Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 12, 2018 - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

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Hello everybody and welcome on into a melancholy and the infinite sadness installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield slotted into the big chair this Sunday evening after the New England Patriots, well, they played a game of professional football this Sunday. And that's about as good as I can put it. The New England Patriots fallen on the road 34-10 at the hands of the Tennessee Titans. We're going to get into our good, our bad, and our ugly as we do after a Patriots loss. But before we do that, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The

Score, Matt Waldoin's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites. As I've told my loyal listeners, if there's an outlet that is covering the game of football, there's a good chance they've got me doing some work about the game we love for them. We do not love, however, the performance that we saw today from your New England Patriots. And it is tradition here on Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness editions of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Again, the music is different. It is the instrumental beginning to that album by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Again, I think it's very appropriate for post-loss episodes. But it is tradition that we still find the good in the performance from our New England Patriots before we get to the bad and the ugly. Now, I've spent approximately, let's see, it's now 8 p.m. on the East Coast, so I've spent about four hours sort of digesting that game. And in that period of four hours, I have not come up with one good thing to say about this performance. Now, if I was not afraid of being fired for doing it, I would literally just let six or seven minutes of dead air reflect the good we saw from that game because there was none. And frankly, if I wasn't afraid about getting fired for doing it, I would just, in the alternative, swear like a sailor for the next six minutes about the performance we saw. Because frankly, it was a bad performance.

It was a bad performance it was a disappointing performance it was one of those performances where you wonder what really is this team how good are they really yes there have been impressive wins but three road losses where they just looked out of sorts. Very un-Belichick-like. But in the spirit of holding true to our traditions here at the Lockdown Patriots podcast, I will spend a few minutes and highlight a couple of good things from this game. There is not a sort of macro good. You know, it's not like I could point to, hey, third down passing or run blocking or pass coverage.

I can't do anything on the global scale. I can't highlight anything that is good. They were bad in all three phases of the game. And if you wanted an omen for this game, the opening kickoff pretty much told you the story. Guys were out of their lanes. Guys lost contain. They gave up a big play.

And that's literally this game in a nutshell. But let's try to be good sports here and highlight some good stuff. And in the spirit of being good sports, look, Tennessee played a fantastic game of football. Marcus Mariota played a fantastic game. Yeah, he missed some throws, but he looked like the Marcus Mariota people were hoping to see when he was drafted second overall. Deion Lewis, kudos to him. You could tell he was running like a man possessed, and his post-game comments reflect that.

Now, if we want to highlight a couple of good things from the Patriots side, again, it's all going to be on the micro. New England's opening drive of the game, 3rd and 13. They catch Tennessee in a Tampa 2 coverage. Gordon splits the safeties, beats the linebacker. Perfect read, perfect throw. Well done. Kudos, gentlemen. Wish we had seen more of it.

Working our way through. New England's third drive of the game. They're down now 17-3. They get the touchdown drive that they needed. This is the drive that is capped off by James Devlin

with a touchdown run. Fantastic to see that from James Devlin. But we got some good plays on this drive. They open the drive with a play-action play to Julian Edelman for a gain of 29. They get Sonny Michel, a tough run on a power with Ted Karras pulling in front of him to pick up a first down on a second and three.

They get another two-running back look, a play-action crosser to Josh Gordon. Another perfect throw to pick up a first down on a second and three. They get another two-running back look, a play-action crosser to Josh Gordon, another perfect throw to pick up a first down there. Now, I'll talk about this a little bit later, but they're forced into a fourth-and-one situation. They roll Tom Brady out after a play-action fake. They get James White in the flat to convert that fourth down, and then they get Devlin punching it in for a touchdown.

Good. Well done. Needed a lot more of that. to convert that fourth down. And then they get Devlin punching it in for a touchdown. Good. Well done. Needed a lot more of that. The next drive, though, now it's a one-score game. This is Tennessee's fourth drive of the game. Defense needs to force a punt. That's what I wrote in my notes.

What do they do? They get incompletion on second and five from Marcus Mariota trying to hit Corey Davis on a slot fade route. And then on third and five, they try that little angle route to Dion Lewis out of the backfield. Patrick Chun reads it perfectly, stops him short. They get the three and out. Defense did its job. Then they get the ball back to the offense,

and they could not cash in on the opportunity. I thought J.C. Jackson had a very big play in this game. This was a third and 13 play when the Titans were on the cusp of field goal range. This was on Tennessee's fifth drive of the game. They tried a little smokescreen to a receiver. J.C. Jackson reads it well, fights through the block of Corey Davis, makes the tackle, holds it to no gain, and the Titans are forced to punt. I thought that was a big play at that moment.

