Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 28, 2019 - Take Thursday

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a Thursday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. This is going to be basically a take Thursday more or less. We've got some tidbits in the second segment. We're going to get to some stuff from around the league, around the Patriots, some Robert Kraft updates, some news breaking on Wednesday night as well. What kind of news? Speculative news. News that's kind of moving the needle in a sense. We'll get to that in a minute. A little bit later, I'm going to talk about a piece I wrote over at Pro Football Weekly, building the perfect draft quarterback out of this crop of quarterbacks. Yes, Brett Rippon will be mentioned. Of course,

Brett Rippon was going to be mentioned. At the outset though, we are going to continue with Gronk Week. We're going to talk postseason Gronk. I know we've gone down this road before, but it's just, it's still impressive to consider. Gronk's postseason numbers.

Like, it's just convenient. It just happens to be convenient that he played in 16 postseason games and you'll see why i say that in a minute but before we do anything else you're reminded to follow me on twitter at mark scofield check out the work at places like inside the pylon.com pro football weekly the score matt waldman's rookie scouting portfolio big blue view part of the sp nation family of websites bleeding green, part of the SB Nation family of websites, Bleeding Green Nation, part of the SB Nation family of websites, and yes, Pat's Pulpit, part of the SB Nation family

of websites. Now, as I mentioned, Gronk Week rolls on. We're going to draw Gronk Week to a close tomorrow. And I'm going to need some help. I'm going to need some help. I'm going to need you all to step up. I want to hear from you some of your favorite Gronk moments. It doesn't have to be memories, what he meant to the team. Just pure Gronk moments. Gronk spikes, Gronk getting drafted, whatever. I want to hear from you one last time on Gronk.

You can hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can email it to me mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com Locked on Patriots phone line 240-670-6016. Mark Schofield. You can email it to me, mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com. Locked on Patriots, phone line 240-670-6016. Smoke signals, whatever. Carry a pigeon, send a raven.

However you want to get it to me. I want to try to see if we can get through our 10 favorite Gronk moments. But in honor of Gronk Week, I want to talk about post-season Gronk. And as I said, it's an incredible convenience for us and for the argument I'm about to make that Gronk played in 16 postseason games. It's fantastic.

It makes things a lot easier for what I'm about to say. Because you could take Gronk's postseason statistics, put them on par with some of his year-by-year statistics, and come away thinking that postseason Gronk was the best version of Gronk on a 16-game basis. And here's what I mean by that. 16 postseason games, Patriots 12-4 in those games. The losses were his first postseason game

against the Jets that ridiculous divisional round the Super Bowl against the Giants the 21-17 game the AFC Championship game against Denver the Super Bowl

loss to the Eagles those were the four postseason losses. 12-4 during those games. In that 16-game stretch, Gronk, 130 targets, 81 receptions for 1,163 yards, averaging 14.36 yards per reception, 12 touchdowns, a catch percentage of 62.3%, 8.95 yards per target, 12 touchdowns, 72 overall points. Now, you look at Gronkowski on a year-to-year basis, as I said, 130 targets in the postseason. His highest number of targets was in

2014, 131. So just one more target in 2014, which was his highest number of targets on a single season basis than he had in the playoffs. In the playoffs, 81 receptions. His highest number of receptions was 90 in 2011, followed by 82 in 2014, followed by 81, yes, in the playoffs. Yards. 1,163 in the postseason in those 16 games. His best yardage output, 1,327 in 2011, then 1,176 then you would get to his postseason number

yards per reception 2016 just eight games six starts 21.6 kind of astronomical then 16.3 in 2015. Again, pretty huge. This is the one category where regular season Gronk really stands out. Because Gronk in the postseason, 14.4 yards per reception. That would just tie him with the 2012 season for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7th. Because, I mean, Gronk, the 21.6 number is kind of an outlier. Again, just eight games, six starts. Then in 2015, over 15 games, 16.3. 2017, over 14 games, 15.7.

2013, over seven games, six starts, 15.2. 2011, over 16 games, 14.7. 14.5 in 2018, this past year. That's over 13 games with 11 starts. And then 2012, the number he would tie, 11 games, 11 starts, 14.4. And so, yes, postseason, Gronk lags a little bit behind on yards per reception. But let's not forget, I probably should have said this at the outset. The reason why this blows me away is you're talking about the postseason when you're playing the better defenses.

When you're playing the best of the best, right? Well, he's putting up great numbers. And yeah, the fact that his yards per reception was a little bit lower, okay. Still fantastic numbers here in the postseason. I mean, let's continue rolling through it. Touchdowns. His highest was 17 in 2011 and then 12 in 2014. 12 touchdowns in the postseason.

