Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots May 7, 2018 - Power Rankings, Offensive Play Number 10 and the Debut of Football in Film

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Mark Schofield starts with a look at th Top 5 in the latest NFL.com Power Rankings. Then, he debuts two new off-season pieces. First, play 10 in the countdown of the 10 Best Offensive Plays for the Patriots in the 2017 season. Then, the first movie is discussed in "Football in Film," an off-season project that will have LOP listeners rank and vote on the 20 best football movies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Locked on Patriots for Monday, May 7th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair, going to take you through the next week of Patriots news and analysis. As a reminder, you can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Follow the work over at InsideThePylon.com as well as Pro Football Weekly among other places. You can also check out the video work I do, YouTube.com slash InsideThePylon. Already have some 2019 quarterback videos up. Going to be rolling out some more over the course of the next couple of days.

Because yes, draft season is always, always, always among us. Today we're going to kick off a couple of off-season series that we're going to do over here at Locked On Patriots. We're going to start counting down my top 10 offensive plays of the 2017-2018 Patriots season. Also, I'm fascinated by the idea of film and literature, particularly when it comes to things that I'm interested in. So we're going to start talking football and film. I'm going to start counting down, not really counting down, but I'm going to start going through 20 football movies.

And what we're going to do is I'm going to identify these 20s, consider them sort of nominees. And at the end, I'm going to set up sort of a poll online for Locked On Patriots listeners to sort of rank their top 20 movies. Maybe there's going to be one that I don't mention that you like. We can have a way to rank those and nominate those as well. Kind of want to get a sense of where everybody else views football in film. So we're going to talk about one movie at the end of today's show, the first sort of nominee in this football in film category. But first, since it is the offseason, since it is Rankin

season, we're going to talk some power rankings. Yes, I know it's May. Power rankings don't matter at all, but they're fun to talk about. And NFL.com is out with their sort of post draft power rankings. And I'm really just going to talk about the top five here. No sense in going through all 32 teams, but as they do note in this piece over at NFL.com, which you can check out on your own, the top 10 this year is stacked and it does sort of show the balance of power shifting over to the NFC. You've got three teams in the top 10, two of them in the top five from the AFC as well as one more, the Pittsburgh Steelers, coming in at eight. Then you've got the Jaguars and the Patriots who are in the top five, which we will talk about, But the rest are NFC teams. And starting in the

top five, you get the Minnesota Vikings, who obviously make it to the NFC Championship game. They add Kirk Cousins. They add Mike Hughes via the draft. They add Brian O'Neill via the draft. This is a team that I think still has some great weapons on both sides of the football. You look at obviously the receiver duo of Diggs and Thielen. You add in Kyle Rudolph. They're going to get Dalvin Cook back from injury. Hopefully they get something for their fans out of Laquan Treadwell. Defensively, still a very stout roster.

You add Sheldon Richardson as well. Joseph Linval added from the Giants. Looks to be another top-tier type defense. And so the Minnesota Vikings are in really good shape, I think, to make another sort of run. The question for them will likely be Kirk Cousins. Can he produce at the level that Case Keenum did? Can he bring them past what Case Keenum brought them in 2017-2018? Number four on this list, an AFC squad, those Jacksonville Jaguars. And this is a team that, look, if you're listening to the show, you know good and well,

this is a team that was just minutes away from making it to Super Bowl 52. This is a tremendously talented defense. Calais Campbell, Dante Fowler, they didn't pick up the fifth-year option on him, but they had Taven Bryan in the first round, you know, added a stout defensive lineman, defensive tackle, nose tackle type to an already stout defense. It was a good move from them. That athleticism at the second level as well. I know that, you know, they have the retirement, you know, of Pozlanowski, the linebacker, but Telvin Smith,

Miles Jack, Jalen Ramsey, A.J. Boye, this is a talented, talented defense, the question mark for them. Similar to the Vikings, what are you going to get from Blake Bortles out of the quarterback position? Marquise Lee, Dante Moncrief, they add D.J. Chark to that.

