Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots May 2, 2018 - 3 Good, 3 Bad and Baker to New England?

Episode Date: May 2, 2018

Mark Schofield has three picks he liked - and three he did not - from the 2018 NFL Draft. But first he discusses the potential idea of Baker to New England.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Locked On Patriots for Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair as I am, five days a week taking you through all the Patriots news, notes, and analysis. Hosting here, Locked On Patriots, where you, loyal listener, are always appreciated. Going to do a couple of things today, but first, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can follow the work over at InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly.

Also follow the YouTube videos over at YouTube.com slash InsideThePylon, where I'm already breaking down 2019 quarterbacks working my way through a watch list of about 32 quarterbacks that i'm keeping my eye on for the 2019 draft a draft that the patriots might finally truly address the quarterback position but we get time to get to the 2019 draft like i said a couple of things on tap today I'm going to talk about three draft picks that I liked just overall looking at the entirety of the NFL draft three draft picks that I really liked in terms of scheme fit and value three draft picks that kind of give me a little bit of pause but

first this was a question that was posed to me on Twitter people always reach out on Twitter which I appreciate again you can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield and the question was posed to me on Twitter. People always reach out on Twitter, which I appreciate. Again, you can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. And the question was posed to me by John Colosimo. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. John, you can follow him on Twitter at J-C-C-O-Z-M-O.

John reached out, and John is a Browns fan, but like many Browns fans and fans of teams across the NFL, I get listeners from fans of all teams, which I truly do appreciate. And he asked, Mark, do you think you will cover the talk about Mayfield being the person of interest for the Pats, quote, splash move? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it. to the show have heard that in an interview with Baker Mayfield's representatives, his agent, his agent revealed that there was a team that was interested in getting up to number two if Mayfield fell past the Browns at one. And that team was the New England Patriots. And his agent

also relayed the fact that the Patriots initially, when they were just sitting with the one pick in the first round, reached out to Mayfield's representation about a meeting and Mayfield said no. And then when the Patriots made the trade with Brandon Cooks to get to 23 as well, giving them two picks in the first round, they reached out again and that's when the meeting was set up. Now as a threshold matter, I've seen some people talking about how,

well, Mayfield's saying no to meetings. How can you say no to meetings and things like that? Understand that as a quarterback coming into these meetings, you're given the playbook ahead of time, and you're basically asked to sort of know it cold because they're going to put you on the whiteboard. They're going to see how much of it you learned in that short period of time. And so you want to put your best foot forward.

And so the fact when the Patriots were sitting there at 31, Mayfield's camp said, look, no. That made sense to me. That doesn't bother me because, again, you only have so much time during this entire pre-draft process to learn and digest to the point that you need to to be able to put on a good show in these meetings. You're not going to be able to learn the Patriots playbook in a couple of weeks and take the time that it needs to do that if there's no chance they're going to be able to draft you. Now, obviously, when they secured that 23rd pick overall, they had at least potentially the ability to get up to number two. And that's what I want to get to next because could they have gotten to two? That's, I think, the bigger question. And just going by sort of the trade value chart that

people sometimes refer to, I think it would have been next to impossible to do that. Just going by that chart, that second round pick, it's a value of 2,600 points or trinkets or cell phones, whatever you want to call it. That's the value it's given. 23 and 31. 23 is worth 760. 31, 600. That gets you 1360. So there's about basically a 1300 point gap there already. So then you're going to start thinking, okay, did the Patriots start throwing in their second-round picks? And you can add 43, and you can add 63.

That gets you to 2,106. So there's still a 500-point gap. And that's if you just assume that the Giants would be able to take sort of equal value. But if you're coming up to two, it's to get a quarterback and that always inflates things more. Let's say New England, the Nads have been picked 95, their third round pick. That's 120. It gets you to 2,226. You're still short. And that's again, assuming Dave Gettleman's willing to take sort of equal value in the picks. So you're talking all five of your day one and day two picks to get up to two and you're still short. And that's assuming he takes equal value. So in all likelihood,

you're probably going to have to include maybe next year's first round pick. Maybe something in addition to that because picks a year later are always sort of devalued. And we're talking about the Patriots, so you're probably thinking it's a later pick in the first round. I mean, maybe he'd be willing to take what might be the 30th pick or so in the draft, but it's still going to be devalued. So my basic point is this. That would have taken a lot of capital to get to draft a quarterback that you hope doesn't see the field for two years.

