Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots May 8, 2018 - Rookie Minicamp, Offensive Play of the Year Number 9, and ESU

Episode Date: May 8, 2018

Mark Schofield breaks down UDFA CB J.C. Jackson, talks about the play nine on the Ten Best Offensive Plays of the Patriots' season, and then talks about Joe Kane, ESU and The Program.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, welcome into Lockdown Patriots for Tuesday, May 8th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair on this Tuesday morning. Going to work through some Patriots rookie minicamp thoughts. I've got a player in mind I want to talk about at the outset. Then we're going to continue the two new summer series we've debuted yesterday. First, we're going to talk about play nine of the Patriots top ten offensive plays of the year. We're going to dip back into week five for a bit. Then we're going to talk the second movie on the 20 movies I'm going to nominate

on this football and film series we're doing. Remember, at the end, we're going to have the listeners of Locked On Patriots vote on a survey online to put together our top 20 football movies of all time. Before that, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can follow the work over at

profootballweekly.com, insidethepylon.com. Follow the videos over at youtube.com slash insidethepylon. Today, though, we're going to start rookie minicamp, which unfolds for the New England Patriots at the end of this week. Obviously, the big names, Isaiah Wynn, Sonny Michel, Duke Dawson, Braxton Berrios, Danny Etlin, and all of the Patriots draft picks expected to be in attendance. But today I want to focus briefly on a player who wasn't drafted but has a very good shot at making some noise during rookie minicamp and perhaps securing a spot on the roster or at least getting himself an invite to training camp. And it's important to remember that after the draft, Nick Cassaro, Patriots Director of Player Personnel, was quoted as saying that there's going to be some player that

we aren't even talking about that's not even here, Cassaro said. This is a quote from him from an article on theprovidencejournal.com. Like in Malcolm Butler's case, Cassaro continued, he just kind of showed up, no commitment, no nothing. He goes through a rookie mini camp tryout, and then he signs, and the rest is kind of history. There's going to be somebody like that. We're not even talking about that player right now, but there's going to be some of those people that do show up here in a couple of weeks. And the Patriots do have a history of undrafted free agents making the roster. Last year, Jacob Hollister, Harvey Lange, Adam Butler, Cole Croston, those players all made the roster as undrafted free

agents. David Andrews has made the roster as an undrafted free agent, and of course, Malcolm Butler. The Patriots do already have eight undrafted players lined up for rookie minicamp. Running back Ralph Webb from Vanderbilt. Defensive tackle John Atkins from Georgia. Defensive tackle Frank Herron from LSU. Receiver Chris Lacey from Oklahoma State. Fullback slash tight end Shane Winneman from Northern Illinois. Defensive end Trent Harris from Miami. Cornerback A.J. Moore from Mississippi. And the player I want to focus on, cornerback J.C. Jackson from the University of Maryland. And it's important to remember that Jackson is a mid-round talent player.

The issue with Jackson is he was a fourth-year junior who played in 24 career games at Maryland, started in 23, but he transferred from Florida after being charged with three counts of armed robbery in April of 2015. He spent one year at Riverside Community College where he played in six games prior to his transfer to Maryland. In 2017, he was an All-Big Ten Conference Honorable Mentioned Player after tallying 40 tackles, 10 passes broken up, and he led the team with three interceptions. And we did scout him over at Inside the Pylon for the ITP Draft Guide. Kyle Morgan, who is at NoHuddleScouts on Twitter.

You should follow him at NoHuddleScouts. That's Kyle Morgan, who did incredible work for us on the ITP Draft Guide. He did our scouting report on J.C. Jackson, described him as a player who will immediately contribute on special teams and add depth to any secondary and sub-packages as a rookie. By year three, he will need to become a more reliable tackler to earn a starting position at nickel corner or free safety while being an impact player on special teams. Now that sounds like somebody you would sort of draft on day three, but the Patriots get him as an undrafted free agency. Scheme fit on Jackson. He will be a fit in any scheme as he is versatile in both man and zone coverages while also showing the skill set to

play nickel or safety. A very versatile player, both schematically and position wise. When you're looking at him from a trait-based perspective, displays very good athletic ability with very good speed fluid hips and good footwork uses good play strength and use of hands and press man coverage where he uses a single arm jam to widen the release of the receiver to leverage the receiver's stem he shows good mental processing to anticipate routes and trail coverage has good timing to turn and locate the ball. If you're a Patriots fan, and chances are if you're listening to this, you are, turning and locating the ball is something the Patriots fans have been griping about for as long as I can remember there being an internet. And so to hear that is probably music to the ears of many Patriots fans.

But he has more strengths as well. He has good competitive toughness to strain through the catch point and create an incompletion. He uses good instincts and awareness and zone coverage to come off his zone to play the ball. Shows very good click and close and react to the underneath routes and screens. He's also very good in run support. As far as some weaknesses on him, tackling is a weakness. Eye discipline is a weakness. He's susceptible to double moves and has only adequate eye discipline against play flakes and misdirection. But again, he's a fit in any scheme as he's versatile in both man and zone coverage schemes. He's positionally diverse. He can play nickel. He can play safety as well as

corner. In year one, you're talking about somebody that can immediately contribute on special teams. To get that as a potential undrafted free agent, I think is a very nice opportunity for the New England Patriots. And I think this is a great opportunity in front of JC Jackson to perhaps earn a spot or at least a training camp invite, if not get himself a real shot at a roster spot in the upcoming rookie minicamp. So that's definitely a player to watch. A lot of people are talking about Ralph Webb, the running back from Vanderbilt, as perhaps the guy that's most likely to perhaps win a roster spot. And the reason for that is you look at the money that he signed for as an undrafted free agent. Reportedly signed

a deal worth $70,000 in guaranteed money with a $20,000 bonus. That's basically seventh round pick money. And, you know, when you look at that, you know, you wonder if this is a player that the Patriots look to as perhaps well on his way to getting a shot at a roster spot. So again, J.C. Jackson, a player that I think people should definitely keep an eye on as we get into rookie minicamp, which gets underway later this week. Up ahead, we're going to talk play nine on our countdown of the top 10 Patriots offensive plays of the season. And a little bit later, we're going to go part two,

our second movie to discuss in the new football and film series. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tuesday edition of Locked on Patriots, where we're going to continue our series looking at the 10 best offensive plays of the Patriots' 2017 season. We kick this off on Monday's show with Play 10, which was braided to James White on a touchdown throw, short touchdown pass on that Sunday night game against the Atlanta Falcons. And that sort of had the theme of putting Patriots Nation at ease.

If you remember, that was when the Patriots were sort ease. If you remember that was when the Patriots were sort of early in the season. They had the two losses. The opening night loss, the loss to Carolina, a little bit of unease in Patriots Nation similar to what Patriots fans are perhaps dealing with right now with some uncertainty in the air. This is going to continue that theme. We're going to talk about week five. If you remember Week 5, that was the game coming off that loss to the Carolina Panthers. A Thursday night game down in Tampa Bay. Rob Gronkowski did not play in that game.

There were certainly some concerns about the Patriots' defense going into that game. And to sort of set the mood for this, I went back to an episode of Locked on Patriots I did that week with the guest, the great Trevor Sykema from Pew Report, as well as Locked on NFL Draft, where he and I talked about this matchup. The chemistry that Braid and Winston have

is so good, and that's why O.J. Howard's going to get plenty involved when they want him to, is kind of the surprise element but the steady Eddie is is going to be Cameron Brate and you know the Patriots linebackers when I look at their depth chart not uh not ideal for covering tight ends I mean is that right am I right in that thinking yeah I mean they've well they've struggled covering everybody I mean let's be honest here I mean you could hear it in my voice there they's sort of unease and the nervousness about the Patriots, particularly on the defensive side

of the ball, how they've basically struggled to cover anybody at that point in the season. And you know, that episode basically focused on the Tampa Bay Bucs and the offensive weapons they had. And so there was a lot of concern about the Patriots off a short week, off a loss, whether they'd be able to go down into Tampa and win that game on Thursday night. And the Patriots did score first, Steven Gostowski on a 27-yard field goal. But then, if you remember that game, Doug Martin comes back from his suspension. And he had 13 carries for 74 yards and a touchdown, which came about midway through the second quarter, a one-yard touchdown run.

