Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots July 10, 2018 - Catching Up, NFC South Over/Unders, and the 2006 Patriots Draft

Episode Date: July 10, 2018

Mark Schofield is back from vacation with some random thoughts, a look at the NFC South Over/Unders, and revisits the 2006 Patriots draft class.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Tuesday, June 10th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair, everybody. That's right, I am back off of a week-long vacation. I'll get to that in a minute. Reminder, follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can check out the work over at insidethepylon.com as well as some other places. One of those places to check me out now is over with Matt Waldman. Some of you know Matt Waldman. He's been on this show before. Matt decided to offer his spot to me over at his rookie scouting portfolio.

I'm going to be doing some writing for Matt in the season ahead. And if you know Matt Waldman, you know me, you've heard us on shows together before. Matt and I have a lot of fun, a lot of fun talking about quarterbacks usually, but sometimes going in a lot of different directions. So really excited to work with Matt, really looking forward to doing some stuff with him. We're going to be doing at least

one video per month a lot of you I know have checked out Matt's RSP film room pieces he's had me on to Breakdown Quarterbacks before, Patrick Mahomes, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz was the first show we did together and we have a lot of fun with those so we'll be trying to do one of those

a month too which is going to be a ton of fun. I'm also going to have some news those a month too, which is going to be a ton of fun. I'm also going to have some news in some other places where I'm going to be writing. Going to be doing some more work this fall, and more work is always good. Loaded show today, as I said, back from vacation. We're going to dive back into the two summer series that were ongoing when I left. We're going to look at the NFC South and some over-under win totals there. We're going to talk about the 2006 Patriots draft. And they drafted a lot of players that year, but I'm really going to sort of focus on a couple

just because, look, you don't want to hear me drone on about 2006 draft picks. Maybe you do. Maybe that's why you're here. If that's your kind of thing, you can let me know, at Mark Schofield on Twitter. Also a reminder, today's show brought to you by our friends over at BlueChew.com. BlueChew.com. More about those guys in a bit. But first, our opening segment, my vacation. That's right.

We're going to do the podcast version of sitting you all down around the TV and showing you my photos on my iPhone from my trip. We're not really going to do that. I'm going to talk briefly about some of the fun things I did. If you are interested in that kind of stuff, however, you can always follow me on Instagram. I am at M-A-S-C-H-O-3-9-1-6. You can follow me on the IG as the kids say. But family trip out to the Chicago area. It's kind of a trip with my family. We do every 4th of July week. My wife grew up in the Chicago area. We still have some friends in that area that travel to the Chicago area for the 4th. So we try to get out there. Every 4th of July, we do the Naperville Rib Fest. We do fireworks. This year, we took the kids to the planetarium as well as the aquarium right down there in

Chicago, right near Soldier Field, which is a ton of fun for me to just walk around Soldier Field for a minute. Couldn't get in, but I walked around and it was pretty cool. Super fun trip. Like I said, you know, if you want to check out the photos on Instagram, you can. M-A-S-C-H-O-3-9-1-6. And we drive. Drive from the D.C. area out to Chicago. We did it just in the course of one day on the way out. We broke it up over two days on the way back to give the kids a little bit of a

break. But I'm always reminded of when I was a kid. You know, my family, you know, my mom was a schoolteacher and my dad and his job working as a enterprise global manager for a database company he was able to take some time so each summer we would hop in the car and drive down from the Boston area one summer we went all the way out to Wyoming and back took like three weeks

in a two door Toyota Celica and every once in a while either when I'm dealing with some knee pain or I'm reminiscent about what might have been, I like to tease my parents that it was that trip sitting in the back of a two-door Toyota Celica driving cross-country basically, that basically stunted my growth and ruined my knees and prevented me from going on to perhaps greater heights as a quarterback. Of course, that glosses over my own failings as a quarterback, but I digress. But it was a super fun trip.