Would Baker Mayfield have been worth it? And as much as I like Baker Mayfield, as much as I think he's a fantastic quarterback talent, fantastic leader, love his competitive toughness, I'm not sure mortgaging the entire present makes sense to get the quarterback of the future. And I'm Mr. Quarterback. I'm Mr. Get Your Guy.

I'm Mr. Quarterbacks are so valuable. I'm Mr. Address the Quarterback position every year or so. But when you're talking about the end of the Brady window, when you're talking about potentially the end of the Gronkowski window, it doesn't make sense to me to mortgage that window

and render yourself unable to address the now for the later. And that's not even talking about Baker Mayfield's fit. I think he would have fit in the New England offense, especially given a year or two to learn. But it seems almost, you know,

Pennywise pound foolish in a sense. I probably messed up that metaphor. Matter of fact, I know I did. And the final aspect to this is you're already hearing some talk that all the 2019 class, oh, it's not that good. You don't have a Rosen.

You don't have these guys. Again, development is not linear. There are names. Like I said, I've got about 32 names and I'm watching. I'm working through tape on these guys. Most of them have already done my work on them. Some of whom I'm coming to for the first time.

There's some talent there. There are some good quarterbacks in this class, especially if you're not going to ask one of them to start right away. Again, now we're getting like two years ahead of schedule. But I just think, again, Baker, don't screenshot the episode here, okay? I think you're a heck of a quarterback. I'm excited about your fit in Cleveland. I'm working on a piece of Pro Football Weekly right now about that.

But for the New England Patriots and their needs both now and in the future, I don't think doing everything you could to get up to two would have made sort of overall roster construction sense that's just my take again here's the thing here's the thing about takes never mind you can disagree that's fantastic i hope you do and if you do let me know again at mark school field on twitter up next we're going to talk about three picks that i really liked in this draft class and three picks that give me a little bit of pause as we start projecting them to National Football League players. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. I'm going to

talk six different players here. Three players whose selections I really sort of liked in the 2017-2018 NFL Draft, as well as three players whose selection kind of gives me a little bit of pause and I wonder sort of about the fit, the development that's necessary, and in one case, what the team gave up to go get this guy. Let's start with the good, though. We're going to start with the Chargers and Derwin James, the safety from Florida State who falls to the Chargers at 17. I thought this was a tremendous falls to the Chargers at 17. I thought this was a tremendous

pick for the Chargers, both in terms of the value in finding a player who over at ITP, for example, we had James in our top 10. You get him at 17, taking advantage of sort of the run on quarterbacks in the top 10, as well as sort of what James will bring to this Chargers defense. You look at James and his sort of skill set, extremely versatile player. Ryan Dukom was our lead scout on him over at Inside the Pylon. He described him as an explosive athlete, a versatile playmaker in both man-to-man and zone coverage. The sky's the limit if James can stay healthy and demonstrate consistent effort and aggressiveness against the run. Ryan described him as somebody that played all over the field for Florida State. Deep safety, box safety, a lot of nickel corner and some edge defender. You know, that's sort of your Swiss

Army knife type player. Shout out to our good friend Dave Archibald at Dave Archie on Twitter, who always bemoaned the use of chess piece as a way to describe a person that can do multiple things on the football field because as our good friend Dave points out chess pieces usually can only do one thing you know they can move straight they can move diagonally you know Swiss Army Knife I think is a better way to describe players like that anyway a little bit of a tangent there you're getting in james somebody with elite burst acceleration and change of direction excellent balance and speed in our trade grades he got elite grades in you know recovery play speed athletic ability you're getting a day one starter

they've got them slotted in sort of at the strong safety spot right now you know when you look at this charging chargers roster, they had Adrian Phillips and Jalen Watkins currently slotted as their free safeties. But again, you can use James in sort of that middle of the field, deep safety role. And they also drafted Kazir White. And it's interesting to think about the parent of these two guys

because White's more of your typical in the box, cover three, down near the line of scrimmage strong safety type who at times can do some deep safety stuff but good luck coming over the middle against those two you know I think this was a great move by the Chargers their defensive front is stout obviously with you know the guys that they have up front obviously they've got Bosa you know you've got Melvin Ingram they did some you know speed package stuff last year which we talked about here on this show kicking some guys inside now you're starting to fill up the back end of that defense you've got Casey Hayward one of the better

corners in this league as well this is going to be a good defense you know so I really like this pick here for the Chargers next pick I want to to talk about. Dallas Goddard, which I think was a fantastic selection for the Philadelphia Eagles, who obviously needed to address the tight end spot. You know, they need to sort of address the tight end position. It matters a great deal for the Philadelphia Eagles. They use tight ends a lot. We saw that through their run to the playoffs. Obviously, you know, Trey Burton no longer with them. They still have Zach Ertz. They added Richard Rogers.