So this would tie his second best season in terms of touchdowns. Yards per game, 72.7 in the postseason, which would put it sixth on his year-to-year basis over his career. And so putting this together, you could take bits and pieces of Gronk's career and say, oh, maybe this season was better. Maybe this season was better. But on pretty much every statistic other than that yards per reception, Gronk's postseason

numbers are like either best, second best, or third best. That's pretty impressive. And yes, some of these are, in a sense, count in statistics, get more postseason opportunities, but we're still comparing it on a 16-game to 16-game basis. It's not like, for example, taking Rob Gronkowski's number and comparing them to Kellen Winslow's

and saying, oh, well, one was a better player in the postseason than the other. Well, especially in terms of catches or something. Well, yeah, sure. But Gronk had more opportunities. Here, we're looking 16 games to 16 games. And Gronk's production over a postseason

16-game slate, just of playoff games, is pretty darn impressive. And I'll close it with this. Every Wednesday I'm on Locked On NFL with Matt Williamson. He has me on. Kind enough to have me on. We've got a stand-in show every Wednesday.

It's fantastic. Matt is a fantastic football mind. You have to be following him on Twitter. You've got to be listening to his show, not just on Wednesdays when I'm there, but every day. And he's a Steelers guy. Let's just put that out there. He's a Steelers guy, has a Steelers radio show

and when we were talking about Gronk on the show Wednesday, he basically said, first ballot Hall of Famer, best tight end of all time, greatest tight end of all time. There's no doubt in his mind and in the Brady-Belichick era,

it is Belichick-Brady-Gronk. That's it. Those are the top three. None of the Seymour stuff or anything like that. That's how highly he views him. And so the idea that some may think he's not a first ballot Hall of Famer, Matt Williamson would vehemently disagree with that. The idea that he's the greatest tight end of all time, he would agree with that. And so I just wanted to share that. If you want to hear the whole discussion, go ahead. Locked on NFL, the Wednesday show, Matt and I, we do it every Wednesday, but you can check that one out. Up next, we're going to go through some tidbit stuff, do some take Thursday stuff. We've got Gerard Mayo news,

Robert Kraft news. I told you the motion was coming. It looks like it's going to be coming now. More on that in a second. PI rules and some Josh Rosen stuff that is burning up the timeline on Wednesday night. All ahead on this Take Thursday installment of your favorite Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast, your favorite Patriots podcast. Okay, I know it's not your favorite Patriots Locked On Patriots podcast, your favorite Patriots podcast. Okay, I know it's not your favorite Patriots podcast. I know it's not your only Patriots podcast, but still, I'm overjoyed that you're even

listening today, every day, every time you listen. It means the world to me. We're up over 110 reviews over on iTunes, the vast majority of them five-star reviews. If you haven't left a review, please do it. I check them from time to time. It really warms my heart that people say nice things about this show, so I do appreciate it. We're going to quick-fire some stuff here. Gerard Mayo, your new Patriots linebackers coach, stepping into the shoes vacated by Brian Flores. So it's good to see one of New England's own coming home. Excited to see that. Excited to see Mayo sort of in the mix as a coach this year.

New pass interference rules. This has touched off a bit of a firestorm. Obviously, the New Orleans Saints perhaps robbed a trip to the Super Bowl by a non-call on a pass interference play. They suggested a rule change, and now for the next season, all PI plays can be challenged in the last two minutes of the half and in a game. They will come from a booth review, calls and non-calls, offensive and defensive. Now, there is some consternation about a couple of things. What about Hail Marys? For example, Patriots fans, you remember the Hail Mary against the Eagles, where you're watching Gronk and Hogan take off downfield from the end zone camera.

And then suddenly Hogan just gets erased from the screen because he just gets basically tackled. And so you do wonder if in Hail Mary situations you're going to see more PIs called. Because traditionally the refs have kind of let those go, those Hail Marys, last play of the game type moments. Look, unless you tackle somebody, it's not getting thrown. The Ravens' 49ers Super Bowl, under these rules, that fourth down play with a minute 30 to go where Crabtree get held, and we all see that image of Jim Harbaugh jumping up and down, making the holding call with his arms, maybe that gets overturned.

Maybe the 49ers win that game. And so it will be interesting to see how that is handled. Do the last two minutes now become 25-minute events where every play is going to get reviewed? Because, oh, well, that's pass interference. We should take a look at that. Maybe. But Jeff Schwartz over at SB Nation, I thought, had a very good point.

