Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 1, 2018 - Take Thursday

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

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Hey there everybody, welcome to Lockdown Patriots for Thursday, November 1st, 2018. Mark Schofield sliding into the big chair on this first day of November. And you know, just October, November, December, just a fantastic stretch of stuff. We just got done with Halloween. I'm going to talk about Halloween a little bit later, actually, because this is a Take Thursday episode. And we're going to get into that, some of the listener questions that we've got here. But now we get into November. You get Thanksgiving to look forward to building up to, obviously, the holiday season.

So a lot of good stuff going on. Before we dive into what we're going to do today, remember 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, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites. Look, if they're covering football in any form, chances are I'm going to be covering it for them. As I said, take Thursday.

Listener questions. Got a couple good ones in that I'm going to be covering it for them. As I said, take Thursday. Listener questions. Got a couple good ones in that I'm going to get to. But before we dive into all of that, a reminder that if you want to interact with me and other listeners to the show on a daily basis, best place to do that is, of course, Twitter, at Mark Schofield, but also the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. You can send me a request over at Mark Schofield but also the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. You can send me a request over at

Mark Schofield on Twitter or mark.schofield at gmail.com if you want an invite. And I'd be happy to get in there. We get conversations going around all the time. What we're going to do today, we're going to have three segments like we always do. First is going to be pretty much Pat's specific. Some Pat's specific

questions that we're going to get to a little bit later in Section 2 of the show. We're going to talk some draft stuff, some Pat's draft stuff, some overall draft stuff. And a little bit later, we get one or two kind of off-the-wall questions that we're going to get into. Let's start with the Pat stuff. John Lamarakis, a huge, huge, huge friend of the show.

He's at J-O-H-N-L-A-M-B-E-R-K-I-S on Twitter. Please give him a follow. First question that he had kind of relates to the game on Monday night and it gives us a chance to sort of have a quick impromptu sort of tape Tuesday slash tape Thursday question. And this is what he's asking. Brady hung on to the ball more than expected and you got into wide with Buffalo sitting on throwing lanes in the middle of the field. How open were the receivers on Monday night?

Were they getting separation? And it's a fantastic question, and it gave me a chance to sort of go back and look at that game a little bit. And I'm going to talk about just a couple of plays from Monday night to talk about how there were opportunities in the past game, but for a number of different reasons, Patriots weren't able to sort of take advantage of some opportunities. Now, as an overall point, you know, kudos to Buffalo.

They mixed up their coverages. I thought when I sort of took a look at this game that we'd see some different stuff, that they'd be doing a lot of different looks. And in a sense, we sort of did see that. You know, it wasn't just the same stuff that was working. They really sort of switched things up. For example, play from the first quarter. First quarter, first and 10, 8-48 mark.

Patriots have the ball at the Buffalo 43. This is that pass that they had Gronkowski open in the middle of the field, but Tremaine Edmonds just tipped it. Buffalo on that play, they were on a cover three scheme. You know, it's not something complex. It's something that Tom Brady has seen a million times. Safety in the middle of the field. The Patriots go empty on this play,

so the safety in the middle of the field is shaded towards the three receiver side. Corners, they both bail. And they just sort of play a cover three underneath, or as Jason Witten might call it, a cover two. Couldn't believe he misread cover two, Tampa two, but that's a story for a different time. Edmonds just gets really good depth, and the Patriots sort of have the route they want. They've got comeback routes along each boundary, perfect against cover three, and they've got Gronk sort of getting over the top of Edmonds, over the top of those second-level defenders on a post round,

on a quick little post. And it's a mirrored passing concept, something you don't see a lot of from the Patriots because the other receivers each are on these short little curls sort of on the numbers. It's a really nice little route concept, not something you see the Patriots do a ton. But they've got three open receivers deep

because Gronk's open, the comebacks are open, and one of those two curls is open. So you've got four open receivers on the play. Brady takes a shot on the post to Gronk, which is there. Edmonds just makes an athletic play to tip it. And so that was the story of that play. Let's go to the second quarter, The 729 mark of the second quarter. This is a play where Brady gets sacked, actually.

