Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 14, 2019 - Free Agent Takes and Straight Legging It

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a Take Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots Podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for today, Thursday, March 14th, 2019. It is technically a Take Thursday show, but the NFL League year officially opened yesterday at 4 p.m. Eastern. So this will be another show predominantly covering free agency news. We'll talk some Pats moves here at the top. We'll talk some national moves, some league-wide moves, and a little bit later, we will get into some nerdy quarterback mechanic stuff, talking about Tyree Jackson.

So a lot to cover, but before we do any of that, your usual reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, a couple of SB Nation sites including Pat's Pulpit, Big Blue View, and The Bleeding Green Nation, where I co-host the QB Scope Show. Let's start at the top here with some Patriots news, as this is Lockdown Patriots. Kind of makes some sense that we talk about them at the start.

Patriots announced three moves, or at least three moves were made public on the first official day of free agency. First, let's start with Jason McCourty. Jason McCourty, who joined the team last offseason, got to play in his first playoffs, had a huge play in Super Bowl 53, breaking up that pass intended for Brandon Cooks, which would have been a potentially game-changing type touchdown, but it was a game-changing defensive play. The Patriots making the move to bring him back into the fold. It was first reported out that he was coming back by Mike Garofalo from NFL Network, NFL.com. He tweeted out that Jason McCourty is back to the Patriots on a two-year deal. Now, we don't know the terms yet of that deal, but McCourty

back into the fold for two years. And I like this move for a couple of reasons. One, obviously, it gives you some depth at the cornerback position, which is always a good thing to have. You can never have enough pass rush. You can never have enough cornerback depth, I believe, in the National Football League. And so it's great to have him back in the fold. Also, I think it gives you a little bit of security at the safety position of all positions. Now, I've talked a lot here and elsewhere about the safety position perhaps being a position of need for the Patriots. One, they do a lot with multiple safety, three safety-type packages.

And so, yes, you've got Patrick Chun, Ron Harmon, and Devin McCourty in the mix. But with Chun having the injury and Devin McCourty talking a little bit about retirement, there might be some question marks there. And so adding a safety to the fold is something I think the Patriots are going to do. Bringing Jason McCourty back into the mix gives you at least a veterantype player who can make some plays at the safety position. He's worked out there for the Patriots. They had him there at a couple of practice sessions. He's gotten some reps at safety, so that's a potential emergency safety-type player, so it's good to have McCourty into the fold. Another re-signing, Re-Simon, excuse me, defensive end edge player John Simon back into the mix on a two-year

deal. The contract was finalized. It is expected to be, per Adam Kaplan, a two-year deal. Now let's look at the edge group. John Simon, Adrian Claiborne, Michael Bennett, Dietrich Wise, Derek Rivers, Keontae Davis, Trent Harris, Ufamba Kamalu. That's your edge group right now. I still think New England will address edge with one or two additions at some point, maybe another flyer via free agency and a draft pick at some point,

but the edge group is starting to come together. And of course, this doesn't include guys like Donta Hightower, Kyle Van Nooy, guys that they've dropped down to the edge from the linebacker spot and done some things with. So that's your edge group right now. The Simon re-signing was something that I expected. I talked about Simon potentially being back in the fold, a nice little addition to their rotational edge group. Finished the year with 21.9 defensive snaps. I mean, 21.9% of the defensive snaps played. Registered 21 combined tackles, two and a half sacks, four quarterback hits, and 14 in-game appearances. And he gives you some ability to mix and match

stuff up front. He's not the greatest player in the world, but it's a nice little piece to have. And this is how the Patriots often handle the start of the free agency mix. They bring back the guys that they like, they add a couple of different pieces, and they let the market sort of set itself. We'll talk about that in a second. The other bit of news, a player coming back home, Brandon Bolden, back to the mix after spending some time down in Miami one season down with the Dolphins. He is coming back according to Ian Rappaport. He's going to be brought back on a two-year deal. He's a core special teams player, rotational depth running back, somebody that they

