Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots June 26, 2018 - NFC West Win Over/Unders, NFL Top 10 and the 2005 Draft Revisited

Episode Date: June 26, 2018

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

Good morning, welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Tuesday, June 26th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair, hosting 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 lead writers. ProFootballWeekly.com where I'm one of the contributors over there. We'll also have some news probably into July about some of the new stuff I'm going to be doing in the upcoming season. Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have seen that I've been putting out the Clarion call to take on some more work. Reasons for that? Well, I'll get into that a little bit later as well. But going to be

doing some cool things in the upcoming season. So I'll have more on that as we get into July and closer into training camp. Loaded show for you today. We're going to talk NFL 100 top 10. I know lists are dumb. I hate lists. I've lamented about them before, but they make for good conversation. So we'll talk about the top 10. We're going to get into the Patriots 2005 NFL draft. But first, I'm going to continue our series on win total over-unders. I'm going to condense it a little bit. I sit in the office trying to figure out, sketch out the rest of the shows for the summer. And I realize I can't do just one team a day on over-unders.

That's going to get, you know, that's going to bog us down. So we're going to condense it a little bit. We're going to finish off the NFC West today. We're going to talk Rams, Niners, and Seahawks over-under totals. And what's stunning about the rest of these teams when you look at over-under totals is that the odds makers believe that the NFC is going to be an extremely, extremely good division this year. And that probably shakes out when you look at how these teams have slowly built themselves over the past couple of months. And you look at the Rams, for example, and they made it to the playoffs last year.

They got bounced out in the first round, but still made it to the playoffs last year. So that's a good thing for them. They've made a ton of additions around Jared Goff. And so this looks to be a team that's going to be in pretty, pretty good shape as we head into the next season. Their over-under total is nine and a half games. Now, at first blush, that might be a tough thing for them to hit the over on. Strength of schedule-wise, Rams, the teams they play this upcoming season, at least by their 2017 records,

the Rams are playing a schedule that has a win total over 500, 5-2-3. That's a tough schedule. And let's break that down a little bit as well. You look at the Rams schedule, and it's got some good spots for them, and it's got some tough spots for them. You know, they begin the season at Oakland, which is an interesting way to open the year. But then they get Arizona at home, Chargers at home.

So that's probably a favorable way to start things. But then they get into a pretty tough stretch. They've got a game against the Vikings at home. Then they go at Seattle, at Denver, at San Francisco. Those are three tough road games. Then you come home to play the Packers at New Orleans, home against the Seahawks, home against the Chiefs. That's a really tough stretch.

So weeks four through 11 are probably going to tell the story about the Rams' season. If they can get through that, they have the easy way to start. And then it gets a little bit easier, I think, near the end of the season. You've got trips to Detroit and Chicago coming out of the bye. The Eagles come to town. So that's going to be, you know, they come to town again, obviously defending Super Bowl champs, but they're making the trip west. You go to Arizona for the second-to-last game of the season on Christmas Eve.

And then you close out the season at home against the Niners. So it all comes down to that week four through 11 stretch for me but looking at the Rams additions looking at all the pieces they added I'm going to go in the over there so we're going to take the over of nine and a half when it comes to the Rams now the other two teams in this division the Niners and the Seahawks they both have have an over-under of 8.5. But one team's probably more likely to hit it than the other. Strength of schedule-wise, Seahawks have one of the tougher strengths of schedule in the league. Also, as the Rams do, 523 winning percentage from the teams they're playing last year.

The Mountain Love Niners, they're just playing a schedule that was at 500 last year. So breaking this down, let's look at Seattle first in terms of their schedule. When you look at the schedule, they open up with two back-to-back road games. At Denver, at Chicago. Not ideal to open with back-to-back road games. Then you come home for Dallas, at Arizona, home against the Rams, at Oakland. And then you get that early bye, which means you play weeks eight through 17 without a break.

So that's going to be a tough thing for them to do. They go to Detroit, home against the Chargers at the Rams, home against the Packers at the Panthers. But then they close out with four out of their last five games at home. They get the Niners at home, the Vikings at home. They go back to San Francisco, then Chiefs and Cardinals all at home. So it's somewhat of a favorable schedule, I think, other than the early bye.