It's a first and 10 at the Buffalo 22, and Brady aligns under center. And again, we see this same sort of cover three look from the Bills. They show cover one pre-snap. Brady then adjusts the play. He drops into the gun. Corners bail at the snap. So they go cover three. Again, what do we get?

That sort of band eight type post route over the top from Gronkowski. And a comeback route from Julian Edelman. There's just pressure. And Brady goes down. If he had a second to make this throw, it's at least a first down. Probably a first and goal type situation. So again again receiver open bills did just enough to stop this play fast forward to the third quarter this is a play

at the 401 mark of the third quarter this is a second and eight this is a miss to Gronkowski Patriots they start with Brady under center in an I formation. They shift White out wide. So they go single back with James Devlin as the single back. This time, they sort of get the look they want. It's a cover one look. And Gronkowski's aligned as the tight end to the left. You get a matched up with the linebacker. And they run basically a Haas concept.

White comes out in motion. He runs the hitch that sort of occupies the corner. And you get Gronkowski matched up one-on-one against the outside linebacker running that seam route to the outside. Covered one look so now that free safety in the middle of the field has a lot of ground to cover to sort of get there. So the Patriots get the look they want and Gronkowski has separation. The pass is just a little bit more to the outside than Gronkowski expected it. He sort of makes that twisting attempt at making the catch. Lands hard on his back. And the pass falls incomplete.

Again, open receiver. Patriots just didn't execute. Final example is a play, a third down play. It's the very next play. So it's now third and eight. The 3.55 mark of the third quarter. And this time they go, they show cover two, the Bills

do, and then they rotate at the last minute where the safety blitzes and they rotate it to a cover three sort of match three fire zone type blitz. So you've got the safety blitz and what's open is Edelman and Hogan, both on the middle of the field coming in towards the middle of

the field. Both players are open. I think Edelman just takes a step too far on his route. Brady isn't expecting him to come across that far. And the pass is behind Edelman. Again, an open receiver. The Patriots have an answer for what they're doing defensively. They just don't execute. And I think that's kind of the story, John, more than anything else from this game,

is that the Patriots had some opportunities. They just didn't quite get it done. Of course, look, they still come out with the win, but I think we would like to see them do a little bit better. The other question I'm going to get to is from our great, great, great friend of the show. Please give him a follow at Reluctant, R-E-L-U-C-T-A-N-T underscore trade on Twitter. His handle on Twitter is N-M-A-C-N-M-A-C. Always gets a question in. I can't tell you, Reluctant Trade, how much I appreciate you always getting a question in. It's such a great thing to have each week. He apologizes for being late with this question and no apologies.

That's one of the rules we used to have over at Inside the Pondland. We still have it. No apologies. No apologies. Could you assess the depth one of the rules we used to have over at Inside the Pondland. We still have it. No apologies. No apologies. Could you assess the depth chart of the defensive end position behind Trey Flowers, in particular Rivers? Will he get the snaps to show his stuff at this level? And what's interesting about the depth defensive end is it is deep. You look at the Patriots' depth chart.

Behind Flowers, you've obviously got Adrian Claiborne on the other side, even though they've been doing a lot with sort of three man fronts using linebackers as edge players you've got Wise you've got Keonta Davis who saw a lot of snaps you know particularly last week you've got Genio Grissom who they've been using here and there and then Rivers

so I think while we'd at some point expect to see them address defensive end, address edge, perhaps in the draft or the offseason, I think the fact that they didn't make a move at this position tells you how they feel about their depth right now. And what's interesting is, you know, we just got done with Halloween. My parents, my mom and dad came over to, you know, hand out the candy while we took the kids trick or treating. And the first question my mom asked wasn't how are the kids doing? Are they dressed? Do they have their

costumes on? And maybe that's because my son was dressed as Carson Wentz, which is a little bit tough in a Patriots family. But the costume came out well. If you follow me on Twitter or on Instagram, you saw some pictures. We did it right. No, my first question on my mom's wealth was why didn't they make a trade? And I think it's because they sort of feel comfortable with the depth that they have. And you know, I think defensive end sort of qualifies there. They feel comfortable with the guys that they have. You know, I think with respect to Rivers, I know we're all excited. We all want to see him. But I think the Patriots are really sort of bringing him along slowly. And other guys are getting snaps around him. They're doing some other stuff schematically.

