Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 8, 2018 - Wild-Card Weekend and a Look at Tennessee

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

Mark Schofield recaps the Wild-Card Weekend that was, and begins looking ahead to the Titans.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome on into Locked On Patriots for Monday, January 8th. Mark Schofield here with you in the big chair as I am five days a week, bringing you all the Patriots news, notes, and analysis that you need to get ready for their upcoming game or at some point their upcoming draft. Going to do a couple of things today. We're going to recap the wild card weekend that was. Got to say, took some L's on the Saturday games. Both road teams pulling out victories.

I guess you could say I did not see that coming. Then both home teams pulling out wins on Sunday. We're going to kind of go in reverse chronological order here because I think that makes the most sense given that this is locked on Patriots. Then we're going to come back to that Titans team at the end of this show, talk just briefly about some of the schematic stuff

that I saw from their game against Kansas City because now we're going to look ahead. It's Titans week, folks. Tennessee Titans off their wildcard round victory over the Kansas City Chiefs will be coming to Foxborough for Saturday night. But let's start with the Sunday games first. For the third time this season, the Carolina Panthers and the St. Louis, excuse me, whoa. For the third time this season, the Carolina Panthers and the St. Louis Rams, excuse me, whoa, for the third time this season, the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints squared off. It was the home team, the New Orleans Saints, coming up with a 31-26 victory. And a couple of things to break down from this game. First, you know, this is sort of new look Saints offense with the two running backs Mark Ingram Alvin Kamara you know

you look at this team now we've talked about it a little bit this year on this show and elsewhere you know those two running backs their ability both in the past game and in the ground game were able to take some of the pressure off Drew Brees over the course of this year. You know, this was traditionally the Saints were a team that, you know, how'd they win? They won with Drew Brees putting up incredible numbers and overcoming, you know, perhaps a less than stellar run game, perhaps a less than stellar defense. You know, you look at this ground game over the course of this season, it was slow to

start the year, but then, you know, a ground game that went for 149 in their first win back in week three over Carolina, the first time these two teams met, went for 193 against Detroit in week six in a win, 151 in week nine in a win over Tampa Bay, 298 in a win on the road at Buffalo. This was a ground game that sort of got cranking as the year started to go along here. And so part of the thinking in playing a team like the New Orleans Saints right now is obviously you do have to worry about Drew Brees,

but you want to see if you can, you know, slow down that ground game a little bit. You're talking about, at least in terms of yards per game, the number five run game in the league coming into the playoffs and the wildcard weekend, averaging 129.4 yards per game on the ground. But the Panthers did that. They held New Orleans to 41 yards on 22 carries.

Saints did have two Russian touchdowns in this game. One from Alvin Kamara. One from Zach Line. Always nice when you get the fullback touchdown, right? So they were able to slow down the run game, but what happens is you get a Drew Brees performance like we expect to see from Drew Brees. He goes 23 of 33 for 376. Two touchdowns.

Did have one interception. Only sacked once in the game. Hit a big 70 yarder to Ted Ginn. First touchdown of the game. Coming late in the first quarter. That play on a little dagger concept. In cut from the

outside receiver. Seam deep route from the inside receiver. One of those plays where you expect that deep route, that vertical route that you'd see from Ginn to sort of soften up the underneath throw to the dig, but secondary sort of collapsed on the dig route. Ginn was open over the top. But it was a great performance from Drew Brees.

Other thing to really talk about in this game, obviously there's sort of the issue with the concussion or maybe it wasn't a concussion. Cam Newton taking a huge hit in that game. Drops to a knee before walking off the field. So obviously the concussion protocol coming into play, but here's sort of the thing with that, and I know isolated stories and anecdotes aren't really evidence,

but back when I was playing, we were playing at Williams my junior year, and our starting quarterback was dealing with ankle injuries all season long, I had started one game in his place. I had played a ton that year because of him in and out of the lineup. Re-injured the ankle on a second down throw and just immediately sort of limped off to the sideline. And what happened is I had to then get into the game because the play clock was running.

You don't want to burn a timeout unless you absolutely have to. And so you don't even have a moment to think. It's just like playing another position when suddenly you're back in the field. And I remember after the game was, after the game was over, quarterback meeting Monday afternoon, our head coach basically told our starter, look, if you've got to come out, that's fine.

