Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 7, 2018 - A Glorious Victory for Someone

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a, well, it was a glorious victory edition for somebody installment of the Locked On Patriots Podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for Sunday night, January 6th, 2019. We got two playoff games to talk about as well as the immediate and perhaps soon to be immediate future of the New England Patriots. We're going to get into the Chargers-Ravens game. We're going to get into that Bears-Eagles game. We're going to talk about what lies ahead for the New England Patriots both next weekend and beyond. That's what's on tap for today. Before we get into all of that,

though, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites, friends. As I've said before, if they cover the game of football, chances are they have me doing some work for them. I want to start with the last game of the entire weekend slate. I thought I'd just get done writing the piece for the score, sort of recap and do my by design piece where I look at the best offensive and defensive designs of the week as well as the game plan of the week. And I thought sort of this entire wildcard weekend really sort of built up

to a crescendo because that opening game between Indianapolis and Houston, like we talked about earlier today, that game pretty much was over by the end of the first quarter. You had a pretty good sense of where that game was going. Then things sort of picked up into the second half of that Dallas-Seattle game. I thought that Chargers-Ravens game, even though obviously no touchdowns scored in the first half, which we'll get to, it certainly picked up steam there in the end. And I thought this Eagles-Bears game, again, no touchdowns in the first half.

First time, I believe, in postseason history we had two playoff games on the same day that didn't have a touchdown in the first half. I thought that obviously built up to a fairly fascinating ending. So I do want to start there. And I know that people are going to look at this game and have maybe one, two, and or three takeaways from this. The first one is going to be the Eagles. They're magical. Foles is magical. And they've got it again. And there may be something to that. But let's not forget, Foles made a couple of mistakes in this game, and mistakes that I kind of thought he might make. You look at one of the interceptions he threw,

he got a sort of post-snap read that didn't match up with what he was seeing pre-snap, and he threw a pick. Then a little bit later, he got pressured, threw a pretty bad red zone interception. And so, yes, they had the pivotal plays at the end, but I'm not so sure this is the most magical game that you might expect from Nick Foles. I mean, looking at it from a pure production standpoint, 25-40 for 266, two touchdowns, two picks.

I mean, at least in terms of quarterback rating, Mitch Trubisky had a better game. QBR is a little bit different, and we can get into that at some point, perhaps in the offseason. But I think the other two things that might linger coming out of this game, one, Cody Parkey. And as somebody that covers the Bears, as somebody that has watched the Bears this year, as somebody that has sort of seen Bears Twitter and Bears, their fan base, they were terrified of this potential moment where he might have to line up and attempt a game-winning field goal. To the point where Bears media, Bears media outlets, when they got wind that he was sort of leaving the practice facility and going to Soldier Field with the holder and the snapper and the special teams coach to kick away from the team. But at Soldier Field during practices,

they would rent helicopters to try to get footage of it. It was a big story in Chicago, and so they were terrified of this potential moment. And here it came. The other story that I think people might take away from this game between the Bears and the Eagles is that Mitchell Trubisky cost this talented team a shot at a Super Bowl. I've seen that story sort of start to permeate through Twitter a little bit, especially fans of other teams saying, look, you had Khalil Mack. You had some pretty good talent on offense. You couldn't get it done because the quarterback held you back. I've seen things like training wheels and a handcuff and an anchor and stuff like that.

And I just want to remind people of sort of how I viewed Trubisky coming into the season because I think we need to sort of slow things down when it comes to that. Now, I'll preface it by saying this. Is he a developed, refined quarterback that I think you win because of? No. I think, and I said this on the QB School Show with my good buddy Michael Kisto over at Bleeding Green Nation, that he's a quarterback that perhaps you win with,

not because of you win with. You win with the guys around him giving him a help. He's not a quarterback I think you win with, not because of you win with, you win with the guys around him giving him a help. He's not a quarterback I think you win in spite of, although you might have that feeling about him right now. I think he's more that quarterback that you win with. Again, kind of a weird sort of distinction, but that's how sometimes people break quarterbacks down. But coming into this season, I thought that your goal for Mitchell Trubisky was to have an Eli Manning year two type of season. Eli Manning had a very bad rookie year. But then he sort of made like a nice little leap.

