Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots July 12, 2018 - Tom Brady/Barenaked Ladies, Timeline Takes and the 2008 Draft Revisited

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

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Good morning, welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Thursday, July 12th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for this Thursday installment of your favorite daily Patriots podcast. Reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the head writers, as well as MattWaldmanRSP.com where I'm proud to say I'm contributing over there

for the upcoming season, and my debut piece is up today. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Also, you can check out video work, YouTube.com slash inside the pylon. And as I teased yesterday, and as I'll keep teasing until these contracts get signed, there will be some more places where I'll be contributing in the upcoming season, which I'm truly excited about. Blessed to be doing this for a career now and blessed to be talking to you

four or five days a week as we get closer and closer to the NFL season. I want to give a quick request to the loyal listeners of the Locked On Patriots podcast, and that request is this. It's awards season in the podcast industry. Yes, there are actual awards for podcasts, and the 13th annual podcast awards over at podcastawards.com are underway. Shows can be nominated once they are registered. And Locked on Patriots, your favorite daily Patriots podcast,

has been registered. So if you could, please, go over to podcastawards.com and you can check out Locked On Patriots as well as some other shows. And if you could throw in a nomination for Locked On Patriots, it would be greatly appreciated.

Now let's get to the show, loaded show today. We're going to do some timeline takes. There are two takes that have been seared through the timeline that I got to get to mostly because, well, you'll understand in a few minutes. Then we're going to get to mostly because, well, you'll understand in a few minutes. Then we're going to get to the 2008 Patriots NFL draft and wonder for a moment the butterfly effect of drafting and what might have been. But first, as I mentioned, as I teased,

proud to be a contributor now over at the Matt Waldman RS rsp matt waldman's rookie scout and portfolio and my debut piece went up today and i do want to talk about that it's a piece titled the rsp nfl lens tom brady josh rosen and bare naked ladies and i know it sounds a little bit strange i know it sounds a little bit strange. I know it sounds a little bit odd. But let me get you through this here, and let me take you through my reasoning. As I mentioned on Tuesday's show, spent Monday night with the wife

at the MECU Center, excuse me, MECU Pavilion, formerly the Pier 6 Pavilion, in the inner harbor of Baltimore for a night featuring KT Tunstall, Better Than Ezra, and the Bare Naked Ladies. You know, college Mark was extremely, extremely excited to see this show. Frankly, present day Mark was very excited as well. And it's one of those steamy summer nights. It's an outdoor venue. Yes, it's on the inner harbor. It's on the water. We had seats underneath the covered area. There's a lawn out back where people can put up lawn chairs or blankets and things like that.

But it's still one of those steamy summer mid-Atlantic nights. And for those of you that have never been to the DMV, the Washington DC area, one of my favorite little tidbits about life in the DC area is this. Back before the days of air conditioning and things like that, foreign diplomats, foreign dignitaries that had to live in the D.C. area during the month of August were paid hazard pay during the month of August because of the heat and humidity. I mean, it's a swampy, thick environment. August is a little rough around here,

and frankly, July gets to be pretty tough too. And that could stretch into even early October sometimes. And this was one of those nights. I'm sitting there with my wife and in between acts or even on some of the slower songs or songs that people didn't recognize when Better Than Ezra was playing new stuff, for example. People just sat back down. And even when you're just sitting there, you start to feel the sweat.

And it was just one of those nights. But I'm watching these shows. I'm watching Better Than Ezra. I'm watching then Barenaked Ladies when they take the stage, even KT Sunzone. And the energy from all these performers was amazing. I mean, better than Ezra Ferguson,

Kevin Griffin, their lead singer, was incredibly energetic. Right before he launched into a cover of Elton John's Tiny Dancer, which was incredibly fun, he was, you know, chastising a guy that was sitting in the front row, basically saying to him,

maybe this will get you to put your phone down, buddy. Guy who had been staring at guy that was sitting in the front row basically saying to him maybe this will get you to put your phone down buddy guy who had been staring at his phone sitting in the front row just staring at his phone and then griffin launches into tiny dancer with the rest of better than ezra he's going through the aisles he walked right past me it was just a a super fun performance a super fun rendition of that Elton John song. And then he gets back up on stage and he starts talking about how they're celebrating 30 years together. 30 years of doing this. And he's still got that energy on a hot, steamy night in Baltimore when, who knows, maybe there was anywhere in the world he'd rather be. But it didn't seem like that at the moment.