trust with pass protection when it comes to Tom Brady. And with the running back group a bit in flux, we expect obviously Devlin, Michelle, White, and Burkhead back, but you've got the Jeremy Hill injury. This is a nice little depth move. And so I like having Brandon Bolden back. In addition, a special teams player, we know the importance of special teams, particularly to Bill Belichickick so it's good to get Brandon Bolden back into the fold and so that's what we've got from New England right now I know for some it might not be enough but we're hearing them kick the tires on a couple of different players first off Golden Tate apparently the market for Golden Tate is not as hot as perhaps he and his camp thought it was going to be and that's the kind of situation that we've often seen work to New England's advantage.

A player tests the market. He's finding the hard way that maybe the value he expected to get isn't out there. Who comes into the mix? Later into the free agents period? None other than the New England Patriots. And so this might be another situation where Tate has tested the market later into the free agents period, none other than the New England Patriots. And so this might be another situation where Tate has tested the market with guys like Odell and Antonio

and other wide receivers getting big deals. We've got Tyrell Williams moving onto the Oakland Raiders as well. Maybe the market isn't quite there for Golden Tate, so he's going to have to take a little bit of a smaller deal. Ideal situation for New England. So that's one name to watch here in the coming days another name to watch we saw it on nfl network guys like taylor kiles and others tweeted it out

that the patriots are doing their homework on jared cook if that comes to pass i'm going to dig up my notes i remember studying jared cook for one of the shows here this season when i forget who the patriots were playing but jared cook the end, had done, I think it might have been Pittsburgh, but Jared Cook had a huge game for the Raiders against Pittsburgh. Now that I'm thinking about it, I do believe it is that game. And if that signing comes to fruition, I think it's a great signing by New England. It might give us a window into how they're going to address the tight end position. If they do sign Cook, I don't think it means that Gronk is retiring or anything like that because, again, I do expect New England

to sort of double dip at the tight end position. I think Jared Cook would be a nice sign-in. So those are two names to watch. A tiny little bit of news just coming out. Cody Hollister did not receive a tender from the New England Patriots, so the wide receiver, he is a free agent. Maybe he tests the market and we see what's out there. So that's some more news

as far as the Patriots go. Up next, some more national news. We had some big sign-ins overnight. Some stuff that went down on Wednesday, so we'll get to that. And a little bit later, mechanical, nerdy stuff. Tyree Jackson, his pro day. We're going to talk about that all ahead

on this Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back here now on this Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And just to set the stage for the rest of the week, Friday we're going to do some early free agency winners and losers. I know, there are takes that are sure, sure, sure to be wrong. I always hate the immediate draft grades and things like that. But it's nice, easy

Friday content. We can let some takes fly, have a little bit of fun with it. I've been having some fun on the timeline. I've been pretty much on Twitter, 95% jokes over the past couple of days because it's kind of funny. I mean, for example, when the Odell trade was announced, the New York Giants, their media account on Twitter, just refused to acknowledge it. And when the four o'clock hour hit, they did not send the tweet right away. When they finally did, they didn't even mention Odell. They just basically buried the lead. I mean, you got to let the jokes fly, okay? So Friday, we'll do some early winners and losers, and then we'll wrap it around on Monday. We'll have mock draft Monday version 5.0.

Maybe we'll have some more clarity by then as to what positions might be of more importance than others when it comes to the New England Patriots. And so that's kind of teeing things up for the rest of the week and into next week. Let's talk more national right now. Some big picture news league-wide. And obviously, if you were like me, you were up into the wee hours, you know, Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, waiting for Le'Veon Bell to drop that mixtape because that was when he was going to announce what team he was going to.

