Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots July 17, 2018 - Odds and Ends, NFC East Over Unders, and the 2010 Draft

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Tuesday, July 17th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for this Tuesday installment of your favorite daily Patriots podcast. We are getting close, friends. We are getting close to when we go back to five days a week. This week, next week, then after that, July 30th, that Monday, boom, we are back to five days a week until the Patriots' regular season is over. Hopefully, a regular season that ends in a Super Bowl championship.

Reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com. Got part two of my game script coming out a little bit later this week. If you missed it, part one, I gave you basically the first part of my game script, the plays that I would rely on if I were an offensive coordinator. I gave you some shot plays. I gave you some plays that are sort of first down, let's get some yardage here, you know, base pass offense type of things. In part two, I'm giving you some run game stuff,

some run game stuff, and some play action stuff as well. So look for that over at InsideThePylon.com. A little bit later this week. Also, you can find my work over at the Matt Waldman RSP, MattWaldmanRSP.com. Got a piece which I'll talk about briefly here in the opener about Mitchell Trubisky. Something that I noticed from him from his days at UNC to his rookie season at Chicago.

We'll be announcing some other stuff such as something we're going to talk about in this opening segment as well. A piece on Juju Smith-Schuster and the crossing route over at Steelers Depot where I'll be contributing over there. Ha ha. Some more news about your boy. Also, we're going to talk NFC East over-unders and we're going to get into the 2010 Patriots draft, which had some familiar names in that class. But first, a quick shout out to Peter King. Peter King making his sort of return to the football media world over at Pro Football Talk with Football Morning in America,

his first sort of piece as he moves from a Monday morning quarterback and Sports Illustrated to NBC Sports. It was a little bit weird, I'll admit, seeing Peter Kinn back on a different website. But good to see him back. And I'll just tell a quick story about Peter Ken. Back when there was the lockout and when that all went down in the Washington, D.C. area, I may have told the story before.

Maybe I haven't. For those of you who are new to the show, perhaps it's new to you. Hopefully, it's new to everybody. But for those, if I've told it before and it's a bit of a rerun, I do apologize. Fast forward a bit if you want. It's a quick story. They were in Washington, D.C. The NFL, the NFLPA, the owners, everybody was down in D.C.

at a federal mediation center, which was literally a couple of blocks from where I was working at the time. So I figured it was a Friday afternoon. I wasn't doing anything anyway. So I was in my suit, walked down a couple of blocks. I was interacting with Ian Roport rap sheet on Twitter I did a Brennanham coffee

it was a fun little story and I was just congregated there with a couple of fans and lots of media personnel you know Darren Revell was a couple of feet

from me doing live hits it was just fun to see but in the corner pressed up against the wall of this federal mediation building in downtown D.C. right on K Street

it was a nondescript guy jeans, vest shirt shirt underneath it, keeping to himself, Peter King. And all this was going on, all this activity swirling around him, and Peter King's just kind of by himself being Peter King. And when statements were released saying that they hadn't reached an agreement, they couldn't break the lockout, everybody sort of turned and waited for Peter

King's reaction. He just basically said, this is a dark day for the NFL. This is a bad day for the NFL. And then people went on doing their thing. And he's just back there sort of taking it all in. And I've never forgotten that. I've never forgotten that moment. Just seeing a guy who was basically one of the biggest names in football

media just observing it all. So it was good to see Peter Kinn back, got into a lot of stuff in his piece today about Aaron Rodgers and some of the stuff that he's done this offseason, got into Carson Wentz, his health, Tony Romo's attempts to make the U.S. Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach in August, which is going on right now. Talking a little bit about Nick Foles, great piece. So again, good to see Pierre King back. I'm going to talk Mitchell Trubisky here for a minute.

Got a new piece up over at the mattwaldmanrsp.com. Looking at Mitch Trubisky, Mitchell Trubisky, and sort of his accuracy in progress. One of the things that kept me from being higher on Trubitsky than other people was his lower body mechanics. It was lower body mechanics and a failure to sort of get everything going in the right direction. In the piece, I look at a throw he made against Stanford, a throw he missed against Stanford in their bowl game before he entered the draft. And it's a wide open crossing route, working left to right. And everything in the lower body is wrong. By the time Trubisky

lets the pass go, the receiver has crossed the hash marks. He's getting towards the numbers to his right. But everything in his footwork is pointed right towards the middle of the field. And if you think about it, everything's going straight except his arm, which has to overcompensate towards the sidelines, towards the boundary, towards the numbers. And he leads the receiver too far, and it's an incompletion. And that was a throw that certainly stuck in my mind when it came time to come down to a final evaluation and determination on him.

