Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 19, 2019 - Tape Tuesday

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a Tape Tuesday installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield here, sliding into the big chair for today, March 19th, 2019. A Tape Tuesday show, we're going to talk about Bruce Allenton and Mike Pinnell. Two recent acquisitions by the New England Patriots. We're going to go through some of their tape. Thankfully, some of the bright minds, such as Taylor Kiles and Evan Lazar, have put

together some threads, breaking those players down, which made my job a little bit easier. So I appreciate them for that. Obviously, go check out those guys. Follow them on Twitter. You can also 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, and a bevy of SB Nation websites,

including Big Blue View, Bleeding Green Nation, where I co-host the QB Scosio, and of course, Pat's Pulpit. Also, a little bit later, I'm going to talk a little bit about David Gettleman. He had a press conference on Monday. A lot of people trashing him, but I do want to reference a piece over at Inside the Pylon by Dave Archibald, who made the case to defend David Gettleman and what he's done. I'm going to go through some of that. It's a very well-crafted, well-argued piece. So that's kind of what's on tap for today.

Let's start with the defensive player. The Patriots acquiring mike pinnell defensive tackle formerly of both the green bay packers and the new york jets interestingly enough while he was with the jets he was listed as both a defensive lineman linebacker and a defensive end so he does have some versatility to him and what's very curious is when you look at his acquisition, this is a player that Pro Football Weekly sort of had him graded high. And one of the smart football people out there, Bryce Rossler, who does work for Inside the Pylon as well as the Lions Wire, he was really high on him, watched him last season. He's somebody that Bryce said he wanted for the Lions.

And so let's get into him a little bit. And what stands out watching him is he was used on the interior in a number of different alignments. And you see both quickness and power. For example, there's a number of plays from that Jets game at Forksboro last year. The first video in Taylor's thread on Pinnell has a situation where he is lined inside shade of guard Shaq Mason and sort of gets into him immediately gets his hands into him gets inside the pad stack Shaq Mason locates the ball and then works off of that sheds the block to make a tackle on a run to

the outside of him so even though he's got the inside alignment on the right guard, Shaq Mason, he has the quickness and the power to get into the guard, then stack and shed, get off, make the tackle. Very quick sort of first step type moves. There's another play from that Jets game at Foxborough where Patriots go play action backed up in their own end. He sort of begins the play aligned outside right shoulder of David Andrews. Quick little spin to the outside, gets around David Andrews, and then gets to Brady and forces a throw under pressure, a throw under duress, a low throw from Brady, and an incompletion. And so again, you see the quickness. Actually, it was caught, but it was a low throw and receiver could not do much after the catch. Another play from that Jets-Patriots game, a diagnose and anchor ability from Mike Pinnell. aligned head up on the center now Joe 30 the left guard tries to make sort of the down block on him but Pennell anchors at the point of contact stacks Joe 30 fends him off with the half man

uses the free arm to then tackle Sonny Michelle on an interior run and play that's a very powerful play as Taylor Cowles points out another impressive play from him. He obviously studies film. He's aligned on the left shoulder of David Andrews in that A gap between Joe Thune and David Andrews. The run play is going to go to his left. So he has to cross the face of the center. It's an outside zone look and play. And he is able to get there. He immediately jumps into the opposite A gap off the center. It's an outside zone look and play, and he is able to get there. He immediately jumps into the opposite A-gap off the snap, quickly crosses the center's face, shuts down this

running lane, and it looks like, as Taylor Collins points out, that opposite A-gap was not his responsibility, but when you have the ability to use your quickness for a large, large human being, he is a 330-pounder, to cross the center's face at the snap. And David Andrews is a good center. And the ability to do that jumps out at you on tape. He is extremely good at getting off blocks. He gets a double team on another play between Andrews and Mason. And he basically just shoves Andrews back into the ball carrier even though he's getting

double teamed and this is one of the game's best centers and so Mike Pinnell continues to jump out on tape now as a pass rusher he's quick on the inside and that quickness is going to force guys on the inside to really sort of be at the top of their game. Another play that Taylor Kyle highlights is where he sort of drives Joe Thurney back into the lap of Tom Brady, moves Brady off of his spot. It's a good rep from Joe Thurney because he actually wins it, but anytime he can sort of force the quarterback off of his spot as an interior pass rusher, you're doing a very, very good job. Evan Lazar highlights some other plays.

This is a play where he's working against the Tennessee Titans, and he's aligned on this snap on the left shoulder of the center, and again, just drives him back, gets his hands up to flex the pass. Has great upper body strength, great hand usage on a play against the Chicago Bears. He gets his hand inside of the guard, controls the point of attack, then stacks and sheds the guard, causes a bad throw with a quarterback hit. Another play against the Indianapolis Colts. Looks like he's going to get washed out by a double team, but fights through it late, comes off, splits the double team.