And I had a little bit of curiosity. Let's put it that way. I gave the mixtape a listen. Heavy on the auto-tune. Heavy on the auto-tune. But look, Le'Veon, if you're listening, I don't know why you would be, but if you are, look, you've got a fantastic career to fall back on in professional football, so fantastic. And kudos on the new mixtape. Job done. As for Le'Veon Bell's next home,

that will be in the AFC East. Le'Veon Bell joining the New York Jets. So the Patriots will get to see him twice next season. As far as the Jets, I think that this was a very, very good move for the New York Jets. And here's why. Obviously, the name of the game right now is help your rookie quarterback. And when you look at the Jets right now, with the addition of Le'Veon Bell, it helps Sam Darnold. It takes a little bit off of his plate. They're going to need to add a weapon or two at the wide receiver spot. Darnold seems to be developing a nice little relationship with Christopher Hernd

in the tight end, so that gives him a nice little piece. And so those are some nice additions. I mean, those are some nice weapons to have, excuse me, for Sam Donald to sort of build around. And so it works in that sense. It will be interesting as we sort of shift over to the Le'Veon side of this to see how Adam Gay, Stowe Loggins, and company coach up the offensive line. Because I've long thought, I said this on Locked On NFL

with Matt Williams on a Wednesday show, that one of the toughest things to do in all of football is to be an offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers because you've got to do two things that are kind of different. One, you've got to protect Big Ben. And yes, Big Ben can kind of create and he's got play strength in the pocket and so that helps him. But you've got to protect him.

He's not the most mobile of quarterbacks. His mobility is tied to footwork and play strength. But the other thing you have to do is you've got to block for Le'Veon Bell, and we all know his running style is slow, deliberate, and patient. And Matt, who covers the Steelers, was in the league for years, was a scout with a couple of different teams, as well as at the college level. He likened it to basically you're not really blocking, but more setting picks, like you're in a basketball game.

And so the offensive line is going to have to learn how to mesh with his running style. So that's one thing to sort of remember. The other thing to think about here is after the year off, how quickly does he get back into it? Is the quickness, the explosiveness, when he turns to those clubs in the back, are they going to be there? We've heard the rumors of him being up at 260 pounds. How quickly does he get back into playing shape after a year off? And so those are some things to think about. There's also the financial aspect to it.

Obviously, he didn't make any money last year. He had a $33 million guaranteed contract from the Steelers, which he turned down, and he gets $35 million guaranteed from the Jets. So maybe the financial decision wasn't quite what he would have hoped for. But at the same time, one less season of wear and tear on a runner back, which at this point in his career is kind of big. And so maybe the money wasn't exactly what he could have been hoping for, but I think in the end, this might work out for him. But I do think it's a good move for the Jets. And so that's the Le'Veon Bell situation.

Some other things to talk about. Apparently, the Kansas City Chiefs have decided that we're going to win games 60 to 55. They add Honey Badger. Tyron Matthew comes in, so they have a new safety. But they release Eric Berry. They trade Dee Ford to the 49ers for a future second rounder. Justin Houston is on his way out. So you do wonder about the defensive situation in Kansas City. Now, can they pace together a pass rush? Perhaps. You look at, say, Chris Jones.

You can add in some pieces around him on the outside and rely on Chris Jones doing some things on the interior. Tano Kapasanon, a former second-round pick in the 2017 draft, maybe add a rotational veteran-type guy into the mix in this later phase of free agency, draft a front seven guy. You can kind of piece it together a bit. You know, with the addition of the Honey Badger, you're going to still add a safety, I think, because with the loss of Eric Berry, if you're doing Honey Badger and Sorensen,

I'm not sure about that parent. So they might have to add a safety. But it does look like, look, they know they're going to score points in bunches. Last I checked, Patrick Mahomes is still there. Sammy Watkins is still there. Tyree Kill is still there. Travis Kelsey is still there. So the offense is by and large intact.

Obviously, they don't have Kareem Hunt, so they'll need to either address running back or roll with Carlos Hyde and Damian Williams, which they might do. Nice pieces there. Yes, they're losing Demetrius Harris, but I don't think they're losing any sleep over that one. But they're going to look to win games by big points.

