Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots May 2, 2019 - Tape Wednesday: Chase Winovich

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a taped Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back into the big chair for today, Thursday, May 2nd, 2019, continuing our series on the 2019 Patriots draft class. The past two days we've looked at Nikhil Harry, the wide receiver from Arizona State. Yesterday was Jawan Williams, the cornerback from Vanderbilt. Today we're going to talk about third round pick Chase Winovich. And it's interesting with Harry and with Williams,

both players require a bit of projection in terms of both what they do, how they could be used in a potential scheme fit. And there you can see that while the potential and the ceiling are there with both players, there's also some things that they need to refine. For example, with Harry,

it's some of the releases off the line. With Williams, while I like him as a press corner, he does need to get a little bit better. And I think part of that might have been the catchman technique they were using him with. Although, obviously, his coaches, including Derek Mason, his head coach, who coached Richard Sherman, thanks to Waldron. With Winovich, I think it's an easier, cleaner evaluation. You can see right away what he does well, how he wins as a defensive end, and how he can be used in the league, how the Patriots could use him right away what he does well, how he wins as a defensive end, how he can be used in the league, how the Patriots could use him right away in a number of different situations.

And so I think it's an easier process. So we'll get into him in a moment. Spent my day on Tuesday, Tuesday night, even into Wednesday, watching a couple of games of his from last year. And so we'll get a chance to really take a deep dive into him. But before we do any of that, though, your usual reminders 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,

your trio of SB Nation websites, including Big Blue View, Bleeding Green Nation, where I co-host the QB Scosha with the venerable Michael J. Kiston, of course, Pat's Pulpit. Let's talk Winovich. Used him as edge defender. A lot of times he was lined up in a nine, even sometimes a wide nine technique, well outside of the tackle. He would flip fields. I tried to get an idea of when they did that. Sometimes it was to the wide side. Sometimes

it was short side. Sometimes he was to the strength. Sometimes he was to the weakness of the formation. I think it was basically a week by week thing, how Don Brown and company wanted to align their defense. Sometimes you could tell that he was frustrated because Devin Bush, the linebacker, wasn't quite making the call right in time. And so he would be maybe stuck on the side he wasn't expected to be stuck on. But regardless of that, versatile type player off of the edge. High motor. Guy does not stop. Now, I watched, let's see.

I watched his game against Penn State, his game against Rutgers, his game against The Ohio State University, and I wanted to make sure to watch his game against Wisconsin, which I think was a very good test to see how he could do as a run defender. Now, I know I say sort of at the start of these past two shows and now this one, the thing that jumps out to me first when watching this particular player, it's kind of my elevator pitch, my 10-word answer, whatever you want to call it. With Winovich, it's his hand usage. His hands are so incredibly quick for an

edge defender. He's not overly athletic, although his testing was better than people expected from seeing him on tape. His first step isn't exactly explosive off the line, but he makes up for that with such incredible hand usage. His hands are so quick. He he will get in and as the offensive lineman looks to chop his hands as the offensive lineman looks to beat his hands get control of them his hands are gone so Vujovic for example will show you bull rush move where he's going to get into your hands you think it's coming you look to engage those hands or maybe knock those hands down and you whiff because he's already started his rip move to the outside or a dip move to the outside or a swim move to the inside. I mentioned it when they drafted him, my quick little snippet

show on him, that he has a pass rush plan. And he does. I think his preferred move is to jab step and head fake to the outside and then sort of swim to the inside, but he will come with a different plan on a number of different plays over the course of a drive, over the course of a game. He will set you up with some moves to the inside and then jab inside and rip to the outside. Got a great dip and rip move to the outside and a swim to the inside. Those are probably his two favorite moves. But he has a very good pass rush plan. I'd like to see him develop more in terms of counters,

whether it's a spin, whether it's something else, just an extra tool in the bag, so to speak. But I do like his pass rush plan at the start. I think he's a very impressive player in terms of his mental approach. When he sees the offensive line move, when he sees guys block down, he always knows to look for what's coming. He will identify and take on pullers. He will identify and take on slice blockers on those split zone designs.

When you see that tackle block down, he immediately picks the head up, looks for what's coming next. He doesn't get sucked in on things like that. Another thing that I love about him, he is such a good force player. At the point of attack, he will stack, he will shed, he will turn everything back to the inside. He is completely fine forcing stuff to help. He doesn't care about making tackles. He doesn't care about sort of disengaging. If he sees the ability, if he has the leverage potential on a run his way to disengage to the inside and make a tackle, he's not going to do it for fear that he misses

and now you've given up force and contained to the outside. He's much more concerned with turning things back to hell. And for an organization, for a fan base that for years has worried about guys that don't set the edge, you got your edge setter. Trust me on this one. The guy does it extremely well. On draft night, second night of the draft, I said, this is a guy that you could probably bring onto the field in third down and long situations, let him pin his ears back.