Yes, it might make the games a little bit longer, but wouldn't we rather just get them right than anything else? Which I thought was a good point. So we'll see how that pans out. Robert Kraft News. I told y'all, I put the lawyer hat back on and I said, look, this is coming. They will file a motion to suppress the video evidence. Well, that's going to be coming quicker than we thought. Why? Well, WPTV down in Florida is reported on Wednesday. There's a reason why Kraft is now entering a not guilty plea and requesting a jury trial. Bifurcated it. I'll get to that in a second. The court order authorizing video surveillance at the spa did not explicitly permit recording of activities. Here's what happened. The application for the warrant asked for permission to monitor and record. This is according to WPTV, not one of the defendant's lawyers.

Because in an article on Pro Football Talk, they do quote Jordan Wagner, a partner at the law firm, representing more than a dozen of the defendants. But I'm not going to give you the lawyer spin. I'm going to just give you new stuff here. So the application for the warrant asked for permission to monitor and record what happened at the spa. WPTV.com checked the application. They clearly asked for monitoring and recording permissions in the title of the document. But the order by the judge granting those permissions only uses the word monitor, not monitor and record, just monitor. Now, that might be sort of a narrow wordsmithy type thing at first blush. But again, putting the

lawyer hat back on here, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which basically is the governing basis for searches and seizures and warrants and things like that. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. And here we go. And particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or persons or things to be seized.

I injected an extra person there. But the particularly describing is going to be the critical factor here when Kraft inevitably files a motion to suppress this stuff. Because, again, they applied for monitor and record. The warrant itself said monitor. And sort of the seminal case on this is a recent case, 2004 case, a Supreme Court case, Groh versus Ramirez. That was a situation where they found that the warrant was plainly invalid because it did not describe what was to be searched for and what was to be

seized. And therefore, they held that the search was clearly unreasonable and anything that the, in this case, it was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, anything that they seized was out because they asked for a warrant to search for specified weapons, explosives, and records. Their application for the warrant was supported by an affidavit sent forth as basis to believe that such items were on this ranch. The magistrates signed the warrant form even though it did not identify any of the items they intended to seize. So even though the underlying stuff clearly asked for it, the warrant itself didn't have it listed. It had nothing listed. So anything that they grabbed was out. That's a fairly analogous situation to what we have here. They could have monitored it.

They applied for monitor and record. The warrant says monitor. So any recordings are out. Now, here's the final point I do want to make. And again, we're getting to the legal weeds, but give me a break. A, it lets me be a lawyer without really being a lawyer. And B, it is the off season. So hey. And C, it's the Patriots owner. I'm almost done. I mentioned that he applied for a jury trial. Why would you do that? Well, and in a sense, you sort of split what happens. And now you have sort of somebody that decides the law and somebody that decides sort of the facts. If this was just going to be a bench trial, the judge that would decide that issue of whether the video comes in or not ultimately decides what happens, guilty or not guilty, right?

And we all believe that judges can be impartial. But when you make a motion to a judge, say, hey, there's this evidence, it has my guy on tape doing the deed, but it shouldn't come in. And then the judge probably might rule that that shouldn't come in. Well, he knows that it's happened. But now what will happen is they make the motion, it goes before the judge probably might rule that that shouldn't come in. Well, he knows that it's happened. But now what will happen is they make the motion. It goes before the judge. It gets decided. And if it comes out, if it's not allowed in, the jury who ultimately decides whether Robert Kraft is guilty or innocent never even knows.

At least they shouldn't know. Now, in today's day and age, if the video somehow leaks on Twitter, chances are any juror in the Florida area, I know it's Florida, Florida man at all, but chances are they might've seen it by them. But anyway, that's why he now wants a jury trial because the person who will ultimately decide whether the video comes in or not would be the judge. And his view of things wouldn't be clouded by knowing that that video exists. So at least that's where this case is now going. Again, it lets me be a lawyer. I dug out some old textbooks. I literally dug out my Crim Pro textbook, my Crim Law textbook. I felt like a nerd again for like 10 minutes. And then

I went back to watch Game of Thrones. So I'm still a nerd. I get it, but still. All right. Last thing to hit in this sort of like tidbit section here. Benjamin Albright. Let's start here. Joel Klatt was on with Skip Bayless and company and basically said that three teams are in the mix, the Chargers, the Giants, and the Patriots for Josh Rosen, one of whom had offered a second round pick. Now again, it's Lions season. I've been told some things. Some of you in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel have seen what I've been told, but I don't broadcast this stuff unless I'm explicitly allowed to because I'm good like that