The problem is when you look at the Seahawks overall and how they've still, I think, struggled to put the talent they need around Russell Wilson, I think it's going to be a big ask for them. They might squeak, I think, the 9-7, but sitting here right now, I'm not so sure they get beyond that. So we'll probably go with the under on the Seahawks' 8.5 wins. With the Niners, this is where I think I do wonder, in a sense, if people are really sort of getting on board the garoppolo train much too quickly

yes he played extremely well in the action that he saw last year but are we really getting too far over our skis here when we look at jimmy garoppolo tough way to start the season at minnesota going against a team that you know hope that was in the nC Championship game. Home against Detroit at Kansas City, at the Chargers, home against the Cardinals at Green Bay, home against the Rams at Arizona, home against the Raiders, home against the Giants.

So that week 8, 9, 10 stretches, I think that's going to give them a nice little boost because they get three winnable games right in a row, then a bye, then they go at Tampa Bay. So you get three winnable games, a bye, then a game that I think they can win at Tampa Bay. That sets them up for, you know, a little bit of a difficult stretch down the end. You go to Seattle, home against the Broncos, home against the Seahawks, home against the Bears, and then at the Rams to close out the season. But I think you look at this schedule, and I think you see a lot of winnable games for the 49ers.

Is it enough to get over that 8.5? Sitting here right now, maybe I'm buying in too much too, but I'm going to say over on that. So to recap, Rams 9.5 will go the over. Seahawks 8.5 will go the under. Niners 8.5, we will go with the over. That will do it for your NFC West over-unders. Up next, I'm going to talk about the NFL 1000, the NFL 100, specifically the top 10.

Give you my thoughts on rankings. Again, that's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you now on this Tuesday edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots and I've talked before about my angst over lists and rankings and all that sort of stuff because there's a subjective nature to it but the NFL top 100 always garners some attention because it's voted on by the players and while there might be some name recognition stuff to it, there might be some, you know, taking care of your boys or if you've got a relationship with a player, you know,

via your agent or something like that, that might play into it. But I still, these are the guys that are on the field of competition with these players. And so these do carry some weight. I've also seen on Twitter where you see some ballots and it's just like names drawn out of a hat. But this is something that people get ginned up about. This is something people love to talk about.

So it makes sense to go through it. And I'm not going to really go in depth into the top 100. I'm just going to stick in the top 10. Your top 10 started with number 10, Aaron Rodgers. Number 9, Vaughn Miller. Number 8, Drew Brees. Number 7, Aaron Donald. We're going to talk about that in a second.

Number 6, Todd Gurley. Number 5, Le'Veon Bell. Number 4, Julio Jones. Number 3, Carson Wentz. Yeah, we'll talk about that too. Number 2, Antonio Brown. And number 1, Tom Brady, which being as this is locked on Patriots, we will talk about. Let's go now work our way bottom to top here.

And Rodgers, I think, at number 10, makes some sense. He's still perhaps the most talented quarterback in the league. He's still arguably the best quarterback playing right now. You can make that argument. I don't necessarily agree with it. I've taken some heat for not agreeing with that. But you can make the argument. But he missed a lot of time last year. He had a broken collarbone. with it. I've taken some heat for not agreeing with that, but you can make the argument, okay?

But he missed a lot of time last year. He had a broken collarbone. Green Bay was 4-1, but then they just cratered without him. You know, obviously, the Brett Hudley experiment didn't pan out the way people might have liked, but he's still a fantastic quarterback. So, you look at what that team did without him. You look at how he keeps them competitive when he's in the lineup. I think still having him at number 10 makes some sense. Number 9, Vaughn Miller. The Broncos were bad, but he had double-digit sacks, had 10 sacks, 57 tackles, 3 passes, defensed. Now he's going to get Bradley Chubb on the other side

there might be times when he doesn't get double teams you're going to see Vaughn Miller I think rise into that top 5 perhaps in next year's rankings but still he's one of the better edge players in the league I'm fine with him at number 9

he was number 2 last year so this was a bit of a drop for him due in part to guys like Drew Brees with him at number nine. He was number two last year, so this was a bit of a drop for him. Due in part to guys like Drew Brees, who was at number eight. He was 16th in 2017, had a bit of a rejuvenation last year, a bit of a rebirth with Mark Ingram, Alvin Kamara out of the backfield, threw for 4,334 yards because that run game, though, was so good. He only threw for 23 touchdown passes. But the shift in how they could attack teams offensively

allowed them to get into the playoffs, and were it not for the Minnesota miracle, perhaps get to an NFC Championship game. So he jumps up to eight. I'm totally on board with that. I'm not on board with seven. I don't see how Aaron Donald is just your seventh best player in the league right now.