It wasn't, you know, the Jared Goff type of leap. But he made a pretty good jump from year one to year two. And if you look at what Eli Manning did as a rookie quarterback, again, obviously a different era, but he started in seven games, completed 48.2% of his passes for just over 1,000 yards, six touchdowns, nine interceptions. And then if you look at Mitchell Trubisky in his year last year, the numbers are pretty similar. You know, Trubisky last year appeared in 12 games,

completes 59.4% of his passes. Again, it's a different era for over 2,000 yards and appear in more games, but seven touchdowns, seven interceptions. And so what I said to anybody that would listen, anybody that was kind enough to have me on their shows, look, you're not expecting the Goff type of leap because the difference between Jared Goff and Mitchell Trubisky is this. Goff was a start the second he walked onto campus at Berkeley. Trubisky had to wait till his final year. Trubisky only had 12, 13 starts to him when he left and was drafted second overall. And so I think if you're expecting that big type of leap, you're getting ahead of yourself. But what I thought was that he would give you sort of Eli Manning year two. And if

you're a Bears fan, you should be happy with that. Because in year two, Manning started all 16 games. He led the Giants to an 11-5 record. The 2005 Giants, they won the NFC East, and they did lose their first playoff game, a home game against the Carolina Panthers where they got shut up. But in that year two, Eli Manning completed 52.8% of his passes. Now, they're running more of a downfield type offense, so it's a little apples to oranges as far as completion percentage.

But he throws 24 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Now let's look at Mitchell Trubisky, who this year helped lead his team to a division title and a home playoff game on wildcard weekend. And what does he do? He completes 66.6% of his passes for 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. And so I think the numbers kind of line up a bit. And so when I see the bulk of work that he put together this year, I'm pretty okay. I'm fairly fine with what he did this year is there stuff that he needs to work on yes his left foot is a mess he needs to fix that he needs to stop staring down routes he needs to get faster

with his decisions but that will come sort of in year three and i'm sort of looking at this year as almost a a redo of his rookie year. That's how important coaching and scheme fit are to a quarterback. I mean, they're important for every position, but they're critical to the development of a young quarterback. And so when I see what he did this year as opposed to last year, I'm telling you, buy Mitchell Trubisky stock now. I think year three is going to be a big year for him.

So if you're a Bears fan listening to the show, I know this one stains. But hey, I think good things are still on the horizon for the Chicago Bears. Up next, we're going to talk about a game that I think Patriots fans probably care a little bit more about. That was that early tilt between the Chargers and the Ravens. And a little bit later, we're going to talk a little bit about the future of the Patriots, both near and far. But before we do that, friends, the NFL playoffs, they are upon us. Divisional round weekend is our next stop. And that is arguably the best weekend of the football

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have a nice bankroll for playoff season. Use promo code LOCKEDON when you deposit to activate the offer. That's promo code LOCKEDON. At My bookie. You play, you win, you get paid. Mark Schofield back with you now on this, well, it was a glorious victory for somebody edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast, and let's talk Chargers Ravens. This was a fascinating

game to watch, bit of an interesting game for me, because you see, my family, we were invited to a birthday party for some close friends of ours up in Columbia, Maryland with a host of Ravens fans. So much so that the girl whose birthday party it was, her grandfather, wasn't there. He was at the game. I mean, these have been lifelong friends of mine since basically law school. I lived with the dad during law school, known them for years. Great, great friends of the family.

And they're huge Ravens fans. And so it was interesting because it was a morning kind of thing before noon because they all had to clear out and watch the game. And you could sense that there was a little bit of I don't want to say even optimism it was more of a look numbers tend to make us the favorites and that leaves us a little bit uneasy something's going to give we're going to get jinxed here we've never lost in the first round of a playoff so we're probably going to lose this one it was just a weird vibe I was getting from the Ravens fans I was around and obviously this did not get off to a good start for the Baltimore Ravens. Ravens, they had some issues early in this game.