Great to sort of relax, unwind, although traveling with kids isn't really so much of a relaxing and unwinding experience, but it's still fun nonetheless. And it's good to show the kids parts of the country. So I love driving trips like that. What else is going on? Last night, Monday night, steamy sort of summer evening, wife and I went down to the inner harbor of Baltimore to take in a show. KT Tunstall, Better Than Ezra, and Barenaked Ladies.

And it was a ton of fun, you know, especially all three acts were great. Better Than Ezra, you know, Barenaked Ladies, they were super fun. Guys are just clearly still doing it because they love it. Don't take themselves too seriously. Bare Naked Ladies played this incredible medley of covers of current songs, faded into some Beatles, faded into some Queen near the end of the show, which was tremendously fun. Just a really fun, fun, fun night.

There's some stuff on the IG if you want to check that out as well. So super fun. But coming back to reality now the reality that is and I'm just going to touch on this for a moment before we get into the other stuff the Scott Fishbowl and some of you follow me on Twitter follow other people on Twitter who cover fantasy football like fantasy football you've probably seen your Twitter timelines dominated by hashtag SFBA, which is this eighth version of the Scott Fish Bowl, which is now a 720 person pro-am fantasy football tournament that is just an incredible experience to be a part of.

It's super fun. It's super stressful. Those of you that have followed me for a while on Twitter and elsewhere know that I got out of being a lawyer because of dealing with anxiety and depression. Well, yesterday, Monday morning was the first day of the Scott Fish Bowl. And I woke up anxious for the first time in a long time because it's that kind of stressful. You're up against some of the best in the world. Jeff Farrer, who I work with over at Inside the Pylon, he's drafting one spot ahead of Matthew Berry in his division. That's the kind of people that are in this. So it's a tough, tough fantasy football league to begin with.

The scoring system, you get 0.5 PPR, half a point per reception. But there's also tight end bonuses. Tight ends are full point PPRs. For quarterbacks, there's minus four points for an interception, minus six points for a pick six. It's a flex league, so you can start two quarterbacks. You have to start three wide receivers. There's a number of different paths that you can go down.

And people have been doing mock drafts, getting ready for it. And I was picking in the fifth spot in the first round, which I think was the toughest spot in all of this draft to pick at because in almost every single mock, people were going running back, running back, running back, running back. Johnson, Le'Veon Bell ezekiel elliott and a fourth name which escapes me right now which i can look up to in a second but people were basically going running back running back running back for the first four todd girley ezekiel elliott levy on bell david johnson those were the first four picks in order and then the fifth spot you're faced with a decision do you

go wide receiver antonio brown do you go running back and bank on Alvin Kamara? And part of me wanted to go with Kamara because I got him in the 11th round in the Scott Fish Bowl last year. And after drafting Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski in the first two picks, and those guys rode me to a playoff berth, which I was incredibly proud of. But then Gronk went all WWE and got himself suspended for a game. And I found myself on the outside looking in. So I had this thought of going Kamara with that first pick and then going quarterback then going tight end then going quarterback again because I waited on quarterbacks last year I found myself stumbling luckily into Alex Smith a decent Blake Bortles and Ben Roethlisberger which worked out fairly well.

But I didn't want to ride that dragon one more time. So I wanted to address quarterback early. So I didn't know if I wanted to do Kamara or go in another direction. I eventually went with Aaron Rodgers with that first pick, which means now I'm sort of chasing things down from behind at some other positions. My next pick, I wanted to go tight end. I wanted Gronkowski

because you get that tight end bonus. He came off the board two picks before me, so I want Travis Kelsey. Third pick, Jarek McKinnon. I'm banking on Kyle Shanahan's offense. I'm banking on McKinnon living up to the big contract that he sort of got with the 49ers. That's how it looks for me right now. I am up in a couple of picks, and as you can probably tell, it's time for me to chase down a wide receiver. I was hoping to go quarterback here because you get a running bonus for running quarterbacks. Guys like Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, I thought would be very attractive to me

at this fourth-round pick, maybe even Deshaun Watson, but those guys are all off the board. So I'm going to hold off on quarterback, hoping to look at wide receiver now. There are some intriguing wide receiver options available. Tyreek Hill, Alan Robinson, Adam Thielen, Juju Smith-Schuster, T.Y. Hilton. So I'll probably end up with one of those guys. Scott Fishbowl, it's super fun.

