Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 5, 2019 - The Josh Rosen Question

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a Tape Tuesday installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield sliding back into the big chair for today, March 5th, 2019. It is a Tape Tuesday, so we are going to break down some tape. We're going to talk about Arizona Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen. Why? Because he might be available, and because he's a quarterback, and because since it's my show, if I get a chance to talk about a quarterback in depth, I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity.

And the reason we're going to be able to talk about him is because it seems like Josh Rosen might be available. Word out of Indianapolis near the end of the 2019 Scouting Combine was that Kyler Murray to the Cardinals with the first overall pick is all but a done deal. Meaning Josh Rosen might find himself on the trade block. What would it take to get him? Early reporting is, at least according to Roto-World, a third-round pick. Peter Kinn actually tweeted this out, basically saying that he had talked to not only Kurt

Warner, but a notable and prolific general manager, saying a third-round pick is kind of the value that teams would look at for Josh Rose. So all of that being said, I think it's important to sort of take a moment, look at for Josh Rose. So all of that being said, I think it's important to sort of take a moment, look at Josh Rose in the prospect, Josh Rose in the rookie, and a little bit later, talk about whether it is feasible,

whether I would pull the trigger on Gannonham, whether he might fit into New England and all that good stuff. But before we do any of that, a 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,

Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites, Pat's Pulpit, part of the SB Nation family of websites, where I am working on a piece about Josh Rosen, breaking all of this stuff down, and also Bleeding Green Nation, where I am the host or the co-host of the QB Scope Show. Let's talk about Josh Rosen. And the way to sort of start that is this. I want to mention and talk about Josh Rosen, the prospect. And for reasons of full disclosure, if you remember all the way back to this time last year with the great noted 2018 draft class five quarterbacks coming off the board in the first round baker mayfield going with the first

overall selection here's how i ranked the quarterbacks josh allen was five lamar jackson was four sam darnold was three baker mayfieldfield was two, meaning Josh Rosen was quarterback one. So here I am a year later talking about the prospects of Josh Rosen potentially coming to New England. My quarterback one from a year ago coming to the New England Patriots for potentially a third round pick. Again, all the more reason why I want to take a few moments and talk about Josh Rosen. That being said, listen to what I'm saying with that framework. Remember, this is a guy that I might add as my QB1, and so I'm coming to him with sort of a glass half full approach. There might be people out there that would tell you that they were lower on Josh Rosen, and so they might tell you the sort of glass half-empty approach.

But here's what I saw on Josh Rosen when I studied him. I viewed him as a sort of veteran-savvy type passer, well-versed in a number of different offenses, a multiple-year starter, and an offense that shifted from a more spread-style attack when he was a freshman to a more pro style offense, which featured him under center using deep drops off of play action, a hybrid of West Coast and Aaron Perkins concepts. He is a guy that I thought was very schematically diverse coming out of UCLA. If you wanted to put together coaching tape, teaching tape on how to throw the football,

mechanically speaking, he's the guy you film. Very clean mechanically, crisp release, crisp throw in motion, gets the ball out quickly once he makes a determination with where to go with the football. Footwork was very solid, both on his drops and moving around in the pocket, and that's probably to be expected given his background as a tennis player. He's not the guy that is going to escape and extend as a runner, but he can flash that from time to time, as we're going to talk about, as we saw in his rookie year. From an arm strength perspective, more than enough to function in any offense. Throws to all levels of the field with velocity

and accuracy. Great understanding of route concepts. Great understanding of how to attack various defenses. He can exploit blitzes as well as rotations in the coverage, even right at the snap. Sure, there are times when he gets flustered against pressure, but his film also has examples of him thriving in chaos, not letting pressure or trash at his feet, and practice throw, placement, or decision making. I loved his process and speed. And this is an area that I

think is, while it might be one of the easiest to develop once you get into the NFL and you're forced to do it, a lot of quarterbacks coming out of college struggle in this area. But with Rosen, that was a huge plus. He can make full field reads, at least he could as a prospect, even with pressure closing in. Shows you the ability to speed up his internal clock in those situations. When forced out of the pocket, he can still throw accurately with velocity at all levels of the field. I thought he was a functional athlete as a quarterback. Again, we're going to talk about some of that when we break down his rookie season. Now, with weaknesses for him, a lot of the weaknesses that perhaps were talked about most that perhaps caused him to slide down draft boards were weaknesses that I couldn't really speak to.