You've got to drop to a knee. You've got to drop to the ground. You've got to get a stoppage so we can get with Mark, so we can get everybody on the same page to run the next play. Because basically what happened was we put Mark in a bad spot. And so looking at how sort of Cam dropped like that, I wouldn't be surprised if it sort of was a situation where you got to get the stoppage to get Derek Anderson a chance to get the stoppage to get Derek Anderson

a chance to you know take the hat off get the helmet take some snaps and warm up a little bit and get ready because it is you know it's not like playing running back playing wide receiver you know a position where you can kind of come shuffle in and out shuttle in and out where that's expected of the position. It's a little bit different. So that wouldn't surprise me. One thing that did surprise me, and I've talked a lot about polarizing players, particularly with respect to draft quarterbacks,

guys like Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, guys that are polarizing in how they're viewed around the draft community, around the league, by GMs, by scouts, by evaluators. You know, I look at Cam Newton's day. You know, he comes out, he goes 24-40 for 349 in two TDs, gets sacked four times for 43 yards. Passer rating of 105.1, not the best statistic for covering passers,

but still, it's a benchmark. It's a measuring stick. You know, I'm reading a lot of discussion on the timeline and elsewhere that this game was on cam. People look at that final drive when they had a chance to take the lead in the closing seconds, perhaps pull it out. He takes

a sack on their final offensive play where I think you've got to credit New Orleans. It's 4th and 23. It's not exactly a Hail Mary situation,, it's fourth and 23. It's not exactly a Hail Mary situation, but it's close to it. Most teams in that situation would play coverage,

drop eight or nine guys. The Saints blitz. Not what anybody, I think, is expected in that situation. And they get to Cam before he even has a chance to set up in the pocket. And what's important about that is, given that it's fourth and long, you're going to have to throw a pattern.

You're going to have to call and throw a pattern that's a slow develop and play. It's not like fourth and three where you can get it out quickly. And so it's not like Cam really had a chance to let the route concept develop. You know, I read some criticism that Cam, you know, took a bad sack on that play. What was he supposed to do? You know, and then, oh, he didn't make a perfect throw to Funches on the third and 23 play. Well, you know, it's a cover two, cover four type look. You're trying to attack the turkey hole like Gruden calls it. He made a throw. Funches could have caught it.

Funches mistimes his jump. It's an awkward looking attempt, and it falls incomplete. I mean, I don't put this game on Cam Newton at all, and I'm a Cam defender. Full disclosure, I'll say that up front, but I'd like to think that I've been pretty straight with how I read things, how I call things, and I've been willing to take L's and things like that. So I don't put this game on cam at all.

I think this team needs to go out and get him a wide receiver or two. So I'm very hesitant to put this game on Cam's shoulders. But that was the late game. Let's start with a game a little bit more important to what we're doing here over at Locked On Patriots, and that's Jacksonville against Buffalo in a game that, again, if I'm being straight with you guys, I don't think that game really advanced the idea of offensive football here in the year 2018. That was a game that, let's just say, was a defensive struggle. Jacksonville pulls out the 10-3

victory. Game was tied 3-3 at the half. And Jacksonville with a gutsy play call. Near the end of the third quarter. Facing a fourth and one at the one. Under a minute to go in the third quarter. It's a 3-3 game. They decide to go for it. Bortles hits Ben Koyak. Reserve tight end for a one yard touchdown and those were the deciding points.

I think from Buffalo's perspective Buffalo did a lot of the things that we sort of talked about headed into this week. You know Jacksonville 34 carries for 155 in terms of their ground game. But a lot of that really came from Bortles himself. You know, they slowed down sort of the designed run game. Four net, 21 carries for 57 yards.

You know, that's less than four yards a carry. You do that as a defense, you're doing something pretty good. But Bortles really did a lot with his legs. And some of them weren't even designed play calls. They were scrambles. There was a play in the fourth quarter where they were trying to set up a screen play. Bortles basically drops the shotgun snap. It was a second and long situation.

He's able to scramble for the first down. Bortles 10 rushing attempts for 88 yards. So Buffalo did some of the things that they wanted to do. They slowed down the design ground game from Jacksonville. Bortles made some plays with his legs. But more than anything, it's that Jacksonville defense. And it does bring into question Tyrod Taylor. Again, somebody that I've defended, somebody that I've stood on the hill for.