It just seemed like he loved what he was doing. And then Barenaked Ladies, they come on the stage, and it's the same exact thing. And it's hot, and it's steamy. And you could tell that they're just covered in sweat. They're in between songs, reaching for towels and everything they can do. But they're still doing it for the love. And they get through near the end of their show and they do this little segment where they cover a bunch of stuff.

Like Psycho from Post Malone. To Rockstar. To Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. Just playing a bunch of stuff that they just like to play because it's fun. And what do they announce near the end of their show? They're also marking 30 years together. And as this is going on, and I'm absorbing this show and watching these guys and just being blown away by the energy that they still have

and the passion and the love that they still have. Because when you're at a concert and people start covering stuff, you can tell that they just love playing music and they just love entertaining and they don't care what they're playing. My mind starts to wander, as it often does to football and to, you know,

I played the game for 13 years. When you hear that 30-year mark, I think of Tom Brady, okay? And I get that question a ton. What is it about Tom Brady that has enabled him to play so long to such a high level and sitting there watching these musical acts that have been doing it for 30 years and still doing it for the love and still having the energy for it. I'm thinking about Tom Brady and I'm thinking about things that I've talked about on this show. His ability to move in the pocket, his ability to stay upright. It's allowed him to keep playing to this point in his

career at such a high level. And more than anything else, it's allowed him to avoid injury and stay almost as energetic as these guys I'm now seeing on stage. And so in this piece for Matt Waldman, I take it a step further and make the argument that for all of those that were down on Josh Rosen, for all of those that were down on Josh Rosen, for all of those that said, you know, Baker Mayfield's QB1, Sam Darnold's QB1, Josh Allen's QB1, I see in Rosen some of the same things I see in Tom Brady and some of the things I saw in Barenaked Ladies and Better Than Ezra that night. That lineage, that line that you can draw from the ability to move around in a pocket with your footwork, to avoid hits, to stay upright, to extend plays that I see in Rosen,

I see in Tom Brady, and it allowed Brady to play into his 40s now. And I think if things break right for Josh Rosen you could see something similar it's a weird strange little piece that I put together kind of a brain mind dump of stuff but that's one of the joys that I'm going to have working with Matt is that you know similar inside the pylon I can put stuff together this. I can see where the words take me and hopefully some good comes of it. So check that out. You can check it out. mattwaldmanrsp.com, my initial piece over there. And as I said, I'll be rolling out some new stuff at some other different sites as we get closer and closer to football season here. Going to build the brand, my friends. Going to build the brand. Up next, we're going to do some timeline

takes. Two takes that have crossed the timeline of the past couple of days that I got to deal with. And then a little bit later, we're going to revisit the 2008 Patriots draft and the butterfly effect of drafting. That's all ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you on this Thursday. Thursday, not Tuesday, Mark. Thursday edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you on this Thursday. Thursday. Not Tuesday, Mark. Thursday edition of Locked On Patriots. And I'm going to dive into two quick timeline takes

that I've got to deal with. And the first is a piece from Randy Benoit. Randy Benoit? I always forget how he pronounces that. Over at Sports Illustrated, where he makes the case that when you compare the NFL game and the college game, that they are not the same game. And sort of the sub-headline for this is, the college game has its charms, but for those who love the strategy of the game,

NFL football, thanks to roster sizes, familiar names, uniforms, overtime rules, and most of all, field dimensions, is unbeatable. As somebody that firmly plants his flag in that realm of somebody that loves the strategy of the game, I could not disagree with this piece more. And you can check it out for yourself. You can check it out over at MMQB. And he opens the piece, excuse me, si.com.

That's right, it's si.com now. It's not long. Well, it's still MMQB. It's at si.com. You know where it is. You can find it. He starts the piece with this. For the past six years, I have watched almost every NFL game and, aside from a few pre-draft projects, zero college football games.

One of the things that I loved about the way that Inside the Pylon was born and how it grew over the years and guys like Dave Archibald at Dave Archie on Twitter, love you buddy, will back me up on is the fact that we had a strict editorial process. our writers where unless it's something that might be might need a second look at eyes whether it's a statistical analysis or a coverage or something most of the time it just gets one pass but when we started at ITP every piece got one edit two edits an author review a final edit then a production then a production edit it was like a seven-step process. I would like to think that back in the Halicon days of ITP, if somebody submitted a piece that started that way to make the argument that the college game isn't as schematically advanced as the NFL game, the first editor would read that opening sentence and say, we got to rework this thing big time.