Receiver core, nice receiver option out of LSU. Austin Safarian, Jenkins in addition to tight end as well as Niles Paul. This is a team that, as we know, likes to do a lot of multiple tight end stuff. We saw that from them. They're going to build this offense basically around Leonard Fournette. I'm not surprised to see the Jaguars this high at number four, and I think it speaks to not only the additions that they made in this offseason but the strides they took as a team last season this is a team that looks to be if they can get production from Blake Bortles

it looks to be set to win over and compete over the next couple of seasons at number three your New England Patriots partially because as they point out in this rankings over at NFL calm the reason why they're three right now is because the two teams above them one obviously just won a Super Bowl and the other has made just incredible moves this offseason but you know we know with the Patriots in part they'll go as far as Tom Brady goes and it's when you have number 12 you you've got a shot. They made some nice additions in the draft, I do think,

with Sonny Michel and Isaiah Wynn in the first round. Obviously, you know how I feel about Braxton Berrios. Some intriguing options that they added on the defensive side of the ball. But if you look at the offseason as a whole, they've really helped themselves in a number of ways. Not just in the names that they acquired, such as Danny Shelton, Adrian Claiborne, Jordan Matthews, Cordell Patterson, but in the names of the guys they get back, Julian Edelman, Antonio Garcia, on the offensive side of the ball.

On the defensive side of the ball, obviously you're getting Dante Hightower back. You've added Jason McCourty. You throw a Duke Dawson into that mix. You're getting Derek Rivers back, who missed his entire rookie season as well. And I think this is a group that got better at a number of positions throughout the offseason. And so, again, having Tom Brady certainly helps, but this is a team that I do think improved themselves.

But when you're talking about teams that improved themselves, the Los Angeles Rams certainly did that offseason. You look at the acquisitions. Aqib Tlaib, Marcus Peters, Ndamukong Suh. They add Brandon Cooks in a trade with the New England Patriots to bolster that receiving core. You're going to get year three from Jared Goff, who will probably take another step forward.

They did not have a ton of early draft picks, but they made a number of only sort of late picks, sixth and seventh round. They got Joseph Notboom out of TCU, who was a left tackle, who certainly grabbed some attention sort of later in the draft cycle. But because of the names that they added, it's been a tremendous offseason for them, and they're able to make these additions because of the names that they added, it's been a tremendous off season for them. And they're able to make these additions because of the fact that they get a rookie quarterback

plan on his rookie deal, which as my great friend, Dave Archibald points out, is one of the two ways to really become competitive quickly. Get a rookie quarterback on his rookie deal. You can spend elsewhere. And they made two additions sort of in that day three range, which I think will really help them. Brian Allen drafted him in the fourth round, the center out of Michigan State. Really nice interior alignment, I think, for them. That's good value in the fourth round. And John Kelly, the running back out of Tennessee, who caught a lot of buzz sort of in the draft Twitter world, they get him in the sixth round.

Obviously, you do have Todd Gurley, but I think that was a nice addition for them later in the draft. And so the Rams look to be built similarly to the Jaguars, like we were just talking about with them, to contend for a long time. And finally, the team atop these power rankings, the defendant Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. And they get a big guy back in the name of Carson Wentz. Obviously, Wentz was playing at an MVP-type level before he suffered his injury. They also made some nice additions this offseason. Dallas Goddard is a nice addition. They needed a new tight end after they lost Trey Burton. They get arguably tight end one in this draft. He wasn't the first tight end off the board,

but a lot of people looked at Dallas Goddard as perhaps the best tight end in this group, and they added him. They add Josh Sweat in the fourth round, who, first round talent, obviously some medical issues there, some concerns with his knees. But if he stays healthy, that's a tremendous addition. And you can look at the sort of edge package, the pass rushing package they can put out there now. You've added Michael Bennett, obviously Derek Barnett, Chris Long, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox. This is a talented, talented defense yet again.

And the additions of Dallas Goddard and Josh Sweat, more than anything else, just a case of the rich getting richer. So it's no surprise that they're at top, these power rankings right now. How it all plays out remains to be seen, but good off-seasons for all of these five teams. At the top of these NFL.com power rankings. Up next, we're going to have play number 10 on my countdown to the Patriots. 10 best offensive plays of the year. Later on in the off-season, I'll count down the 10 best defensive plays,

but we'll start on the offensive side of the ball because, hey, it's my show. And then we're going to talk about the first of the 20 movies we're going to talk about this offseason. We're going to do a series on football and film. I'm going to talk about one movie that I like, make my case as to why it should be, if not just in the top 20, but near the top of the top 20. I'm going to make a case for all of the 20 movies we talk about. We're going to start with one, and these will be released in sort of no particular order. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield, back with you now. And we're going to talk now the 10 best offensive plays of the Patriots season.