His hands are working the entire time. Incredible hand usage from Mike Pinnell. And so going through these two threads, I come away very impressed with Mike Pinnell. And when you look at who they'll end up pairing him with, at least Lawrence Guy. Maybe Danny Shelton, although Danny Shelton has taken some visits. Mike Pinnell is a defensive lineman, an interior player that can win with quickness, that can win with the ability to anchor strong with a low center of gravity, that can stack and shed blocks, that can fight through double teams keeping his hands active.

This is the kind of technically sound defensive lineman that you know Bill Belichick and company are really going to love. You know, Shiano is going to love him as well. I think this is a very good sign-in for the New England Patriots. He brings a lot to this interior in terms of quickness, upper body strength, and the ability to anchor. And so, yes, these are the kind of moves that the New England Patriots make, but when you see the player on film, you can see why the Patriots are the way that they are. You highlight what a player can do. Can it help you? In this case it looks like it certainly can and you bring them in. Up next we're going to talk Bruce Allenton

and another wide receiver that has been linked to the New England Patriots. A little bit later some Dave Gettleman discussion as well as some quick thoughts on the state of football Twitter. All ahead on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tape

Tuesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast and I'm going to shift gears now. We just talked about a defensive player in Mike Pinnell. Now we're going to talk the wide receiver group. First name I'm going to talk about is Bruce Allenton who was acquired by the Patriots and

what's interesting about Allenton who the Patriots signed on a one year deal worth up to $895,000 with just $25,000 guaranteed, is this. This is a good time to mention a website, mockdraftable.com, that sort of takes a player's combine results, height, weight, all that kind of stuff, and puts them on a spider chart. So you can kind of get a sense of where that player sort of stacks up in each metric. And what jumps out from an athletic profile perspective are sort of the change of direction type of drills. The 60-yard shuttle, where he was in the 86th percentile among wide receivers. The 20-yard shuttle, where he was in the 96th percentile among wide receivers.

And yes, everybody's favorite, the three-cone drill, where he was 88th. In the 88th percentile among wide receivers and yes everybody's favorite the three cone drill where it was 88th in the 88th percentile among wide receivers his three cone drill of 6.69 seconds a 20 20 yard shuttle of 3.95 and a 60 yard shuttle of 11.12 again very good change of direction numbers now as far as a 40 look straight line speed isn't his best thing, although it's crazy to say a guy that runs a 4.45 is not his best thing. That placed him in the 71st percentile amongst wide receivers. But again, when you see 86th percentile for the 60, 96th for the 20-yard shuttle, and then 88th percentile for the three-cone, that gets to the change of direction stuff instead of sort of the straight line stuff. having watched the patriots over the years you probably know that that is what new england likes to value but you also do have some explosiveness the vertical jump his vertical was 39 and a half inches 90th percentile among wide receivers now when it comes to some of the

other measurables weight he's only in the 39th percentile weighted at 197 arm length 21st percentile weighted measured in at 31 inches and then when you get to the 10 yard split this is a question mark for him 1.63 seconds that's only the ninth percentile so he seems to get a little bit more lawn speed as you get into the 40 which is a little bit interesting but finally hand size 69th percentile nice that is nine and five eighths but what's good about watching ellenton is this the mock draftable stuff it is great um they even do comparisons and they compare them to two former patriots kishan martin who was with the patriots for a period of time as as well as DJ Foster. But the metrics are one part, but you can back it up by some of what you see on tape.

You got a catch against the Arizona Cardinals on a curl route when he was with Detroit last year. Easy spin. He's curling to the inside, spins to the outside. This is taken from, of all people, Taylor Cowles, at TCowles39. Thank you so much, Taylor, for doing this work. It makes my job a little bit easier. But you see him make that catch on an in-breaking curl route,

and he has great feel for the spin to the outside. That's that quick little short area change of direction. Taylor's next play is a quick speed out to the right where he comes in motion pre-snap into a bunch. Does that sound like something the Patriots do a lot? Yeah, it does. He motions into the the bunch runs that sort of speed out then spins back to the inside of the field makes another move into an open space to get people move and miss so that change of direction and that ability after the

catch is what he brings he also has Taylor points out very good against zone coverage on another play he sort of feels the zone coverage underneath, spots an opening, gets his head around, settles into the void, which is really sort of nice. Another play here against the Rams. This is, again, with Detroit. Goes outside initially, then breaks to the inside. Really sort of sells defenders on a route to the outside,

then comes underneath. He's a full body route runner another play against the rams shows you deep out uses a quick head fake at the top of the route to get open now it's a poor throw by stafford but i like the ability of receivers to use the full body one of my favorite plays ever was Amari Cooper running a post route with sort of a full body type route where he uses the head fake, opens to sort of the post and then breaks back to the corner. Really sells the safety in the middle of the field that he's running the post route. This is the kind of stuff that he brings to the table. And so Ellington, I think, is a traditional

