And because of that, we haven't seen anything from sort of Wednesday's practices. There's a sort of pool report. It's almost like covering politics where you get sort of the pool report from the news pool around the president, for example. We got a pool report on the practice today. So that kind of interesting but as far as so from Tuesday's practices there is a receiver down here Andy Isabella from you know University of Massachusetts he's a tiny little slot receiver he measured in about just under five foot nine inches 186 pounds but he's one of those guys that shows you quickness off the line of scrimmage he can

beat the press at the line of scrimmage, sort of Hammond Hunter Renfro, the wide receiver from Clemson university, who we can all joke about. It seems like he's been there since the Reagan administration, but those two guys have put on a pretty good show so far from what we've seen, you know, and for two offenses that like to use a lot of wide receivers,

we know the Rams run an 11 personnel, that three book wide receiver group pretty much exclusively, except, you know, last week in the NFC championship game where they used more two tight ends. And of course the New England Patriots, anytime you see a shifty little slot receiver type, you think, oh, well, that's a Bill Belichick kind of guy. Rams fans, Patriots fans, you probably want to at least do some homework on those guys because they might be guys that you might see these two teams look for in those later rounds. I love it.

Great analysis. Guys, go make sure to check out Mark on Twitter. It's at Mark Schofield. He's been down there. He's covering all this stuff. He's going to continue to cover it. Great draft knowledge. So Rams fans, whether it's for our team or not, go check out his stuff that he's putting out. Always great content.

And we're glad to be able to do this crossover. And you're right, it's crazy how Belichick and McVay, very two different stories, kind of like the quarterbacks, but at the same time, very similar in the same sense. I mean, I talked about it throughout the year. McVay has Belichick-isms when it comes to the injury report and what he gives the media. It's maybe not as dry

as Bill Belichick, but you can see some of those similarities there. You talked about that slot receiver, that tiny slot receiver that both our teams seem to love. Cooper Cup, obviously a guy that's not an injury report because he's done for the season, but a big injury that is kind of affecting the Rams. And we saw some struggle with them when he first went out, but that is not the case. And I want to talk about a guy on your team that kind of reverse struggled a little bit earlier in the season, but has come on hot as late. Obviously Patriots and Rams fans know about this guy, Rob Gronkowski, but he had six catches, 74 yards in the game versus Kansas City. And it seemed to

be like Tom Brady just kind of went back to what he knows works. And that's a lot of Edelman. And that's a lot of Gronkowski. But talk to me about where he's been all season and really kind of getting hot as of late, because I think he's only had about four or five games where he's had six catches or more. So he's getting hot at the right time. Talk to me about how, you know, where he's at. Yeah, it's been a very strange sort of season for Gronkowski. It's been a very un-Gronk-like

year. There are some games where he wasn't a factor at all, you know, in the passing game. When you look at that game against the Chargers, he had a couple of catches here and there, but he was mainly used as a blocker. And, you know, when his career is over, when it's all said and done, he will be,ed for his ability as a blocker, not just a receiver. A lot of times, because of what he can do in the passing game, his ability to block both sometimes in pass protection for Brady or as a run blocker at the point of attack sometimes gets overlooked. But going into this AFC Championship game, Patriots fans sort of almost viewed him as basically an athletic sixth offensive lineman for them because he was used primarily as a blocker. But in that Chiefs game, you look at the overtime drive, some of the other drives at the end of regulation, they did a lot with getting him isolated.

This is obviously something that Sean McVay likes to do with their tight ends as well, whether it's Hapy or Everett. We can get those guys isolated, force the defense to the side. Who are you going to put out there to cover the tight end? The touchdown at the end of that Chiefs game was on one of those situations where they put Everett isolated to the right side and threw a vertical ball to him. They did some of that stuff with Gronk near the end.

They had the fade route along the left sideline, and then that big third down conversion in overtime on a slant route to Gronkowski was a play that actually they didn't have in the game plan. They installed it basically last minute on Saturday before the game. They figured, look, we might want to put this in just to have it. They ran it a couple of times in a walkthrough situation. And then on the biggest drive of their season, they go to it. And so that shows you sort of that they still have confidence in Gronkowski to be a matchup

weapon that they can put outside, put them in those Y ISO formations and try to get them the ball in space. But it's been a very ungronk like year. And it's led to sort of people wondering there was a report before their division around game, Adam Schefter had it out or Ian Rappaport, one or the other that it might've been his last game. He might walk away at the end of the season. And that is something that the Patriots fans are wondering, you know,

is this going to be the last time we see number 87 in a Patriots uniform? Yeah, that's a great question. And there's always talk, especially with the Patriots, they seem to kind of sell high in a weird way. You thought they might have tried to move Gronkowski even a year or two ago. There was always kind of speculation of that never happened. But you're right with injury with maybe some of the talks about how much Tom Brady has left it's going to be interesting to see really where Gronk goes after this season and defending on how he finishes out I mean if you go and get another ring that might make it a little bit easier to walk away and at the same time if you go all the

way and lose it might really kind of drive you to come back for one more so this game crazy how it will play out and really kind of affect people moving forward. But you talked about him as an athletic extra lineman, basically. And you can tell because the Patriots have averaged, I think, about 125 yards on the ground this year. It's fifth best in the NFL. The Rams really were terrible almost the whole season defending the run. Gave up about five yards per carry.