11 sacks at defensive tackle, that's incredible. 41 tackles, 5 forced fumbles. When you game plan for the Rams, you have to game plan for him. And I know there's been an interesting discussion with some people over at PFF and Cynthia Freeland over at NFL.com about what's more important, interior pressure versus edge pressure. And they've gone back and forth on Twitter and elsewhere in articles and pieces on shows and stuff about this discussion. But let's take it from our view and point. The book on Tom Brady has always been interior pressure, right?

And I think that's a somewhat universal aspect to attacking quarterbacks. If you can get to them quickly in the play, you throw off the play structure. If you can get them off their spot, you can throw off the route design and the timing and the rhythm into plays it's easy to deal with edge pressure in a sense as a quarterback because you can step up into the pocket you can climb the pocket this is something i always look for in quarterbacks you can't climb the pocket though if the interior is being collapsed as well and that's what errol donnell brings and if you want sort of a quick primer, as it were, on the importance of interior pressure right now and what guys like Donald can do,

look at Quentin Nelson, look at Will Hernandez, look at guards, you know, garter and first-round picks, guards being talked about as, you know, top five selections. It's because interior pressure matters. It's the talked about as top five selections. It's because interior pressure matters. It's the continual evolution of the game. Edged defenders getting guys on the right and left sides of the quarterback. Okay, we're going to really get good tackles. Okay, well, now the teams have really good tackles. We need to do something differently. Let's blitz through the A-gap. Let's get interior pressure. Better yet, let's get a defensive tackle

like Aaron Donald who can just disrupt offenses and just be a force in the middle of a defense. And so for my money, Aaron Donald should come up. He was 15 last year, 7 this year. I think he's a top five guy. The question becomes

who would you drop out of that top five? Top six. Gurley makes his debut on this list. He was not ranked last year. Now he's number six. Offensive player of the year. Ran for over 1,300 yards, averaging 4.7 per carry. And 13 touchdowns.

Also caught 64 passes for 788 yards and six touchdowns. This is a two-way every down back. I'm on board with that at six. Five, Le'Veon Bell. I mean, what's interesting in the way that the write-up is done over at NFL.com, they talk about his running style, his patient style of play, being a profound impact on the National Football League. He was nine last year.

I don't want to dog bell too much because he's an incredible running back, but I'm a little bit more comfortable with him being, say, at nine than I am at five. Julio Jones at four, I'm on board with. I mean, yeah, they didn't seem to get him the ball that much in the red zone, but he still caught 80 passes for 1,400 yards or more. He and Antonio Brown, I think, are 1-2 or 2-1, depending on what you value at the receiver spot.

I'm fine with him at 4. He was 3 last year. I'm fine with him at 4. That's good. Carson Wentz at 3. I love Carson Wentz, okay? My Carson Wentz, Bona Fines are well established. I don't think I need to run through them fully again,

but I will because I like to do it. Started writing about him in December of 2014 before many people knew who he was. He was my QB2 after Jared Goff in that draft when a lot of people said he would never pan out in the National Football League. I have a signed Carson Wentz card hanging on the wall in my office

that I'm staring at right now. Massive, massive gift from my wife, which I truly, truly appreciate. I'm a Carson Wentz guy. He was going to be potentially the MVP. He got them in position. He got the Eagles in position to win a Super Bowl. 33 touchdowns to 17 interceptions.