So I was overjoyed, in a sense, when I saw a fourth down throw he made against the Cincinnati Bengals last season on a similar route to his tight end, Adam Chenier. On a fourth and three, similar route, coming from left to right. The footwork was better. The footwork was improved. It wasn't perfect. The pass wasn't perfect The footwork was better. The footwork was improved. It wasn't perfect. The pass wasn't perfect, but it was better. And as the guy that always says, look, development is not linear. It's not the same from year to year.

Just those little, little refinements, those little steps of progress in the right direction has me somewhat optimistic about Trubitsky. Now when you factor in the new offensive coordinator, the new things they're going to be doing from a schematic standpoint, I think there's reason to be somewhat optimistic about what that team will look like this year. Will they reach that over-under of six and a half wins?

As I said yesterday, I doubt it, but I think they're going to be better. Finally, some quick words on Juju Smith-Schuster. I got a piece that's in the works. It's going to be coming up over at SteelersDepot.com, talking about how Todd Haley used him on crossing routes, shallow routes last year. They used the mesh concept with him. They used stacked slots where they got him a free release off the line of scrimmage. If you go back to look at some of the pre-draft reports on him,

some people were a little bit uncertain about his ability to work against press coverage. In the piece I linked to Lance Zerline over at NFL.com and his pre-draft report on him, that was an issue that he had with him over at Inside the Pylon. We thought it was best working against press when he was coming over the middle, running shallow routes. And that's what Todd Haley did with him a lot.

They used mesh concept, they used stack slots to get them free releases. And in the piece, we saw it in that game in Week 15. That huge 69-yard play that myself included, many myself included, thought, well, Patriots are going to end up giving this one away at the end after this great comeback. That came on a mesh concept. That came on the shallow crossing route something i talk about a lot on this show you know jarvis landry and others you know the way that todd haley used him was very effective you know he's a young receiver he just he caught something like 58 passes for 917 yards

and seven touchdowns last year the bulk of which came before he turned 21 young receiver young athlete hasn't faced a ton of press coverage. He's going to develop and grow and get better, but until he's ready to really beat press coverage in the line of scrimmage, you do these kinds of things for him. So those are some odds and ends thrown a lot at you in this open segment. Up next, we're going to talk NFC East and some over-unders. Then a little bit later, the 2010 Patriots draft,

a lot of familiar names that are still kicking around in New England coming in that class. That's all ahead with me, Mark Schofield, here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you on this Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. I'm going to run through some NFC East over-unders.

We'll get to the AFC over-unders next week. Closing out the NFC though, looking at the NFC East, you've got the defendant super bowl champion philadelphia egos coming off a 13 win season they're over under right now from what i can see over my bookie bovada and a couple other places 15 and a half then you've got the giants obviously three wins last year six and a half for their over under dallas coming off a nine win season eight and a half for them and Washington seven wins last year

seven wins is the over under for this season under new quarterback Alex Smith and that's where I want to start because I look at the Redskins I look at that seven and I was gonna hit the over but then I revisited things I looked at the schedule their schedule in terms of strength of schedule I know I've talked about it it It's not that important. 14th toughest schedule this year. But then when you look when the games line up, they open the season in a pretty good spot, I think.

At Arizona, home against Indy, obviously a new head coach, new head coach, and then home against the Packers. Then they get a week four bye. Then it gets tough. They go to New Orleans, home against the Panthers, home against the Cowboys, at the Giants, home against Atlanta, at Tampa Bay, home against Houston, who everybody thinks is going to be a very good team this year, at Dallas. And then look at these final five games

to close out the season. At Philly, home against the Giants at Jacksonville, which looks to be just as good as last year. And then a game at Tennessee, which has yet to be scheduled. It's potentially going to be flexed depending on how those teams are playing. And then they close it out at home against Philly. I mean, good luck with all that. So I'm changing here on the fly. I'm calling an audible, a little Omaha action here.

I'm saying the under on those seven wins because after that week four bye, that's like, remember Nolan Richardson when he was coaching Arkansas 60 minutes of hell? You know, that's,

that's 12 weeks of hell right there, if you ask me. That's a tough, tough, tough way to end your season. So with Washington, we're going to go with the under. For the New York football Giants, 6.5. Maybe a bit of a shocker here. I'm going to go the over. And look, it's a tough schedule for them. Out of all the teams in the NFC East, at least in

terms of last year's winning percentage, they have the toughest. And it doesn't open y'all up easily. Home against Jacksonville, at Dallas, at Houston. Home against the Saints, at Carolina. Home against the Eagles, at Atlanta. Home against Washington. That's tough. You know, you're probably getting two, maybe three wins out of that. Maybe. Looking at it here right now, maybe you pick off that Dallas game in week two. Maybe you get Washington. Maybe you pick off the Saints or the Texans. So I'm saying two, three. But then you get that week nine bye, which is nice. You get rested up right at midseason. At San Francisco, home against Tampa Bay.