But we're seeing, you know, a little bit more and more and more. You know, I'd be curious to see if he starts getting more snaps as we get down the stretch here. You know, so that's your open segment. Some Pats-related stuff. Up next, we're going to do some more draft-related stuff. But first, I want to remind everybody of our great friends over at Swap.com. Isn't it crazy how much we pay for new brand name clothes? Why do we always buy new kids clothes if they just outgrow them in a few months? Wouldn't it

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Plus, you can find new deals every day on Swap.com's homepage. Mark Schofield back with you now. Now we're going to shift into some listener questions more related to the draft. And I know a lot of you fans out there are Patriots fans. A lot of you listeners are Patriots fans. You're probably not thinking draft yet. But the draft is a year-round process.

We get some Patriots-related questions about the draft all the time. And I get a lot of non-Patriots fans listening who might be fans of, say, I don't know, the New York Giants. And maybe they're already thinking draft. So that's why we get some of these. We're going to roll through a couple of them. And one is actually based on a discussion that's going on in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. But let's sort of start with the first one.

And it's again from our friend John Limorakis. And he asks about the tight end spot. You know, John asks in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel, I've heard this year, depending on who declares, that there could be quite a few good tight ends in this draft class. Are there any that you like and who might we want to follow? And I'll give you two guys off the top of my head. Those of you that follow the show, follow my work,

know that I cover the Minnesota Golden Gophers for Minnesota Rivals, at Minnesota Rivals on Twitter. And that gave me a chance to watch Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson. That's a pair of tight ends for the University of Iowa. Those guys can play. Fant, more than anybody, I think is the guy that people are looking at as tight end one, perhaps, in this class. You know, 6'4", 232, reportedly has a 42.5-inch vertical, would be a top score out of the 2018 NFL Draft. He's got size. He's got size.

He's got speed. He's a mismatched nightmare. I mean, you can make the case that he's kind of Gronk 2.0. But don't sleep on Hawkinson, who's just a redshirt sophomore, probably not going to come out, probably looking to slide into that tight end one role because, you know, Fanta Jr. is probably as good as gone. But Hawkinson's a good player

too. He's a little bit bigger, 6'5", 243. He's your more in-line, typical, standard tight end type, more of your F, your H, however you want to term it. You know, your F type guy, closer to the ball. You think the Gronkowski type, more than the pure mismatch type of, say, an Aaron Hernandez, if you think back to those two guys when they were playing for New England those are the two guys off the top of my head also our friends over at the draft network Kyle Krabs John Ledyard Trevor Sikama those guys they've got some updated tight tight end ranking some other guys Dawson Knox for example tight end from Ole Miss he's another junior 6'4 Again, with that sort of rare size and athleticism

for the tight end position. You could also look at the guy from Georgia, Isaac Nwata. He had a big game last week for Georgia against Florida. Another junior, 6'4", 246. He was a five-star recruit. Good size, good length, good speed, good strength. Can get vertical down the seams. If you watch that game against Georgia, he was basically there, two-minute offense near the end of the first half for Georgia. So he's a player to watch. Irv Smith Jr., I know he's a guy that both Trevor Sikama and John Ledyard like, a guy from Alabama, so you know he's probably got some pro-type ability to him.