There were injuries, a shoulder injury, as well as a history of concussions. He had interests away from the game of football. He was branded a millennial. He was branded somebody that was just using football to make money. Now, that didn't matter to me, but it apparently mattered to NFL teams. And so that's why he slid down the board, at least from what we've been told.

But he did have flaws on the tape that I saw. At times, his response to pressure was not as confident and quick as you might hope for. He lacks the athleticism of other passers who he might not be able to create as well as say a Donald or Jackson. When I broke down all of his interceptions, I saw some throws that were poorly placed in a number of situations where he and the receiver were not on the same page. Perhaps that was on his teammates, but perhaps not. But taking all that into consideration, for me, he was still the cleanest quarterback between the lines. I thought he was the most schematically diverse QB. I thought he could

operate in any system. I thought he could start as a rookie. And so I was very, very high on Josh Rosen coming out. It's why I had him as QB1. And I think a lot of people had him as QB1. Not everybody, but a lot. Now, that was Josh Rosen, the prospect. Josh Rosen, the rookie, had some ups and downs. And we're going to break those down next here on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots.

And having broken down Josh Rosen, the prospect, it's time to talk about Josh Rosen, the rookie quarterback. Now, he was pressed into action early. Sam Bradford was dreadfully ineffective at the start of Arizona's season. Mike McCoy's offense didn't seem to be a fit for anybody. This is an offense that lacked weapons outside of, obviously, Johnson, the running back, and Fitzgerald, the wide receiver. I mentioned the QB Sko show a little bit earlier. It's a podcast that I host with the great Michael Kist over at Bleeding Green Nation, part of the SB Nation family of websites.

And I did this exercise where I listed a bunch of names and asked Michael Kist to tell me which receivers were actually on the roster and which ones were made-up names. And the names that I used were Bryant Mitchell, Jalen Tolliver, Trent Shurfield, and Christian Kirk. And Michael guessed that I think he said that the Tolliver name and the Christian Kirk name were real and the other two were fake. Well, it was a trick question because all of those were actually receivers

on the Arizona Cardinals roster last year. And so this was an offense that struggled with weapons. But that being said, when Rosen made his first start, it was a game against the Seahawks back in week three. I thought that might have been one of his best games of the year. You know, he had a touchdown pass in that game to Larry Fitzgerald where he showed fantastic, fantastic process and speed. I loved what he showed on that particular play. That play was a red zone concept, a two-receiver concept with Larry Fitzgerald and

Chad Williams. And because of the way the linebackers dropped, Arcavius Mingo and Bobby Wagner, he had to make up some decisions on the fly. It was Wagner that really took away the throwing lane on the dig route to Fitzgerald. So Rosen had to come off of that, look to his other option, Williams, as he crossed into the red zone. But then he had to worry about the free safety, Earl Thomas, in the middle of the field. so he puts the throw well to the outside. I loved that play. There were some throws he made to Ricky Seals-Jones. He had a deep out route that he got in with a touch over the linebacker, but with velocity before the safety could rotate down. And so his debut as a starting quarterback, I thought, was extremely impressive. And I think what should be mentioned at this point when we talk about Josh Rosen

is the idea and the concept of recency bias. Because right now, everybody's very much in love with the idea of Kyler Murray, the quarterback. And I can understand that. He's an impressive athletic talent. He can do some incredible things on the football field, both with his athleticism and his legs, as well as his ability to throw the football downfield.

But I think that, coupled with Rosen's struggles down the stretch, has people moving away from Josh Rosen and ignoring what he did early when he started as a rookie. That was a game against Week 2. If you move through his tape and his performance and production on the field, you see some pretty good games. The next week against San Francisco, 10 of 25 for 170 and one touchdown in a 2018 win. Rosen's completion percentage was down.

