Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots June 20, 2018 - Dolphins, Timeline Takes and the 2003 Patriots' Draft

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

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Good morning, welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Wednesday, June 20th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for this Wednesday installment of your favorite daily Patriots podcast. Reminded to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the lead writers. Got some new stuff up there this week. A piece on Brian Lewerke, which we broke down yesterday.

A piece on Kyle Schumer, quarterback at Vanderbilt University. And the son of Pat Schumer, new Giants head coach. That's up today, breaking down a drive he led against the University of Georgia. You can also check out some of my recent work over at ProFootballWeekly, ProFootballWeekly.com where I'm doing some X's and O's and scheme stuff. As always, videos, youtube.com slash

Inside the Pylon for the first sound video series breaking down quarterback and quarterback evaluation. Loaded show for you today. We're going to talk some timeline takes. We're going to take a look at the 2002 Patriots draft, second installment of this summer series, revisiting some drafts during the Brady and Belichick era. But first, we continue the series with storylines, looking at the AFC East now, and this has been a little bit different as we've gotten to the AFC East, taking a look at it team by team. We're going to talk Miami Dolphins today. Dolphins looking a little bit different obviously

gone Jarvis Landry their wide receiver now with the Cleveland Browns returning to the starting lineup Ryan Tannehill after a season lost due to injury. There are a number of places we could look at when we talk about this Miami Dolphins roster right now. I'm going to start on the defensive ball because there's another player coming back that I'm really excited to see him return to the lineup, and that's Raekwon McMillan, who was a second-round draft choice in the 2017 draft, but was injured on one of his first preseason snaps in preseason week one, I believe it was, on a kickoff where he was lost with a knee injury. Now he's back. They expect him to be the guy in the middle of their linebacker unit. That would give them, look, Kiko Alonso, Raekwon McMillan, and Stephon Anthony.

Those are your three linebackers in the middle of that 4-3 defense. This looks to be a fairly stout defense until you perhaps get to the back half. Let's look at the guys up front. Cameron Wake, Robert Quinn, Jordan Phillips. That's a pretty stout group of guys up front. And then the linebackers that we just talked about. This is a defense that I think could do some things, particularly when you look at some of the success that they had at times last year. Obviously, remember that Monday night debacle. The Patriots had a chance to really

put a clamp on their division, put a clamp on their playoff posture in and they just laid an egg down there on Monday night now this was a fairly middle of the pack defense last year at least statistically you look at their run defense 105 yards allowed per game that was 14th best in the league passing defense in terms of yardage per game. Gave up 225.2 yards per game. That was good for 16th basically, right? Smack dab in the middle. And now you lose to Dominican Sioux. So there's a question mark there.

And in terms of the pass defense, that's another area I'm really curious to see how that comes together. Because you add Minka Fitzpatrick, who's slotted in right now, at least according to our lads, as a nickelback. He's a chess piece slot. Excuse me. Hat tip to my good friend Dave Archibald, at Dave Archie on Twitter. He's more of a Swiss Army knife defensive type of player. Can play corner, can play safety, can play a nickelback, and that's kind of where they're looking to use him.

Obviously with Rashard Jones, TJ McDonald, their safeties as of right now. Cordero Tankersley Zavian Howard Bobby McCain guys that are going to be seeing some run at the cornerback spots also some interesting additions on the defensive side of the ball in addition to making Fitzpatrick Jerome Baker third round pick in this draft linebacker out of Ohio State he was a guy that was getting some second even late first round buzz as we got into the draft process. There were some people that thought Baker might climb up boards a little bit, but he didn't. But that's the defensive side of the ball. I'm excited to see how that defense comes together.

I think it could be a good defense. I'm not saying it's going to be a top 10 type defense here right now, but it wouldn't surprise me. On the offensive side of the ball, obviously the big question mark, Ryan Tannehill, how he bounces back from his injury, from the knee injury that he suffered, you know, basically the end of that 2016 into 2017 season, kept and re-injured sort of in training camp. You know, you expect to see him healthy back, ready to go, because after him, Brock Osweiler, David Fails, and Bryce Petty, not a lot

in terms of confident, capable backup options behind him. And what's interesting about Tannehill is he's under contract, base salary just under $80,000 this year. Obviously, there's probity bonuses and stuff. So his cap number is almost $9 million. Now, the Miami Dolphins, they are facing somewhat of a question mark as we get forward into the next couple of years. Because his contract right now, which was restructured on March 14, 2018, that's going to accelerate over the next couple of years. Because his base salary, which I said under $800,000 this year, jumps to $18.7 million next year and $19.4 million in 2020. And that's years 31 and 32 of his NFL career. That's how old he's going to be, friends,

not how long he's played in the National Football League. Just wanted to make that clear. So for this year, he's just 4.9% of their cap. That jumps to 14% next year and 12.5% for the 2020 season. So I am curious to see. They didn't address quarterback this year. I was kind of expecting or wondering if they might. Clearly, there's a chance that they do it next year when his cap number jumps to, his total cap number next year is $26.6 million and then $25 million the year after that.