6'3", 243, athletic guy, more of a big slot. Good against zone coverage. He's a guy to watch. And finally, I'll mention one last name. Caden Smith. Caden Smith out of Stanford. Stanford's known for producing some pro-type prospects here. Four-star recruit. Another junior. So again, all of these guys are underclassmen. Not seeing a lot of senior tight end types. 6'5", 253. Got the NFL size. got good athleticism, can get in and out of his breaks pretty well, attacks the football in flight. Not a great route runner yet, but not too many tight ends are, given how they're used in the college game.

But those are some guys that I would keep sort of an eye on as we look forward to the next NFL draft. And Patriots fans might want to think about tight ends. I'm just saying. And speaking of the draft, there was kind of a discussion getting kicked off in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel about the draft and sort of quarterback-needy teams. So I thought I'd take a moment and sort of kind of spitball for a second teams that I think might be in on a quarterback.

I'm looking at tankathon.com right now, which has the current NFL draft order, sort of if, you know, the season ended right now. And I think looking at the top, Giants, they need to address quarterback. I know they have Lauletta. I'm not sure that they're going to be able to sort of buy another year with kicking the can down the road

on the quarterback decision, sticking with Lauletta and Eli Manning. I got to think they go quarterback. by another year with kicking the can down the road on the quarterback decision, sticking with Lauletta and Eli Manning. I've got to think they go quarterback. San Francisco is probably set. Then you've got Oakland at three. They've got a decision to make with Derek Carr, given the fire sale that's in place.

They're probably at least a consideration to move on from Carr, so you do wonder. Obviously, if they do, they'll need an answer there. Buffalo at four, Arizona at five, Cleveland at six, Indy at seven, Jets at eight. Those teams are all set. Four, five, and six, Buffalo, Arizona, and Cleveland, and they all just drafted their guy.

Indy's got Luck, who's looking like he's getting back into form, and then the Jets just drafted their guy. Those teams are set. Then you get to nine and ten, and it gets a little bit interesting. You know, Jacksonville at 9. That Blake Bortles era seems to be coming to a close. Denver at 10. Yeah, they signed Keenan, but that was just a two-year deal. He'd be near two of that.

Those are teams that might address quarterback. Tennessee at 11. Sort of a dark horse. My feelings about Mariota are well known. I like him. I'm a fan of his. But how many years have we been waiting for sort of the Marcus Mariota to truly shine through? I still don't think he's a good quarterback. It's a dark horse team to sort of address quarterback at this point.

At 12, you've got Oakland again. We've talked about them. Detroit's set at 13. Tampa Bay at 14. Similar to Tennessee. Jameis Winston. You wonder about that. Atlanta's set at 15. Miami at 14. Similar to Tennessee. Jameis Winston. You wonder about that. Atlanta's set at 15. Miami at 16. Again, a team like Tennessee, like Tampa Bay.

Yeah, they've got a guy. I don't know if they're sold on him. Philadelphia's set. Baltimore probably set. They drafted Lamar Jackson last year. Green Bay, Minnesota. Those teams are set. Then Oakland's third pick. I kind of think they're good. Seattle's good. Houston's good. Cincy and Pittsburgh at 24 and 25 if the season ended right now. Those teams, I know Pittsburgh drafted Mason Rudolph. I'm not sold on him. Maybe they are.

But Cincinnati with Andy Dalton, you do wonder at some point they're going to think about the future there. Chargers are 27. They're probably a team that's going to be thinking quarterback. And then the other teams, 29 and 30. New England at 29. Well, New Orleans is out, Green Bay's in that spot right now, but it gives me a chance to talk about New Orleans.

They might want to address quarterback, although they probably did it with Teddy Bridgewater, even though he's going to be a free agent. I imagine they bring him back, and New England's probably going to be in on the quarterback. So there might be a lack of true quarterbacks up the top of the draft here, but there might be a lot of teams that are in on quarterbacks. So those are some guys to sort of kick around. Last thing I'll talk about here, question from my boy,

at Bill Rossetti, Bill underscore Rossetti, R-I-C-C-E-T-T-E. Please give him a follow on Twitter. I asked before about your possible Senior Bowl quarterbacks, but are there any guys who could land in the Shrine Game or lower, like really flying under the radar that fans should keep an eye on come draft season? Late-round guys or undrafted free agents that could make noise in spring? And I've talked about some of these guys, like smaller school guys and things like that before. There are two names that I'll mention here off the top.