Let's be honest about that. 55.2. Not where you need it to be. Some of it was on his teammates. Some of it was on him. It goes to at Minnesota the following week, 21 of 31 for 240. No touchdowns, a pick. Then against Denver, he struggles, 21 of 39 for 194.

Three interceptions in that game. You come to week 11 against Oakland. That's a game where he goes 9 of 20 for 194. Three interceptions in that game. You know, you come to Week 11 against Oakland. That's a game where he goes 9 of 20 for 136. Just 45% completion rate. But he goes, completion percentage, excuse me. But he goes for three touchdowns and two picks. His first pick in that game

was a half-field concept off of play-action. They don't get it blocked up. He steps up in the pocket pretty well. Makes a throw under duress. He can't get enough on it, and he's picked. But he comes back the next drive, moves the free safety with his eyes in the red zone, throws a dart on an inside seam route to Larry Fitzgerald for a touchdown. I've mentioned before on this show and elsewhere, I want to see a quarterback get tested. I want to see a quarterback face adversity.

Josh Rosen faced adversity throughout the entire season. But in that game in particular, look, you come out, you throw a pick on, I think, the second offensive play of the game. And then you come back on the next drive and you cap it off with a beautiful manipulation of the free safety, move him to one side of the field away from the seam route from Larry Fitzgerald. And then you throw an absolute dart on a seam in the red zone for a touchdown. I love that. I love seeing stuff like that. He also, in the second quarter of that game, had beautiful anticipation.

But he gets let down. Throws a curl route. Gets it out well before the break. The receiver just lets it kind of bounce off of his hands. The throw is slightly high but still catchable. And it goes for an interception. And that's an example of perhaps the people around him letting him down a bit. Just lets it kind of bounce off of his hands. The throw is slightly high but still catchable. And it goes for an interception. And that's an example of perhaps the people around him letting him down a bit.

Week 12 against the Chargers. A play on first and 10 at the 13-18 mark of the first quarter. One of those situations where he's flushed to his right, forced to create a move. Makes a beautiful throw on the move on a comeback route along the boundary for a first down. A touchdown throw he had in that game to Larry Fitzgerald. I love the placement. It's sort of a dig route, and he double clutches on it because he's worried about the underneath linebacker. And he makes the throw, and when you see this play again, it's at the 10-27 mark in the first quarter. It looks like on first view that it's a poor throw. It's poorly placed because Fitzgerald has to sort of throttle down and catch it on his back shoulder on a dig route. But one,

Rosen's trying to move it around the linebacker. And two, you've got the free safety coming down with inside leverage. And so Rosen puts it in a perfect spot given the leverage. I love seeing that from a quarterback. And the other thing I love seeing is he tries to throw it around the linebacker, not over him. I remember a couple years ago reading a clinic presentation by Gary Nord, who was most recently the offensive coordinator at Purdue. And he said, throw the football around linebackers, not over them. Because if you try to throw over linebackers, you're going to put too much touch on it, put too much air under it, and that leads to interceptions by the deep safety. And so to avoid that, Rosen tries to throw it around him. I love seeing that placement, both in terms of trying to throw around the linebackers and not

over them, and also the awareness of where the deep safety was. And so I love that play. His best game, I think, the game against Green Bay. This was week 13. They go to Green Bay. They win it 20-17. He goes 11-26 for 149. Again, just 42.3 completion percentage. No touchdowns, no picks. But what I loved about that game, the third down conversions. He had 39, 739 mark in the first quarter. He has an all-curl sticks concept. He works from left to right, gets to his third reading of the progression, moves the sticks for a first down. Second quarter, 906 mark, third and seven. The safety spin at the snap from a cover one look to a Tampa two look shows you the mental process and works through the reads,

reads the defense, process and speed in that post snap phase converts the third down third and seven later in the second quarter perfect placement on a band-aid post route to convert the third down situations fourth quarter tie game 17 all third and 23 at the 435 mark if you are forced to punt here green bay and aaron rogers they're going to win the game what does he do he creates moving outside of the pocket, flushes to his right, directs some traffic, finds Larry Fitzgerald on a scramble drill, makes the throw. Fitzgerald, fantastic catch for his end.

