Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 12, 2018 - Danny Shelton, Tyrod Taylor and QB Velocity

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

Mark Schofield dives into the acquisition of Danny Shelton, Tyrod Taylor's move to Cleveland and QB velocity.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Locked On Patriots for Monday, March 12th, 2018. Mark Schofield here in the big chair, as I am, four days a week until we get a little bit closer to the draft and we'll kick it back to five days a week. Reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work over at InsideThePylon.com. Got some new videos out. Peter Polios, quarterback from Holy Cross, working on something for Chad Kanoff,

quarterback from Princeton University. Another check with me column going up in the next couple of hours probably. Also, reminder, InsideThePylon.com, our draft guide. Check that out. You can go to ITPDraftGuide.com. Get yourself pre-ordered. Use the promo code TOTO to get $5 off your order when you sign up for the 2018 Inside the Pylon draft guide. Today, what we're going to do, we're going to talk about a couple of moves that were made over the past couple of days. Patriots making their first sort of big move of the offseason, acquiring Danny Shelton from the Cleveland Browns.

We're also going to talk about Tyrod Taylor and the acquisition of Tyrod Taylor by the Cleveland Browns. Then in the last half of the show, we're going to talk a little quarterback velocity. Usually one of the catchphrases that people talk about shortly Shortly after the combine, quarterback velocity numbers were released recently, and I had some thoughts on those in a recent piece that I want to run through. But let's first start with the acquisition of Danny Shelton. The Patriots making a move on Saturday, acquiring the 24-year-old defensive tackle out of the University of Washington. Patriots also received a 2018 fifth-round pick from Cleveland 24-year-old defensive tackle out of the University of Washington.

Patriots also received a 2018 fifth-round pick from Cleveland while giving up a 2019 third-rounder. The pick that the Patriots received is pick 159 overall in the fifth round. That means now the Patriots have, obviously, their pick in the first round. They have the two picks in the second, a pick in the fifth round. That means now the Patriots have, obviously, their pick in the first round. They have the two picks in the second, a pick in the third, the compensatory pick in the fourth round, and now they have a fifth round pick, pick 159 from the Browns, as well as pick 205 overall in the sixth round. But let's start more to the point here with the acquisition of Shelton. And defensive line was an area of need. I think everybody could agree on that.

That it was an area of need for the New England Patriots headed into this offseason. And Shelton isn't going to bring you much in terms of pass rush. He's played in 46 regular season games with 45 starts, 71 tackles, and just one and a half sacks. But he's the guy that, if you look back at Belichick throughout history, when he's had some really good defenses, he's had that guy, either a zero technique or a one technique, that nose tackle, that can sort of occupy space at the point of attack. You can think of Ted Washington.

You can think of Vince Woford. And you're also acquiring a first-round pick. Now, you might quibble with the fact that Danny Shelton was picked 12th overall back in 2015, but you're still acquiring a first-round draft choice, somebody that was viewed by at least one organization as a potential first round draft choice. And you're not giving up that much to get them. And you're acquiring somebody that really fits a position not just of need for the New England Patriots,

but who fits into a role that the Patriots covet. Or that specifically Bill Belichick covets. But I mean, when he was coming out, look, Mike Mayock rated him very highly coming out. Thought he would instantly improve that Cleveland run defense when he was drafted by them. He's somebody that played with leverage, can just eat up space up front, gets his hands in attacks inside offensive linemen, can win at that point of attack, can really sort of occupy

centers and guards. And we've talked about that a lot on this show. The importance of guards getting to the second level is critical in today's NFL with how teams are running the ball now. You've got to have guards that can get to the second level. And if you've got a zero technique, a one technique guy like Danny Shelton, who's going to occupy two defenders, that's something that's pivotal to Bill Belichick's offense. And so I think this is a very good acquisition for the New England Patriots. It's the first of what I expect will be many moves for them up to the draft. I really like that it fills a position of need with an extremely talented player, somebody that just didn't quite fit out in Cleveland. And it allows them now the flexibility to use free agent moves, draft capital, and other positions of need because

you might still address defensive line late in the draft now, maybe with that fifth round pick. But I think that this is a great move for New England and we're hearing a lot of great reviews of it. Of course, I'm not surprised by this, but over at Pat's Pulpit,