It boggles my mind that somebody could make the argument that he does here while saying that he has watched zero college football games. Now he goes on to basically say things like, you know, the college game has, you know, pageantry, tradition, a sense of community. And he agrees that, yeah, it's better. Those things are better in the college game than the pro game.

But then he says, there are those of us who like football's pageantry but love its strategy. We see the game as a chess match where everyone's pieces are not the same. Those pieces are not confined to individual squares. They move not one at a time, but all at once. And that movement usually doesn't stop until someone scores or gets hit. And he goes on to say, Pro football annihilates college football from a strategic entertainment standpoint. The biggest reasons why? The career lights, longer careers.

College football is like a miniseries. Pro football is a long TV show that you grow to love. More teams in the college game makes it impossible to keep up with everything. Smaller rosters. In the NFL game, jersey numbers. He comes back to the jersey number thing. He's made an argument before that backers running back Ty Montgomery

being allowed to wear number 88 is an incredible strategic advantage. And if the fact that he's wearing number 88 is such a strategic advantage that it confounds opposing defensive coordinators, then those opposing defensive coordinators should be fired. Tyree Kill wears number 10.

I didn't see Bill Belichick before week one last year saying, wait a second, he's wearing number 10, I don't know where he's going to line up, this isn't fair. Come on Length of the game You know he goes into that Feet in bounds for a catch

Over time width of the field Okay His argument I think Overstates something Misses something His argument, I think, overstates something. Misses something. It misses the X's and O's aspect to it. I've talked before about how the evolution of schematic football is a trickle-up phenomenon. NFL coaches are by their very nature conservative.

They don't want to try something new unless they have a body of evidence that it works on a more consistent basis. High school and college teams have been running RPOs. They've been running these things for decades, for a long time now. And they're finally really starting to trickle their way into the National Football League.

Spread things, same thing. Wildcat, same thing. These things trickle up. And I'm reminded of a book I read when I was a kid and I spent more time this morning than I care to admit trying to track down this book. And I had a quote from Joe Gibbs who made that same point, that scheme stuff is a trickle-up process.

So all the X's and O's, all the fun stuff that we're starting to see in the NFL today, it's coming from the college game. It's roots. Their roots are in the college game. So if you're a fan of the schematic stuff, if you're a fan of the X's and O's and the strategy and all that stuff and trying to identify mismatches, all of that is rooted in the college game and even to some extent the high school game. So I would make the case if you're a fan of strategy, watch the college game sometime. Watch Scott Frost's offense. I got done charting Mackenzie Milton.

I studied him for the upcoming draft. And I was watching Scott's off-process offense. And I was blown away by some of the schematic stuff that he's doing. Lincoln Riley's offense with Baker Mayfield. Same exact thing. Options and packages and different things built into one single play. And so I get what Andy's saying, but I think he misses the overall point. He's missing the forest through the trees.

The pure X's and O's of it. Watch the college game. Because that's where all the stuff you're going to see on Sundays is coming from. Other timeline take I wanted to get to, I've run long here in this segment, so I'm just going to touch on it briefly. Scott Casmar from Football Outsiders basically made the argument last night that receptions by themselves are not production, making the case against Jarvis Landry and his big contract.

I would just say quickly on this, I understand that there's a case to be made against Jarvis Landry and his big contract. I would say though that saying that receptions are not production in and of themselves, I think is a flawed way to make that case. If you want to make the case against Jarvis Landry, you could point out the fact that for a receiver to have over 100 receptions and less than 1,000 yards in receiving, I think there's a disconnect there. There's a failure to produce on a consistent basis. When you sort of look at Landry in the overall scheme of how he was used in Miami, I think you can understand that the design, man, that was a struggle. The design of that offense and how they used him was to

get him open underneath on these shallow crossers and turn him into yardage after the catch. And he's been very effective in terms of yardage after the catch, but not on a consistent enough basis perhaps to justify this big contract. That being said, when you look at the overall construction of the Cleveland Browns offense and what they might be doing this next year, I think it might start to make sense. I just wanted to touch on that briefly. Up ahead, the 2008 Patriots draft. And what I'm going to talk about is the butterfly effect of draft. And that's coming up with me, Mark Schofield, here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you now on this Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. Let's get in quickly to the 2008 Patriots draft.