Going through the rest of this game, though, now we're getting sort of into the second half here, and it just gets away from them. The game just gets away from them. The defense played poorly. The offensive line protection broke down. They finally got to Mariota on Tennessee's ninth drive of the game, but by then it was too late.

I had written in my notes, look, that this was a play sort of to decide the game because it's 27-10. You know, you got to get their offense off the field. It's a third and two play. You get a corner blitz on Mariota. You get your offense the ball back. Offense couldn't capitalize. This was a bad performance, and there's no sugar

coat in it, and I'm really not going to waste any more time trying to do that. Up next, we're going to get into the bad and then the ugly from this game, and there was a lot in both of those categories. But before we do that, look, not feeling good today. Not feeling good right now, are we? We might have even taken a bath on some of these games. It was a surprising week league-wide. And if you need to make up for it, look, you know where to turn.

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We are sort of drowning our sorrows here in the wake of New England's 34-10 loss at the hands of the Tennessee Titans. A loss which I know it's much too early to really think hard about playoff position and stuff. But if you're New England, you're at least hoping for the bye and get that home game in the first round. But a loss like that, I was just on the air right now with Matt Williamson who does a lot of work in Steelers country. He's the host of the Locked On NFL podcast. You should definitely check that out. He had me on to break down this game.

And he's saying, look, you know, games like this sort of bring that number two seed back into play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so, a tough loss to swallow, but we're going to get through it now. We're going to switch gears to our bad from this game. And there was a lot of it. Sort of big picture. And to put you into my heads as I take my copious notes during games and then start sketching out shows. If you were following along on the Locked On

Patriots Slack channel, you heard how this show was going to go pretty early in this game. I wrote down as the game was going on some things I thought we would be talking about in this segment. The first one I wrote was actually tackling, and I know that's weird, tackling. But the tackling was bad in this game.

And obviously the player that comes to mind is Jono Smith on that route in right flat where he just basically runs over Patrick Chun, who had a bad game. We can add him to the bad, pretty much the entire defense of the bad, and just say, boom, roasted. You just boom roast everybody.

I could just sit here and walk down the Patriots roster and just say, boom, roasted, after every single name and call it a day. But you guys would get tired of that, and frankly, I would too. But I thought the tackling was bad. Again, they were bad at everything today. Bill Belichick said as much after the game. I don't think there was anything we did well. That was basically what he said, almost verbatim.

And I'm right there with him. I don't think there was anything this team did well. Tackling was bad. Stephon Gilmore had a tough game. Corey Davis is a very good wide receiver. Corey Davis, there's a reason he was drafted where he was last year. A true weapon downfield. He's a vertical threat.

He can do some stuff over the middle. Gives you pretty much all of the route tree as a wide receiver. So yes, it's a tough matchup. But you're the number one corner. You're the lockdown guy. We expect you to sort of win these ones. Is he going to get his plays on you? Yeah, sure.

But we expect you, you know, when you're putting together a game plan as Brian Flores and Bill Belichick, you identify the team's best receiver and you say, hey, Stephon Gilmore, this is your guy this week. And most of the time, Gilmore goes out there and gets it done. But he didn't today. And my mom, at Carol Sco on Twitter, obviously a huge Patriots fan and the number one fan of this show, you know, she texted me during the game asking if he was dinged up. And maybe he is. Maybe there's an injury here. But he had a tough game. And so that was bad. Containing Marcus Mariota in the pocket. They did some stuff trying to spy him. They showed him some different looks. But they let him climb the pocket too easy. There wasn't enough interior pressure. Whenever he wanted to,

it seemed like he could escape the pocket. They got to him twice, sure. But Mariota made some great plays in those scramble draw situations, which coming into this game, you had to be worried about. And he made those kinds of plays. And so that was bad. Pass protection, you could probably put this in the ugly category. I'm just going to keep it here. They struggled in pass protection.