So that's one thing to watch. I'm also curious to see these two tight ends. They draft two rookie tight ends, Mike Giusecchi, who I talked about a lot on this show, who I liked a lot out of Penn State. Then the other guy who they drafted on the fourth on, Durham Smythe, who's not really the route runner receiving threat that, say, Mike Jacecki is, but he's more of an in-line blocker. And it's going to be interesting to see these two guys sort of paired together

because Jacecki's more of a big wide receiver than he is a true tight end. Smythe is more the guy that can block, can get in a three-point stance, can give you some run block and stuff. Going to be interesting to see those two guys paired together in Adam Gates' offense. Also, I'm curious to see this wide receiving group. Can these guys finally put it together? Devontae Parker, a first-round pick in the 2015 draft,

hasn't really lived up to his villain. Obviously, Kenny Stills is still there. They add Danny Amendola. I think the addition of Juseki and Smythe, you're going to see a lot of maybe 12 or even what we'd call big 11 personnel where you might see, say, Amendola, Stills, and Juseki as well as Smythe in the game where they use Juseki more as a big X-type receiver

than Stills at the Z, Amendola at the slot, and then Smythe as your true traditional tight end. Then when you get to the running back spot, they bring in Frank Gore, who is still chugging along. I mean, we talk about longevity all the time when Tom Brady here on this show, but we're talking about a running back at the age of 35 still plugging along.

Very impressive that Frank Gore is still doing it, you know, giving the mileage and, you know, the hits and the wear and tear on his body to this, you know, to this point in his career. Kenyon Drake, a player that a lot of people liked coming out of Alabama. And then Kalen Balazs, who drafted in the

fourth round, more of an upright runner, receiving threat out of the backfield. Some nice pieces there. This will be an interesting team. I know people are down on the Jets. People are down on the Bills. And perhaps with good reason when you look at those rosters.

I wouldn't sleep on the Miami Dolphins this year. They have a chance to perhaps make some noise here. Provided Tannehill, his knee can hold up. And if you are interested in the Dolphins, I'll give a shout-out to my boy Travis Winfield. He's the host of Locked on Dolphins. Does great work over there. You should definitely check him out. His show you can check out, Locked on Dolphins.

And if you want to give Travis a follow on Twitter, you can find him at WinfieldNFL, which is at W-I-N-G-F-I-E-L-D-N-F-L. That will do it for our storylines look at the Miami Dolphins. Up next, some timeline takes. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you

now on this Wednesday edition of Locked On Patriots, and I'm going to do some quick timeline takes here. Just two little things that caught my eye in the past couple of days on Twitter. First, Tom. Tom Brady, my friend. Look, I love you, my friend. I do. I do. You've given me countless joy over the years.

But covering you, my friend, has become a little bit of a head scratcher because I just got done doing a show for Monday about your sit down, your chat with Oprah, where you said, I can see retirement sooner rather than later. And no sooner do we get done talking about all that than Tom Grady goes on Instagram, which is his preferred method of social media interaction, and drops in a comment about that interview where he puts out the number 45, which has the timeline up in arms again about how now Brady, oh, now he wants to play until he's 45. Now he wants to play until he's 45. I guess I will have to reiterate again what I've said dating back to, say, October

or even before that on this show. Father Time is undefeated. But if there was somebody that was going to take Father Time the distance, it would be Tom Brady. And I said that, you know, I remember saying that when the Wickersham story broke. I'll say it here again. And 45 probably would be getting to the 12th or the 15th round, however you want to use the boxing analogy,

for a quarterback playing in the National Football League. But now Brady's got everybody all excited again. Maybe he's not going to retire. Maybe that end isn't in sight. I just hope that the Patriots address the quarterback spot the way they need to address it, which is anticipate the end coming sooner rather than later. Because throughout this whole will-he-won't-he, Brady thing that's been going on the past

year and a half, I keep coming back to Bill Belichick's words saying, it is better to be a year ahead of schedule than a year behind schedule when you're trying to replace your quarterback. You have to stick to that. Nick Cassaro, Bill Belichick, you have to stick to that Nick Cassero Bill Belichick you have to stick to that if that means getting a guy

early in next year's draft then please do it also selfishly please do it so I have to stop answering questions from Patriots fans

and while I love my parents to death believe me you know the endless questions of okay who's the next quarterback who's the next quarterback