We're going to do these one at a time here. I'm not going to do all 10 right now. We're going to start with number 10 here on today's show. And just sort of at the outset, these are sort of my top 10. And how I sort of constructed these, sort of the reason behind them is I take into account sort of the execution in the play itself. I talk about sort of the moment in the season where it took place. Obviously, plays later in the year against tougher opponents, playoff games, postseason games, plays with games with playoff implications will get some credence along the way. But also some plays, particularly near the bottom of this list, are just really well executed plays or plays that touched on themes that we've talked about throughout this show, whether it's Brady's

ability as a quarterback or Josh McDaniels and his play calling. And so these are just my 10. As with any sort of list like this, there is a subjective element to it. And as I said, near the bottom, plays sort of 10 and 9, 9 which we'll talk about tomorrow. These have sort of an emotional element to them because they come a little bit earlier in the season when there is some perhaps trepidation about where the Patriots really stood as a football team. And we are going to start. Our play 10 comes from week 7,

that Sunday night game against the Atlanta Falcons, the Super Bowl 51 rematch. And if you remember sort of that period in time back early in the season, the Patriots were 4-2 coming into this game. They had just come off a victory in New York against the Jets. Good win to be sure, but there were question marks about this team, where they really stood.

Were they as competitive? Were they as good as they were expected to be? Obviously, you have the opening night loss, the loss to the Carolina Panthers in Week 4, narrow victories against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 5, a one-score victory against the Jets inuccaneers in week five. One score victory against the Jets in week six. You know, it looked like the defense couldn't really stop anybody. You have the narrow win against Houston in week three. So there's some question marks about this team, but

they really put it together on this night. You know, in that Super Bowl rematch, which obviously Atlanta and their fans pointed to as a chance for them to sort of settle that score from the Super Bowl itself. This was going to be sort of one of those games, sort of a measuring stick type game. But things went New England's way early and often on this night. The Patriots come out with a 23-7 victory. And a play that really stood out to me, and it gives us a chance to sort of talk about Brady and his process and speed and his ability at the quarterback position, comes late in the first half on this short throw from Tom Brady to James White.

Brady, over the middle and that is White. Touchdown. Covered by the linebacker Jones, so James White. This one play was so emblematic of how the Patriots attacked defenses, not just in the red zone, but all over the field in 2017-2018. With a 10-0 lead late in the second quarter, the Patriots faced a second goal on the Atlanta two-yard line. They broke the huddle with 11 offensive personnel, one tight end and one running back and three wide receivers.

They split Rob Gronkowski, the tight end, to the left in a tight split close to left tackle Nate Solder. And as we've talked about on this show, that puts the defense in a bind. Do you leave a cornerback over there or do you put a safety or even a linebacker to that one side of the field against the talented tight end? Well, Atlanta had to make a choice, and they did. They decided to put, of all people, a safety, Keanu Neal, a free safety slash strong safety, to Gronkowski's side of the formation. But then on the other side of the field, you had three wide receivers. You had Danny Amendola split out wide and Brandon Cooks and Chris Hogan in sort of a tight slot look. James White was the lone runner back to the left of Tom Brady, who was in the

shotgun. And also, as we've talked about so often on this show, they used motion pre-snaps. So you have both the pre-snap formation and use of personnel and then motion as Amadou comes in short motion from his wide alignment down towards the other two receivers. It gives Brady the indication that yes, this is going to be man coverage as the defensive back comes with him. Brady initially wants to throw to the right side because he has sort of a split concept here and they try to get Brandon Cooks on a flat route to the flat but that's covered well so Brady as he's want to do does a great job of sort of coming back to the other side of the formation where he knows because of the pre-snap alignment emotion then he has man coverage he has James White the lineback back, man-to-man against Deion Jones, the linebacker.

James White is running either a choice or a Texas route where he starts up the field, fakes to the outside, comes inside. Brady comes back to him perfectly with perfect timing, finds him late in the play as the pocket starts to collapse with a low throw, and as Chris Collinsworth points out after this play, he put it in the perfect spot for his receiver. This is brilliance at work. He wanted to go right to the three-receiver side, wasn't there, comes right back, knows right where the check down is, and instead of throwing the ball high where something bad could happen what does Brady do he's going to throw it about a foot off the ground to his star receiving running back for a touchdown just great stuff that short touchdown pass gave the Patriots a 17 to nothing lead headed

into halftime of the Super Bowl 51 rematch and remember this came sort of earlier in the season when there were some questions about the Patriots and their ability to match up with some of the better teams in the National Football League. But that night and this play showed that the Patriots were perhaps the team that people expected them to be before last season began. That's why this play makes it on our top 10

offensive plays of the year for the New England Patriots. Up next, get out the popcorn. It's time to talk football and film. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this Monday, May 7th episode of Locked on Patriots. And since it is the offseason and since it's my show, we're going to start a little series here talking about football and film. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to work through 20 football movies and sort of make my case as to why they should be considered as one of the best football movies of all time.