They had some turnover problems. They had some difficulties getting the offense going. Lamar Jackson, and I'll talk about him a little bit more a little bit later here, but he got into some trouble early, had some mistakes early, had struggled getting goings early. You look at their first couple possessions of this game, they go punt in their first drive, fumble on their second drive, punt, punt, interception, punt. That was their first half. They're held scoreless in the first half. Chargers get a couple of field goals here, so it's 12-0 at halftime.

Chargers get a chance to sort of get the knockout blow, but they miss a field goal. It's kind of blocked. They had a great return of the opening kickoff, so you thought they were pretty much set up to put this away. But they don't. They sort of get a blocked field goal. Ravens go punt again,

but then the Baltimore defense finally gets sort of the big play that they need. They get a fumble by Green, and they get a chance to get at least some decent field position. They get a field goal, and then on their next possession, the Chargers have to punt. That punt is kind of blocked, and so now the Ravens take over. First and 10 of the Chargers, 40. They're down 12-9. There's still plenty of time in this game left. I mean, there's 6.54 left in the third quarter when they take over. But they miss a field goal. And I've got to tell you, you know, being down here in the Maryland area,

Justin Tucker is approaching godlike status if he's not there already. And seeing Justin Tucker miss a field goal, yeah, granted, it was a 50-yard field goal, but for him that's almost a chip shot. Seeing him miss that, you felt like, okay, this is a bad break. And then Chargers, what do they do? They go right down the field and score, and it's 20-3. Now to their credit and specifically to his credit, Lamar Jackson, he kept fighting in this game.

Got them a touchdown to get it 23-10. Got them another touchdown to make it 23-10. They got them another touchdown to make it 23-17. So they get themselves back into this game. And so I think good days are ahead for Lamar Jackson as the quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. That being said, he's got to get faster. He certainly has to get faster with his reads, with his decisions. That sack, which we're about to get into in a second, at the end, that strip sack by Nwosu.

Remember last year in the Super Bowl when I talked so much about guys getting kicked inside? Oh, Nelly, here we go again. But that was eerily reminiscent of that play a couple of weeks back in Kansas City when the Baltimore Ravens had a chance to pull out another win late. But strip sack of Lamar Jackson because he's a little bit slow with his decision, slower than he needs to be. You get the strip sack and sort of a game-saving play by the defense. But I do think bigger days are ahead for Lamar Jackson.

He needs to get consistency with his release point too. I know at times he likes to drop the arm slot and get it around defenders and get it around pass rushers, and I do like that. But he does a little bit of it too often, I'd say. But I do think better days are ahead. As for the Chargers, now you could go a couple of different ways with them. You could look at this final score and say, hey, say whatever you want about Lamar Jackson and his struggles. But the fact of the matter is he completed 14 of 29 for 194 and two touchdowns,

you know, with the one interception. But the bulk of that came in the fourth quarter when I guess you think maybe they're playing maybe softer coverage, but still, you know, if Lamar Jackson is as bad as a quarterback as some people seem to think he is on Twitter, that bad quarterback threw two touchdowns and, you know, 194 yards in his playoff debut against this defense. So that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is, now perhaps it was because they were a little bit afraid of their secondary, but the Chargers in their passing game, Rivers efficient in terms of his completion percentage, 22 of 32, but for just 160 yards, averaging five yards an attempt, that was actually less than Lamar Jackson, who averaged 6.7.

And so you could look at that in addition to the run game, which struggled to get going for them. 33 carries were just 89 yards. And you might think, this is an offense that kind of struggled. This is a defense that gave him some plays to Lamar Jackson. How good is this team? And this is the defense, this is the team that kind of struggled. This is a defense that gave him some plays to Lamar Jackson. How good is this team? And this is the team that I thought scared me the most about a potential matchup for the New England Patriots.