Patriots type receiver. You're going to see him work in those quick routes, work in those options and things like that underneath. You're going to look to see him get people to miss after the catch. That's his game. And so when you look at possibly losing a Chris Hogan, there might be a little bit of overlap there, but I think Ellington is going to be looked at as

sort of, I don't want to truly say Edelman insurance, but a guy that you're going to use sort of on the inside. He's not going to be a boundary type guy. Maybe we're all looking for and waiting for a boundary type guy. Is that guy Jordy Nelson? That is a name that has been linked to the New England Patriots over the past couple of weeks. You know, this is a guy that is coming off a knee injury, you know, with the acquisitions of Tyrell Williams and Antonio Brown, obviously the Raiders are in a position where they can move on from him. What was interesting about Nelson's year last year,

he saw 88 targets for Oakland, which was a team high in targets, 63 receptions for 739 yards and three touchdowns on a team that finished rather poorly. They were 3-12 in the games in which he played. Not that wide receiver wins is kind of a thing, but I'm just saying. But what was interesting about Nelson, watching him down the stretch,

his best games of the season were, by and large, in the final couple of weeks of the season. That game, let's see, it was December 2nd oakland versus kansas city that's a home game for the raiders 10 catches for 97 yards on 11 targets for yards per target of 8.82 the next week he goes six for 48 on seven targets and that went against the steelers then six on eight six for 88 excuse me on eight targets and a loss at Cincinnati. That's 11 yards per target in that game. Then he closes it out with 7 catches for 75 yards on 10 targets against the Denver Broncos.

And then finally, 9 catches for 78 yards on 12 targets against the Kansas City Chiefs. That's how he closed out his season. That Raiders offense got a lot better into the second half of the year. And Nelson and his production was kind of in line with that. Now in terms of touchdowns, look, his three touchdowns came early in the year. One against Oakland, one against Cleveland, and one against the Chargers. But the targets and catches and that kind of production, that came later in the year.

And so maybe this was a two-fold situation. One, working back from injury. Two, finally getting on page with what Gruden wants and what Derek Carr is throwing. But now with the acquisitions of Brown and Williams, kind of redundant. So there are a lot of teams that are probably going to sort of kick the tires on Jordy Nelson. Obviously, he's been in the league a while.

You know, he's about to turn 34 at the end of May. And so this is going to be not a lengthy type of sign if you go and inquire Jordy Nelson. And it might be more Eric Decker than, say, Josh Gordon or Wes Welker or any other sort of Patriots wide receiver acquisition over the years. It might not pan out. But with how we finish the season, I would have to believe that the New England Patriots are going to at least kick the tires on him. And so I'm sure the Patriots are not done. Jordy Nelson might be in the mix. Now, obviously already in the mix, Bruce Allen.

And so that's a quick look, quick update at the Patriots receiver group. Up next, we're going to talk some Dave Gettleman, and a little bit later, some closing thoughts on the state of football on Twitter, which is a bit rocky right now. I just want to say a couple words about that. All ahead on this Tape Tuesday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now, sort of to quickly close out this

Tape Tuesday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast and if you've been anywhere near say Twitter or the radio or anywhere else the past couple of days you've probably heard people crushing New York Giants General Manager Dave Gettleman myself among them

I've been on record here and elsewhere on radio shows, other shows, whether it's the Locked On NFL podcast, the QB Scope show, sort of crushing what Gettleman is doing right now with the New York Giants. And one of the things that I've been saying is it doesn't seem like he has a plan. This is a situation where they gave Odell the big extension, and then now they move on from him. And so I thought it would be only fair to sort of present the counter argument to that.

And that is advanced by the one and only Dave Archibald, one of the smartest people out there in the entire football media world, who wrote a piece over at Inside the Pylon titled Giants Take a Page from Sashi Brown. And in that, Dave makes the case that, look, even though Gettleman's getting crushed, there is logic at work here. And as Dave writes, the moves look like coherent steps towards a rebuild that should have happened a few years ago. And while Gettleman is largely despised by the analytics community, he was the inaugural analytical foil on Kevin Cole cole's excellent new what would sashi do analytics podcast in many ways gentleman is taking a page out of sashi brown's playbook that's right analytics darling sashi brown ex-general manager of the cleveland browns and dave does a fantastic job walking through for example the olivier vernon trade and of course the odell beckham trade he highlights you know some of the back pages on the new y trade, and of course the Odell Beckham trade. He highlights some of the back pages of the New York papers. And he says, look, up front, Odell Beckham Jr. is awesome.