If you can, check it out. Hashtag SFB8 on the Twitter machine. Up next, we're going to talk nfc south we're going to do some over unders there then later as i said the 2006 patriots draft we're going to get into that but first as i said the show brought to you by our friends over at bluechew.com ed if you've been listening to the show you know that i'm all about helping i'm about helping my fellow man and woman i'm about offensive coordinators helping out their quarterbacks. We talk about that a ton with Tom Brady.

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Again, that's bluechew.com, promo code LOCKEDON to try it free. Blue Chew is the better, cheaper, faster choice. We thank them for sponsoring the podcast here at Locked On Patriots. And again, I'm all about helping you. This is a way I can help you, perhaps where it matters most. So check out bluechew.com. Don't forget that promo code, Locked On. Up next, we're going to talk over-unders.

We're going to look at Atlanta. We're going to look at New Orleans, Tampa Bay, and the Carolina Panthers. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Sorry I was off yesterday. I was coming back from the trip, doing a lot of other things, getting myself back right in the headspace. It's tough sometimes.

Even though what I do for a living now isn't necessarily work, it's tough sometimes to get back out of vacation mode and into work mode. So I'm easing my way back into it. Going to do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday shows this week. Once we get back into training camp, we're going to dial things back up to five days a week. Summer is approaching its end as far as the football world goes because in a couple of weeks here,

we are back, basically, right back into the sprint until the Super Bowl and then into the draft. Basically, look, not that I'm complaining. Don't get me wrong. But you get like four weeks to kind of really have downtime and then it's right back into it. But again, what I do isn't work.

It's fun. Kind of like I was reminded of this last night at that Bare Naked Ladies show. They were celebrating 30 years together. Guys better than Ezra. They were celebrating 30 years together. Guys better than Ezra. They're celebrating 30 years together. Almost two years ago, my wife and I went to a Def Leppard show. They were there with Tesla and Poison. Tesla and Def Leppard both celebrated 40 years together.

And they're out there still doing it, still crushing it. When you have something that you get to do that you love, you can still have fun doing it. That's the dream. And I'm kind of living that dream right now, thanks to all of you who listen to the Locked on Patriots podcast. Let's roll through some NFC South over-unders. I want to start with Tampa Bay because I think that's the easiest one of this division. Over-under on Tampa Bay wins right now, 6.5.

Hit, smash, pound that under button. Obviously, you've got the issues with Jameis Winston, right? Now, he's, you know, three-game suspension, which I don't want to get into too much. It just seems like the NFL's priorities are often askew a bit when it comes to league discipline. This is a team that still has a ton of weapons. I love Deshaun Jackson, Mike Evans, Adam Humphries, Chris Godwin. They added Justin Watson as well. That's a nice receiving group. Then you look at the tight ends, you know, O.J. Howard, Cameron Brait. Those are

two of the better tight ends in the league, I'd say. This is a team that could be explosive on offense. Running back was a question mark. They bring in Ronald Jones, who I think fits nicely. They face some question marks in the defensive backfield. They added Carlton Davis in the second round. I think that's an okay pick. But what it really comes down to is Tampa Bay has never really put it together in the past couple of seasons.

And now they're facing, look, they're starting without Jameis Winston, which is going to be tough to begin with. You know, you're out for three games. You get a game against the Saints, a game against the Eagles, and a game against the Steelers. Those are going to be three tough games anyway. You know, now you're facing an 0-3 start. You know, do people really have confidence in Ryan Fitzpatrick going into New Orleans in Week 1? Or beating the Super Bowl champions in Week 2? Or beating the Steelers in Week 3? In a primetime game?

How many teams that start 0-3 finish well? Not many. So I'm looking at that. I'm thinking, look, you've got to go with the under on that. The other three teams, however, Carolina at nine. New Orleans at nine and a half. Atlanta at nine. Those are all teams where I think you can go the over.