But given the fact that tight end is such a critical focus of their offense, they needed to address the position. They get Dallas Goddard. They get him in the second round at pick 49 after training out of the first round in the deal that brought Lamar Jackson to Baltimore. And they're getting a player that many people consider to be tight end one, or at least had him in the discussion for tight end one. And the importance of the tight end position in the passing game for the Philadelphia Eagles is critical. And in Goddard, you're getting a player that does so much in the past game as an offensive player. Sure, he's a tight end, yes.

But he does more than just play like a tight end. He's a very athletic player with the hand speed and contested catching ability to become a receiving threat in the NFL. Blocking, strength at the point of attack in the run game as a blocker, that's a question mark. But look at the rest of the in the run game as a blocker, that's a question mark. But look at the rest of the roster. Ertz can do that for you. Richard Rodgers can do that for you. So you can use Goddard as sort of a big wide receiver at times and still run sort of two tight end sets if you want, run sort of three tight end sets at once. And think about how often

that, you know, the Eagles would split guys out, would split, you know, Trey Burton out or Zach Ertz or Selick, move those guys around, Swiss Army knife type tight ends. I think this is a great pick for, you know, Doug Peterson, Carson Wentz to sort of keep their offensive system intact. Another pick that I really liked, staying on the tight end position, we're going to get to the third pick that I liked in this draft. That's Ian Thomas, a tight end from Indiana who they get in the fourth round. Thomas got some sort of day two buzz as we went through this draft process. Somebody that, another athletic type tight end, who a lot of people really liked as the draft process went on.

Had some flashes last season. Again, some athleticism to him when we graded him over at Inside the Pylon. Kent Lee Platt at MathBomb on Twitter. His relative athletic score was 9.24. That's an elite athletic score. Tom Meade was our lead scout on him. An athletic tight end with the tools to be a receiving weapon, but he will need to smooth out rough edges in his blocking and route running and improve his play strength to reach his potential. He lined up as the age tight end for Indiana last year,

mostly in the slot, out wide, or in the wing. Sort of strengths on him, athletic ability, football intelligence, play speed, hands in contested catch situations, as well as pass blocking. He was pretty good in terms of pass blocking outside or in the wing. And the fit in Carolina, I think, is a good one. You look at how they've constructed this offense. They add DJ Moore. They needed a receiver. They got one.

They got Torrey Smith, who they added in a trade this past offseason. Devin Funch is more of your big needed a receiver. They got one. They've got Torrey Smith, who they added in a trade this past offseason. Devin Funch is more of your big body type receiver. But I think that's kind of your three receiver look that you'll see from Carolina. At the tight end spot, it's Greg Olson, and now it's Ian Thomas. And Thomas is going to need to learn. And he'll get a chance to learn behind Greg Olson, to learn with Greg Olson, who basically is one of those guys that sort of has one foot in his next career, in his next step. He's already sort of talked about doing games

from a broadcasting perspective. He is coming back, though, similar to what we're hearing now about Jason Witten. So Thomas is in a good position to learn from a good tight end, learn the techniques, and be able to smooth out the fence that he needs to smooth out.

I think this was a great pick for Ian Thomas as a developing player, but also for the Carolina Panthers. When you look to that offense this year, it's going to be sort of a vertical-based pass game under Norv Turner. That's his calling card. And Ian Thomas has that athleticism and sort of that speed to give you some vertical routes.