I don't have sources anyway it's like sources of sources of sources like fifth hand now so that was Joel Klap three teams in the mix one of whom the New England Patriots, four Josh Rosen one of the teams the Chargers, the Giants

or the Patriots have offered a second round pick. The Patriots, they've got two second round picks. The Giants, well, they just have the one. They've got one at 37. And then for the Chargers, let me pull them up right now. The Chargers have one at 60. So the Patriots could offer two, but who knows? In terms of first-round picks, if you want to get there,

obviously the Patriots have the worst first-round pick. So that's Joel Klatt stuff. Then on Wednesday evening, Benjamin Albright, who is the outsider's insider, sometimes he misses, sometimes he hits. He seems to hit more than he misses, tweeted out that it's time to take Murray to Arizona with the first pick and change it from pencil to pen, which of course touched off yet another firestorm of Rosen tweets, etc., etc., on the timeline. Now, if Albright is right, either Arizona is going to draft a quarterback

and not get anything for Rosen, or they're going to move Rosen. In which case, you have to believe that 31 other teams are at least going to inquire. And if Joe Klatt is to be believed, the Patriots are one of three that have already done so. And they may have even already offered one of their second rounders since they have two. The other teams just have one. Maybe the other teams are dangling third rounders out there. So the Rosen stuff, again, remains something to watch.

And if you haven't, you can read my piece over at Pat's Pulpit breaking down Josh Rosen for the New England Patriots. I even wrote a similar piece, Rosen or Haskins, over at Big Blue View. I've written a lot about Josh Rosen lately, and it seems with good reason. Up next, we're going to quickly close this out. I've got a piece over at PFW,

putting together the ideal draft quarterback based on traits and body parts and bits and pieces of the current guys. I went all sort of Frankenstein on you. I'll break that down to close out this quarterback based on traits and body parts and bits and pieces of the current guys. I went all sort of Frankenstein on you. I'll break that down to close out this Take Thursday installment of your favorite Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now. I'm going to close out this Take Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast

and back doing some stuff over at Pro Football Weekly. The dust has settled from the Pro Football Weekly Draft Magazine. Again, look, go to Amazon, go to Barnes & Noble, buy like a bunch of copies if you want. I'll even sign copies, whatever. I mean, just tell your friends, look, I listen to this podcast and this guy's in this magazine. Okay, it sounds cooler to me than you, I bet. But still, go out and get yourself a copy. But now the dust has settled from doing the Pro Football Weekly draft magazine.

We're going back into the draft coverage and got my first sort of draft piece up over there that I kind of wanted to run through quickly. It's a piece that I sort of wrote last year, and it's getting into the lab, being Dr. Frankenstein, and building the perfect draft prospect using body parts, traits, things like that from these quarterbacks. And just kind of wanted to run through it quickly because as you'll see and as is going to be unveiled there in short order, the fact that one of these players is listed so often might give you a pretty good clue as to who QB1 is for me.

But let's kind of work our way through it sort of head to toe. We'll start with our boy. Look, I had to get Brett Rippert in there somewhere. Brett Rippert is in there. The eyes of Brett Rippert, his ability to manipulate defenders with his eyes, I think is among the best quarterbacks. He's the best quarterback in this group at it, and he does it extremely well, and he's been doing it throughout his career.

I love his ability to move defenders, whether it's underneath, over the top, with his eyes, manipulate defenders, can do it full body. And so Brett Rippert, he's there, his eyes. Next we get to the mind, the head. That's where I go with Dwayne Haskins. And I've said it before on this show and others, the Murray versus Haskins debate might come down to the process or the results, which side of the ledger you end up on that. And with Haskins, the process stands out. Very smart player, your prototypical pocket quarterback, but I love him from a mental perspective.

And so that's why I picked him there. Tyree Jackson gets the nod for shoulders and chest. Last year it was Baker. This year it's Tyree. Jackson's ability to generate velocity by using torque in that chest, shoulders, and upper body stand out in this class. Yes, he has a tremendous arm, but his ability to sort of make those whippy,

torque-like throws at times, that really stands out. I love seeing it from him. So that's the nod there. You might have said, well, that means arm for him, right? Well, I went with Kyler Murray. And you might say, hey, Will Greer, 59 miles an hour. Brett Rippitt, 59 miles an hour. Drew Locke, Tyree Jackson, they've got cannons.

There's more than the fastball when it comes to being a pitcher and when it comes to being a quarterback. Sometimes you've got to have more than that. We're not drafting closures here. We're drafting guys that are going to go the distance. And so you need to have the complete game. And with Murray, you get the complete game. Touch, timing, feel, placement, velocity to all levels of the field.