The biggest question mark is probably, I'd say, Carolina there. You do wonder a little bit about offensive production. It's sort of the flip side of that coin with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They added Torrey Smith. Sure, they drafted D.J. Moore. I think it was a great pick for them. They drafted Ian Thomas, tight end out of Indiana that a lot of people really liked. They got him in the fourth round sort of to learn from Greg Olson.

They're looking at Christian McCaffrey. Probably they're not every down back, but he's going to get the bulk of work at the running back spot. They add in C.J. Anderson from Denver, who I think is going to be their between tackles guy, but they can do some stuff with McCaffrey. Defensively, Panthers still have a great defense. So I think that's a team that could easily get more than nine wins. I'm hitting the over on them.

New Orleans, they're at nine and a half. Obviously, they're without Ingram to start the season, but still, Breeze is playing at a high level. Whenever you get number nine going, I think you've got a good shot to win some games. They made some nice additions defensively. We'll see how that Marcus Davenport pick works out, but I think nine and a half is reasonable for them to hit the over. Same thing for Atlanta.

I've talked a lot about Matt Ryan on this show and, you know, the way he's played recently and how people are believers in him. And I think he's going to sort of bounce back and have a bit of a better season than he did last year. Adding Calvin Ridley, I think, is a fantastic pick for them. You know, when you go 11 personnel and you've got three wide receivers on the field,

and Julio Jones, Mohamed Sanu, and Calvin Ridley, you know, good luck as a defense. Ridley's a great runner, great route runner, excuse me. Probably didn't get showcased enough at Alabama due to some subpar quarterback play, but I think he's a great fit for this offense. Devonta Freeman might get back to form. The defense looks pretty solid. This is going to be another strong, strong division, and it might be another division

where you see three playoff teams. That's what we saw last year. And so Tampa Bay Buccaneers smashed that under button for the other three. I'd look at that all of them. Up next, the 2006 Patriots draft. They made a number of picks. I want to really focus on a couple because, again, you're probably sick of me already.

But that's all ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. I'm going to close out this show talking about the 2006 Patriots draft. Here's who they drafted. Ready? You ready for the rundown?

Drum roll, please. 21st selection overall, Lawrence Moroney, running back back minnesota 36th pick overall their pick in the second round chad jackson wide receiver florida start taking notes third round selection 86th overall david thomas tight end texas they had two picks in the fourth round garrett mills a tight end from tulsa and stephen gostowski a kicker from memphis fifth round rhino callahan offensive tackle from California. Sixth round, Jeremy Mincy, defensive end of Florida.

Dan Stevenson and Kevin Smith, a guard from Notre Dame and a defensive tackle from Nebraska, respectively. They came off the board at 205 and 206, compensatory selections at the end of the sixth round. And finally, rounding it all out, Willie Andrews, safety, Baylor. Where do we begin? Well, let's begin with Lawrence Maroney.

Because Maroney perhaps has more than anyone now sort of started to overshadow or at least perhaps foreshadow or we hope not foreshadow the Sonny Michel pick. Running back

in the first round, he becomes the Patriots starter when they move on from Corey Dillon. He split time with Dillon in the 2006 season and he had a pretty solid rookie year. In week four of his rookie season, he ran from 125 and two touchdowns on 15 carries against the

Bengals that got him both the FedEx ground NFL player of the week and the Diet Pepsi rookie NFL player of the week honors he was voted AFC special teams player of the week after a 74 yard kickoff return in week seven he had a 77 kickoff return against the Vikings in week eight those are the two longest non-touchdown returns of the season outside of a 91 77 kickoff return against the Vikings in week 8. Those were the two longest non-touchdown returns of the season, outside of a 91-yard kickoff return by Antonio Cromartie. He became the starting running back following the release of Dillon for the 2007 season, but he missed three games in 2007. He rushed for 835 yards in the undefeated 2007 regular season.