Throws an interception in that game, completes 17 of 37 for 134, and the one interception could be rated a 44.2. Not great numbers. The difference between, though, in terms of Jacksonville and that defense going forward, Taylor in this game definitely seemed at times like he was letting his eyes drop in the pocket. Like there were times when he didn't want to get to his second or his third read.

Maybe he was worried about that pass rush. So he rather looked for throwing lanes, for escape lanes, to try to make something happen with his legs rather than getting to that third read, getting even to that second read. And so the Jacksonville defense, they were able to have the kind of day that we'd expect from them, given the historical numbers that they've put up as a pass defense. Can that kind of stuff work against the Steelers next week? Can it potentially work against the Patriots in a potential AFC championship game?

Because I think guys like Barthelsberger, guys like Brady, they're not guys that are going to look to escape. They're guys that stay and fight in the pocket much more than Tyron Taylor does. And I've praised Taylor for staying in the pocket,

for fighting, for keeping those eyes downfield over the course of the season, but I think that got away from him against Jacksonville. So that's sort of something to watch as you start thinking, looking forward to next Sunday. You know, can Jacksonville's pass defense have the same kind of success? I find it hard to believe that Jacksonville's pass defense is going to hold the Steelers to three points.

And these are two teams that met back in week five. Jacksonville's pass defense held the Steelers to nine points in that game. Forced five interceptions from Ben Roethlisberger. But I think that was a different Steelers team than the Steelers team we're going to see on Sunday. Now, a question mark there is that calf muscle, that torn left calf muscle of Antonio Brown. He's expected to be back for this game. But that should be a fun game to watch. Speaking of fun games be a fun game to watch.

Speaking of fun games, two fun games on Saturday. We're going to get to those games from Saturday afternoon and evening next with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Okay, friends. Let's look at the Saturday game, starting with that night game.

The six-seeded Atlanta Falcons headed out west to take on the six-seeded Atlanta Falcons headed out west to take on the three-seeded LA Rams. And, you know, it's Atlanta that comes out with the win in this game, 26-13. And a couple of lessons, actually, I think, to take away from this game. One, I think you do have to at least ask, did Sean McVay make the right decision to rest his guys week 17? Because it did seem like Rams came out a little slow in this game.

Now, you could say it was the fact that they were a little bit rusty. You could say it was the fact that this was a young team. I believe, you know, youngest playoff team, at least in terms of playoff experience, I think they only had like six playoff games on the entire roster. You know, could it have been nerves and inexperience more than knocking rust off? Either way, Rams off to a slow start. They're down 13-0 early in the second quarter.

Now, Rams certainly made a game of it right before halftime. You get a beautiful throw from Jared Goff to Cooper Cupp on sort of a wheel route for a touchdown. That came with 234 left in the first half. And then that Rams defense able to get off the field, force a punt with just over a minute and a half left. You get a big play to Robert Woods. You get a pass interference penalty.

Set you up with a first and goal. Interesting play call there, though, on that final drive. There's an incompletion to Sammy Watkins. There's a hold and penalty on Rod Havenstein that sets the Rams back to a second goal at the 17. I thought they had more time to take it.

They had enough time to take maybe one shot. Maybe McVay's worried that, look, you're that far out. You know, maybe it's a situation. Oh, that's right. They had to spike it because you get the runoff. Okay, that's what happened there. You know, maybe it's a situ... Oh. That's right. They had to spike it because you get the runoff. Okay, that's what happened there. That's right.

Okay, I understand it now. I'm with you now. All right. But in the second half, again, the Rams aren't able to get off the field. Atlanta takes the opening kickoff of the second half. They go down the field. A long, time-consuming drive. Almost a 10-minute drive.

They kick a field goal with 6.48 left in the third quarter to take a 16-10 lead. Rams basically pick up one first down on the next drive. Then they're forced to punt Atlanta kicks another field goal basically right at the end of the third quarter taking a 19-10 lead into the fourth quarter Rams finally get back on the board

19-13 with a field goal of their own that might rhyme with perhaps the throw of the weekend I think that touchdown to Julio Jones. And when I first saw it, I thought it was just an incredible throw, the touch that he put on it. And then when you see the replay that Ryan's feet sort of slipping out from underneath him as he's setting to throw, that field seemed to be giving a lot of guys trouble.

