Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 9, 2018 - Tape Wednesday

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a special Tape Wednesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for today, Wednesday, January 9th, 2019. What we're going to do today, we're going to talk about the Chargers defense. There's going to be a focus on what they do up front in terms of getting after the passer, and a little bit later we'll talk about what they do in the secondary. At the end of the show, we're going to talk a little bit about the national championship game between Clemson and Alabama, as well as Matt LaFleur finding a new gig and what that might mean for Josh McDaniels and the Patriots'

current offensive coordinator. Before we do any of that, 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 I've Said. If there's an outlet that is covering the game of football, odds are I'm doing some work for them covering this game we all love. Let's start with that Chargers pass rush. And if you're a member of the Patriots, the Locked On Patriots Slack channel,

you probably know where I'm going with this because I've been talking about it and teasing it over the past couple of days here. If you'd like to be a member of that, you can hit me up for an invite at Mark Schofield on Twitter or mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com if you'd rather send an email. Let's start with two numbers, 39 and 0 slash 1. I'll explain that one in a second. 39, that is the number of sacks the Chargers defense recorded in the 2018 regular season. And why do I know that? Well, first, thanks to our friends over at Pro Football Reference, it was easy to uncover it. Secondly, while most of you are probably diving into the national championship game and maybe you're out at a bar or just on your couch having a couple of adult beverages

and watching that game, which, again, we're going to talk about because I was keeping an eye on it, what I was really doing was I was charting all of those sacks. Every single time the Chargers sacked a quarterback in the regular season. I didn't do it for the Lamar Jackson playoff game. Maybe I'll do it a little bit later this week, but I wanted to look at the 39 to get a good sort of cross-section of how they get after quarterbacks this season. That second number, zero slash one, it's a bit tricky, and I'll explain what I mean by it, but what it is basically is this. That's the number of times the Chargers rushed six or more defenders on those 39 sacks. And the one play in question, this was a play from the Chargers game against the Bengals,

and that was in week 14. It was a third and goal play from the one. So they had a goal line defense in the game. Jeff Driscoll, their third backup quarterback, he runs a play-action boot concept. It's hard to tell who's really rushing the passer on this play because, again, it's third and goal from the one. And he gets stopped for no gain, so it's technically a sack.

And it looks like they had six guys that might have been rushing the passer, but only two of them really got after him. The rest of them were kind of just stopped at the line of scrimmage, expecting a run. So even if you say that they were rushing six or more on that play, that's the only example this entire regular season where the Chargers used six or more pass rushers or rushers or blitzers or however you want to phrase it to generate a sack of the rest of those sacks five of those just five

came with 11 I mean excuse me 11 of those came with five pass rushers. 27, the bulk of their 39 sacks in the regular season, came with just four. This is a defense that can rush four, drop seven, and still get after the quarterback. And if that sounds like a recipe for potential disaster for the New England Patriots, you'd be correct. It's sort of the secret sauce to any defense. When we started this season on this show, I said that the number four was going to be pivotal

for the New England Patriots this year for their defense. If they could get that magic sauce and get pressure with four, it gives you so much flexibility on the back end to do whatever you want in the secondary. It's a no-brainer type of thing. It's one of those easy cliches that anybody on a pregame show or a radio show or a TV show or wherever they're generating content can say, oh, if they can pressure quarterback X with a four, the defense is going to have a good day.

Well, the Chargers have done that this entire season. And they've been able to do it even more so the past couple of weeks thanks to Joey Bosa coming back. Week 17 at Denver, they had one sack of Case Keenum. It was a coverage sack. Second quarter, late second quarter, third and sixth play in the red zone. Bosa gets home. Week 16 against Baltimore, third and five.

Baltimore's backed up in their own territory in the fourth quarter. They rush four. Lamar Jackson sprints out to the right. Coverage sack pulls it down. They get home. And Bosa is in there in the mix. Week 16 against Baltimore. Two other sacks.

One came with five. The other comes with four. Melvin Ingram drops into the box late. Cuts inside. Lamar Jackson flushes to the white, to his right, sort of around Ingram and right into Nwosu for the sack. Week 15 at Kansas City, they rush four on a third and 13 play. Bosa starts to the outside. He forces the quarterback Patrick Mahomes to climb. Isaac Rochelle, Melvin Ingram, they split the sack. They can get coverage sacks with four because they're dropping seven into coverage.