You know, you look at him, 4.7440. It's not the fastest 40-yard dash ever. A 1.63 10-yard split in that 40. But that's good to run away from linebackers. That's good to run away from perhaps some slower, strong safeties. So I think this is a great

fit as well. So those are three picks that I really liked. Derwin James, the safety for the Chargers, and then the two tight ends, Dallas Goddard to Philly, and Ian Thomas to the Carolina Panthers. Up next, we're going to close things out by looking at three picks that I didn't like as much. Three picks that give me a little bit of pause. That's

next with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this episode of Locked On Patriots. Going to talk quickly now about three draft picks that kind of left me scratching my head. And the first is actually a player that was linked to the New England Patriots throughout this draft process. And that's offensive tackle Colton Miller, who was drafted with the 15th overall pick by the Oakland Raiders now to sort of put into context why this pick has me a bit of a head scratcher

when we were talking about Colton Miller potentially going to New England at 23 or 31 we put that in the context of Dante Skarniecki right we put that in the context of you're gonna get an offensive tackle in Colton Miller, who is very athletic, tested off the charts at the combine, but certainly has some development needed to him. You watch him on film and he constantly has sort of a false step. So if he's setting up as a left tackle, when you're supposed to sort of drive catch and have that sort of kick slide into pass protection, into the pocket, your first step should be back with your left foot. Well, with Colton Miller, what you see a lot on film is his first step is actually forward with his right.

And that does two things. It sort of adjusts your angle of attack, your angle of slide into the pocket, number one. And number two, it slows you down. Because you're losing ground in that sort of one-on-one matchup to the edge defender. And so Colton Miller, very athletic, but needs some development. Oakland's getting him at 15, and they're pairing him with Tom Cable, who, if the recent results of the Seattle Seahawks offensive line are any indication, development might be an issue. So you wonder, does this marriage make sense?

Now, I wish Colton Miller the best. I hope Tom Cable coaches him up. Go get it, coach. But this one was a head scratcher. Another head scratcher. And before I talk about this one, I want to plug the Locked On NFL Draft Podcast. If you haven't been listening to it, John Ledger, Trevor Sickenweather doing tremendous work over there. Recap

in the draft right now. Their round one recap show is worth it for this pick alone because John Ledger is a Steelers fan. And throughout their round one recap show, John is basically face first in a carton of ice cream because he's been so triggered

by the Steelers taking Edmonds, Terrell Edmonds, the safety from Virginia Tech with the 28th overall pick. You want to know where Tramell Edmonds was on the InsideThePylon.com draft board? He wasn't. We graded 15 safeties.

He wasn't one of them that made it into the guide. We put 15 safeties into the guide. He wasn't one of them. Lance Zerline, NFL.com, does tremendous work, you know, scouting all of these guys. Had him as a round three, round four guy. Said he gave him a grade that equates with a player who has a chance to make an NFL roster.

You're getting him a 28. Who's going to play free safety for them? And yeah, he was there draft night because his brother got drafted 17th overall. I just don't understand this pick. And Mike Tomlin, former defensive back, William & Mary guy. Props to my William & Mary boy. That's why I went to law school.

Hopefully they got it figured out. Know how they're going to use him. I don't know about this one. And finally, another pick that has me scratching my head, Marcus Davenport, New Orleans Saints, who trade up to go get him, giving up a first-round pick in next year's draft for a player who, as Travis Sikama over at Locked On NFL Draft points out,

was getting bodied left and right by late-day three tackles at the Senior Bowl. Is he a raw talent? Yes. But how does he help you extend and win in the Drew Brees window? You look at the Saints right now. You look at where they are as a team. They obviously made great steps forward last year, getting themselves into the playoffs, into the division around. You look at that defense.

They've got some edge talent already. You've got Cameron Jordan. You've got Sheldon Rankins. You know, two nice defensive ends. Is this a situation where, you know, you draft a guy and hope that on sub-packages he can give you something, you know, you kick one of those guys inside perhaps, but is he going to take a number of reps away from Alex Okafor,

who they just signed, from Arizona? It just seems a questionable, questionable, questionable decision. And to give up a first-round pick to go get him adds to that sort of intrigue around it. So, those were three picks. Again, they could all pan

out. They really could. But sitting here right now on May 1st, I do sort of wonder about those picks. That will do it for today's show, this Wednesday edition of Locked on Patriots, where the loyal listeners are always appreciated. I will be back tomorrow. We're going to do some timeline takes. I haven't done timeline takes

in a while. Nice little Thursday show, Friday show, a bit up in the air. I'll figure something out. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Payfield.