And the playoffs, different story. They've really been able to hang their hat on it, slow down that running game. You guys, I mean, we've gone against, it's kind of crazy looking at how the Rams got here. They went versus Zeke Elliott, really a one-man wrecking crew. Then we went to Alvin Kamara and Ingram, the two-man group. And then all of a sudden here we got Sonny Michel, James White, and Rex Burkhart, now a three-man group. Talk to me about those three.

Obviously Michel is probably more of the pure runner, but how kind of that matchup is going to look? It's always a fascinating question, and I get asked it a ton, as you probably expect. Try to outline what the Patriots are going to do in the offensive backfield with their running backs. And it seems like from a week to week basis, I get it wrong. Every time I try to make a prediction as to who they're going to use, who they're going to lean on at the backfield, they go in a different direction. Because coming

into that game against the Chiefs, I said, you're going to see a steady dose of Sonny Michel. And he had over a hundred yards rushing. And then they're going to really rely on James White as a receiver out of the backfield. And he had some big plays. He had a big catch and run on a screen in the first half of that game. But they really relied on Rex Burkhead as more of a true focus running back, and he had two rushing touchdowns in that game. They like to get matchups.

They will identify which player of those three gives them the best sort of skill set matchup for a particular game against a particular defense? And so sitting here right now, a week and a half before the Super Bowl, having what we've seen, what we saw last week, I might say it's going to be another Rex Burkhead week. You know, he's somebody that they can run inside the tackles, but they will also motion him out, use him as more of a receiver. Similar to how they use James White. James White, if he's on the field, nine times out of 10, they are going to throw the football. That's how they use him. They use him as a receiver slash running back out of the backfield receiver. He's not going to get a ton of carries, although he had a couple of early

carries in that game against the Chiefs on third downs and little draws. If Sonny Michel is in the game, chances are he's going to be lined up behind fullback James Devlin, and they're going to run the football. This is a team that has become sort of a 21-personnel team a little bit here down the stretch. They like to use that. They love their fullback James Devlin. If there's an unsung hero to this Patriots offense, it's him, number 46.

The game-winning touchdown, it was a power play right behind him, and he had the critical block to lead the way. And so it's an interesting group, those four running backs, including Devlin in the mix. I'm always curious to see how they use them, and I'm going to be so curious to see how they use them in the Super Bowl. Yeah, that is the most frustrating part about that running back by committee that they do, and especially, I mean, you want to go into the fantasy world.

I think everyone tries to stay away from those backs, but it's tempting because they put up points occasionally, but you never know who it's going to be. You said it best right there. I mean, one week it's, you know, Michelle going off, and the next week they go pass heavy and it's White kind of taking over. I think that's going to be the biggest challenge for the Rams is, one, you know, noticing who's in the backfield

and then trying to understand what they're trying to do back there. But that's what Bill Belichick does best, is he's going to try to show you a tendency and then go a different way with it. Very much same to Sean McVay. So it's going to be a fun game to watch for sure. What we're going to do is we're going to step aside, get a couple more words from some sponsors.

We'll be back on the other side, Thursday edition, crossover, Mark Schofield, Bear Motter, right after this. All right, we are back. The special edition Super Bowl. We get two of them this week or these couple weeks as far as crossovers go. It's always exciting.

Guys, make sure to go give us a follow at LockedOnPatriots, at LockedOnRams. Go check us out. We're on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcast. Leave a review. Us two made it to the championship.

It's kind of fun, Mark. I mean, you know, we're in this community of the LockedOn Podcast Network, and it's almost like this little mini tournament. And somehow me and you, you know, following our teams, have made it here to the Super Bowl. Really exciting. Going down into Atlanta. You know, talk to me a little bit about maybe the path that you guys took to get here.

And was there a time throughout the season that maybe you had a little bit of doubt that the Patriots could do it three times in a row? I think if you ask any Patriots fan, the season was filled with doubt. I mean, back in the summer on my show, I talked a lot about the feeling of general unease around this team going into this season, because obviously they lose a Super Bowl. And we've seen historically teams that lose Super Bowls often struggle even more to get back than the team that wins it, you know, because there's that sort of handover type effect where the team that loses it, you get so close and then you have that sort of drop off the next season.