They selected one, two, three, four, five, six, seven players. Two of whom I think they knocked it out of the park. Gerard Mayo in the 10th round. Not in the 10th round. Man, I have had some moments today. First round, pick 10, Gerard Merrill. Boom, done. Fantastic, fantastic draft pick.

I don't think anybody would have a problem with that. Fifth round, pick 153, Matthew Slater, wide receiver from UCLA. And I remember when this pick was made, arguing over at Sons of Sam Horn that I guess he's going to be a great special teams player because that seems to be all he really did at ucla and maybe i'll spend some time trying to track down that take but i seem to remember sitting in the office second bedroom of the condo my wife and i used to have down in Logan Circle, Washington, D.C., making that argument.

And my wife saying, why are you sitting here? This is pointless. Why do you care about the fifth round of the NFL draft? Nobody cares about the fifth round of the NFL draft. Why are you writing about it? Who would read it? Well, ha-ha, 10 years later. Ha-ha.

I digress. So I think those two picks were great picks. In the middle though, some question marks and we're going to get to that butterfly effect here in a second. Second round pick at 62, Terrence Wheatley, cornerback from Colorado. Third round pick, 78 overall, Sean Crable, linebacker from Michigan. Third round pick, their second third round pick, pick 94, Kevin O'Connell, quarterback San Diego State. Jonathan Wilhite in the fourth round, a pick 94, Kevin O'Connell, quarterback, San Diego State. Jonathan Wilhite in the fourth round, a pick 129, a cornerback from Auburn, who actually was a pretty solid contributor for a number of seasons before he was released.

And their final pick, Bo Rood, a linebacker out of Nebraska. He didn't even make the roster. But the rest of these guys at least made the roster. Slater and Bale obviously having great success. The other guys made the roster, Slater and Bale obviously having great success. The other guys made the roster. Now, first I want to talk about the pick of Terrence Wheatley, who struggled with injuries at times. He was inactive at times. He was a reserve at times, had a foot injury in the 2010 season, and he was waived in the middle of the 2010 season what could they have done rather than Terrence Wheatley I pick 62

well I mean Charles Godfrey I pick 67 he was early in the third round pick 62 was right at the end of the second quarterback from out Iowa, but he's bounced around the league for a number of years as both a corner and a safety. Career stats of 384 tackles, three sacks, 11 interceptions, one defensive touchdown. You could make the case that,

look, maybe he would have been a better pick. And you might be right with that Jamal Charles running back out of Texas might be nice to have had him on a couple of these Patriots teams but instead the Patriots went with Terrence Wheatley Sean Cable Sean Crabill a pick 78 some guys that were still on the board Jeremy Zuta Center out of Rutgers Obviously center wasn't a huge need for the Patriots

But Cliff Averill Defensive end out of Purdue Cliff Averill obviously had A nice career with Seattle Seahawks He was just recently released back in May With a failed physical designation

Because he's having a Ser serious problem with his neck. But up until then, look, he was named as the 56th best player in the NFL Top 100 of 2017. But now let's get to what I'm calling the sort of butterfly effect of drafting. At pick 94, the Patriots drafted Kevin O'Connell, quarterback of San Diego State.

6'5", 220 pounds. And didn't really do much for the New England Patriots. He was waived in August of 2009. When he was waived, the Patriots really gave no explanation for releasing him. He was in a competition with Andrew Walter and Brian Hoyer for the backup job

behind Tom Brady. And he bounced around the Lions, the Jets, the Dolphins, the Jets, the Chargers before retiring. He's currently coaching. Who was picked right after Kevin O'Connell? And here's where we're going to get to that butterfly effect. Picking right behind the New England Patriots were, of course, the New York Giants,

who had just won the Super Bowl. Ruining the Patriots' dreams of a perfect season. And the player they picked at 95 One pick after Kevin O'Connell Was a wide receiver out of Michigan Mario Manningham You could just imagine What would have been

What could have been, if the Patriots had gone a different direction and drafted Manningham. Now, receiver obviously not an issue for the Patriots at that moment. But what could have been, what should have been, was not. That will do it for today's show. That will do it for this week. I will be back Monday. Hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Again, check out podcastawards.com.

Give your boy's show here a little bit of a nomination. Generate some buzz for the show. Help me. As I always like to say, I'm here to help you. Now I'm asking you guys, help your boy a little bit. Have a wonderful weekend, everybody. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Scofield, and Locked on Patriots. We'll be right back.