He was a big factor for the Patriots in the playoffs. He had 244 rushing yards and two touchdowns in two games before playing in Super Bowl XLII. But then his season ended with a shoulder injury in 2008, the following season. In 2009, he started five games, ran for 757 rushing yards and nine touchdowns, averaging 3.9 yards per carry. That's the bulk of his Patriots career. Was it worth pick 21? Ask yourself this. If Sonny Michel gives you that kind of return this year over his career,

how satisfied are you going to be with that pick, particularly if the quarterback position goes south? So that's Maroney. Chad Jackson. Let's talk about Chad Jackson for a second because similar to some of the other players we've talked about, when people look at

Chad Jackson and they want to make the case that Belichick as GM hasn't fully panned out, Jackson's another guy you can point to. On the first day of the 2006 NFL Draft, the Patriots traded with the Green Bay Packers to move up 16 places from 52 to 36 to select Jackson,

giving up a third-round pick 75th overall, which we'll get to in a second. He missed the entire 2006 preseason with a hamstring injury. He caught two passes in Week two, his first NFL game, one of which was a touchdown. Week four, he caught two passes for nine yards. His performance was limited to a nagging hamstring injury.

Week seven, he caught his fifth pass of the season, a 35-yarder from Tom Brady for a touchdown. He suffered a groin injury, missed back-to-back games in December. In the 2006 AFC Championship game against the Colts, he suffered a torn ACL and was put on the PUP list. He was activated from PUP on November 7, 2007, and was active for only four of the Patriots' remaining games, finishing the season with one catch for 19 yards. He was active for their first playoff game against the Jaguars,

but it was a healthy scratch for their next two games, the AFC Championship and Super Bowl XLII. He was released by the Patriots in August of 2008. Chad Jackson, everybody. Now, Steven Gostowski, obviously, he's gone on to do great things for the Patriots. He's been a solid kicker for them, but let's circle it back to Steven Gostowski and look at a couple of things here. Because let's look at it post-trade first. Remember, they come up from 52 to 36.

Who comes off the board shortly thereafter? Well, Roman Harper. Safety from Alabama comes off the board at 43. Marcus McNeil from the San Diego Chargers at 50 in offensive tackle. If you want to look at wide receiver, who do the Packers take at 52? Where the Patriots were. Greg Jennings, wide receiver out of Western Michigan. And what has Greg Jennings done in the National Football League, you might ask? Well, career receptions,

571, receiving yards, 8,291, 64 receiving touchdowns, two-time Pro Bowler and a Super Bowl champion. Should I continue? I mean, I can. Andre Whitworth, offensive tackle at 55.

Devin Hester, Maurice Jones-Drew. There were some really good players that were still available. And then the Patriots, they made another pick. They went with a tight end. David Thomas at pick 86, okay? And what did David Thomas do in the National Football League for us? Well, career stats. 102 receptions, 938 yards, 8 touchdowns.

Again, he's another player that struggled with injuries. Had a foot injury. He was put on the active physically unable to perform list in the 2007 preseason. He had six receptions for 76 yards as a rookie, although three of those catches were for first downs. So, huzzah. But then when you look past him at 86, guys that were still on the board.

Owen Daniels. Tight end out of Wisconsin. He comes off the board with the first pick of the fourth round. So it's great that they got some contribution from Lawrence Morody. Gostowski was obviously a good pick. But those two picks, Chad Jackson, David Thomas, especially the Jackson pick, especially with what was still on the board, especially the fact that they traded up for him. You know, and, you know, remember, they gave up 75 in the process. And after pick 75, these were some of the guys that were still on the board.

You know, Jason Hatcher as well. Although that pick was made after the Patriots pick at 86. It's more the fact that they trade up and at the spot where they were sitting, the Packers get Greg Jennings. Obviously, and I said this when we started this series, hindsight is

20-20. But man, what could have been? That will do it for today's show. Happy to be back in the big chair. I missed you guys. I missed you guys. I did. I did.

I will be back tomorrow. We'll probably do some more over-unders. Might even do some quarterback talk. Get into a prospect. We'll look at the 2007 Patriots draft. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.