Again, not all of them are really inspiring or fantastic movies, but they all cover football in some way, shape, or form. And so I'm going to make my case for each of them. And these are going to be listed in no particular order. As we get through some of these, I'll probably have on some guests to talk about why they liked some of these movies, what they thought about some of these movies. But we're going to start with a movie that came out in 1999.

It tells a story about a high school football program in Texas and what it's like to sometimes be a part of a football team where maybe the coach might be a little bit beyond his years perhaps he's taking on a little bit too much power around town and where football is life it's football is a way of life for perhaps your family and everybody around you but maybe it's not really the future that you envision and of course i'm talking about varsity blues which came out in star and john void as bud kil, the head coach in question, as well as James Van Der Beek, of all people, as Jonathan Moxon, the intelligent and academically

gifted backup quarterback to Lance Harbor, portrayed by the late Paul Walker. Some other members of the cast include Ron Lester, who played Billy Bob, who also passed away, Amy Smart, Scott Kahn, just a really nice, interesting sort of cast. And it's a pretty good football movie. And one of the things I like about this movie, the football scenes were pretty well done, from the practices to, of course, some of the games.

When I think of the football scenes in this movie, I think about the opening drive in sort of the big game at the end where they're sort of trying to feed it to Wendell the running back and they're just I think the line was just stamp US mail on his butt and ride him to the end zone was the sort of way it was described by the

people in the booth covering that game in the film but if we're to talk about lines from Varsity Blues there is perhaps one that people still, myself included, quote to this day. You've got the opportunity of a lifetime. Playing football at West Canaan is not the opportunity of a lifetime. Your attitude's wrong. Your tone of voice is wrong. This is your opportunity.

For you, playing football at West Canaan may have been the opportunity of your lifetime, but I don't want your life. James Van Der Beek with a tremendous Texas accent there. But all told, I thought this was a really fascinating movie because of the way it sort of touched upon sort of the different ways that perhaps life in high school, life as a high school athlete, can pull you regardless of who you are on the team, regardless of your position on the team. And it also struck home, at least to me, because having played high school football, not in

Texas, in Waltham, Massachusetts, but there were still sort of aspects to some of these characters that I identified in guys that I played with, in myself as well. And I thought it just really touched on a lot of those themes that you experience when you're a high school athlete, when you've got a future ahead of you, but you're grown up in an environment and you're consumed by something that seems to matter so much to so many different people. And I just thought it was a fascinating sort of study about, you know, high school football, particularly in Texas, but it can really translate anywhere in, you know, the United States where, you know, high school football plays a big role in people's lives.

And so I thought it was a fascinating sort of case study for that. And again, it had some great moments to it as well. Obviously, people love Billy Bob. He was a fantastic character portrayed by the late Ron Lester. James Van Der Beek did a pretty good job playing the role of Jonathan Moxon. John Voight as Bud Kilmer did a fantastic job, I think, in that role as well, sort of coming across as the high school coach who's become all-powerful and all-consuming. And there were parts in that movie where guys on the team were getting away

with stuff off the field, perhaps breaking the law. And Bud Kilmer's, whose word was the law in that town? And I thought that came across very well in this movie. So Varsity Blues, I think, from the football scenes to sort of the themes that it touches upon away from the field or life as a high school football player, I think it's a very good movie. And so for these reasons,

I think it should be at least considered as one of the best football movies of all time. But that's just one down. We've got 19 to go. We're going to get through some other great movies. As always, leave me feedback on this at Mark Schofield on Twitter. At the end, like I said, I'll be building out sort of a poll or survey of sorts

where people can sort of chime in. And what I want to do is sort of rank the 20 best football movies as determined by Locked On Patriots listeners. That will do it for today's show. Tomorrow we're going to talk one more offensive play from the 2017 season as well as another movie on this list of 20 movies I've got in front of me, as well as some other sort of actual real-world football topics. But until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield,

and Locked on P.A. you