Fantastic. Now that he's gotten to this kind of point, I can sort of relax and enjoy watching him play. He's like, in a sense, my son. And when he would play, I would be nervous. I couldn't be on Twitter because every little mistake would get put through the rainer. And it would drive me nuts. But now that he's sort of made this leap, I can watch him and enjoy him for who he is,

which is a fun, athletic quarterback who can do things that not too many other quarterbacks do. You watch some of the throws he made under duress you know from this first touchdown pass of the season against Washington when he was pressured and scrambled and somehow found Nelson Aguilar down the field or their later game against Washington when he was getting hit in the chops and makes throws a wheel route out of the backfield of throws against Seattle mean, he can do some incredible stuff. Bumping him to five? I mean, to three? That might be a little high.

I mean, again, I love Carson Wentz. I'm a huge fan. It won't surprise me that he's at some point atop these rankings. I think three is just a little bit too rich for him right now. Antonio Brown at two, I'm okay with. You know, you see some of the route running. You see some of the footwork. You see what defenses have to do to him, double or triple covering him in the red zone.

He's a dynamic force. I'm fine with that. And Brady at one. I saw some people say that Brady shouldn't even be in the top 10, which is amusing, I think, to say the least. Yes, he has Rob Gronkowski to throw to, but you look at losing Julian Edelman. He's throwing to

Danny Amendola in the AFC Championship game to win the AFC Championship game. You look at the comeback against Jacksonville. You look at the win against Pittsburgh, down in Pittsburgh. Yes, the defense had to make a big play, but they never punted in that game. And so I think it's hard to say anything

other than Brady's a top 10, top 5. And if people want to put him on, I'm completely okay with it because, let's face it, quarterback's an important position. Right now he's playing it perhaps better than anybody. So those are my thoughts on the NFL Top 100, Top 10. And up next, the 2005 Patriots draft. I got done talking the other day about the 2004 draft,

giving some ammo perhaps to the anti-Belichick-as-GM crowd. The 2005 draft might give some ammo to the pro Belichick as GM crowd. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now, and we're going to quickly run through the Patriots 2005 NFL draft, revisit that a little bit. And this is, again, a team coming off a Super Bowl win in Super Bowl 39. Tough offseason with the stroke from Teddy Bruschi.

We all remember sort of the images of him playing with his children before I think the Pro Bowl on the field before that game. But he made it. He came back to the field against Buffalo. Let's look at the draft. And as I teased, this is a draft that I think you could hand it to Belichick saying they did a really good job sort of identifying talent. Pick 32, their first round pick, last pick of the first round,

Logan Mankins, offensive guard out of Fresno State. And Mankins was an immediate contributor for this team, made it to numerous Pro Bowls, played 11 seasons in the National Football League. I mean, he was a week one starter at left guard. Immediately stepped in the starting lineup in place of Joe Andrews, who left in free agency, started all 16 games as a rookie, started all 16 games the next year. In 2007, he started all 16 games, allowed only one sack,

was named as a starter in the Pro Bowl. And so, look, I think fantastic selection. Logan Makin, you know, at the end of the first round. Their next pick in this draft, well, that was Ellis Hobbs in the third round, a pick 84. And what do you get in Ellis Hobbs? You get a guy that stepped in and, as a rookie, you know, he was forced into action because of injuries started a corner the final eight games of that season he made three interceptions and he also had 371 yards on 15 kickoff returns including a 35 yard return it was to set up a game in a drive against Pittsburgh

you know he won the starting job in 2006 opposite Asante Samuel, but he did struggle at times. He did suffer a wrist injury, missed a couple of games, lost his job as a starter, but he still had two interceptions. He was still a kick returner, contributed for them as well in that role. In the 2006 playoffs, broke a potential touchdown passes, two in the divisional round against the Chargers, one in the AFC championship game

against the Colts, but that play was flagged as pass and deferred, so someone controversial call. 2017, I mean 2007, excuse me, broke the record for the longest kickoff return in NFL history. Ran a kickoff back 108 yards for a touchdown. Week

17 against the Giants, he intercepted a pass by Eli Mann in the fourth quarter, which led to the Patriots' go-ahead touchdown that gave New England the perfect 16-0 season. Also had an interception against the Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers in the AFC Championship game. Had an interception in Super Bowl XLII. He was beaten by Plaxico Bars on the game, winning touchdown, but still contributor. And in 2008, intercepted three passes, set the Patriots' single-game record for yards on kickoff returns with 237 and a loss to Miami. Returned his third career touchdown against the Raiders in Week 15, which gave him Special Teams Player of the Week honors.