And that's one of the ways he stands out. And I flashed a couple of different throws, put them into video in this piece. You'll see throws against Baylor and stuff where it's just the mix of velocity and placement and touch and feel. It's all very impressive. And so as far as arms in this class, yes, there are guys with better velocity. Murray still gets the nod from me. When it comes to heart and competitive toughness, we'll go with Will Greer.

And part of it might have been the way he was when I interacted with him down at Mobile. But there is that competitive toughness, that inner fire. But there's also that balance of appropriate aggression. Sometimes he'll make some throws into traffic. I'll highlight one in this piece where you see it live and you're like, why is he forcing this? I know it went for a big play, but something gonna be wrong here and then you rewind it back you break it down you realize he knows exactly what he's doing that was an appropriately aggressive decision

so Will Greer gets the nod for sort of hard competitive toughness legs Kyler Murray it's got to be an easy one right could have made the case for Easton Stick and that tremendous three cone could have made the case for Avian you know that tremendous three-cone. Could have made the case for Avian Jackson in the 40 he ran. But Easton, I mean, Kyle DeMurray, he's that angle eraser of an athlete. You get the angle on him as a defender, doesn't matter. He's going to outrun you. So he gets the nod. Pocket footwork, Gardner Minshew.

Love the way he works through reads, keeping his mind and his feet in sync. It's picture perfect. It's exactly what you want to see. It's picture perfect. It's exactly what you want to see. He's got some strengths as a quarterback. If you get into that day three range and a team like, say, the Eagles is on the board, is on the clock and he's on the board, I'd watch for mentioning Harry's name called sometime, maybe even early on day three. Off structure footwork, again, Kyler Murray, the throw against Alabama, where he's basically on a dead-on sprint towards the line of scrimmage and then just flicks it 45, 50 yards downfield

on a post route for a touchdown. His footwork in and out of the pocket is fantastic. Even better outside of the pocket. Why? The baseball background. He was a middle infielder until he got to Oklahoma. Now he's an outfielder. But still, you make those throws from any platform. It has to do with the footwork.

When we get to some of the trade components, touch again. Kyler Murray, great touch on the deep ball, has a great feel for where to place throws. Sometimes he might rely on touch too much, but overall, I love the way he throws with touch. Just tremendous from him. Anticipation, that gets a nod to Dwayne Haskins again. Love how he makes anticipation throws. And yes, a lot of these guys can do it to the boundary. Haskins and to a lesser extent, guys like Murray and Greer and yes, Brett Rippin can do it between the hash marks and against safeties and stuff like that. That's when it really stands out. It's one thing, look, I've said it before. You get that backside X ISO, yourreceiver is one-on-one against the corner,

the corner's playing 10 yards off, and you know your guy's running the hitch. Look, I could still make that throw with anticipation. Yeah, I mean, maybe. Probably. I would attempt it with anticipation. The shoulders, though, the torn labrums and all, maybe it doesn't get there.

But it would be out of my hands. I would anticipate it to get it out of my hands on time. I've said too much. Haskins, though, love his anticipation on dig routes and such like that over the middle. So that's where we go with anticipation. Mechanics, Daniel Jones. Probably not a surprise. The Cutcliffe thing.

Cutcliffe preaches mechanics. It's rubbed off on Jones. Very crisp, clean mechanics. Finally, playmaking. It's Kyler Murray. You can make a case for some of the other guys, but from his ability in the pocket, outside of the pocket, as a runner, as a thrower, putting it all together,

it's hard to pick anybody else. We heard a lot of Kyler Murray. Hint, that's where things are trending right now, not just with the NFL world and Arizona Cardinals apparently, but with me too. Everything's trending towards Kyler Murray, QB1. I'll have more on that a little bit later, but for now, that's going to do it for today.

Remember, tomorrow, a couple things. Got some homework assignments for you all. First, some Gronk stories, some memories, whatever. Let's close out Gronk Week in style. I want to try to count down our 10 favorite Gronk moments as best as we can. So get those in so I can include them in Friday's show. Remember, I've got our first mock-in because on Monday's Mock Draft Monday,

I want to have lots of mocks of yours to break down. Not to rip. I'm not going to crush people. You know I don't do that. Look, if my dad sends us a mock, I might have to rip that one. But otherwise, I want to hear from you guys where you guys are going because as I've said, it's your show. I'm just here for a while keeping the seat warm for the next person.

So I want to hear from you. Get some mocks in. So that's what we're going to do. Friday, we'll bring Gronk Week to a close. Monday, we'll do some mock drafts, hopefully from all of you. That will do it for today. Please come back tomorrow. Leave some reviews on iTunes.

You know the drill. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield. And Locked On, people.