So that's the move in Kansas City. We'll see how that pans out for them. Another team making some moves, the Baltimore Ravens. Turning over that defense. On his way out, Eric Guero, he's gone. Also on his way out of town, C.J. Mosley, he's gone. In though, Earl Thomas. Perhaps one of the best safeties available out there on the market,

Earl Thomas coming to Baltimore, so that's a big move for them. Earl Thomas, Tony Jefferson, that gives them two pretty good safeties. Jefferson is more your down-in-the-box type guy. Thomas is more your center fieldin-the-box type guy. Thomas is more your center field or free safety type guy, but both safeties are going to need to do stuff down-in-the-box, so you have to have that ability. Both safeties can do that.

So those are some nice pieces for Baltimore. I'm very curious to see how they handle the rest of things on the defensive front. Terrell Suggs is out of town as well, so they're going to need to add some pieces up front. The secondary seems to be in place. And apparently we know what they're going to do on the offensive side of the ball. They're going to run four tight ends out there.

We've talked a lot on this show about, you know, potentially the New England Patriots double dipping at the tight end spot. Well, they'd be following a Baltimore model, because it didn't dawn on me until today when I was looking at it, that within the span of a couple of years, the Ravens double-dipped twice at the tight end position. Back in 2015, they draft Max Williams in the second round, and they draft Nick Boyle, who they just gave a new contract to, in the fifth. And then the 2018 draft, Hayden Hurst in the first, Mark Andrews in the third. So twice since 2005, in four years, in two of three drafts, they double dip at the tight end

position. And they're going to bring in Mark Ingram to play the running back for them. So some interesting additions there. So that's kind of where we are right now. As I've said, look, if news breaks, if something else happens, I'm going to hop on the microphone if the Patriots make a big move. I'll get to the mic. I might even write about it.

We'll see. But that's where the league and the Patriots stand right now. Up next, some nerdy mechanical talk about Tyree Jackson. That's coming up here at Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield

back with you now to close out this Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. But a reminder before we do that, look, we are pushing hard here at the Locked On Podcast Network. Your personal assistance, whether it's Google, whether it's Alexa, or anything else you might have, it's super easy to use

them. I use our Alexa all the time. Sometimes I'll be working and I'll need to do some calculations, and rather than pull out the calculator, I will just ask Alexa to do it for me, or ask Alexa to play music while I'm cooking or whatever. We use them all the time. But the easiest thing you can do is tell Alexa or tell whatever Google or other personal assistant you have, play podcast Locked On Patriots. It's super easy. You don't have to think about it.

The most recent episode will pull up for you. Boom, you're done. You're on with your day. So please, next time you're in your car or in your kitchen or wherever you have one of these devices, tell them, play podcast, Locked On Patriots. Now, we've covered some free agency stuff, Patriots-wise, league-wide. Let's talk nerdy quarterback mechanics to sort of close out the show. I've got a piece going up over at Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio on quarterback mechanics, specifically the front leg of Tyree Jackson. And I've talked about it a little here, but I really wanted to sort of dive into it because as a self-admitted football nerd, anytime I'm studying a quarterback, I have a bunch of books or playbooks or manuals within an arm's reach. You go into my laptop, I've got a folder on my desktop. It's just titled Playbooks.

Playbooks. I've got up my fingertips, whether it's Steve Axman's Coaching Passing Mechanics, which is a book that I love. Steve Axman was Troy Aikman's college offensive coordinator. It is a Bible on passing mechanics.