Ryan's able to sort of loft it in there. Give Atlanta the 26-13 lead lead which would be the final score Rams did have a chance you know they get into a first and goal situation on their ensuing drive Tyler Higby looks to catch a touchdown pass from what was a great throw from Jared Goff but he can't complete the catch.

He can't survive the ground, whatever you want to call it. It's reviewed and ruled an incompletion. Then the fourth down throw to Watkins, which was a catchable ball. Question of perhaps defensive hold and pass interference, but no flags. You know, one takeaway, you know, Aaron Donald, tremendous game from him, I think.

You could make the argument that Donald is, if not the premier, you know, front seven defender in the league. You could go as far as say he's one of the best players in the league, period. Full stop. Just a force inside. But on Atlanta's side of the ball, you look at the four teams now that are left in the NFC, Atlanta getting a chance to go to Philly, a team playing without Carson Wentz, and obviously you have the Saints and the Vikings.

You can make the case that even though they're the sixth seed, even though they've got a tough path, because they'll have to go on the road yet again if they get past Philly, that Atlanta's the team you don't want to play on the NFC side because they've been there before. They were 15 minutes away from a Super Bowl, even five minutes away from a Super Bowl last year. It's a team that's been tested.

To get back to here, I think says a lot about Dan Quinn and his ability to keep that team motivated. People talk a lot about Super Bowl handovers for the losing team. It doesn't seem like they've got one. And of the four quarterbacks left on the NFC side, if you

were going to rank them, where would you put Ryan? I think you could make the case for Breeze, Ryan, Keenum, Foles right now. So we'll see. I thought it was an impressive win from Atlanta. Now they get a chance to go north playing the Elements. We'll see what Doug Peterson and company have ready for them. We're going to close it out next, talk about the game that kicked off wildcard weekend,

and start looking ahead to next Saturday night. That's next with me, Mark Schofield, here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you. Now we're going to look at, I think, the most exciting, the most improbable game from wildcard weekend, and that's Tennessee's 22-21 road victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. And if you're listening to this as a Chiefs fan, A, why? B, I'm glad you're still with us and didn't sort of do long, permanent damage to your livers in the wake of Saturday evening's game.

C, why? Again, seriously, why? Like, stop. Turn this off right now. I understand. And D, the Chiefs blew a 21-3 lead. They had a 21-3 lead at halftime. You know, and I'm sort of looking at win probability over a pro football reference.

Their win probability at halftime was 99.1%. That's pretty good. Those are pretty good odds I'm not I wasn't a math major I'm not a genius but 99.1% seems pretty good you know with four minutes remaining it was still at 71%, even though they were down one point. And then obviously it sort of starts to crater when you get the incompletion to Albert Wilson on that 4th and 9 play, which I think was set up on the previous play, 3rd and 9 at the Tennessee 44-yard line.

I got a lot of criticism for how I ranked Alex Smith in my Bleach Report NFL 1000 grades. Part of it was a decision-making thing. I thought there were times where he got too conservative, so I really sort of dinged him there. What do we see in that third and nine? He's pressured a little bit. He drops the eyes and looks to run when he doesn't stay in the pocket and make a throw.

And that set up sort of the pivotal fourth and nine play. That's all I'm saying. Read into that what you will. Then the Chiefs sort of take over. They need a drive to just run out the clock. They need just one good run on a third and ten play. They basically get it where Derek Henry looks to cut back to the other side.

Gets a block from, of all people, Marcus Mariota. 22-yard gain on 3rd and 10 tack on an unnecessary reference penalty on Marcus Peters 3 kneel downs and ball game and we saw wacky stuff in this game we saw Marcus Mariota throw a touchdown pass to himself

an interception that Mariota threw which we'll get to Mariota 19 of 31 for 205 2 touchdowns. The one interception. You know, the one touchdown to himself. The other, basically the game winner. A beautiful

throw to Eric Decker on sort of that seam post route from the left side. You know, we'll start with just sort of recapping the Chiefs here for a minute. Part of the thing that really sort of changed the course of this game, and you hate to talk about injuries sort of determined in games, but when Kelsey went out, you know,

that offense really sort of seemed to lose their momentum, lose their mojo. You know, because Kelsey goes down and then, you know, they did have a touchdown near the end of the half. You know, which came on that drive where Kelsey got hurt. They did finish that drive. It was sort of a two-minute situation. Finished it with a touchdown throw from Alex Smith to Demarcus Robinson. But after that, the offense didn't do anything. They missed a field goal that was pivotal at that point.