And they start one and two. You lose two road games, one at Detroit, one against Jacksonville, which was an AFC championship game rematch. But those are two teams that didn't get into the playoffs. They lose a game to Tennessee. They get blown out at Tennessee, basically, and that's a team that didn't make the playoffs. Then they lose those two straight games down the stretch when they had a chance to still get into the top spot in the AFC, but they lose that, you know,

that game in Miami and sort of horrific fashion where they have that final play where Gronkowski is out there playing deep safety and he can't make a tackle. And then the next week they lose, you know, at Pittsburgh, another team that doesn't make the playoffs and and Brady's throwing a bad interception, and they can't get into the end zone late on a subsequent drive. And so this was a season filled with doubt. They finally get into the playoffs as the two seed, but it seemed like everybody sort of picked the Chargers

to go into Foxborough and beat them in the divisional round. And so it's been a weird year for Patriots fans. This team was a team that played bad on the road. They were 3-5 on the road this season, and so even when they made it to the AFC Championship game, there were still people that said, I don't know if they can do it on the road. So it's been an up-and-down year, but what about you guys?

Because it seems like for a lot of people, myself included, I picked Patriots-Rams at the start of this season. I thought these were going to be the two best teams. They're both here, but did it seem like for you guys, maybe that stretch near the end of the season where I thought these were going to be the two best teams. They're both here. But did it seem like for you guys maybe that stretch near the end of the season where maybe it wasn't going to happen? Yeah, there was definitely some shaky times. And that was the crazy thing about this Rams team is just what they went through all season.

Obviously, they had a shooting just up the road from their facility. They had the California fires. We were supposed to go to Mexico to play a game that didn't work. They were stuck in Colorado Springs, came back to LA, played a game. There was just a lot of things kind of going on. We had a couple of really key injuries throughout the way. And the crazy thing is through all of that, you know, we were, we put up all these wins and there were seem to be at a point and you talked about, you picked them before the season started and, you know,

it was kind of one of those hot picks, but throughout the season, people were still putting them there, putting them there. And then we go and lose two games back to back against some really tough opponents, bears and Eagles. And it just, the floor fell out. Like everyone in the national media was like about time they were exposed. It was too young, not good enough, not ready for the moment, can't play on the road, can't play against a tough defense. And so a lot of external doubts started coming. I think we really just wanted to see this team continue to play through some of those things. The addition of CJ Anderson was huge. Todd Gurley sitting out, it was thoughts back to the season before

when we sat all of our starters on week 17 and came in and we came out pretty flat in the playoffs against Atlanta and really struggled. But, uh, you know, as for us, there was, it's kind of just riding the wave. You know, we saw them go up and down through everything throughout the season. So you just wanted to see them get a chance to prove themselves that game versus the Cowboys. I think it has been the most stressful game for me that first playoff game uh even more than going on the road of the Saints and in a weird way even more than going down the Super Bowl because in a weird way I feel like we're kind of playing with free money at this point because everyone kind of had us doubted

at that first part even against Dallas and and you know what we had done the previous year losing at home so uh excited to see kind of how they were able to make this season as a whole kind of make sense. They were always having to move practice or do something different. So the whole aspect of coming down to the Super Bowl for almost our whole team, I think we only have four players on our team that's been to a Super Bowl before. This is going to be a lot of new information that they're taking in, a lot of different things coming from all angles, family, media, coaches, all that. So I think the type of year that we had is almost built them ready for

this game. So it gives me that extra little confidence that if things don't go exactly as planned, that they're going to be able to kind of keep it moving forward. We saw it in both the games against the Saints, the first one that they came back down 21 points. And then the game just last week where they came back down early in that first quarter. And I guess that would kind of transition me into the next question that I have is, you know, you kind of mentioned it, you know, you guys were in the Super Bowl last year and you lost and you thought maybe that would be a tough thing to overcome. It is. You see those teams that make the Super Bowl. You've got those shorter offseason, especially when you lose. They came back.

They're here again. But they started really slow in the Super Bowl last year. And then looking back to this last week, they started really hot. What do you expect out of these Patriots on the start of this game? And obviously it can be a big advantage at the end of the day. It really doesn't matter. It's a fascinating question. I think Patriots fans would love to see a similar start to what we saw last week.

And, you know, again, Patriots are going to be going up against a very high-powered, explosive offense that can put up points. And so what you kind of want to do, I think, as a team is to have your open and drive unfold the way it did for the Patriots against the Chiefs. Nice sort of ball control drive. You work seven, eight minutes off the clock, get yourselves a touchdown and link turnaround and get that defensive stop, which is the way the Patriots started that game against the, you know, AFC in the AFC championship game against the Chiefs. But I hope that the,

you know, I would think the Patriots fans wouldn't want to see the next couple of drives because Brady had that bad interception, which sort of, you know, ended a chance of going up 14-0 very early on in that game and could have really changed the complexion of it. But Super Bowls always start quirky. I mean, we see strange things. You know, that's the thing about the Super Bowl, which makes it, you know, sort of the ultimate in sports entertainment more than anything else is that you will have unsung heroes.