I want to qualify that a bit. I think he's a full-down player in the National Football League. I mentioned the Wisconsin game. I wanted to watch him against a run-first kind of team, against a very good offensive line, to get a sense of how he fares against the run. His ability to stack and shed at the point of attack. Phenomenal in this game.

Turned so many runs back to the inside. Phenomenal in this game. Player in the game, stack and shed, gets to the ball carrier, tackle for no gain. He will get caught peaking at the quarterback at times. Sometimes if he does lose contain, it's because on boot action, he's peeking on the run and loses track of the quarterback. That happened early in this game. But then he learned from it.

Later in this game, he sees another type of play, doesn't get fooled. And so he learns on the fly. Such a good force player though. Another play later in this game against Wisconsin, again at the point of attack, stacks and sheds, turns the run inside with a great push and pull move. He has great and strong upper body strength, especially the arms and the elbows. When you lock out that defender, lock those arms, then you control him. And he's so good at locking those arms, getting into that defender at the point of attack, then pulling him, working off of him,

and either using that to force the run back to the inside, or either when you see now that you forced him to the inside, then disengaging and helping on the tackle. There were a number of plays on his film last year where he does that at the point of attack. He stacks, he forces, he rips to disengage, and then gets in on the tackle. Now he's turned it back to the inside to help. That's all you can ask for at times from an edge defender in terms

of support against the run. Very good contact balance. There are a couple of plays where I saw him. He would see the cut, the blocker cut inside, so he knows what's coming. Wisconsin would throw multiple pullers at him, and he would use his his footwork and he would get hit, get bounced off guys, but would come to the ball and still make the tackle. Good contact balance. It's tough to get him to the ground. You know, if there's sort of a weakness, it's that he's maybe not as explosive, but he's just a solid type of player. And for getting them where they did at pick 77, I think it's tremendous, tremendous value. Up next, we're going to talk about

how I think the Patriots can use him, use him right away in the National Football League. But first, a pick like Chase Winovich is such a nod to the advanced scout in the pro scouting department, the area scouts that do just tremendous, and I mean tremendous work, you know, not just for the Patriots, but for all 32 teams.

I mean, these are the people, the true driving horses behind the scouting department. They are guys that, you know, are on the road so many weeks out of the year, you know, going to places like Ann Arbor, going to places like College Park, going to places like Champaign, Illinois, Happy Valley, to get a sense of who these players are. And these organizations, these teams, all 32 teams, they have armies of these guys doing that. But they're big organizations. Maybe

you own or operate a small business. You don't have the time to send forth area scouts. You don't have the budget for that. And that's what makes hiring hard. You would put up some job sites or you'd have multiple job sites. You're getting stacks of resumes. It's so confusing. But today you can have an army of area scouts at your service. Just one site can get it done for you. ZipRecruiter.com. You can go to ZipRecruiter.com slash locked on right now to give them a chance to be your area scouts. They send your job to over a hundred of the web's leading job boards, but they don't stop there. With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply

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of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. And I'm going to take a few moments to close out the show looking at how I think the Patriots can roll out Chase Winovich as a rookie. Just remember, we've already done some of these shows.

We looked at Nikhil Harry on Tuesday. We looked at Jawan Williams on Wednesday. Tomorrow, Yannick Juice. Actually, no, excuse me. We're going to look at Damian Harris, the Alabama running back, on the Friday show. And then next week, we'll get through some of the rest of the draft picks. I figure since we're doing these quick shows, I can still roll you out five days a week. Eh, why not?

I love you guys. You know, I'll be here for you all the time. Let's talk briefly, to sort of close this one out, how I think the Patriots can use Chase Winovich as a rookie. And I mentioned it in the previous segment that I thought on draft night I was thinking he was going to be more of a pin your ears back, get after the quarterback, on third and long type of guy. I've come off of that a bit.

I think he's more an every down type of guy in the National Football League to start with. And that's why I paid particular attention in that Wisconsin game. Again, I wanted to see him up against a good run block and offensive line. I wanted to see him against a team that really focused on the run to get a sense of where he is as a run defender. And seeing him fight to set the edge, fight to turn plays inside, be so willing to sacrifice a potential rip, shed, and attack to the inside moment where he might give up contain, to see him so willing to just know, this is my job and I am going to do my job,

makes me think that he can be an every down player pretty much right away in the National Football League and so I was very heartened to see that I loved seeing that from him as a pass rusher I think there are some things that he can do quickly that will enable him to sort of get after the quarterback, to get some hustle sacks, to get plays like that. I think he's quick enough that against some offensive tackles in this league, he will be able to use that dip and rip to the outside or that swim move to the inside to use his hands effectively to get some sacks that way.