And they go down and kick the game-winning field goal. Taking the numbers aside, the 42.3% completion percentage, that was one of my favorite games watching him last year. But then the struggles really set in. The following week against Detroit, 26 of 41, so 63.4% completions, but throws a pick. They lose 17-3. Then Atlanta started that game beautifully. Had to switch vertical to Johnson out of the backfield. Placement, velocity, everything was great. Bunny throws a pick six. It's tipped at the line of scrimmage.

Right tackle doesn't help him out, doesn't get the defensive end to the ground. You've got to do that on a quick game concept. He doesn't. It's tipped. It's pick six. Then drive-in near the end of the first half. He throws a bad pick where he throws it late over the middle, doesn't see the underneath defender.

He eventually gets pulled. Next week against the Rams, week 16, he eventually gets pulled. And in that week 17 game at Seattle, he struggled again. Yeah, he goes 18 of 34 for 52.9% completion percentage. One touchdown, no picks. But at the end of the first half, he takes a sack when they were out of timeouts and they were in field goal range. Early in the fourth quarter, it's another 3 ten situation he gets sacked he had a number of strip sacked or sack

fumble situations that he does have to clean up he gets sacked 45 times lost a bunch of these some were on him some weren't and so the greatness or at least the potential he showed saying week you know three against Seattle in his first start, that game against Green Bay week 13, some of that started to melt away over the back half of his season. And so I think that has contributed to some of the recency bias where people are now looking at a Kyler Murray and saying, let's go get him, forget Josh Rosen. But I think you've got to look at the entirety of his work and the potential as well as the context to everything he put on

tape and realize this is still a very good quarterback. A good young quarterback that yes, he has some things he needs to get better at. He needs to get the ball out of his hands quicker at times. He needs to take better care of the football in the pocket. Some throws need to be made quicker with better placement.

But given the context of his rookie season, I'm certainly not dissuaded from my position on Josh Rosen. I think this is a similar situation to sort of Jared Goff a couple years ago where people were writing him off as a bust because of a disastrous rookie year and a bad situation. I think if you get Rosen, the coaching, and the talent around him, not just Larry Fitzgerald and Johnson, for example, a better offensive line, you're going to see some success. Now, should the Patriots go get him?

That's the ultimate question for this show. I will answer that next here in Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this tape Tuesday look at Cardinals rookie quarterback slash rising second year quarterback Josh Rosen and we're breaking Josh Rosen down because the buzz coming out of Indianapolis right now in the wake of

the 2019 NFL scouting combine is that the Arizona Cardinals it's all but a done deal that they're drafting Kyler Murray with the first overall pick which might make Josh Rosen who they drafted in the top 10 last year, available via trade. And also, word out of Indianapolis from Peter King, Kurt Warner, and others, is that a third round pick might be all Arizona is going to get back for Josh Rosen, which obviously begs the question, should the New England Patriots look to acquire Josh Rosen, perhaps giving up just a third round pick in the process?

And my answer to that is yes. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's show. I will be back tomorrow for more Locked on Patriots. I kid, I kid, I kid. I'll dive into it a bit more. But if that is all it is going to take, would be a third round pick for Josh Rosen, I'm all in. I guess this is an eat the tweet kind of moment.

But if that's all it's going to take, I am all in on the idea of acquiring Josh Rosen. And just by means of comparison, I just wrote a piece over at Big Blue View last week saying if it's a sixth overall selection from the New York Giants for Josh Rosen, I was completely in on that. And this is why I outlined at the start of this show that Rosen was my QB1, because it's important to sort of hear my words in the proper context. This is a quarterback that I was already in on to begin with. So, of course, I'm going to be excited about potentially acquiring him for any pick. You know, 32, 56, 64, 74, 98, 102. Those are the Patriots' day one and day two picks.