But here's the thing. Gettleman maybe thought that they would compete. He signs the extension. He signs him to the extension. But then it doesn't pan out. And so you've got to make a move here and as dave writes it's not unthinkable that they could turn beckham via these trades into four or five contributors obviously none approaching odell's superstar impact individually but collectively improving the team, which I thought is well said.

And he also talks about the dead cap stuff. Gettleman has been heavily mocked by people, myself included, for eating 66 million of dead cap as part of the deal. This is something also Sashi Miller did. He ate 16 million himself in exchange for draft capital, taking on Brock Osweiler in exchange for a second rounder. Now, the Giants don't have as much cap space, Dave points out, as the Browns did at that time, but they are in a position where trading some cap

for picks makes sense. Now, one thing that Dave gets into was 2018, and he calls it basically a disaster. Dave writes that, ultimately, it stemmed from a misunderstanding of how competitive the team could be. And I think these are fair points.

And Dave writes, virtually every move they made in the 2018 offseason reflected an incorrect assessment of the current squad. They extend Beckham. They trade a fourth-rounder and swap some some late round picks for Alec Ogletree. They made Nate Solder the highest paid left tackle in the league. They paid significant money to guard Patrick Omame. They traded away Jason Pierre-Paul. Saving money.

But replaced him with Kareem Martin. Who is probably a better scheme fit. And then of course they draft Saquon Barkley. Which has a lot of people. Sort of in the analytical world. Poo pooing that move. Running backs don't matter. Why take a running back at two?

You could have drafted a quarterback there. And so the 2018 stuff, that was bad, Dave argues. And so there was inconsistency in the Giants' plan. But it does seem like the Giants are still going to benefit from what they did in 2018. Saquon Barkley, whatever you want to say about drafting a running back there, is a talented player, as Dave argues. Will Hernandez, defensive tackle B.J. Hill, those are good players. And Lorenzo Carter, another role player as a rookie,

he's probably going to take on a starting role. Now with the 2019 draft, you've got 12 picks, including two first rounders. You hit on some of these drafts, you're going to have a promising quarter build around. Plus there's money. Their current obligations leave them almost $89 million under the projected $200 million cap for 2020. Claire and the Beckham and Vernon contracts are a big factor in that big number. And so they will have money. They will have picks.

They will be able to figure this out. Of course, the question ultimately will be this. How do they handle the Eli Manning situation? So that remains to be seen. But I thought David's piece was fantastically argued and crafted. And for people like myself who have been crushing Gettleman here and other places I thought it was a very worthwhile read from David and it sort of allowed me to look at the Gettleman decisions and moves in a different light ultimately I may still come down on the

side that look Gettleman's mishandled this situation in some certain respects but still David argues the case extremely well that despite all of this, or maybe because of some of this at least, the Giants are in position to sort of do what the Browns have done over the past couple of years. They will have cap space. They will have picks. And if they get those right, they can turn this around in a hurry. So I'd invite you to check out Dave's piece over at InsideThePylon.com.

And also, if you like Dave's piece, you might want to join the Locked On Patriots Slack channel because Dave is a member over there and one of the smart minds over there always talking about Patriots stuff. So again, if you'd like an invite to the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield

or shoot me an email, mark.schofield at InsideThePylon.com. Finally, I do want to close on somewhat of a personal note, in a sense. If you have been in and around football Twitter world over the past couple of days, you have probably seen what seems to be like the War of the Five Kings, okay? Because you've got websites and other people and other big-name people and independent outlets. Everybody's fighting with everybody. And this on football Twitter and in draft Twitter tends to happen sort of every March

because when we're in season, everybody's busy. Everybody's doing a million different things, and now we don't have a ton of stuff to talk about except for the draft and people's takes about the draft. And over the weekend, there was somebody that put out a scouting report saying that Ed Oliver was a fifth rounder, and that caused a lot of people to get angry. You know, there was some fighting between a couple of different websites, you know, Sunday night into Monday. And it does sort of seem like winter is coming to football Twitter. And maybe this is just sort of a natural byproduct of people being in