Easton Stick at North Dakota State, although I think he probably gets into the Senior Bowl. If not, he's probably going to be at the Shrine game then. I would definitely put him into this category. Taron Christian over at South Dakota State University. I really like him as sort of your late-round guy, maybe an undrafted free agent type. But I'm a fan of his. I'm a fan of his game. I think he's got some competitive toughness to him.

I think he does some of those small things well, manipulation, moving defenders with his eyes, throwing with anticipation. He's athletic. So he's another name to sort of watch in that category. Kyle Schumer, kid at Vanderbilt. He flashes at times. NFL lineage, obviously your

dad's a head coach for the New York Giants. I think that's going to get some attention for him. A name I'll throw out there, and if you watched early Florida State this year, their game against Sanford, Devlin Hodges, undersized kid, probably not what you'd think a prototypical NFL quarterback would look like. Doesn't have an overwhelmingly powerful arm. But the kid, let's borrow a phrase from Bill Rafferty, kids got onions. You watch him against Florida State, he's slinging it all over the place, not afraid to take shots downfield.

You watch him last year, he had a game against Georgia where he was throwing the heck out of the football. His guys weren't sort of helping him out. And if you watch, you know, cut-ups of players, whether it's on YouTube or elsewhere, for example, there's a guy on YouTube, Caddy to the Llama. You can subscribe to his channel. He's actually got a Patreon out there.

You can donate some money to him because he does a great job of cutting up games so you don't have to sit down and watch a replay, a three-hour replay of a quarterback. You can just watch six, seven, eight minutes, and boom, you've watched all the quarterback's throws. Most of the cut-ups of a quarterback's game are in that sort of like seven- to 12-minute range. Sometimes if they're throwing at the time, 13, 14, 15 minutes.

I swear, the cut-up of Devlin Hodges' game against Kennesaw State University which was their first round playoff game Samford's first round playoff game was like 32 minutes because all he did was throw out that game. He was thrown out like 68 times but he was just slinging it all over the place. He is fun to watch

Is he an NFL prospect? Probably a fringe prospect but I would love to see him in one of these games and so Bill there's some options for you. Up next an NFL prospect, probably a fringe prospect, but I would love to see him in one of these games. And so, Bill, there's some options for you. Up next, we're going to close it out since I'm recording this on Halloween night with some questions about candy. I know, candy. But first, let's talk about experiences that last a lifetime. I'm about to have one almost a week from now when I get to see Toto but look you want the opportunity to make those kinds of dreams come true then you need to know

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as a new customer of Vivid Seats. And even better, all Vivid Seats confirmed orders are backed by a 100% guarantee. Make a memory that lasts a lifetime and that Vivid Seats help you get to your favorite live event. Mark Schofield back now with you to close out this Take Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast with some Halloween-related questions. First, from our great friend Dave Archibald, at Dave Archie on Twitter. He simply asks, candy corn, yes or no? I'm a hard no on candy corn. And I've never really been able to get there with it.

And I understand that there are people that love candy corn. I get it. I'm just not one of them. It's not even a texture thing, which sometimes I do have sort of an issue when it comes to food. I'm not a big candy person. Let's put it that way. Matter of fact,

if you want to know sort of my stance on candy, yellow Starbursts, that's it. That's the list. Matter of fact, years ago, I took part in a Starburst swap amongst three other people. We all bought a bunch of bags of Starbursts. We picked our colors. I got yellow. We shipped the others out to other people, whether it's pink, whether it's orange, whether it's red. So there was about a good three-month stretch where I had a massive, massive serving bowl of nothing but yellow Starbursts in my living room. And it was the happiest three months of my life. Yeah, no, it was. I hope my wife's not listening to this. But seriously, yellow Starbursts. I love it. I love yellow starburst. As a matter of fact, going through the kids' candy that they just, the loot