But other than that, you're looking at a lot of drives that really just had two more drives. One where they punted, and then that final drive that ended on the 4th and 9th. But the offense didn't do much after Kelsey went out. You don't know how much that injury maybe changed their game plan. Andy Reid, Matt Nagy, getting a lot of criticism for not

running the ball a ton. But if you remember when we talked about this game last week, their run defense, Tennessee's run defense has been good this year. The way I thought you could use Kareem Hunt was as a receiver out of the backfield. Didn't see a ton of that. Only had three catches on three targets for five yards.

I thought they could have done more of that maybe. But it's just another sort of blown lead situation for the Chiefs. Now you start to wonder about Alex Smith's future. Does Nagy get looks for head coaching jobs or not? So interesting times ahead for Kansas City. But now let's talk about Tennessee because they're coming to Foxborough. Patriots early 14 point favorites and I know a lot of people are saying that's a big number. You know maybe slow it down and we'll get into this game more as the week progresses.

Two takeaways from this game. Actually three. First, on the defensive side of the ball, a lot of zone blitz looks from Dick LeBeau. And it seemed to confuse the Chiefs at times up front. But I think that does sort of set up nicely for what New England likes to do,

for what Brady likes to do. We talked about it headed into the Steelers game. The ability to sort of pick apart zone defenses given his experience, given his eyes and how he's able to read coverages and things like that.

He's had success against LeBeau before. He had success when he was with Pittsburgh. He's had success against LeBeau since he's with the Titans in the times that those two teams have played in the past couple of years. And so I think New England is going to be able to put up points. When you look at this Titans team offensively, I think priority one, you've got to stop the run. Derrick Henry had a big game run on the football against Kansas City.

He had 23 attempts, 156, and a touchdown, a 35-yard touchdown run. Patriots are going to have to stop the football, stop the run. Stop the football, of course, but stop the run, too. And I think you try to put this game on Marcus Mariota and make him win it from the pocket. Now, I love Mariota. He was my QB1 coming out that year. But I think there are things that you can do,

sort of containing him in the pocket, maybe using a spy on him from time to time. But I think you can get him with rolled coverages, with coverages adjusted at the snap. Because, for example, you look at that interception he threw. It was a poorly designed route at the outset. You got a trips to the right, inside receiver Eric Decker runs to the flat,

then you get Rashard Matthews on the outside running the post, Delaney Walker, the inside receiver, running that corner route. It's basically a divide or a scissors concept, but the execution on it, players were really constricted. Matthews and Walker were really constricted, close together, compressed when the pass arrived close to its intended target.

But I think the bigger takeaway that I had from that throw was Chiefs showed cover one at the snap. All the corners were sort of in press alignment. Every sort of indicator to Mariota pre-snap was, this was cover one, he was going to get man coverage. And then that route concept is a nice little route concept to throw against that because you're going to create some traffic, maybe get a little bit of rub when they cross.

But the Chiefs then drop it into a cover four look. And A, I think if he had taken the time, he might have seen Matthews on the post and thrown that route. Because the safety to that side, because of the cover four coverage rules, if you've got the inside guy as a safety and he goes beyond 10 yards and then breaks to the outside, you've got to treat that like man

and stay on that. So the safety starts to come inside, which opens up the post route from the outside receiver. I think if Mariota gives it another second from the pocket, he hits that post route, which should be open for a touchdown. But he doesn't because I think

he was anticipating more man coverage. I think he was going to see Marcus Peters the corner, stay on that post route, free up Walker on the corner. But because it was rolled to a cover four and the compression of the route concept Peters basically stayed home read Mariota's eyes

and made the easy interception because Mariota stared it down as well and so that's one of the things I'm looking to see on Saturday night there are going to be a lot of rolled coverage looks are they going to try to confuse Mariota show him one thing pre-snap show him something different post-snap

and try to get him to sort him one thing pre-snap, show him something different post-snap, and try to get him to sort of make those mistakes like we saw? But in all, big win for Tennessee. Now we get to talk about them for the next week, and that's what we're going to do. Getting you ready for Saturday night. Hope you enjoyed today's show. Tomorrow we're going to dive in more into the Tennessee Titans,

really sort of break down their game on both sides of the football do a Tape Tuesday special on Tennessee until then keep it locked right here to me Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots