Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots May 8, 2019 - Tape Wednesday: Hjalte Froholdt

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to a Wednesday installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for today, Wednesday, May 8th, 2019. Happy to be back with you on this fabulous Wednesday. I hope your weeks have gotten off to a good start We've been busy over here at lockdown Patriots been breaking down some more of the New England Patriots draft picks on Monday We talked about Damian Harris the running back from Alabama on Tuesday Yanni could juice the tackle from West, Virginia today We're going to talk about held a froh the guard, the Danish guard from the University of Arkansas. Now you might hear some tapping in the background, some hammering in the background.

Again, fear not, just having some work done around the house. But the business of Locked On Patriots goes on. So no days off. We are fully working through the rest of this draft class. As I said, we're going to close out the rest of the draft picks this week. Monday's show we will break down the undrafted free agents. And then we are moving on from the draft breakdowns. But I know a lot of you have enjoyed this series so far, so I'm happy to keep bringing it to you.

And today, we're going to talk about a player that I got to say, I know when I did the Kajus pod, I said, look, I had a ton of fun watching him. Froholtz tape might have been more enjoyable to me. We'll get to that in a moment. But first, your usual reminders. Please do follow me on the Twitter machine, at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio,

a trio, as you know, of SB Nation websites, including Big Blue View, Bleeding Green Nation, and, of course, pat's pulpit let's talk hildefer home now and before i do that i want to start with the top of the 2019 nfl draft because let's face it we kind of know how it played out right kyle lamar ends up going first overall to the arizona cardinals. Done. That means Nick Bosa, perhaps the cleanest edge rusher. He falls to two.

And the San Francisco 49ers take advantage of that. And then at three, in the AFC East, the New York Jets, everybody's saying, look, perhaps the cleanest player in all of this entire draft class.

The 2018 Outland Trophy winner. And for those of you that don't know what the Outland Trophy is, it is awarded to the best college football interior lineman. Quinton Williams falls to the New York Jets at three. And a lot of people saying, myself included, oh, this is fantastic for them. You want to get after Tom Brady. You want some interior pressure. And what's interesting about Quinton Williams is he's a player that can rack up some sacks.

Had eight sacks last year. Playing primarily as a three technique. Sometimes head up, sometimes outside shade of the guard. He had 45 solo tackles, 26 assisted tackles for 71 total tackles, 19 and a half tackles for a loss, and 8 sacks. He even had one pass defense against Louisville in the season opener. And you can look at some of his games. Against LSU, one of their biggest games of the year, 10 total tackles, 7 solo, 3 assisted, 3.5 tackles for a loss, and 2.5 sacks on the day.

You look at the National Championship game against Clemson. Three solo tackles, one assisted for four total tackles, one and a half tackles for a loss. This is a guy that puts up some big numbers. Now, there were three games last year. One, two, three, count them, where he was held to zero solo tackles. Texas A&M at the end of September.

Oklahoma in the National Semifinals. solo tackles. Texas A&M at the end of September. Oklahoma in the National Semifinals. And you might see where I'm going with this. Arkansas in early October. In that Arkansas game, four assisted tackles, none solo. He had

one and a half tackles for a loss and half of a sack. Who was he matched up against throughout most of that game? Patriots fans, he was matched up against your new left guard for most of that game. Let's talk a little bit about what Froholt did in that game because I was very impressed with him. For example, one of the first offenses played in the game, he locks up Williams. It's an inside running back screen. He locks him up and never lets Williams disengage.

A couple plays later, he is uncovered pre-snap. Alabama uses a nut twist, the nose tackle and the tackle exchange. He passes off the tackle coming to the inside. He picks up Quinton Williams, who is looping around, stones him. exchange. He passes off the tackle coming to the inside. He picks up Quinton Williams who is looping around. Stones him. Anchors doesn't let him get penetration. A couple plays later,

Quinton Williams has inside shade pre-snap on Froholt. He locks him out. He has point of attack on gap power. They are running behind Froholt at Quinton Williams, the 2018 Outland Trophy winner. They are running behind Furholt at Quinton Williams, the 2018 Outland Trophy winner. They are running right at him. He is the point of attack blocker.

He has great upper body strength to anchor and twist, and they're running right behind him. A couple plays later, Quinton Williams has outside shade. He cuts in. Furholt identifies that and just rides him down the line of scrimmage. If you're going to take yourself out of the play, I'm going to help you. Now, Williams and his half sack did come in essence against Froholt. The protection is slid towards him, towards Froholt's side. It's another one of these nut twists inside with the nose tackle and the tackle.

What happens is he sees the looper going around. The center isn't disengaging, so he peels off to try to pick up the looper. He identifies that threat and realizes that if he doesn't peel off, since the center isn't doing it, quarterback's going to get hit. So he peels off to do that. The center can't stay engaged on the guy that they were both blocking, and it leads to sort of the strip sack situation. And so that might be an instance of him perhaps doing too much,

but I love the sort of – he is always looking for work, and that's what he's doing here. Inside draw play a couple of series later. Quinton Williams has outside shade, he locks him up again at the point of attack, Quinton Williams is credited with one of those assisted tackles here, only because the running back literally runs straight into Quinton Williams, who is locked up by Froholt at the point of attack,

tackle end exchange now, great vision, great awareness to see the twist coming, identifies the looper, and again, stones him right in the hole. Doesn't let him get near the quarterback. A couple of plays later, there's a blitzed look from Alabama pre-snap. He points it out. He's a very smart player.

It almost looks like they're letting him make a lot of the calls. You can see him identifying stuff pre-snap, pointing stuff out pre-snap. He identifies another twist here, sees the end coming around, stones him, gives his quarterback time, who throws a touchdown.

A couple plays later, again, they are running gap in power at Quinnen Williams. This play, and I'm going to put together some video clips so you can see some of these on Twitter, but I might even write about him too, about this game. But here again, they're running gap in power right at Quinnen Williams, right behind Frohold, working against the Outland Trophy winner. He stones Quinnen Williams, who has inside shade, uses upper body strength to just twist him away from the hole. Runneback runs right behind him. That's a put-the-pen-down moment when it comes to scouting an offensive lineman. He's going up against absolutely elite competition, and they're not running away from this guy. They're running right at him

because they trust Froholt at the point of attack. Now, remember in yesterday's show when I talked about there was a moment when after Kajus was stoning Collier left and right, and then suddenly they slide Kajus away from Collier and he gets his first pressure of the game, working through an H-back and the running back. Well, I'm midway through the second quarter, late into the second quarter now, of watching this game.

And suddenly, Quinton Williams just beats the guard, swim move, jab inside, swims to the outside, stones the running back, and gets a full, you know, he gets credit for a tackle for a loss here. And I'm like, oh, man, I've been loving this guy. Now he gets beat. What happened? And then I rewind the play, and then I look at the end zone angle. It's a different player.

They take him off the field for a series, maybe let him get his breath, catch his wind a bit, bring in the backup, and the very first play, Corden Williams gets into the backfield. There you go. That sums it up right there. That sums up this matchup right there. They could use him on pin and pull stuff. I saw two plays in this game where he pulls to the outside

and just throws guys corners and safety, just throws them out of the club. Perhaps, perhaps my favorite play of his. They're running zone to the right, outside zone to the right. Quinton Williams has inside shade alignment on him pre-snap. He has to get across his face. This is a test of your quickness as an interior offensive lineman. Can you step laterally, get across the guy's face?

He's doing it against the Outland Trophy winner, and he does it with ease. He's always looking for work. He's a smart player. And I've got to say, I've watched a ton of his stuff, a couple of other games of his, but this performance against Quentin Williams blew my mind. Just blew my mind. And so, if nothing else, if you get a chance to watch him, watch this game against Alabama.

I think he'll come away very impressed too. Now some things he needs to clean up. I think that downfield quickness is one thing. Downfield quickness is one thing. He doesn't get to the second level that well. Lateral quickness is okay. I'd like to see him get to the second level better. So that might be more of an issue if he's asked to sort of pull or scrape

and combo on both power and gap type plays. That might be an issue. But everything else, I've come away very impressed, especially when we're talking about a guy they drafted on day three. Up next, I'm going to give you my thoughts on why they drafted him, where he fits in right away, and where he might fit in down the future. That's ahead on this Wednesday installment of Locked on Froholt. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Wednesday installment

of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Talking a little Heldeth Froholt, Patriots new interior offensive lineman from the University of Arkansas. As I said, we're going to close out our looks at the rest of the Patriots draft picks as we close out this week. What we're going to do tomorrow on Thursday's show, we're going to be talking about buying Cowart, the new defensive tackle from Maryland.

And then on Friday's show, we're going to do some punter talk. Yeah, we're going to be talking about Jake Bailey, the Patriots' new punter from Stanford, as well as Ken Webster, the corner they drafted with their final pick in the 2019 NFL draft. Then on Monday, we're going to take some time to talk about some of the undrafted free

agents, Jacoby Myers, Andrew Beck, who got a pretty big deal. We're going to get into the rest of the guys as well. I know, I know, I got some grief. Tyree St. Louis, got to talk about him. I know. I know. I got some grief. Tyree St. Louis. Got to talk about him. I know. There's another player. Another new member.

New left tackle. Calvin Anderson. Yeah, we're going to talk about him too. Don't worry. We're going to get to the undrafted free agents, everybody. I think they got I think they got No, Tyler Gottlieb. They got him too. Yeah, we're going to talk about him. Is there anybody else that I might need to talk about?