I know it's my job but still it gets a little tiresome so please Patriots address it sooner Believe me, the endless questions of, okay, who's the next quarterback? Who's the next quarterback? I know it's my job, but still it gets a little tiresome. So please, Patriots, address it sooner rather than later. Other thing that's been blowing up the timeline that I just want to touch on briefly because seriously, I mean this entirely seriously. On the list of things that I care about, wrap beefs, whether a hot dog is a sandwich or not, whether it's okay to back into a parking space in a parking lot, those are things I honestly care about more

than Madden ratings. And I'm not saying this as a guy that's 41 and hates video games. I'm saying this as a guy that's 41 and loves video games. But I saying this as a guy that's 41 and loves video games. Okay. But I don't care about Madden ratings. I'm seeing people get angry about Madden ratings. I'm seeing people debate Madden ratings. I'm seeing people say, Oh, Aaron Rodgers in 99, he should be a 100. I'm seeing people say, how can, you know, Andrew Luck be over Matthew Stafford?

You know, Luck hasn't thrown a football in 475 moons. I don't care about Madden ratings for a couple of reasons. One, I haven't picked up Madden in probably six years, probably closer to four. And the reason being is this. Many people, myself included, use video games as an escape. When I spend all of my day talking about studying and watching football, the last thing I really want to do is sit down and play football. You know, this reminds me of when I was a lawyer, when I would spend my days practicing law. And we would

get home, my wife and I, also a lawyer, we'd sit down, we'd start watching TV, and she said, oh, let's watch Law and Order, or let's watch Boston Legal. And even though I loved Boston Legal, and that was the one legal show I would let myself watch, anything else, no. I've been doing this all day. The last thing I want to do is sit down and revisit. So I use video games as escape. I'd rather play The Witcher 3, which I still love.

Assassins Creed Origins, been replaying that this summer. Fantastic game. I don't care about Madden ratings. I don't care about Madden. It's just not for me anymore. And the fact that people are spending so much time breaking down Madden ratings and saying, oh, this guy shouldn't be in 97 or this guy shouldn't be in 96. Or, you know, I've had people come out and say, oh, look, the fifth ranked quarterback in next year's

Madden is Matt Ryan instead of Matthew Stafford. Ha ha. Your QB takes are bad. Go retire. Get a go retire get a new job okay you win like don't get worked up over matter ratings because last time i checked the user i.e the person with the controller in their hand can be pretty more important than the rating itself and my last little thing on this is if you want to fix the game, fix franchise mode and bring back the passing cone. Okay? If you want to get me back into Madden, do that.

Fix franchise mode, bring back the passing cone. Or better yet, if you want to get me back into playing a football game, bring back NCAA. That I will play. As a matter of fact, I might have to dust off the old PS3 just to play some NCAA 14 because I do miss that game.

Up ahead, talk about the 2002 Patriots draft class, a class which really I think the Patriots hit on again. We just got talking about the 2001 class with Seymour and Leite at the top. Patriots made some really good picks in this draft class as well. I will identify perhaps two areas where, at least one where I do think that the Cubs have gone in a completely different direction. And one that, while the pick that they made panned out, there was a pretty big name that a lot of teams passed on, the Patriots included, that they're probably kicking themselves to this day about passing on this guy. That's all ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots.

Mark Schofield back with you now on this Wednesday edition of Locked On Patriots. And as I said, we're going to dive into the 2002 Patriots draft class. This was the Patriots' first draft as defending Super Bowl champions. Obviously, they had just won Super Bowl XXXVI. They were coming off a miraculous type of season and gave them, as you might expect, a pick late in the first round. The Patriots sitting there at 32, but in a very un-Brady-like manner. Patriots decided to do some moving around in that first round. Patriots, even though they

were sitting, like I said, at 32, they decided to move up a little bit. They packaged their first round pick, number 32, with their third round pick, number 96, and their seventh round pick, pick 234 overall, and gave that to Washington for the 21st pick in the second round, in the first round, excuse me. And in a precursor to what the Patriots did later with Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, Patriots drafted Daniel Graham, big athletic tight end out of Colorado. And Graham was, you know, a player that maybe didn't live up to the role that the Patriots wanted him to have. But look, he was a contributor to this team for years, contributed seven touchdowns one season.