Now, when they do blitz, and by that we're saying rushing five, there are a couple of different things that they do. First of all, in terms of tendencies, six of those 11 sacks, when they rushed five, came on third down. Looking at the numbers this year, you had one that came on a third and five, one that came on a third and ten, one that came on a third and seven, one that came on a third and ten, one that came on a third and five, one on a third and six, that came on a third and five one on a third and six and one on a third and nine then you had two on first downs and three on second downs but if you're in sort of that third and five or longer range chances are you'll see them come with that extra rusher

and sometimes that is derwin james their rookie safety. One of the things that the Chargers will do when they rush five or when they bring James, because sometimes they'll do it with four, they will bring him sort of from the slot off the edge and they will slant the rest of the defensive line away from him. So let's just say he's lined up outside right tackle Marcus Cannon, and then they've got four guys on the defensive line. He will come to the outside of Cannon on that blitz, to the outside of the right tackle. Every other defensive lineman will slant to the right away from where that blitz is coming from. So you're forcing everybody else to sort of work to their left away from where the blitz is coming from, and that're forcing everybody else to sort of work to their left away from where the

blitz is coming from. And that gets James, the athletic guy, matched up against a right tackle in pass protection. So that's one thing that they really like to do when they bring five. Another thing that they like to do when they bring five is stunt. And they use stunts a lot, but they will go with some tackle and exchange stuff because they will walk Ingram, number 54, all over the place, but they like to use him in a real wide alignment. There are times where you see him lined

well outside of the tight end. And they will have him come twist to the inside, defensive tackle, defensive end, twist to the outside, however you want defensive end, twist to the outside, however you want to term that. They will use some really wide stunts. Don't be surprised in this game if you see somebody lined up either over the tackle, over the tight end,

or outside shoulder of the offensive tackle, and then loop to the opposite A-gap. They will have some real wide stunts because these guys are quick, and they assume that if they're only rushing four or maybe five, chances are the quarterback's decision is going to be slowed down because of the number of players dropping into coverage. So they will have time for that player to loop all the way around. And so when you see alignments, you see these guys lined up well to the outside.

Don't just assume that they're coming wide. Don't just assume that they're even coming to that side of the formation. They might loop all the way around. So you've got to be ready for that. You've got to be ready for loopers. They used some spy stuff against Rosen, against Mayfield.

I don't anticipate them spying Tom Brady, but I did sort of want to drop that out there. On to the previous point, I was just talking about some of the twist games that they do. Against Tennessee in Week 7, for example, this was a game in London. There's a play at the start of the third quarter, the 12-55 mark. It's a first and 10 in Chargers territory. And they have Melvin Ingram lined up on the left side of the offense. The offense has a tight end in the wing.

Ingram is aligned outside of that tight end. And he loops from that spot. So he's basically, it's a dual tight end situation. Let me be clear so you've got four players and then the center now the wing tight end goes in motion so he slides down a couple of steps but he still starts well outside the tight end he loops all the way into the opposite a slash b gap because he kind of gets into the mix there, into the middle of that because of the way the guard moves and gets home for the sack. That is a long way to go, but he gets home. Have I sufficiently scared you yet about what this pass rush can do? Another thing to mention, these guys are athletic. Watch, for example, if you feel like

really scaring yourself, you can watch their Week 10 game against Oakland. For example, one of the sacks where they rushed five, Melvin Ingram aligns down sort of in the gap between the left guard and the left tackle. This is a third and sixth play in the second quarter at the 11-20 mark, if you feel like watching it. He uses an outside move against the left guard, gets the left guard to sort of overcommit to the outside, then just cuts inside of him, runs right by him, and gets home. they will use spin moves to the inside against slower offensive tackles colton miller got beat a couple of times this season by whether it was ingram or bosa or rochelle using those spin moves to the inside so look for that against t Brown maybe even Marcus Cannon again the player to watch

I think is Ingram and Belichick talked about it this week they will move him all over the place left side, right side, in the middle they'll drop him as a linebacker then roll him down to the line of scrimmage late and blitz him communication between quarterback

and amongst the offensive line is going to be critical. It's going to be a must for them to all be on the same page. And I will leave you with this. There was one week, just one week where they didn't get any sacks, and that was week 11 against Denver, of all teams.

Final note, in terms of downs, seven of these sacks came on first down, 13 came on second down, 19 on third down to sort of like end drive situations. So as you get closer and deeper into the money downs, their pass rush seems to get better and better in terms of production. Now, that's a lot to throw at you. That's a lot to scare you with.