it's gotten like a 93% approval rating on an article I saw over there. So this seems to be a good move. The other move I do want to talk about is the acquisition of Tyrod Taylor. I'm going to go more in depth on this in a piece that's coming up shortly over at InsideThePylon.com. But the Cleveland Browns acquire Tyrod Taylor, quarterback from the Buffalo Bills, for pick 65, a third-round pick. And I've heard a lot of commentary about this trade, and I just kind of want to run through my initial quick thoughts on it. And for me, I think this is a brilliant move for Cleveland. I think it's a brilliant move for Cleveland because it gives them the quarterback that can be their starter

for the next year. When I watched Tyrod Taylor over the past two years or so, I felt particularly this past year that he was just square peg into a round hole type situation with Rick Denison's offense because when you watch Taylor, where I think he's at his best is kind of putting the ball downfield, pushing the ball downfield a little bit. As I pointed out on the inside of the pylon piece that will be going up shortly, his numbers downfield are pretty good. His numbers on throws over 30 yards, over 40 yards are really good. And when I've watched him on film, when I've studied him on film, one of the things he does well is he looks more comfortable throwing the ball downfield. When he was forced into Denison's offense, which is more of a West Coast-based offense, that offense requires quick decisions, quick process, and getting the ball out of your hands immediately.

But Tyrod Taylor is more of a see-it-throw-it guy. And when you're trying to throw that slant-flat combination, sometimes you've got to let it go quickly. You can't wait to see it because it's too late. But you can sometimes get away with that on more vertical stuff. And now he's coming into an offense that's going to be obviously Taun Haley, the offensive coordinator, who tends to be more vertical, wants to be more vertical. When I, as we'll get into in a bit at the end of the show, when I broke down the 2017

passing stats for these quarterbacks in terms of percentage of throws by distance, only Deshaun Watson attempted more throws downfield defined by 20 yards or more than Ben Roethlisberger. So Todd Haley wants to get vertical. Hugh Jackson, when they hired Todd Haley, Hugh Jackson said to himself, Haley's a believer in the vertical passing game. And so I think you get in Tyrod Taylor, a quarterback that fits well with a vertical passing game. And you get a guy that can run Cleveland's offense, that can be their starting quarterback for, I'd say, at least this season. And to me, I think if you just want to say one-to-one, is Tyrod Taylor worth a third-round

pick in a vacuum? Maybe not. But when you consider that the acquisition of Tyrod Taylor allows you, as the Cleveland Browns, to now take your time developing whatever rookie quarterback you drafted number one and number four. And I expect it to be number one. Now you've got sort of the nice little glide path of development for him. And I think it points to it being either Sam Donald or Josh Allen, because those are the guys that probably need more time, more refinement, more of a developmental glide path. And now they have the quarterback that can come in and be their guy for the next year while they get the next guy ready.

I think it's a good move from that perspective. And I think it's worth a third-round pick because you can look at what the hit rate on third-round picks is, sure, but when you incorporate the fact that part of the calculus here in determining whether this was the right move was if it gets you that

much closer to being able to develop the next guy, then it's worth it. What would you give up if you can ensure that the quarterback you drafted number one overall gets the best developmental situation? Probably a third round pick, right? So I just think it makes a lot of sense for Cleveland. I like the decision. And let's not forget, they have five of the first 64 picks. They have five picks still in the first two rounds of the NFL draft. They can still get a ton of talent. They came into this draft. There's a great piece written by Warren Sharp over at Sharp Football.

It's just the draft war chest. The amount of draft capital the Browns have coming into this draft. We haven't seen anything like it since 1991. And they have the luxury of making moves like this. It might seem like it's a bit of an overpay, but remember, when you look at it in the total perspective of it's going to help them develop the next guy, I think it makes a ton of sense. What doesn't make sense to me is overreacting to velocity numbers.