So Tampa Bay took a 7-3 lead. And at that point, Gronkowski's out. Doug Martin looks to be, you know, back in mid-season form coming off the suspension. So there were a lot of people that were quite, quite, quite nervous. But then the Patriots ripped off a nine-place, 75-yard drive that was capped off on this five-yard pass for a touchdown from Tom Brady to Chris Hogan. Jim Nance, Tony Romo there on the call, and as Romo would go on to describe, it was rather a simple play and a simple design. The Patriots facing a second goal on the five-yard line. They come out in 11 offensive personnel with

Brady under center. They have Dwayne Allen, the tight end, in place of Rob Gronkowski, and a wing to the left with Chris Hogan just outside of him on the line of scrimmage. Danny Amendola is split wide to the left, sort of to the bottom of the numbers, on the left side of the formation. And he comes in motion, gives Brady sort of an indication of the coverage, and he runs a post route sort of up the middle. Allen releases to the flat. So those guys basically divide and Hogan just runs a simple five-yard curl route. And what happens is they switch the coverage responsibilities. And so the defender who was outside of Amendola,

he shifts down over Hogan, and he's off the ball. He's given off-man coverage alignment. And so when Hogan presses up fields on sort of his vertical stem, he gets enough separation when he cuts back to the football right at the goal line that the defender can't get there and break it up. And the other thing is on this play, tremendous timing and anticipation from Brady on it because he hits the final step of his drop and immediately starts to throw. There are two sort of drops you can implement as a quarterback. You can use a hit step, which

you hit the final step of your drop, then you hit yourself, you gather yourself, you take a step forward and then throw. Or you use what's called a hit and throw, which is if it's a three-step drop or a five-step drop or even a seven-step drop. Once you hit that third, fifth, or seventh step with that right foot, there's no hit step, there's no crow hop or anything like that. You drive that into the turf and immediately start to throw. And that's what Brady does here. And because of that timing, the anticipation, the motion which causes the defenders to shift coverage, it gets the Patriots on the board, giving them a touchdown sort of late in the second quarter. They would tack on a field goal before halftime as well.

And so, you know, a 7-3 game, you know, that turns into a 13-7 game at halftime. And Patriots fans feel a little bit better about themselves. And that's kind of the reason why this is play nine. You know, it wasn't the most difficult play to execute. You know, it comes against a team that didn't make the playoffs or anything like that. But if you remember where Patriots Nation was at that point in time, if you remember how Patriots fans were feeling at that point in time, this touchdown, that win in that environment on a short week, meant a great deal to this team and to this fan base. And that's why this play, the short

touchdown from Brady to Chris Hogan is play nine on our top 10 offensive plays of the 2017 Patriots season. Up next, our second movie in the Football in Film series, a movie filled with some great quotes, some controversial scenes, and perhaps one of the funniest or not funny, but strangest sort of end in plays in a football movie. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Closing it out now, talking about our second movie in the football and film series. Yesterday on the first installment of this, talked about Varsity Blues, a film near and dear to my heart. And that's kind of where we're going to continue here. Again, as I go through these, we're going to talk about 20 movies.

I'm going to start having some guests on as well to give me their thoughts on these movies. And at the end, we're going to put together a little poll online over at LockedOnPatriots.com where we can, as a group of listeners and podcast hosts, we can put together our top 20 football movies. Today we're going to talk about The Program, which part of the reason that I love and still love this movie is it sort of came out right at the perfect moment in my life for me to appreciate a football movie particularly a college football movie it dropped September 24th 1993 you know and that was my junior year in high school you know that's when I was going through or beginning my own sort of college football recruiting process that's when I was getting sort of the inquiries from you know the small ivies, the Ivy League schools, even a school like USC reaching out to me

and asking to me to turn in some tape and fill out a questionnaire, which I laughed at because I knew there was no way I was going to go play football at USC. So I actually framed that. I think I have it lying around somewhere. But it comes out right in the middle of my junior year football season.

And I remember it came out on, I believe, a Thursday night because most of the team, most of the guys I know went to see it the night it opened. I actually had to test the next day because I'm more Jonathan Moxon than Joe Cain, so I had to study. But they saw it, and they saw it before that controversial scene where one of the opening scenes of the movie where they're out at a bar had to study, but they saw it and they saw it before that controversial scene where, you know, one of the opening scenes of the movie where they're out at a bar before training camp,

they decide, you know, Joe Kane's been drinking, they've all been drinking, they go to lay down in the middle of the road. And kids actually did that and a kid died. So they had to cut it out of the movie, understandably so. But they saw it. And so this movie came out sort of in the sweet spot for me and a sweet spot for a lot of guys I ended up playing with in college. I remember my college tight end, Henry Hank Wasserman, would watch this movie every Friday night before a game, every single Friday night. And a couple of times I would hang out with him during the four years of college and we'd watch it. And I still have one of my first gifts to me from The Woman Who's Not My Wife when we were dating was this on DVD. And so, yeah, it's a movie that

obviously I've got a real sort of connection with. The football scenes aren't fantastic. They do some campy stuff at times, you know, with like, for example, the final play where Joe Cain played by Craig Sheffer, fumbles the ball on a pump fake, somehow picks it up and then finds Mike Tomlin, I mean Omar Epps, in the back of an end zone. Omar Epps playing Darnell Jefferson, the rookie freshman running back, highly recruited by ESU, by head coach Sam Winters, a.k.a. James Kahn. Two movies, two members of the Kahn family.