Up next, I'm going to talk about what this pressure stuff means and how they generate pressure, what that means for what they can do in the secondary, and how the Patriots might be able to exploit that. That's up ahead on this tape Wednesday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this tape Wednesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast and haven't sufficiently, I hope, scared you to death. It's time to perhaps give you some silver linings for Sunday. Because the Chargers can get pressure with four or times five, that allows them to drop

seven into coverage or six. What that means is they can play zone defense a lot. A matter of fact, they play zone coverage on 58% of their snaps in the regular season. That's according to a piece Robert Klemko wrote before wildcard weekend using data from Sports Inf regular season. That's according to a piece Robert Klemko wrote before Wild Card Weekend using data from Sports Info Solutions. That is second most in the league, topped only by the Indianapolis Colts, who played around 59% of their defensive snaps, and the Colts were a heavy cover two-team. We know that Tom Brady historically has been very good against zone coverage. Think, for example, the Pittsburgh Steelers and how for years Brady's

ability to shred them was predicated upon the Steelers running cover three and spot dropping seven or so into coverage. Brady's ability to decipher what you're doing in zone coverage situations and to pick you apart is part of what's made him such a great quarterback. And you can see, I can see the light going on in your eyes, in your heads. There is a path to the Super Bowl that rolls through potentially not just Foxborough, but through two zone-heavy defenses, both the Chargers and then somehow, if the Colts can pull off an upset, the Colts next week in the AFC Championship game. And so if there is sort of the optimistic best-case scenario for the New England Patriots to get to Atlanta in Super Bowl LIII, it's potentially facing two zone-heavy teams.

Now, in terms of coverage schemes, I just said the Colts were heavy cover two. Chargers are heavier into cover three. They do do some cover two stuff. So in terms of what you're going to see from the secondary, again, because they can get such great pressure up front with four or five, they can play zone coverage behind it. They play the second most zone coverage in the league.

And in studying their defense in the secondary this year, what I really wanted to sort of focus on was how teams generated big plays against them, completions of 21 or more yards. That's where you're going to use the sort of framework we're going to use for defining a big play. And looking at the big plays this year, again, teams completed 41 passes for 21 yards or more against them this year. And for those of you who are hoping that maybe this would be a big James White week, there's some data in here I think you're going to like. Of those 41 plays that went for 21 or more in the passing game against these Chargers,

26 of them went to wide receivers, as you might expect. And some interesting names were on that list, believe me. Again, thanks to everybody over at Pro Football Reference for being able to put together this data. But you're seeing names like, okay, Martavius Bryant, Pierre Garçon, Cortland Sutton, Tim Patrick, River Crockraft. So you're seeing some interesting names sprinkled into this mix. But that's just 26 of those 41.

Six of those plays went to tight ends, and you see some familiar names there. George Kittle obviously had a huge year. Charles Clay got one for Buffalo back in week two. David Njoku got one for the Browns. Jared Cook got one for the Raiders. That was a gain of 31 back in early November. And Mark Andrews got a 68-yarder and a touchdown back in that big week 16 game between the Ravens and the Chargers.

But as I said, if you were one of those people hoping there's a big James White week, here's the number that you might want to keep in mind, nine. That's how many of these 41 passing plays that went for 21 yards or more went to running backs this year. Now, one of those did get called back. It was a screen to Todd Gurley back in week three that was called back for Holden, but that one busted for 45 yards. It was a play-action sort of screen. You fake the run to him, and then you throw the screen to him. But they do some stuff in this. They've given up some stuff in the screen game. They've given up some stuff at the swings and stuff like that. So there's an opportunity to get James White and the running backs involved. There's also an opportunity to get,

believe it or not, James Devlin involved. Two of these plays went to fullbacks. One was to Sherman. And back in week one, they went four verticals with Anthony Sherman, their fullback, who they aligned in a wing to the left. They got him sort of matched up against a linebacker. And Patrick Mahomes did Patrick Mahomes things. I mean, that was week one when he threw for five touchdown passes. Four of them to Tyreek Hill. And so there's one potential design you might see. Another one was the next week, week two, where the Bills came out with 21 personnel,

eye formation, they use orbit motion, they fake the run, they fake the end around, and the fullback, Patrick DeMarco, leaks into the sort of the right flat and then gets vertical, and he's left uncovered in a zone coverage situation. And so there's some opportunities there. With the tight ends, three plays to sort of note. The Mark Andrews touchdown that came against a single high, cover one slash cover three. It's hard to tell because there's a lot of play action. It comes from a bunch, so it's kind of hard to tell what the defense is doing.