I've got Coaching the Quarterback by the Experts. The second edition, I just ordered the third. This is a series of presentations by people, including Josh McDaniels' dad, but Ken Anderson and others. And whenever I see something with a quarterback and I want to double check it, I look for help. I look for research, evidence, an empirical study, whatever to figure it out. Because I know what I know and I know what I don't know. And I don't know a lot. I know Toto. I know a little bit about Game of

Thrones. I know something about quarterback play and offensive scheme stuff. But there's a lot that I don't know. And so I always look for help. I always look for backup. And I preface this by saying one of my favorite passages from Axeman's book is about straight legs when it comes to quarterback mechanics, specifically locking up that front leg. And we're going to get to that in a second. But first, I've said on here and elsewhere that when it comes to quarterback mechanics, for me, in my mind, they don't matter until they matter. If the quarterback is putting the ball where it needs to

be, when it needs to be there, I don't care. I don't care how he does it. I don't care how she throws it. But if he or she can't get the ball where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, and mechanics are the reason why and not coverage mistakes or misreading the coverage or protection breakdowns, then mechanics are an issue. And that's where we get to Tyree Jackson. When you look at mechanics, I put them in sort of three buckets. Correctable, workable slash livable, or fatal. An example of correctable mechanics, Carson Wentz. When he came out, had some lower body inconsistencies with his mechanics, had some elbow issues with his mechanics.

Sometimes the elbow dipped a little bit. Sometimes he had a loop. The footwork was a mess at times. After his rookie year, he goes to a quarterback coach, a throwing coach, one that Tom Brady had used. He comes back his second season playing like an MVP. Footwork is better. Elbow was better.

Fixable mechanics. Workable mechanics.able mechanics think sam donald we spent so much time last draft season talking about that dip and loop to his throwing motion and for me i said it might have been a scheme thing it might have been a scheme problem but with donald he throws with pretty good anticipation while he was in college and he had even though he had that loop to it, a quick enough release where it usually didn't matter. And so you could work with it. But that third bucket is the fatal bucket where the mechanics, they can't get fixed. They become a problem and the quarterback can't overcome it. Tim Tebow, Blake Boros, guys with those big dip in loops where it

always seemed to be an issue. How many times did we talk about, oh, Blake Bortles is fixing the mechanics. It never happened and now he's on his way out in Jacksonville. And so those are sort of the buckets of mechanics. With Tyree Jackson, you wonder which bucket it's going to be because he has this straight leg issue that I've talked about where that leg locks up on him. And I got a video going over. It's on YouTube as well as Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio that gets into it that shows you where that leg locks up. And in the piece from Matt Waldman's site, I cite a bunch of quotes on quarterback mechanics. I cite the Axeman quote from his book where he says, straight leg stepping, often associated both with overstepping and tall quarterbacks,

produces the same negative pass action results. Those results? Too big a front step forces the upper torso to position its weight toward the back foot, causing a break of the body at the hips. In essence, the hips and lower body are left behind as the upper torso snaps forward from the hips. This action either causes a release that is too high, thereby forcing the football to take off high, or a situation where the football is pulled down low, thereby causing a substantial

loss of torque and power in a low throw. That latter category, that loss of power in a low throw, it's something I wrote about years ago with Deshaun Kaiser and we're seeing it with Jackson. Another author I quote from is Ken Anderson, former quarterback with the Bengals who later became a coach. He wrote the book Quarterback in which I read as a kid. It's what I used to sort of teach myself the position. I still have my copy that I rely on all the time. It's another one of the books I keep at my disposal. And he wrote this. Well, he said this at a clinic presentation. We do not want to kick the front leg. If we do that,

we have no chance to be accurate with the pass. You have to have a throw in motion with the knees flexed. As you come through, the knee has to lock. If you try and do it, locking that knee at the beginning of the throw, you have no chance to throw the football accurately. You do not want to have the front leg locked when you are throwing the football. So Anderson makes a distinction between pre-release and post-release. If you lock it up before the ball is out of your hands, you cannot throw the ball accurately. Finally, Greg Seaman. At the time he gave a clinic presentation, he was the quarterback's coach and offensive coordinator at the University of Cincinnati. He's currently the tight ends coach for the Browns. He said this, we want them to stride into a soft front leg. The stride length of every quarterback is a little different. This is because of their body build or their height. There are two schools of thought on this. If you talk to