Well, we're getting that matchup. And part of the reason why this team still scares me, and it's a repeat of what we saw at the end of the Super Bowl last year, their ability to be creative up front. You look at that strip sack and i just got done writing about this and yes lamar needs to get faster and i don't anticipate tom brady being as slow with his decisions in the pocket as lamar jackson is what they do on that place they take melvin ingram one of their best pass rushers an edge type guy they put him inside over the left

guard outside of ingram is joey bosa so there are your two best pass rushers on one side so they pretty much slide the center that way giving you a pair of one-on-ones backside and it gets you know Nwosu one-on-one against Orlando Brown who was a potential first round pick who fell into the third because of concerns about a lack of strength and athleticism that sort of creativity up front from Anthony Lynn and Gus Bradley, we're going to see more of that next week. You're going to see situations where they're going to put Ingram and Bosa on the same side, so you're going to slide the protection that way, giving you some one-on-ones. Now, is Marcus Cannon a better right tackle than Orlando

Brown? I think right now he is, and so maybe we don't have that concern is tom brady going to be quicker with his reads and decisions than lamar jackson i certainly hope so because if he's not we get a bigger issue to worry about and so i think after watching this game i feel a little bit better about this potential not potential but this chargers patriots matchup that being said there are still some things that the Chargers can do that will create some problems for New England. This is by no means a gimme type game. And if you look at early odds numbers from Vegas, this is the closest game of the week. New England favored by four, which basically with the home field advantage, New England favored by one. Closest game of the week out of any of the four games. And that includes two six seeds going on the road.

And so that tells you how Vegas sort of views the Patriots right now. But I think the Patriots will get obviously the boost of a week resting. Chargers coming to East for the second straight week. I don't know if they're going to stay out here or if they're going to go back and then go back again. So that will be interesting to watch. Chargers notoriously, although it didn't really happen today, but they have tended to have some slow starts in games when they have to come east. So that will also be interesting to watch. And let's not forget, these two teams played last year.

The Patriots won that game also with Gillette. So there's going to be some great stuff to break down. We're going to get into that as we sort of roll through this week. And remember, Tape Tuesday is going to be a look at the Chargers offense. Tape Wednesday, two tape shows this week. Get excited, friends. Nerdy football stuff coming your way. Tape Wednesday is going to be a look at that Chargers defense.

They're going to do all sorts of fun stuff. We'll have some crossover stuff in there as well. So it's going to be a fantastic, fantastic week here at Locked on Patriots. Up next, we're going to talk about those New England Patriots and both the near and the more immediate future. I may have butchered that, but you'll see where I'm going with it in a second. That's ahead. On this, well, it was a glorious victory for somebody edition of the Locked On Patriots

podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now on this, well, it was a glorious victory for somebody edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And let's talk ever so briefly, because we're going to do it so much this week, you might get sick of it, about the Chargers, just for a second. And remember, this was the team that, before this weekend started, I said this is probably going to be the toughest matchup for the Patriots. You look at them from DVOA on offense and defense.

You look at what they can do schematically. You look at how the Patriots have been able to dial up pressure this year. Seriously, I'll talk about it a little bit more as we get through this week. But the Patriots have been dialing up pressure and getting pressure on passers this year despite low sack numbers. The problem? Phillip Rivers is very good this year against pressure. And I've talked about that a ton. And a matter of fact, if you watch this game that went down today,

the Ravens got after Rivers a ton. They only sacked him once. Because he's got that ability to sort of extend plays, to hand in there, take shots, throw the ball away at times. And so it's going to be interesting to see that sort of scenario play itself out. And so I do think that there are some matchup problems between these two teams that obviously I'm not alone in seeing because you look at what Vegas is looking at when it comes to this game. The early number is New England minus four.

And so it's going to be interesting to see the storylines play themselves out this week. A big storyline to watch is going to be Melvin Gordon. You know, he got banged up a little bit in this game. He's been dealing with a knee injury. You know, obviously he came back, he he scored a touchdown had that weird play you know late in that game where it looked like they were scoring the knockout blow but then he was ruled down even though the Ravens scooped up what might have been a fumble return the other way that was one of the rare moments I've seen in football where you've got a review and it's potentially a touchdown

from one team or the other kind of a a weird situation. So the Gordon thing will be interesting to watch. Rivers against pressure will be interesting to watch. The other thing that I want to point out, Lynn and Bradley did a fantastic job how they handled that Baltimore running game, which was obviously going to be the focus going in. Rather than loading the box with a bunch of big guys, they went light. They almost went in the sort of New England direction. Remember earlier this year, I talked so much about the 3-2-6, how they were using Patrick Chun as an extra sort of linebacker, even though it gave them some flexibility. Chargers did a ton of similar stuff with a lot of 6-7 defensive back packages, even though they were looking to do that to stop the run. So creativity from those guys this this week they might have to go in a similar

direction or a different direction who knows what we're going to see from them but creative game plan from them i want to close it out speaking of creativity saw a report today that i just wanted to get into the patriots are preparing for the departure of offensive coordinator josh mcdaniels to either the browns or the packers and could pursue Cliff Kingsbury to replace him. And that's per Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk. And I want to take the McDaniels thing and just put it to the side because it was assumed that he was going to be gone last year. We've kind of assumed that he was going to be gone this year,

given the fact that he's still getting consideration for these jobs. Anybody that thought the Indianapolis Colts, they might have given him sort of the black mark, the scarlet letter. Not so much. Teams are still interested in him. But I want to talk about the possibility about Cliff Clainsbury. Now, there are a couple of things that might make you want to pour a little bit of water on this fire.

One is the fact that USC, who is currently his employer as an offensive coordinator, has kind of put the kibosh on allowing him to even interview. So that's issue number one. Now, obviously, there's a way around that. He can just quit and sort of roll the dice that he's going to get a gig. But if the potential New England Patriots offensive coordinator job is dangled in front of you, maybe you do that. The other thing, pointed out by Matt Minich, at Coach Minich, C-O-A-C-H-M-I-N-I-C-H on Twitter, also doesn't

fit the Patriots' MO to go outside the organization, and there is some credence to that. Definitely a consideration there. They tend to promote within it, and so the speculation was if McDaniels moves on, you'd see a shadow shake. But I'll give you two reasons why I'm incredibly excited about the potential of Cliff Clinsbury. One, the offensive creativity. Even though McDaniels has done what I think is a very good job with his offense, and I talk about his ability to use motion and get matchups and things like that all the time, you're still going to want to get a creative coach in Cliff Clainsbury if he's your offensive coordinator. You look back at the rise of Patrick Mahomes and you look back at what

Mahomes was doing at Texas Tech, there was a lot of creativity to that offense. People might say, well, it's just the Big 12, nobody plays defense. They're still doing some creative stuff. It was still a pretty advanced playbook. Now, I wouldn't expect them to come in with Cliff Clansbury and tell Tom Brady, you're running the air raid now. It would look more like what we've seen. But I think for the post-Brady era, if you were going to look for an offensive mind to help guide you into that post-Brady era,

you want somebody of the more new school. Because let's face it, you might be looking at developing a more spread-type quarterback that's just throw out a name. Will Greer. How about that? Say the Patriots draft Will Greer in the second round to potentially take over from Tom Brady. Cliff Clainsbury might be the guy to guide that transition. Somebody that's familiar with what he's run. Somebody that's familiar with the schemes that he has been implementing for the past season at West Virginia. And so he'd be the perfect kind of mind to shape the next era of Patriots offensive football.

I'm extremely excited about that potentiality. And look at it from Clainsbury's point of view. Imagine being the guy to take over as the offensive coordinator to guide the Patriots into that era of life after TB12. Imagine if you could sit back here like three years, four years from now and say, look, Tom Brady retired. We still saw offensive production when he left. Why? Because what I did, boom, mic drop. Maybe, maybe he could do that. Maybe not. But wouldn't you want that challenge? And people might say with Klinsberg, oh, he couldn't recruit to Texas Tech, never won at Texas Tech. That's when he was asked to do everything, not just be the

offensive coordinator. And so I think I'm beyond excited about that potentiality. Will it happen? Will it come to fruition? We don't know. But if it does, count me aboard the cliff train. Although I did get a funny series of tweets from somebody on Twitter. I'm trying to see who is tweeting me these. Jociamartar, at Jociamartar, I hope I pronounced that right.

Brady will go to Kraft and block this. He won't allow someone so handsome. I thought that was a pretty funny quote. Pretty funny tweet. A perfect way to end the show. That will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow with a tape Tuesday looking at the Chargers getting this down in two pieces.

We'll get hopefully a crossover show in here. Maybe some other guests are going to try to do it up for this game because it's going to be a big one. That will do it for today. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.