But he runs sort of that bender route where he starts in the bunch to the right and works to the opposite hash, runs past his defender, beats the safety who has his eyes in the backfield. So that was one design. Week four, the George Kittle 82-yarder for a touchdown. That was a three vertical concept against cover three, and he's running that inside vertical seam. If you've listened to this show, you know I talk about when you see cover three, inside seam routes to the tight end are huge. That's a perfect example of that. If you've listened to this show, you know I talk about when you see cover three, inside seam routes to the tight end are huge. That's a perfect example of that.

If you want to see that play, it was week four, third quarter, 258 mark. George Kittle, 82-yard touchdown from C.J. Beathard. And there was another one that the Browns ran in week six. This was second quarter, 434 mark. This was against cover two, though. They ran sort of a switch vertical concept where the outside receiver runs a post. David DiGioco in the wing, he runs sort of a wheel route

and they attack the turkey hole in that cover two. That sort of deep area behind the corner between the safety and the sideline and Baker Mayfield drops in that cover two shot. So that's one thing that they did with the tight end that's kind of nice. As for the receivers,

some route concepts we talked about last year in the Super Bowl. Post wheel, right? That's a nice cover three beater. You have the outside receiver run the post, sort of pose that corner to the outside and then the inside receiver, whether it's a slot receiver or tight end,

runs that wheel route, sort of that exit-enter concept. You have somebody leave a zone, you flood somebody back into it. A lot of times when they go cover three, they've got the Meg Hall on the back side with the weak side receiver. What that is, is man everywhere he goes, M-E-G, man everywhere he goes. And so it looks like man to the back side, but it's really sort of a cover one scheme. A lot of teams, the Steelers did this where they got Antonio Brown on a vertical route, a nine ball for a gain of 46 down to the one. You know, the Seahawks did it with Doug Baldwin.

They had the same look. They had Baldwin on the backside. He gets sort of the press man look, even though it's cover three everywhere else, a nine ball for a big gain. And that came off of play action. And so you might sort of see them try to get, you know, whether it's Hogan on a vertical, maybe Edelman on a vertical.

If you've got them sort of backside, Dorsett maybe, maybe Patterson for a couple of plays. Go backside, weak side, some play action stuff, and try to get somebody beat deep. Get an easy one. Some easy bang eight post routes, particularly off play action. If you've got that cover three coverage

in the secondary, the corners, and be using some outside leverage, try to funnel things back towards the middle of the field, you can get that quick inside leverage. Almost looks like a seam, but that bang eight post route, sometimes off a play action. For example, the Broncos did that third quarter, 14-15 mark of the third quarter in week 17. Bayonet post route off a play action, easy pitch and catch from Case Keenum to Tim Patrick. So those are

some sort of schematic designs I would look for. I'd look for them to get the running backs involved because of some of the numbers we've seen. And these are some of the passing designs I'd look for sort of in the vertical passing game to the wide receivers. So that's the good news. That's the silver lining in all of this bad stuff about how the Chargers can get after the quarterback. The good news is it leads them to play zone coverage in the secondary. And you know that if there's one thing that Tom Brady has been able to do over his career, it's to carve up zone coverage. Now, look, the Chargers, they've done some

interesting things. Last week, it was the seven defensive back look that they had against the Ravens. So they might flip the script again this week. That's why we watch. Up next, a couple words about Matt McClure and the national championship game between Clemson and Alabama. But first, remember friends, now that we're in playoff season, don't be that person that's sitting at the bar

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you're placing your bets. It's even more important. That's why I always tell people to go to MyBookie. Now, you don't have to take my word for it, even though they've been good to me. Just go to MyBookie.com or use their app. Everything is so user-friendly. They've got some of the best prop bets in the game and they pay so quickly,, frankly, isn't that the most important thing? So head over to MyBookie right now. Use promo code LOCKEDON. They will give you a 50% deposit bonus so you can keep your bankroll rolling through playoff season, which is, as we know, the most wonderful time of the year. Go to MyBookie.com.

Use promo code LOCKEDON when you do take advantage of the great offer that's in front of you. MyBookie. You play. You win. You get paid. Mark Schofield back with you now to quickly close out this tape Wednesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Looking ahead, we are going to have a Take Thursday episode. So get some questions in.

