Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 9, 2019 - Bennett, Dola and Velocity

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to an emergency edition of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield sliding here into the big chair for today, Friday, March 8th, 2019. It is 4.30 right now as I'm recording this on the East Coast. The snow has fallen here in the Washington, D.C. area. And, yeah, let's face it. It's Friday afternoon. I'd rather be kicking back, putting the feet up, maybe continuing my rewatch of Game of Thrones. I've made it into Season 4.

Pretty excited about the progress I've been made in. But, as you all know, when news breaks here in the National Football League in the offseason, whether it's draft time, whether it's trades, whatever, I'm going to hop on the microphone. A news break in this afternoon, which we will get into. But after I remind you 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 bevy of SB Nation websites, including Bleeding Green Nation, where I co-host the QB Scope Show, Big Blue View, and Pat's Pulpit. Now let's get into the news, because it broke. First it was Jeff McClain, and then later Ian Rappaport, Adam Schefter, and the usual cavalcade of characters

breaking the news that the New England Patriots will be acquiring Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Michael Bennett in a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles. Apparently, the way the trade is going to break down is this. The Patriots will be sending a fifth round pick in next year's draft, the 2020 draft, to acquire Bennett and a seventh round pick in next year's draft. So Patriots, they send a fifth. Shocker. More on that in a second. They get back Bennett and a seventh round pick. I say shocker because Bill Belichick's absolute, it's almost bordering on hatred of fifth round picks, rears its head again. And we know it's a hatred because years ago,

Dave Archibald over at Inside the Pylon, at Dave Archie on Twitter, wrote a piece which has become sort of his evergreen piece of content, and it was a piece on how Bill Belichick continues to hate fifth round picks and continues to sort of trade those away. So we get Michael Bennett into the fold here for the New England Patriots. What does this mean? Well, first, obviously, the connection that people want to make is Trey Flowers is probably gone. And when this news broke, I put out a call to Benjamin Solak and Michael Kist. They are the hosts of the Kist and Solak show over at Bleeding Green Nation, two big Eagles guys, about what this means.

And Solak hit me back within seconds with this tweet. Imagine Trey Flowers, but older and smaller shoulder pads and a ton of swag and all of my love and kiss jumped on that with another response he makes at least a couple of splash plays each game and has my whole heart so a beloved figure in philadelphia now taylor kyle's tkyles39 on Twitter. He is already putting on a film review thread of Michael Bennett. I would invite you to check out Taylor's Twitter page. He's working his way through it right now. He's got one clip up there where he shows you Michael Bennett getting upfield with a stab, slaps away the right tackle's arm, forces Josh Johnson to step up into pressure, getting some pressure on the Washington Redskins third-string quarterback.

So he still obviously has a lot in the tank. In addition, one of the first places I go as a reference point, I go over to PFF, I check his PFF grading. Again, it's just a reference point. Graded out with a grade last year of 75.9, which puts him into their above-average category. He was the 21st overall ranked edge defender. Of course, if we are going to compare him to Trey Flowers,

well, Flowers got a great grade. He graded in the good category, the 6th overall defender, with a grade from PFF of 89.7, which is a pretty good grade. Obviously, 89.7, 75. There's some difference there. He was the 6 sixth overall defender. So at least by PFF's grade, and if this does mean the end of Trey Flowers in Foxborough,

you lose the sixth overall edge defender by their grade and you get the 21st. The difference is obviously going to be the money part of it because let's face it, if Trey Flowers is going to get paid, and it seems like he is for reasons we've talked about, he's the premier edge defender pass rusher type guy out there on the market right now that's available, unless you've got a love and a proclivity for Dante Fowler,

he's going to get somewhere in the $14, $15, $16 million range per, right? Michael Bennett's contract, he is under contract through the 2020 season. Next year, he has a base salary of $6.2 million, a per-game roster bonus of a total of $1 million, making his cap number $7.2 million. The year after that, $7 million base salary. Again, that same bonus for a cap number of $8 million. And if I'm reading this right from over the cap, and I presume I am because other people have said the same exact thing, zero is his dead money figure in each of the next two seasons, meaning you can cut him and it doesn't matter.

You're not going to have any dead count. So it's sort of one of those low-risk type moves. The other thing to consider, this is part of how the New England Patriots do business, right? We saw it with Solder. They let him walk. They get the third-round comp pick in form. They get the replacement cheaply on the market via Trent Brown. Now with Trey Flowers, they're going to let them walk. They'll get the third round comp pick in for them, which we

probably figured that will be the comp pick for Trey Flowers. You get the replacement cheaply via trade. This is how they do it. This is how they do business. And what's amazing is after this trade went down, you see the tweets on the timeline when everybody basically saying, look, how in the world do people still do business with the Patriots? Why do they still do business with the Patriots? That's one take that's out there. Another take that's out there is this is how they retool. This is how they reload. They get the comp picks in. They let the guys walk. They get their big payday on the market.