At Chicago, home against the Bears. At Washington, home against the Titans. At the Colts, home against the Cowboys. I think they could piece together seven wins out of this schedule. You get an Odell back. Offensive line is going to be improved. Maybe these are my new big blue view eyes. My new big blue view colored glasses on, but I think they can squeak seven wins out of this schedule. So there you go. We're going to go

over on the New York Giants. Now let's look at the Dallas Cowboys. Again, they had nine wins last season. Eight and a half is the over under. Looking at the schedule, looking at how things come together, looking at that offense and the skill positions, I'm leaning towards the under here. They get a week 8 bye, which is nice. They open at Carolina, home against the Giants, at Seattle, Detroit at home, at Houston, the Jaguars at home, and at Washington. So, you know, a good mix of games there. Then they get the bye, Tennessee at home and at Washington. So, you know, a good mix of games there.

Then they get the bye. Tennessee at home. Then two straight weeks, which are going to be tough, at Philly, you know, a Sunday night game, and then at Atlanta. Those are going to be tough games. Redskins at home. Saints at home on a Thursday night.

Eagles at home at the Colts. Tampa Bay at home at New York. You know, so this could be, be look this smells to me like an 8 and 18 when you see it on paper when you see the schedule and with an over under rate and a half we take the under finally the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles question mark as I alluded to in the opening segment about Peter King sitting down with a quick minute with Doug Peterson about the status of Carson Wentz who just got married over the weekend. Shout out to my boy Carson. Don't forget me man. I was on you back in the day. Don't forget your boy. Anyway Philly 10 and a half with the over under. I'm gonna go the over. Yep, they're playing a first-place schedule,

but tied for 19th toughest in the league. Easiest, at least on paper right now, out of all the NFC East teams. Home game against Atlanta on that Thursday night, the home opener. You know that environment's going to be nutty, especially if Wentz is back. Then they get Tampa Bay on the road, albeit without Jameis Winston. They get the Colts, who knows about Andrew Luck at home. They go to Tennessee, home against the Vikings in an NFC championship game rematch at New York on Thursday

night. Carolina at home at Jacksonville. That looks to be a tough one, but after that tough one, they get a bye week. Week 9 bye, and then they come back. They get Dallas at home at New Orleans. Giants at home. Washington at home. Trips to Dallas and then Los Angeles. Texans are home at Washington to close it out.

But I think if you look at this roster, you look at this team, you look at the way they're built right now, I'm comfortable with them getting two 11 wins out of that. So we'll hit the over. So there you have it. NFC East over-unders, which I'm sure are going to hit because I'm just that brilliant or in all likelihood I'm going to miss on all of these and people are going to be telling me you know what to do with my takes come December but we have fun here that's what we do we're

having fun out here up next we're going to talk in the 2010 Patriots draft like I said some guys kicking around still doing some pretty big contributors that they got out of that draft. Pretty impressive draft haul, I think. Along with, of course, one story which we'll gloss over and touch upon briefly, I guess, because we have to. But things could have been a little bit differently had things turned out in a much, much, much different manner. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you to close out this Tuesday installment and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield's back with you to close out this Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots,

and I know some of you are probably wondering, look, Mark, huge Le'Veon Bell news going down yesterday afternoon. What are your takes? And my takes are, I'll cover it in Wednesday's show. I'm doing a little, you know, Stephen Colbert, John Stewart type action because a little

secret, I'm recording this just minutes, minutes, minutes before the Le'Veon Bell deadline. That deadline rolls in on four o'clock Monday afternoon. It's now currently 3.33 on the East Coast on Monday afternoon. That's right. Recording this a little bit early, not so I'm getting out of town or anything like that, just got some other things I got to do, other things I got to get taken care of. So I will cover that on Monday. As we're sitting here right now, though, it seems like the two parties aren't coming to terms on a deal.

Seems like the franchise tag will be at least in play. But like I said, I'll get to the Le'Veon Bell situation in Wednesday's show. Right now, to close it out, the 2010 Patriots draft. Now remember, this is Patriots season that you know, they were 10-6 in 2009, but they lost

in the first round of the playoffs that season. They got blown out by the... Remember that home game against the Raiders? I still was still settling into the couch when Ray Rice ripped off that run. You just knew. Patriots just do not have it today. So the Patriots go out in 2010, enter that season.