And in all honesty, I would be fine with New England giving up any one of those for Josh Rosen. If you're telling me that Josh Rosen is available for pick 74 overall, sign me up right now. I'm completely fine with it. Because, let's face it, Josh Rosen, while he had his struggles last year,

which we just outlined, is the kind of quarterback that I fit. Fits what New England wants to do schematically. And again, I view him as a schematically diverse quarterback. And if it's just a third-round pick, the hit rate on third-round picks overall isn't exactly a lock. Now this is just one piece sort of outlining success rates by round. This comes to us over at Arrowhead Pride, and it dates back to 2015,

so obviously there will be some changes to this. But at least when they looked at it, third-round picks, offensive linemen hit 40% of the time, tight ends 39% of the time, linebackers 34%, defensive linemen 27%, wide receivers 25%, defensive backs 24%, quarterbacks 17% of the time, linebackers 34%, defensive linemen 27%, wide receivers 25%, defensive backs 24%, quarterbacks 17% of the time. And sort of the way they defined a draft pick hidden in this piece was whether they became

starting players. Did they start at least half of their career? And the way they sort of framed that was that, look, if you're starting for at least half of your career, you're probably an average to above average type of player. Now, you might get some below average starters in there, but still. You've kind of made it in the National Football League if you start for more than half of your playing career.

And so those are kind of the numbers, and they're not great. And when you've got three such picks to dole out, and you're looking to potentially draft in any other position, hit rate's not great. Numbers tell you that. But you might have to give up one of those to get a guy that just started basically his entire

rookie year a quarterback the toughest position in the league the toughest position in the game and you'll get a chance to sort of get him into your system for at least one year to learn behind tom brady to learn the system maybe you get sort of that smith mahomes sort of dynamic. And Tom Brady's Tom Brady. And what I mean by that is he knows that his legacy is established. And yes, obviously he doesn't want to walk away from the game anytime soon.

We know that. But he's not going to be a player sort of threatened by them going out and acquiring a new quarterback. He wasn't threatened by Garoppolo or Brissette or Etlin or any of these guys. They've drafted basically a quarterback every other year since he took over as the starter. That's kind of been their M.O. Belichick always wants to be a year ahead of schedule rather than a year behind schedule

when it comes to finding your next quarterback, even though he hasn't needed a next quarterback since I was in law school. So given all of this, if it is a second round pick, third round pick, go get the guy. Get him out of Arizona, get him into New England. All of this stuff that we've seen from him, I'm not too worried about given the context of his rookie year. Now, would the Patriots do it? This is the ultimate question because it's not up to me. If it were up to me,

he'd already be on a plane. Evan Lazar over at CLNS Media, he's out of the combine and he basically tweeted out that, look, the Patriots, they weren't exactly enamored with Josh Rosen last year. Part of it was an off-the-field

mentality kind of thing. And so maybe there is something out that, look, the Patriots, they weren't exactly enamored with Josh Rosen last year. Part of it was an off-the-field mentality kind of thing. And so maybe there is something to the off-the-field stuff being the reason he fell, not just for other teams, but for New England as well. And so if that's the case, again, I can't speak to that. Nobody's told me that. I haven't heard that directly from

anybody in and around Foxborough. But if that's the case, then maybe we don't see this happen. But from an on-the-field, between-the-lines perspective, go get Josh Rosen. I'm completely fine with it. Maybe this one blows up in my face. Sometimes I go out on the limbs with the takes.

I usually don't. I'm trying to be measured. This one, I'll go out on the limb. If Josh Rosen can be had for a third-round pick, a second-round pick, even that pick at 32, I think you go get him. That will do it for today. I will be back tomorrow. Wednesday will be sort of a recap of the entire combine. Winners, losers, all that fun stuff. A little bit later in the week, we have

Take Thursday. Friday is going to be the first sort of weekly recap show. What we're going to do on these as we get up to the draft is sort of recap the week in takes, the week in information, talk about some of the things we talked about, some news and things like that, what I was reading, what I ignored,

all that fun, good stuff. So that's the week ahead. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patrons.