That's what we're going to talk about next with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you here for this Monday edition of Locked On Patriots. And we're going to do a little story time with Uncle Mark here. I'm going to take you back to March of 2017. That's the last year. And as I do at the end of most days, I pick up my son from school, come home. And if the weather's nice, we usually play outside. He likes to play soccer, so we'll do that. And it was one, you know, unseasonably warm March afternoon. We were

out there playing outside and then it's time to come inside and clean up, do some homework, get ready for dinner and stuff like that. And I do what I usually do, which is pull up the phone and see what's happening on the timeline. And the timeline as it often is on that particular day was a bit chipper, shall we say, because the velocity numbers were just released from the 2017 Scouting Combine. And there was a number next to Deshaun Watson who, again, check the tweets. Deshaun Watson, no matter what. That was me back in 2015. But there was a number next to Watson's name that began with a 4.

49 miles per hour. And that sent Twitter into a rage storm. Because sort of in the annals of combine data acquisition, you're hard pressed to find a quarterback who was successful, who hadn't thrown at least 50 miles per hour on the radar gun. Now, you can take sort of methods and data collection means and things like that and kind of just put them aside for a minute. You might have issues with them, and that's fine. I do too, and that's fine. But the data was the data.

And so everybody began to wonder, can Deshaun Watson really play quarterback at the next level because studies, data analysis, they've shown that you don't hit 50 miles per hour, you're not going to be able to, there's not an instance of a successful quarterback that hadn't hit 50 on the gun. And I felt a similar sort of, shall we say, feeling coming out of Indianapolis

with Kyle Lolleta. Kyle Lolleta was somebody that we've talked about a lot on this show, but the questions were about his arm strength. There are a lot of people out there, a lot of evaluators, a lot of people that work in big media that say he doesn't have the arm strength to play in the next level. And so I got to thinking about that. And even before this year's numbers came out, which we'll get to in a second, I wanted to dive into some data. And so what I did was I looked back at throws by distance. You can get it if you go through ESPN splits on quarterbacks. They chart it out by attempts short of the line of scrimmage, attempts from the line of scrimmage to 10 yards, and then 11 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, and then over 41. And so I put together

chart and distance and split data using those numbers from ESPN for every quarterback with five or more starts. I did eliminate Brian Hoyer because the numbers just didn't seem quite right. They didn't quite add up anywhere close to what I expected them to. And what was interesting, the first finding that really jumped out at me was the aforementioned Deshaun Watson, who only hit 49 miles per hour on that radar gun, attempted the highest percentage of passes over 21 yards out of any quarterback. 17.2% of his passes were over 21 yards. And the knock on velocity is you can't push the ball downfield. You can't get vertical. You can't challenge those windows downfield. You can't throw that 15,

you know, that 25-yard out route. You can't attack the boundaries and things like that. But there's Deshaun Watson. 17.2% of his throws were over 21 yards. Most out of anybody in the league. Ben Roethlisberger was 15.3.

Russell Wilson at 14.3. And the average of the quarterbacks that I charted, 10.2. And so this kind of got me thinking about how we approach the velocity question. Because for me, there are two parts to it. I think every quarterback to play in the National Football League has to meet sort of a velocity threshold. Now, whether you want to put that at 50 miles per hour, I'm not sure. Whether you want to put it lower I think makes more sense.

Whether you want to just use eye tests. However you want to define it. I think quarterbacks have to have some sort of minimum velocity. You know, you can't, you know, if you're trying to throw just a five-yard curl road and you're throwing it like I do right now, you can't play in the NFL. You know, caveat there, I need shoulder surgery, so maybe when I'm done I'll be like the kid from Rookie of the Year

with a cannon right arm. But I just think, first of all velocity there's sort of it's more of a minimum threshold you got to meet some standard and then beyond that I think it fits more into a scheme limitation perhaps because if you lack arm strength if you truly lack arm strength, maybe you can't just be in a purely vertical offense. You have to be in a sort of offense that is tailored around what you do. And let's look at Deshaun Watson because you might say that Watson lacks sort of premier arm strength, okay? And maybe you can say that. But when watching him on film when he was in college i always felt that touch throws time and throws outside the lines when he's able to put more air under it that's how you do it with him that's how you get vertical with him and you could see that under bill o'brien

at houston they would scheme stuff downfield yankee concept mills concept off of play action things like that to get him some advantageous Yeah, maybe he can't drill it in between two defenders 35 yards down the field. But if you do some scheme stuff with him, you can be successful. And the numbers kind of bear that out. And it's not just the sheer number of throws. I mean, Watson completed 14 of 35 passes on for 21 yards, 447 yards, seven touchdowns with five interceptions. That's a quarterback rating of 87.5.