I mean, I can certainly envision a scenario in which this game ends, you know, Jim Nance is handed a Lombardi trophy to Sean McVay and that he's calling up CJ Anderson for his MVP award. And I mean, what a storyline that would be. I mean, we see things like these unfold, stories like that unfold all the time. You know, I'm sure that there will be some unsung heroes, some incredible moments. Patriots fans would love to see a similar start like we saw last week. But the Rams are an explosive offense with a defense that,

and guys like Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh on the inside, they have the potential to do what tends to be Tom Brady's sort of weakness, is to attack them with quick interior pressure. I think that might be the biggest matchup this week, man, is that those two guys against the three interior linemen of the Patriots, you know, David Andrews, their center and their guards, Joe Thurdy and Shaq Mason. You're going to hear those five names, you know, when you include, you know, Sue and Donald a lot over the next week and a half. You know, if you're a fan of watching interior play, if you're a fan of watching the action in the trenches, this is going to be a game to get excited over because those are five very talented players at what they do. I'm excited to continue to break this game down with you over next week as well and talk

about this. It seems like the game is forever away, but just around the corner. And I think for Rams fans coming into this game and looking, you know, our first Super Bowl since 2001 is just going out there and getting on the board early, getting some points up, being able to kind of shake those cobwebs out and give them confidence to kind of play with the big boys. Shall you say, I mean,

the guys that have been there, you know, like I said, for the last five years. So I think that's going to be key for us. It's just hanging in tight, whether it's going up and getting a small lead or even just staying within three points.

We saw how far that could go in the game, in the NFC championship game, being able to be within striking distance and allow this offense to just kind of play through what it did all season, which is just as long as we can keep getting some drives and get some momentum, they will able to get that offense going, even if it does start out slow. I can't wait to talk about that interior matchup with Donald versus that O-line. I do want to, before we get out of here, you know, I posted a video that I kind of saw from Marcus Cannon, offensive lineman. Were you able to see that of him talking about Ndamukong Su?

You know, that's one of those moments where you almost want to say, be careful what you wish for. Because I understand how, you know, now you might want to get excited. You got a chance to go up against some of the best guys on the other side of the ball, but, you know, almost making that statement where, you know, you want to get somebody, you want to get your, your shot at a guy like Dominick and Sue, you know, from me watching that as a former quarterback is one of those moments where

I'm like, man, did you just say that? Cause now, you know, what's going to happen, man, I'm going to be the one that's taking the pound and not you. So I'm sure we'll hear a lot about it over the next week and a half. I'm sure Canada will get asked about it at media day. It might be a new cycle or two that sort of gets driven by those comments. Obviously, look, when it comes down to it, when this game starts, it's one of those games that if you're a player in it

and you can't get motivated for it, there's got to be kind of something wrong with you because it's the ultimate it's the chance to you know win a Lombardi trophy and to have your name sort of forever etched in history of the sport but yeah as a former quarterback I saw that I'm like man don't do something to get that guy riled up because the last thing you need is that guy with yet more of an edge to him when it comes to kickoff time yeah I think my favorite part about that was when he looked at the guy whoever was recording i still don't know who recorded that and he was like don't get that on camera like he was just he knew he was busted he was like oh no this is not good this is not good yeah his his eyes his look was like oh crap did i just do this okay well i

was joking you know i mean bill belichick probably said something to him because you know bel, Belichick likes to say, you know, he says things like my snap face. He doesn't talk about social media. You know, you don't even want not kind of wonder if he even knows how to open a Twitter account, but he knows all this stuff. And so I'm sure Belichick took him aside and said, man, dude, you can't be doing stuff like this. You can't give them bulletin board material. Not before Super Bowl. Exactly. Well, we're going to have another chance to kind of go at this again,

talk a little bit more. We'll get into predictions next week. We'll talk about some more key matchups. But, Mark, I appreciate your time. Guys, again, make sure you go give us both a follow. You can find him at Mark Schofield. You can also find him at Lockdown Patriots. For myself, it's at LA underscore Rambling Bear on Twitter,

as well as LockedOnRams. Google, Spotify, and iTunes. We are all over all three of those. So check us out. Download it. Leave a review. Share with some friends. Let's grow this.

We're really excited. Mark, I look forward to it. Thanks again, and we'll talk again soon. Thanks again, my friend. This was a blast. Can't wait to do it again in a week. And we've got two great know, two great teams, two tons of storylines to get into,

X's and O's and everything else. And it's going to be a lot of fun breaking it down with you.