that they got tonight on Halloween, if there's starburst and it's yellow, it's mine. I'll venture into Skittles. I do like Skittles, but I'm more of like the fruit-based candy. I'm not just, I'm just not really that big of a chocolate guy. I'm not big into candy and candy corn. I can't get there. But John Lamarakis, he also asks, you know, when it comes to chocolate, are you milk? Are you dark? Are you white? Where are you on it? And if I had to pick amongst those, I'm very much a milk chocolate standard by the book,

traditional kind of guy. Although I do get into sometimes, you know, you get those little boutique, you know, chocolate candy stores where they've got like cinnamon or spice or even, you know, hot pepper, chili pepper type stuff into dark chocolate. I can get on board with that at times. But again, I'm just, I guess I'm pretty lame when it comes to candy. I'm just not a huge candy guy. You know, my idea of dessert is the meat and cheese play. And again, if you heard me talk about, you know, the dinner experience that we had, you know, at Le Diplomate down in DC on Saturday night with that, I know I just butchered that,

you know, that's my ideal dessert is the meat and cheese plate, you know, not the chocolate or, you know, anything like that. I'll do a mousse here and there. I like tiramisu, but, you know, I'm pretty lame when it comes to candy. So candy corn, I'll pass. I'm more of a milk chocolate kind of guy. But I know that's what you were really tuning in to hear tonight was a discussion on candy. And you got it. Hope you're happy. But that will do it for today's show.

I will be back tomorrow, again, doing our game day stuff, our traditional game day fair, talking about the Packers on offense and defense and stuff to expect to watch. But let's not forget, friends. Let's not forget you got to vote. I'm going to keep reminding all of you listeners out there,

look, Tuesday, November 6th, midterm elections, you got to get out, you got to vote. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, what to vote for, anything like that. My politics, you know, are mine. Your politics are yours. Politics are personal. If you're really curious My politics, you know, are mine. Your politics are yours. Politics are personal. If you're really curious about it, you can reach out to me and ask me, you know, but I understand that people's politics are on their own. I get it, but I just

want you to participate. And, you know, I've highlighted some ballot initiatives, for example, in Massachusetts, where I know a ton of listeners to the show are from. I also know, judging by looking at the listener base out there, I got a lot of listeners in California. And yes, there are governor's races and Senate races and House races, but there are also ballot initiatives that you might want to have a voice in. For example, there's Proposition 6, which talks about repealing the gas tax increase. There's Proposition 10, which would overturn a 23-year-old law limiting the use of rent control in California, allowing cities to enact rent control. So there's some stuff on there that you might want to have a

voice in. There's Proposition 8, which requires dialysis clinics to issue refunds for revenue above a certain amount. There's Proposition 12, which bans the sale of meat from animals confined in spaces below specific sizes. There's Proposition 11, which allows ambulance providers to require workers to remain on call during breaks paid. So these are the kinds of things that you might not think about a lot, but they're on the ballot and you have a chance to vote on them and have your say on them. And maybe there's somebody in your family that is an ambulance worker. Maybe there's somebody in your family that gets dialysis treatment. Maybe there's somebody in your family that lives in a rent, you know, pays rent right now

and they might want to have some rent control. Maybe you've got issues that you care about that are on the ballot. Either way, there's stuff that you should know about. There's stuff you can have a say in and Tuesday is your chance to do that. So again, I'm going to keep reminding you guys day in and day out until election day.

Get out there. Have your say. Please go vote. Tweet me your picture. Some people have already done it at Mark Schofield on Twitter or if you just want to email them to me and just say, hey, look, I voted and here's who I voted for and here's why I did. Fantastic. I want people to have their say. I don't care who you vote for, what you vote for. I just want you to get out there and do it. So

please, I'm going to keep bugging you. Get out there and vote. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patreon.