Fine. Congratulations. You get the replacement in. You get the comp pick in. The world goes on and on and around and around and around. So good move, I think, for the New England Patriots. There will be some more time to sort of dive into Michael Bennett's film, but that's sort of some instant reaction to that trade. I think it's a great one for the New England Patriots

obviously you're not giving up a ton of risk you're giving a fifth round pick which Bill Belichick hates anyway and you get in a guy that was one of the better edge defenders in the league at least 21st overall by PFF's grand and Eagles guys seem to love him I do want to quickly hit two other things before we go. Danny Amendola going to be released by the Miami Dolphins. Already people have discussed, is a reunion in the works? Quite possibly. I'm sure the New England Patriots will pick up the phone. There is obviously some schematic familiarity there.

Having been in the system, we know Brady likes him. Brady trusts him, so he checks those boxes. Maybe it's a situation where if Chris Hogan does test the market, and we've been told that there is a market for him out there. That was the word out of Indianapolis at the scouting combine. Maybe a reunion is in the works, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear some rumblings. Obviously, when a former Patriot, such as Jamie Collins, we heard that this week too, is somewhat available,

then there's going to be a potential reunion. So you'll hear the Danny Amendola stuff over the next couple of days. Actually, I guess I've got to talk about two more things quickly because as I'm sitting here recording, there's a report out there from Adam Schefter saying that Martellius Bennett might be interested in unretiring to come play with his brother. So maybe they address the tight end position with Marty Bennett, who knows something else to watch. But the last thing I did want to talk about, it is Velocity Day. That's right. The Velocity

numbers released from the 2019 Scouting combine. And if you were going to place a bet on who was going to have the hardest throw, the highest velocity of the combine, and you bet on Will Greer and yes, Brett Rippin, you'll want some money. So congratulations on that one. Also, I'd say a bit of a bold gamble to go on Ripon. As much as I love him, it wasn't going to be my first choice. Now, do these numbers matter? I would love to sit here, given my affinity for Mr. Ripon, big fan of him, we all know this,

and say that, yes, it matters. But having taken the absolute opposite stance a few years ago with uh deshaun watson i can't sit here and have my cake and eat it too as i've said with things like hand size and velocity in the past you go back to the film did you have concerns in this area about brett ripon coming into the combine some people did some people did wonder about arm strength does this allay the concerns that you might have had? I don't think so because it's just one number. It's interesting. It's a controlled environment. Let's just put it that way, where they're throwing at the combat. Now, I didn't have concerns about arm strength with Ripon. When I was studying him on film, and that's what you

should work from, were there moments where it seemed like maybe he wasn't dialing up high-end velocity? Yeah, but it seemed like when he needed't dialing up high end velocity yeah but it seemed like when he needed to he could dial up the rpms and i'm going back through and study him right now for a project i'm working on and he still has a number of very impressive throws the deep out right along the sideline all that good stuff left hash to right sideline and all those types of throws where he dies up the velocity. And so I wasn't worried about it, but if you were worried about it, maybe this is something you look at. But QB velocity, it's just one of those things.

It's a data point that I think you look at. You go back to the film and you sort of reevaluate it. But now everybody's sort of talking about Brett Rippon, talking about the arm strength, and I even got some people tweeting at me, shh, be quiet. Don't let the rest of the league catch on. Now I am curious in a sense that does this move the needle in any way? Do people start to really sort of reconsider Brett Rippin?

Maybe. So we'll be curious to see. He, it's at the top of the list. Guys, I want to see where they end up, where they get drafted, because the gulf remains between the NFL and how they might view him and how drafts would review him. Because there was a discussion on Twitter today about where people have, you know,

who is everybody's fourth quarterback? Somebody put out a tweet. Somebody from Roto World, Hayden Winks, put out a tweet. Assuming you have Murray, Haskins, and Locke as one, two, three. Who is four? And he had a poll with guys like Daniel Jones and Ryan Finley and Will Greer. And I forget who the fourth choice was.

And myself and Derek Clawson from Football Outsiders immediately chimed in and said, none of the above. It's Brett Rippin. And there are a lot of people that have Rippin in that sort of QB4, QB5 range. But we aren't seeing the same love from the NFL. So remain curious there. Folks, that will do it. Been yapping here on a Friday afternoon.

It's time to hit happy hour, which for me, a married man with two kids that are downstairs watching some YouTube videos right now of the daily bumps. Don't get me started on that. Happy hour means I'm going to sit down with a nice little seltzer. A little aqua or something. And just kick the feet up.

Continue to re-watch of Game of Thrones. Like I said, that will do it. Back Monday with another Mock Draft Monday. Until next time, have a fantastic weekend. And keep it locked right here to me, Mark Scofield, and Locked on Patriots.