Any other new member of the New England Patriots? Or maybe Nick Brossett, the running back from LSU. We'll talk about him. Yeah, I mean, don't worry. We're going to cover all the undrafted free agents as well. But let's go back now to Ferold. And I want to talk about looking to the future. And we've talked about this a little bit here on this show and elsewhere.

Patriots are a team that likes to look towards the future when they make draft picks. Joe Thune is in the final year of his deal. 27, young player, who turned 27 this season he's just 26 right now his base salary for this year is just under two million dollars his cap number is 2.2 million just 1.2 percent of New England's cap and he's on UFA an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. This is the final year of his deal. Let's look at 2020 free agent guards. You could probably say that Brandon Sheriff from Washington might be the top player on here.

28. The AAV on his contract right now is 5.3 million per year Clint Bolin might be the next guy on that list 31 years old a little bit older maybe Andres Pete and then I think if you scroll down a bit you'll finally get to Joe Thune who by the way his sort of AAV the AAV the average annual value on his contract, is less than Jordan Devey right now or Michael Schofield. So the fact of the matter is, he's probably going to get a pretty big deal on the open market. He's a good player.

And when you look at what some of the other guys are getting on right now, for example, the other 2020 free agents, Clint Boland, for example, his average per year is $5.25 million. Joe Patino, $10 million. Roger Saffold, $11 million. So it's unlikely that New England will be able to sign him to a free agent or a new contract that's going to keep him sub $1 million a year. He's probably looking at more. And so the question becomes, how do you replace him? How do you at least prepare to replace him?

Because maybe you can get a deal done, maybe. But if you can't, you want to have have somebody in house who's had a year in the system who's learned the offense who might be ready to slide into that at the start of the 2020 season become your new left guard i think they've got that guy in for hold or at least they've got that potential guy in fall and that's what this selection is all about. This selection, I don't think, has much to do with 2019, although I think he's probably a good candidate to be their swing guard for this season. This is probably a 2020 pick. This is the, if we can't get a deal worked out with Jotuni, we're going to slide this guy in.

Next man up type situation. And this is what separates good teams from great teams, right? Well, great teams from good teams. I always get that backwards. They are looking ahead to 2020. They realize that if we can't get this deal done, we're going to need a new left guard. And do we try to bring somebody in? A low-cost veteran

do we draft somebody early next year or do we draft somebody on day three this year with an eye towards developing him using him if we need to on the interior this year as sort of a swing guard type but then we get him coached up for a year he's learning the offense he's ready to go we slide him in 30s out next man up That's the brilliance of what smart teams do. They look to the future. They make picks not just for the immediate needs, but for the future needs. And the Patriots are among the best at doing that. And so if you view this pick through that lens,

I think you have to be extremely excited about it. Now, again, I just got done talking about all the things I loved about seeing him play this past season in Arkansas. I think there's some great untapped potential here. I love some of the stuff he did against Quinn and Williams. Just fantastic. Yes, there are things he needs to clean up. But to get this kind of player where they did in the draft?

Again, I know it sounds Homer-ish, but I think it's a fantastic pick and just reinforces the idea that everybody here and elsewhere has had since this draft wrapped up. The Patriots had a very good draft. And to get a player of this caliber who's played well against elite talent where they did, it's another fantastic pick. And so, again, I know I've sounded Homer-ish, but I've liked all of the selections as I've revisited all of them

and redone some film work on them and really studied them. Will that continue? I don't know. We'll see tomorrow with Cowher. Maybe this is the first time I'm going to be like, I just don't see it. But now we're getting into the end of the draft. And if you're going to take flyers on guys, maybe there'll be a couple of traits that we can identify with the rest of these guys

and say, okay, well, worth a lottery pick. Because that's what you're getting now as we get later and later into this draft class. Certainly when we get to the UDFAs. But through these picks now to date, I've liked all of them. Even Damian Harris. And so I think if you're a Patriots fan, you've got to be excited. Of course, it will all be determined by what these guys do on the field. But right now, you've got to feel pretty good.

And speaking of feeling pretty good, I'm feeling pretty good about hitting stop, getting out of here, and getting on with my day. I hope you have a fantastic Wednesday. I hope you've enjoyed this show and all the others we've done. Please, five-star reviews, all that good stuff over on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends, tell your family. Still rolling on here at Locked On Patriots. After this draft class

stuff, I've got some stuff planned throughout the rest of the summer. We'll scale it back to like four shows a week, but we're still going to be rolling strong. Don't worry. I'll be here with you every step of the way up until next season, which will be my third season with you. Time flies. Until next time, season, which will be my third season with you. Time flies.

Until next time, keep it locked right here. To me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.