They look to improve. And did they ever in the draft? Let's look at who they pulled in. Obviously, they made some first-round trades. They traded down in the first round a couple of times. They finally made a pick at 27 overall. Devin McCorney, quarterback, Rutgers. I think you know that name.

Second round, pick 42 overall. They traded up just a little bit. Two spots, two drafts. Rob Gronkowski, tight end, Arizona. We could stop right there and say, boom, done, fantastic draft. This draft is a win, all right? Because, look, Devin McCourty, still one of the keystone players of your defense right now.

Arguable, at least going into the Patriots Hall of Fame, I'd say. Maybe, probably a bridge too far to think of him into the Patriots Hall of Fame, I'd say. Maybe, probably a bridge too far to think of him into the National Football Hall of Fame. Robert Gronkowski, however, he might go down as the best tight end of all time. Second round pick, they had two, 53 overall. Jermaine Cunningham, look, he had contributed well as a rookie, fell off after that. So they get one linebacker out of Florida. They figured, hey, you know, let they get one linebacker out of Florida. They figured, hey, you know, let's get another linebacker out of Florida. Brandon Spikes.

They get him in the second round. He'll pick 62. There's two guys that contributed there as well. Third round, pick 90 overall. Taylor Price, wide receiver out of Ohio. Okay, so that one did not pan out, okay? That was their fifth pick. They have two more picks that I think really did pan out,

at least for a while. Fourth round selection, 113 overall. Aaron Hernandez, tight end out of Florida. Now your third player from the University of Florida. I remember when Patriots drafted him, I was at the dinner with my parents, I believe. I was pretty excited about that because of what he could do from a skill set perspective. Didn't know the other stuff, but at least for a while, look, that two tight end tandem of Gronkowski and Hernandez. And remember they would bring Danny Woodhead. They had the ability to go 12 personnel, two tight ends, one running back up tempo, but they can move Hernandez in and out of the backfield. They can do so many different things. They can go empty.

I think, on paper, that was the vision that the Patriots had for their offense. And had Hernandez not become the Aaron Hernandez we now know today, this team could have done incredible things. They weren't done, though. Fifth round, pick 150 overall. Zoltan Mesko, a punter out of Michigan who was a contributor for them until Ryan Allen so look out of the first seven picks in this draft other than Taylor Price and yeah Jermaine Cunningham faded off for a bit you know after his good rookie year they really did well the rest of the draft Ted Larson center from NC State you know not much there Thomas

Walsh offensive tackle from Vanderbilt. Brandon Diedrich, defensive end from Alabama, who contributed some. Cade Wilson, defensive tackle from Georgia. And Zach Robinson, quarterback, Oklahoma State, now most notably a contributor over at Pro Football Focus. But this was a very, very good draft. And if you're going to probably nitpick this draft and say,

oh, what could have been, things like that, it's really hard to do that. I think the place you would probably look would be that selection, not of Aaron Hernandez. I mean, we just didn't know. Or maybe the Patriots should have known, but they didn't. But if you do want to wonder about what could have been, there are a couple of names you can look at. After they drafted Taylor Price, Navarro Bowman comes off the board, linebacker out of Penn State to the San Francisco 49ers.

But again, they had already drafted two linebackers. Jimmy Graham gets drafted by the Saints at 95, just a couple of picks after Taylor Price. And you might say, look, why didn't you draft him instead? Well, they had already drafted Gronkowski. They go on and draft Aaron Hernandez a little bit later. Maybe all things being equal sitting here right now, we'd rather have had Jimmy Graham than Aaron Hernandez.

So you could point to that hindsight being what it is. Every St. Griffin comes off the board at 100. Again, he was on the board when they picked Taylor Price. Nice defensive end out of USC. Arguably one of the better defensive ends in the game right now. So those are some potential what-ifs, but Cam Chancellor, he doesn't come off the board until the fifth round at 133. I mean, there's a name to think about.

But look, all things being considered, probably a pretty good draft. And had Aaron Hernandez not gone on to become Aaron Hernandez, more known for his off-the-field horrific transgressions, then we could have looked at this in a completely different light. But still a very, very successful draft for the New England Patriots. So that will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow on a Wednesday installment. We'll probably get into some AFC over-unders.

Look at the 2011 Patriots draft. I'll have the Le'Veon Bell recap. How that went down just in a couple of minutes. Now that's going to go down. Maybe hindsight being 20-20, I should have waited, but I got things to do too, friends. I will be back tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.