Bill Walsh, a strong point for him is this. The quarterback has to step into every throw on a soft front leg. How far is a long stride? Is it too far? If I'm over my heel, my front leg locks while I still have the ball in my hand, that is too far. A soft leg has a little bend in it as I stride. If the stride is too long, I will not be able to transfer my weight from my right hip over my right foot and into the throw. I will tend to throw against myself. And that's that sort of break in the biomechanical chain. Think about it. If you're a right-handed quarterback, you step forward with that left leg, and if you lock it up, it stops your momentum.

It almost jerks you back, that recoil, that throwing against yourself. So it breaks you at the hips. And then as you try to propel yourself and torque forward to release the ball, you're an upper body thrower. That straight leg locking up works as a break. It stops you. And then you see them, quarterbacks that do that, become upper body throwers. And that's the issue with Jackson. And you can see it impact placement on throws.

In the video I put together for Matt's site, the first play is a slant route. He locks it up. It is too low. Pass is incomplete. The final play, a deep ball, shows off the great arm. It's slightly off target, and it's still completed, but you see him lock it up, that front leg, break the chain, and become an upper body throw. And so with Jackson, he's gotten a lot of buzz. Had a great senior bowl. Had a fantastic combine.

Just had his pro day on Wednesday and looked pretty good at times. But in Matt's site, I linked to a tweet from a Buffalo reporter with his entire pro day session. You can watch it. Some of the throws look great. You don't see that front leg issue. There was a throw at like the 19-12 mark where he's throwing a post right in the end zone the front leg locks up a bit and the pass is a bit high still catchable but high so it's a work in progress the ultimate issue the ultimate question is this what bin does this issue go into is it fixable maybe we've seen him working

on it it's getting better but we've heard that from other quarterbacks and about other quarterbacks before. Is it workable? Is it livable? Well, still has a hammer for a right arm, still can make some impressive throws, so maybe this is still a workable issue for him. Is it fatal? The one thing in my mind making me think this could be a fatal issue for him is this. He's 6'7". Here's a list. It may be somewhat incomplete. I got it from a podcast, a Renner podcast. Here's a list of every quarterback who measured in at 6'6 or taller at the Combine since 1999.

Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Mike Lennon, Ryan Mallett, Joe Flacco, Tony Pike, Sean Manning, Tyler Bray, Jamarcus Russell, Byron Leftwich, Derek Anderson, Nate Sudfeld, John Not the best list to be on. Yes, you've got Joe Flacco who won a Super Bowl. And yes, there's Nick Foles who also won a Super Bowl, who's a tall quarterback, 6'6", I believe. Ryan Mallett's kicked around in the league for a while.. Ryan Mallett's kicked around in the league for a while. Brock Osweiler's kicked around in the league for a while. Mike Lennon, Sean Manning.

But then you've got some other guys like Paxton Lynch, who seems to be a bust. Maybe that was off the field. Josh Freeman, Eric Ainge. And so if this comes down to a height issue, we've been talking so much about short quarterbacks. What about tall quarterbacks? Because remember what Axman said, this is an issue you often see with taller quarterbacks. And so while we spend a lot of time worried about the short quarterbacks

on that end of the spectrum, maybe we should be worried about the tall quarterbacks as well. That might require some further research, might be a nice little off-season project. But just something to think about when you start thinking about Tyree Jackson. I know a lot of people out there are thinking he might be a good fit in New England. Maybe, but you got to feel comfortable that you can fix up those mechanics.

So that will do it for today. Tomorrow, I will be back. Some of the free agent dust will have settled so we can do an early, just an early winners and losers of the NFL free agency period. Again, this is an ongoing process. It won't be set in stone. These are calls that are sure to be wrong.

But hey, it's Friday. It's the offseason. What else are we going to do? So that will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.