But I also want to see him a part of the Patriots stunt package. And over the two years now. The two full seasons that I've been doing this show. We've talked a lot about how the Patriots use stunts and twists up front. As a way to sort of generate pressure. And there's a new debate emerging in sort of the analytics and statistics world they've moved away from running backs don't matter to pass rush doesn't matter and it's an interesting debate that is beginning to take place on the timeline and elsewhere the thought being

that because so many offenses in today's NFL want to focus on getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands quickly, two, 2.2 seconds, 2.3 seconds, that the ability to get pressure doesn't matter anymore. It's coverage that matters. And that's how you're going to really win as a defense. To load up on coverage players, to understand that corners matter more than edge rushers. That's the argument. That's the

philosophy. Since they're going to get the ball out quickly anyway, forget about getting guys that can rush the passer. Get guys that can cover. Because if you've got good coverage guys, maybe the routes aren't there right away. And that's when your pass rushers can get home. Coverage sacks being the name of the game. And so that's why you see the Patriots, maybe with a Duke Dawson and then Williams, maybe there's an eye towards this is what you've got to do. So that's one part of the piece. The other part of the piece would be then schemed pressure. If you compare those two, good coverage and schemed pressure, now you might be cooking with gas because

it used to be that you need a guy that can win one-on-one matchups off the edge and get pressure and beat a guy and do that, right? Well, maybe that isn't the name of the game anymore. And if not, you need guys that can do their job up front and that can do their job in the back end. Now, whether that is ultimately where the league is going, whether that is ultimately the right track, remains to be seen. But you can see it with how the Patriots

have sort of built things over the past couple of years. Screaming about they need a pass rush, they need a pass rush, they need a pass rush. Well, they keep getting back to Super Bowls. They keep winning games. Oh, Trey Flowers, pay that man his money. I was saying that all last November and December and January, right? They don't.

They move on. Well, now they're going to need to address pass rush in this draft. Charles Amenohu might be there. Or maybe they need to get some of these guys, get an early pass rusher. They don't. They got a guy in Chase Winovich that can do his job that they can use to build in schemed pressure. I mentioned it earlier, his ability to cut to the inside, that jab step to the outside and to cut inside. I am envisioning him being used heavily on 30-lawn situations on tackle-end-exchange stunts.

Having him come inside, and whether it's a Dietrich Weiss, whether it's a Lawrence Guy,, John Simon, Michael Bennett inside, looping behind him, running the arc and getting to the quarterback. Bill Belichick, we talked about this a lot last year, stresses the importance of marrying coverage and pass rush. It's great if you've got a guy like Yvonne Miller that can just do it one-on-one. But those guys don't come around all the time but if you can marry the coverage on the back end to take away initial reads

with some scheme stuff up front say these tackle end exchanges that's a more consistent way to generate pressure and to get off the field on third down. I think Chase Winovich is a selection with an eye towards doing that. His hand usage, his ability to work inside or outside is going to enable him to run some of these stunts with some of these other guys. I will see packages next year with him, get him paired with Bennett or Guy or whomever, and creating some opportunities for guys to get sacks and him doing his job to occupy blockers at times. He will get you some hustle sacks as well.

He will get you a couple of sacks along the way, but I think his ability on stunts and twists is going to be critical to this defense next year. And so putting it all together, I really do like this pick. I know it sounds like a Homer thing to say that I've liked all three picks so far, but I think it's an easy thing to say because we know how the Patriots evaluate talent and then use it. And I'm not alone in saying, look, the Patriots had a very good draft. Yeah, we'll get to some picks later that maybe I'm not as warm about, but this one I love a lot. Look, Pro Football Focus had him as one of their top 50 players. They got him at 77.

It's a fantastic value selection as well. And so to close things up with Chase Winovich, I think it's a great pick by New England. I see him fitting in early and often for this defense. And I think with their three picks, their first three picks, they get three guys that you can look to and say, they're going to contribute next year early and often.

And that's not bad for your first three picks of the draft. I'm not sure we can say that about the rest of the guys we're about to talk about, maybe in spots, dependent. But to come out of the draft with your first three picks, guys, will contribute early and often as rookies. I think that's a masterful job. And so that will do it for today. Like I said, back tomorrow with Damian Harris. Until then, please share the podcast around. You guys have been crushing it in terms of numbers. Like, subscribe, all that good stuff on iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks again, as always. I know I say it a lot. I don't say it enough. Appreciate each and every one of you for the opportunity to talk to you every day about the Patriots. It's truly a joy. Until next time, keep it locked right here. To me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.