a competitive business where people are sort of competing for clicks. I mean, competing for listeners. Obviously, the more people that listen to this show, the bigger my paychecks are. And so I'd like people to listen to this show. And it also has to do with the fact that a lot of people in this industry are sort of competitive people, former athletes and things like that. And so there's also that aspect to it. And the point that I sort of wanted to kind of make here is to sort of talk about for a few minutes kind of how I do things. And what I thought was really nice and i did appreciate this was you know somebody put out a tweet that i really appreciate you know saying that you know there's a reason why people like me and he mentioned me but dane brugler and daniel jeremiah and fran duffy are people at the top of

the field which i really sort of blew me away to be included with those gentlemen um but this tweet from roy joe daniels goes on to say if you're trying to build a brand follow their lead and focus on developing your work and not tearing down others and that is kind of how i do this and and don't get me wrong don't think that i'm some sort of perfect angel here there are times when i read takes or tweets or read articles and things like that and i am just blown away by some of the stuff i'm reading for example the ed oliver thing that he was a fifth rounder i read the reports and things like that and i just i didn't get it but i'll keep my gripes to myself you know some people are more confrontational about it and we'll call some stuff out on the timeline. That's just how people are built differently.

And if there are people out there that want to do that and have those sorts of discussions and debates, fine. All the power to them. As long as you try to do it respectfully and stuff like that, you want to call somebody out for a take, that's cool. I don't do that as much, if ever, mostly because I'm a risk-averse person. You could say I'm a coward or a scaredy cat, but I don't like sort of getting into the debates and things like that because ultimately how I view it is this way.

These are my thoughts and how I view players. And so if I write a piece that says Brett Rippert is quarterback five or quarterback four and somebody disagrees, that's perfectly fine. If somebody else out there writes a piece that says, Brett Rippert is quarterback 19, that's their opinion. And if they've done the work, fine. Even if they've kind of half done the work, okay. Like if you're putting your name to it and that's your take you're going to have, fine.

In the end, we're talking about a sport.'re talking about in some cases kids we're never going to have all the information and so people's takes are their takes and yes there are people that get some stuff wildly wrong yes there are probably some people in this industry that whether it's from first mover advantage or other situations are in better positions than people like me. And of course, there's some envy at work here. Obviously, all of us would love to have a job at the NFL Network or be on a ESPN show or something like that. And so there is envy at work.

And I'm just as guilty of that as anybody else. Believe me, there comes probably 15 to 20 times per day where I see some work on the timeline. And I'm like, man, I wish I could have done that. I wish I could have put that together. This is just incredible stuff. Dave Archibald's piece on Gettleman is a prime example of that. It's a well-crafted, well-put-together piece, and it's one of those things that make me want to be better.

And so, of course, there's some envy at work. And, of course, I'm as guilty of that as anybody. You know, sometimes scrolling through the timeline can be, in a sense, overwhelming. Because you can just sit there and see the great work that people are doing, whether it's Ted Wynn at The Athletic or some of the guys that I was mentioning with, whether it's Bruegel or Jeremiah. It's just like there's no way I can compete. And so there's that aspect to it as well. This is a tough industry. You know, it's not easy to get a foot in the door and then to stay there. And there are times when it feels like you can never keep up. And you put all that together with a bunch of competitive people competing for clicks and things like that. And sometimes things go kaboom, kind of like, you know, Decept when Cersei went nuts. But at the same time,

at least from where I sit, it's always sort of good to take a step back and realize that at the end of the day, I'm still getting paid to talk to all of you and to write about a game. And I'm pretty lucky that I've got that. And it's in large part thanks to people like you who are listening to the show and who appreciate the work and things like that. And so, you know, I did sort of want to close the show on that and just say that, look, maybe I'm different than other people, and that's fine. People that want to have the debates on the timeline, that's cool.

I've often said this. Don't tweet the takes, okay? Just don't tweet them. I'll put things into, you things into articles and things like that. Nobody reads this stuff. So if I get something wrong, nobody finds it. And yes, there are times when I read stuff where I'm just like, I don't get it.

But I move on. Other people don't. That's just the way it is. But I hope the timeline settles down a little bit as we get into the draft. Of course, we all know what's coming. The Tua versus Herbert versus Fr from versus east and versus fields debates i mean last year's quarterback class made people fight some battles obviously of course there's still the dac and wentz wars which i survived those barely and there are battles yet to come and wars yet to come. But I'll try

to stay on the sidelines as much as I can because maybe I'm just a coward. Who knows? But that's kind of the way I do it. Anyway, that will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow. Who knows what we'll talk about Wednesday. Sometimes things come up. Sometimes they don't. Either way, I'll be here. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield

and Locked on Patriots.