So I think when you kind of look at the Graham pick, I think it was one that made a great deal of sense. You look at his statistics, at least for his time in New England, he appeared in 12 games as a rookie, 14 games in 2003, 14 games in 2004, 11 games in 2005, 12 games in 2006. Didn't really catch. Let's see. His best season as a receiver, probably 2003, 38 receptions for 409 yards,

four touchdowns, 21 first downs. That seven-touchdown season came in 2004. And so I think Graham was a pretty good pick there to kick things off for the Patriots in that first round. Second round, another really good selection, Dion Branch. Wide receiver out of Louisville. Pick 65 overall. You look at what Branch did. I mean, Super Bowl 39 named Super Bowl MVP. And to get that from a second round pick, I think that was a very good selection as well. Rohan Davey, pick 117 overall. He was the first of four picks in the fourth round

that the Patriots had. Probably questioned this one a little bit. You know, Davey was somebody that I remember people were a little bit excited about, but it never really sort of panned out, obviously, for him in the National Football League. You know, he was the sixth quarterback taken in the 2002 draft behind David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, Josh McCown, and David Garrard. He played in NFL Europe, was named Player of the Year, won the World Bowl with the Berlin Thunder, but when he came back to the Patriots, he was still under contract with the Patriots. He lost his backup job to Doug Flutie,

lost a third string job to Matt Castle, and was finally released by the Patriots. He signed on with the Arizona Cardinals, but he was released by Arizona, finished his career in the Arena League. So perhaps a miss there. Jarvis Green, pick 126 overall, the second of their two fourth round selections. He's drafted, he recorded, excuse me, two and a half sacks, started four games as a rookie in 2003, started seven games, had half sacks, started four games as a rookie. In 2003, started seven games, had two sacks, had two and a half sacks, and six tackles in the AFC Championship game that season. In 2014, he played all 16 games, started all three playoff games, including Super Bowl 39, finishing the season with four sacks.

So, I mean, you go through his career, his time in New England, looking at what Jarvis Green did. He won two, three, four, five, six, eight solid years of contributing for the Patriots. His best season, probably 2006, where he notched seven and a half sacks, two passes defensed as well, six and a half sacks in 2007. And when you're getting that from a guy in the fourth round, I think it's a very good selection. Two more picks. Antoine Womack, a running back out of Virginia. He was the first of two seventh round picks. Picked 237 overall. But he was never really able to recover from a 2001 season. That's when he was injured at the University of Virginia. He slipped on the artificial turf at a game against Wisconsin,

messed up his ankle, and he just never really came back from that. He spent the 2002 season on injury reserve and did not play because of that ankle injury, and the Patriots released him in 2003. And then finally, their last pick, David Gibbons, wide receiver out of Notre Dame, who caught nine passes and one touchdown his rookie season. His best performance, usually his best games are in the postseason. 2003 AFC Championship game against the Colts, he scored.

Excuse me. Started with the 2003 AFC Championship against the Colts. He had a touchdown and at least one touchdown in the Patriots' next seven playoff games, including both Super Bowl 38 and Super Bowl 39. In the 2005 season, he caught a career-high 59 passes and was the Patriots' number two receiver for the second year in a row. At Super Bowl 39, he caught a four-yard touchdown pass from Tom Brady and mocked the Terrell Owens wind flap celebration.

He was actually the Patriots record holder in postseason touchdown receptions until 2015 when Rob Gronkowski finally caught him. You get that out of a seventh round pick. And so that's a really, really good selection there out of the seventh round in David Gibbons. But as we're going to do on each of these sort of recaps, we're going to look at perhaps one area or one guy that the Patriots probably missed on. And I know we started talking about Daniel Graham and the contributions that he made to the Patriots throughout his time in New England.

But remember, the Patriots traded up from 32 to get to 21 to draft Daniel Graham. After Daniel Graham came off the board, the New York Jets at 22, they drafted Brian Thomas, a defensive end out of UAB. The Oakland Raiders at 23 drafted Napoleon Harris, a linebacker out of Northwestern. And at 24, the Baltimore Ravens made a selection, a defensive back out of Miami. And I think if you asked Tom Brady, if you asked Bill Belichick, if there was one player, one defensive guy that they could have had on their team that they would have loved to have had on their side and not going against, Ed Reed might be up there. And that's who the Ravens drafted with that 24th pick.

And if you've seen, you know, I forget what show or documentary or clip it was, but out there, there's a video of the Patriots, Belichick, and Brady specifically sitting down game planning for Ed Reed and trying to think of all the things they have to do to confuse or at least try to confuse Ed Reed because he was that good of a safety. And check that out. It's incredibly impressive just how much they respected him as a safety in the back of that defense. And if the Patriots could have had Ed Reed in their defensive backfield, pairing him with Ty Law and Loy Maloy at that time, that's a nice little defense to have come together.

And so, look, I'm just saying, a lot of teams passed on. Ed Reed, 23 teams passed on. The New England Patriots were among them. Daniel Graham did do some nice things for the Patriots, but that's one that kind of stings a little bit. But that will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow. We'll close out storylines, the entire series,

but, of course, the New England Patriots will probably do a few more timeline takes, something like that. And then the 2003 Patriots draft will be revisited. That's tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.