Led the AFC in kick return average in 2008. That's a third-round pick. I think the Patriots did a good job there. Let's go through the rest. Nick Kayser, third-round pick at 100. He also comes in, and until he starts battling injuries and some other issues, he was a starter. They eventually, he started all 13 games at left tackle for the Patriots in 2005.

2007, he started the first 15 games of the season, only missing the final one due to injury. But he returned for the playoffs, returned in 2008 to start 14 games. But then he was sort of phased out when they drafted Sebastian Vollmer. But again, you're getting a contributor there in the third round. James Sanders, safety out of Fresno State. You know, played in 10 games as out of Fresno State. You know, played in 10 games as a rookie, started twice. You know, Belichick loved him, you know, as a sort of a leader. You know, he turned down money in potential free agency to return to the Patriots. This is a Belichick quote of him. He's an excellent leader, plays with a good level of confidence.

He's a very good physical player, tough kid. Football's important to him. I think he's very professional. You would like to have 53 players like James on your team in terms of work ethic, toughness, and being a teammate. He was a starter for this team through basically 2010. And he was sometimes a third safety at times when Brandon Merriweather came back to the lineup after an injury. But you're talking about getting that guy in the fourth round.

Now, two picks didn't quite pan out, as we'll get to in a second. Ryan Claridge, a linebacker out of UNLV, they picked him in the fifth round to pick 170. And in the seventh round, Andy Stokes, a tight end out of William Penn. He didn't quite pan out either. But at pick 230, Patriots drafted a little used tight end slash quarterback out of USC, Matt Castle. And Matt Castle would go on to play a pivotal role for this team when they lost Tom Brady. Helped lead the Patriots to an 11-5 record. And then they were able to obviously turn Matt Castle into assets.

You know, this is a guy that when he was injured, like he was named AFC Player of the Week at times. You know, stepping in for Brady. And at the end of the 2008 season, February 28, 2009, the Patriots traded both Castle and outside linebacker Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs for the number 34 overall selection, which is, you're talking about spinning, you know, obviously Vrabel, good player, but you're talking about spinning Vrabel

and a seventh-round draft choice who not many people scouted as a quarterback into a, you know, almost a first-round selection, that's a great job. And so I think that was a pretty impressive job from the Patriots there. Now let's talk briefly about what could have been. You look at, I'd say the first four picks plus Castle, I'm okay with all of those.

Now let's look at Ryan Claridge, what the Patriots could have perhaps done when they made that pick. Now they drafted look at Ryan Claridge, what the Patriots could have perhaps done when they made that pick. Now they drafted Claridge at pick 170, a compensatory pick in the fifth round. Well, there are some guys that you probably could have drafted that maybe things could have been differently. Jay Ratliff, defensive tackle out of Auburn, he was drafted in the seventh round to pick.224 by the Cowboys. Another quarterback, Derek Anderson, was drafted in the sixth round of.213 by Baltimore.

So that's a name he could have gone with. And then another name, Chris Myers. Now, obviously the Patriots already drafted two offensive linemen, but Chris Myers drafted out of the University of Miami. He's a guy that, when it went on to the Houston Texans, he was a huge reason for Arian Foster's success. He anchored an offensive line that helped lead Foster, helped Foster lead the league in Russia in 2010.

He shifted around, played center, played guard. So that's a guy you probably could have looked at. He was a tackle in college as well, so some schematic positional versatility. So that's a guy you probably could have looked at. He was a tackle in college as well, so some schematic positional versatility. So that's a guy you could have looked at. Again, it's easy to look back and say, oh, these guys. You could have drafted this guy. Bo Scaife, tight end out of Texas, an interesting name to throw out there.

And so there were some options. Dan Orlovsky, that was actually before him. But Dan gets a lot of run on Twitter so I see his name and I had to mention it. But that's a look back at the 2005 Patriots draft. I will be back tomorrow. We will take a look probably at the either

NFC North or NFC South over-unders. Probably talk some more timeline stuff and continue working our way through Patriots drafts revision. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Scofield, and Locked on Patriots.