We've talked about them back-to-back days. So the football scenes are kind of campy, although to their credit, the practice sequence, where they're playing Welcome to the Jungle, they're showing the Oklahoma drills, they're showing Steve Ladner played by Andrew Busnarski, winning bull in the ring, just dominating everybody. Everybody's sore after each, you know, session.

Jefferson fumbles and he has to carry the football around campus, which I actually had to do in college, believe it or not. I, that was good. You know, that sort of welcome to the jungle sequence. There are some really interesting sort of plot lines, plot lines that sort of, you know, touch on the dark side of college football. You know, you've got James Caan, the coach, trying to save his job. So he's, you know, he's bending the rules at times. He kicks the backup quarterback off the team after his own daughter, who trouble of his own with a DUI.

He has to convince school officials to bring the backup quarterback back because he's pressured by some of the guys, some of the men and women in the school, officials and boosters to sort of bring him back to sort of save the season. There's the whole sort of love triangle with Darnell Jefferson, Halle Berry, and Ray Griffin, the starting tailback. They're competing for jobs. They're also competing for her. There's just a lot of layers to this.

There's Alvin Mack, who gives you a number of great lines in this movie, including this one. Alvin, you ready? Yes, sir. All right, this is Mississippi State's offensive set, second and two on our own 24. What defensive set might we call? Eagle zipper hero, unless the setback shifts into the eye.

Good. Third and seven. Okie thunder lion. What's your assignment? Kill the quarterback. Hit the tight end so hard his girlfriend dies. Kill everybody. There you go.

And the amazing part about that scene is it comes right after a sequence where Darnold Jefferson is at sort of the training table after a practice. He's trying to focus on his studies and Alvin Mack and Latimer are kind of making fun of him because as Mack put it, the only thing you need to learn to read is an NFL contract, period.

And the Mack sort of subplot is fascinating, especially in today's NCAA world, where we're talking about paying players, because Mack was somebody that was viewed as a first round talent. And in his senior year, he suffers a gruesome injury. And you're left at the end of the movie, assuming that he can't go on and play national football, playing the National Football League. And there's that touching scene in the beginning where he gives his mom sort of a door knocker before the season begins, and he says at the end of the season,

when he's drafted, he's going to get her the house to go with it. So that's one of the sort of dark sides of college football and college athletics that this movie touches on. Another one is obviously the steroid abuse by Steve Latimer himself, who provides another sort of incredible sequence, incredible scene,

which I'll admit I've quoted before and I'll probably quote again. Starting defense. Place at the table. What? What? Looks like Joe's coming around. He should be ready for Saturday. Place at the table.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Jesus. You think we ought to tell Coach? Hell no. You don't want to know about this.

Yeah! Make sure you tell Latimer that the NCAA will be testing on Saturday. Yeah, baby! Starting defense! That, of course, is Mr. Latimer himself. After finding out he's a member of the ESU starting defense, he proceeds to lose his mind and headbutt some cars in the ESU parking lot by the football facility. He's spotted by two assistant coaches who decide,

rather than telling head coach Winters to warn Latimer of impending drug testing, which he is able to beat by using placed urine that was stored in a bathroom stall. He does then later in the season have an altercation where he assaults a woman at a party after an ESU loss. They decide to suspend him and call it a hamstring injury, but warn him that he's going to have to be tested and observed much more stringently in the future. Latimer comes back to the team, loses some strength as a result of staying clean, gets run over at the goal line in a game against Iowa. So he decides to go back on the juice for the season finale. He goes through an amazingly painful looking procedure where he has urine taken out of him and clean urine put in.

He's able to make a play in the final game and the ESU Timberwolves go on and win their final game on a ridiculous, ridiculous play which we've talked about. And they secure bowl status in a conference championship. There are some campy scenes. There's some stuff that's probably a little bit over the top at times. But for me as a high school junior,

this movie was right in the sweet spot, like I said. So for me, the program is up there for consideration for one of the top football movies of all time. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow. We will continue our countdown of the Patriots' top 10 offensive plays of the game. We're going to talk a little AFC East

action, a little rivalry action. We're going to talk about another football movie here. What movie do we have on tap tomorrow? Well, it's going to be another good one. That's all I'll say. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots. and locked on pitch.