It's not perfect by any means, but it's pretty good. And in that 31 to 40 range, he completed four of nine passes for 144 and two touchdowns. That's pretty good. So you can be successful doing this. And some other stuff that stood out to me, you know, just doing this, the top two quarterbacks in 2017, according to adjusted net yards per attempt,

were Jared Goff and Drew Brees. Both of them attempted just 9% of their passes at a depth of 21 yards or more. Brees, Goff, and Alex Smith, the top three quarterbacks in adjusted net yards per attempt last year, attempted 25.6%, 23.5%, and 25.1% of their passes, respectively, behind the line of scrimmage. The average, like I said, the average for all quarterbacks that were charted of throws 21 yards or more downfield as a percentage of their total throws, 10%. Just 10. The bulk of NFL offenses operate shorter than 20 yards downfield.

So when you start to hear people talk about guys like Josh Allen, guys that have these overpowering arms, that's really at its most beneficial 20 lines downfield right that's when you really start to see the difference in philosophy between a Josh Allen and a Kyle Loretta for example so that's issue one when we look at this velocity question we have to understand that we're talking about schematic limitations on perhaps a very small percentage of some NFL offenses.

Again, Drew Brees and Jared Goff, just 9% of their throws were really in that sort of downfield range. And they're the top two quarterbacks in A&Y last year. And so that's one lesson I came away from this from. We're talking about a small percentage. quarterbacks in A and Y last year. And so that's one lesson I came away from this from. We're talking about a small percentage. And the other thing, and this is something that I just believe generally, is when it comes to velocity, it's a bit of a double-edged sword, particularly with some quarterbacks. Because if you have this mindset that my arm is going to

bail me out, that sometimes you might not care as much about the other stuff. And the other stuff being timing, anticipation, accuracy, and decision-making, and processing speed. And that's where a quarterback like Kyle Lalletta, who was being knocked coming into the combine for having a weak arm, can make up the difference. Because they can throw the same out route at, say, 20 yards downfield, where you start to wonder about the velocity tailing off for a guy like Lauletta.

And the ball can arrive at the same time, and the reason it does is because Lauletta's making the decision quicker. But for a quarterback like, say, Josh Allen, he might think that his arm can bail him out, but it's his mind and his process that gets him into that bad spot to begin with and then you're just asking for trouble and we've seen that with Allen saw that against Hawaii when he threw what should have been a pick six when he thought his arm was gonna bail him out

same thing against Iowa he throws an interception, rolling to his right, thinks his arm's going to bail him out. And to put a little bow on this whole little story here, the velocity numbers were released just around the time that this piece of mine went up. And Josh Allen, as many expected,

hit the biggest number on the radar gun, 62 miles per hour thrown to his left and 62 miles per hour thrown to his right. And Kyle Oletta, the guy that came into this entire week with people questioning his arm strength, the guy that in part inspired me to do all this research anyway, 52 miles per hour to his left and 52 to his right. Above that 50 mile per hour threshold.

But there was a 49, Lamar Jackson and Quinton Flowers, both of them clocked at 49. And so now the questions perhaps move on to them about lack of arm strength. But if you want to look at the velocity numbers as an issue, I think it's important to at least put a little bit of context around it. Because again, you're talking about 10% of an offense where it truly matters. And there are ways to make up for a lack of arm strength, whether real or perceived. Because again again i didn't have any questions about lamar jackson's arm strength coming into the combine i'm not going to really over analyze his film now based on this 49 mile per hour number just like i did it with deshaun wants it but if you do want to have concerns about a guy and his arm strike, look at it in terms of scheme.

Does it limit him in what he can do from a schematic standpoint? Does it take sort of a vertical passing game off the table? If so, if you believe the tape matches up with the numbers, then fine. But remember, for most offenses, you're not talking about a big portion of what they do. So it's important to give these numbers and the arm strength question that sort of context. That will do it for today's show.

I will be back. Free agency kicks off on Tuesday, so we'll try to do something a little bit special. I'm still sorting out exactly how it's going to work out. But we'll try to get something fun together for Tuesday's Locked on Patriots as free agency kicks off. Reminder, follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. DM's always open.

If you want to yell at me privately, you can do that too. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.