And what we're going to do this week, your Friday game day show, that's going to be mostly our crossover show with the guys over at Locked On Chargers, so look for that to drop early on Friday. Get some questions in, though, for Take Thursday, and I might even try to sneak in a special guest for that one as well. We'll see if time permits.

I did want to close this out, though, with just a couple of words on Clemson, Alabama. That was just a masterful, masterful performance by Clemson. The Tigers looked fantastic in that game. And if you were watching that game, if you're following along online, Twitter or elsewhere, you saw people excited about Trevor Lawrence, the true freshman quarterback for Clemson, who replaced Kelly Bryant, who led Clemson to the playoffs last year.

Although that Clemson offense really sort of struggled in their semifinal game against Alabama. They had almost no vertical passing game. But you saw why Dabo Swinney made the call to go to Lawrence earlier this year. Lawrence is a refined pocket passer already as a true freshman. And Kirk Herbstreit was talking about it during this game. You saw sort of the influence of those 7-on-7 type passing leagues that these young high school kids are going through that sort of refine your ability as a pocket passer to work through reads, make progression decisions, and things like that. You saw that from Lawrence. You saw him and Ross, that other freshman wide receiver, another true freshman that Clemson has,

so they're going to be good for a couple of years now. Of course, the success from those two guys has many wondering how high would they be ranked? Where would Lawrence go in this draft class and you could make a case that he would be quarterback one even over Dwayne Haskins who announced that he's going to come out which I don't think was a surprise now should true freshmen be able to like leave should we allow one and done situations in the National Football League that's for people much smarter than me to determine I mean I'm certainly of the mind that, look, you go to school, you go to college to prepare yourself for life in the future. You prepare yourself for a professional career. You prepare yourself. You try to get yourself in a position to have the best job you can get coming out of college. And if this is Trevor Lawrence's path to getting the best job he can get out of college, then you do sort of

wonder about sort of artificially restricting his potential to earn a living. So I do wonder if this sort of rule is going to get challenged at some point. Remember, Maurice Claret tried to do it. You know, there are some legal ramifications there. I'm not putting the legal hat back on, kids. I took it off. I want to leave it off. But it is sort of an interesting discussion. The other sort of big piece of news that came down, Matt LaFleur hired as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. And I thought this was a bit of an interesting hire because, look,

when you watch the Titans this year, obviously LaFleur, a bit of a McVay disciple. You saw some of those concepts, some spacing concepts, mesh, some air raid type stuff, some Y-cross worked in. It did look a time similar from an X's and O's standpoint, not a production standpoint, to what Sean McVay has been doing with the Rams and Jared Goff. What was interesting about their offense this year, it was more vertical than I think even I expected. And Doug Farrar over at USA Today, Touchdown Wire, has a great piece sort of breaking down the X's and O's and stuff like that that I agreed largely with.

And in chatting with John Ledyard, for example, from Locked On NFL Draft, he pointed out that, look, those wide receivers are better suited for a vertical game, so I think this sort of fits their roster construction. And from where I sit, as somebody that made the case for a piece over at the score earlier this year when they fired Mike McCarthy,

I think Rodgers needs to be in more of a vertical passing game. And so you think this could work from a schematic standpoint, seeing what Matt LeFleur did. The trickle-down effect of it is this. If there was going to be a spot for Josh McDaniels, it was probably Green Bay. People like Benjamin Albright have been saying, look, Cleveland was not going to be an option for him, and it seems like it's not going to be. Cardinals, Jets, they seem to be sort of in on the Cliff Clinsbury option as a head coach.

And that might sort of foreclose the idea of the Patriots, if McDaniels is still there, they don't need an offensive coordinator anyway. But if McDaniels somehow moves on to a team yet to be named and Klinsbury is getting head coaching interviews, he probably doesn't want to settle for an offensive coordinator to get him to New England. So that's another thing. And even more importantly, McDaniels said on Tuesday

during his weekly presser, the book is closed. That's a quote according to a tweet from Mike Giardi. On any more interviews for a head coaching position, he was appreciative of the opportunity to interview with the Packers, but he is here moving forward with the

Patriots. And so there you go. Josh McDaniels here at least for the immediate future. Let's put it that way. Unless something crazy happens. And has something crazy happened with Josh McDaniels before?

Yeah. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow. Get some questions in if you can. At Mark Scofield on Twitter. Mark.Scofield at InsideThePylon.com. The Locked On Patriots phone line. 240-670-6016. Again, 240-670-6016.

Again, 240-670-6016. Call, text, leave a message, whatever you want to do. Get some questions in. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Thank you.