They sacked Brady three times for a loss of 23 yards. They pressured him a ton. They hit him six times. They had trouble, and I'm going to get a little nerdy here for a second, with something Tennessee was doing. They used what we call a radar defensive alignment. You probably saw it a couple

of times. I'll walk through some examples here in a minute. But basically what they do is they put everybody up front in a two-point stance. And you don't know who's down. You don't know who's up. You don't know who's coming. You don't know who's dropping. And they really struggled with that. And one thing that Tennessee seemed to be doing was they'd be sending one of the off-ball guys, guys from the second level or nickel defender sort of kicked inside a little bit over a tight end or over James White. And they had trouble with that look.

We're going to talk about it here in a minute. That drive before halftime, they got into a third and launch situation because of the failure to handle that on the first two plays. They pressured Brady on it. So pass protection, struggle. Yeah, Trent Brown had, struggle. Yeah, Trent Brown had an illness. Yeah, Shaq Mason was out. I know, injuries, but they're a part of the game. And they had a problem with a specific scheme from Tennessee that you know other teams are going to copy. I was Googling some stuff to get ready for the show. You already see the

articles, USA Today. Titans put together the blueprint on how to beat Tom Brady. So expect to see that radar look. They're going to have to get that figured out. Patrick Chun, yeah, I'll mention him again. Look, he had a bad game. I don't know what else to say. He had a bad game. He had some moments in run support, but he had a bad game. And speaking of the run game, the run defense was bad today.

Run defense was bad. They ran the ball 36 times for 150 yards, 4.2 a carry. That's hard to win games when you're basically, you know, you're looking at second and five instead of second and nine from a defensive perspective, especially with the way that they were mixing things up, the Titans offense was. So those are some big picture things that were bad.

Let's go a little micro here for a second. The first touchdown from Tennessee on their opening drive, they got up to a 7-0 lead, never looked back. They were never trailed in that game. It's a third-and-goal situation. They show Mugg up front, the Patriots' defense, where they show the A-gap blitz. The pressure comes, but it doesn't get home.

And they have a spy with Devin McCourty on Marcus Mariota. But Mariota gets outside. They lose contain. Smith just beats Patrick Chun working across the formation. Easy throw, easy catch. I mean, I don't use the expression, I could have made that throw often. But I think I could have made that one. So that was bad.

Boom, roasted. The touchdown, the one to Corey Davis. Second 15 play, another blitz look. Blitz doesn't get home. Bucket throw by Mariota. Gilmore gets beaten on a stuttering go from Corey Davis. Gets the DPI as well, but doesn't get enough of it. Remember a couple weeks ago where we had that DPI call.

JC Jackson, you know, against against the bears um where was taylor gabriel who's running the double move if you get beat by that you gotta make sure of the dp that the dpi doesn't give the guy a chance to get to the ball so boom roasted twice there by gilmore um so so that was bad new england second drive of the game you're down 14-3. You need a drive. What happens? First and 10, Brady. Slant-flat combination to the left. Tries to throw to James White. Actually, this is to the right. Tries to throw the slant route to James White. Throws it behind him. Brady missed on a lot of throws. Brady was bad today. I forgot to mention him. Brady was bad today. And part of it was due to pressure, yeah. But he missed on throws that he shouldn't have missed on. He missed on throws from clean pockets.

He missed on short throws that he should hit. This was one of them. And then how does that second drive of the game end? A blitz look from them. The blitz comes and it's a sack. James White steps up to try to take on the blitz and linebacker, but the Blitzen linebacker runs him over. Sack, punt. You're down 14-3, and you're punting. Game didn't get any better from there. Other bad stuff. Keonta Davis on a second-and-seven play, run to the outside, just completely loses the edge.

You know, you can't lose the edge. You've got to set the edge. You've got to set the edge. You've got to turn these runs to the inside where the help is. Keonta Davis didn't do his job there. So that was a bad play. New England's sixth drive of the game. This is the drive before halftime. You get a first and ten play.

They show that radar look. Brady moves well in the pocket, but pressure gets to him. And he throws it out fast throw it away and second and ten same thing read our look at my note here it's just giving them fits it was just giving them fits and the sack on the hail mary again it was on that radar look and it was that second level defender that blitzed but the play before that you remember the situation they need it's six seconds left you need maybe like five yards or so to get into field goal range you have hogan along the boundary and brady just missed it from a clean pocket just flat out missed the throw throws it out of bounds now they're forced to try to hail mary and they can't

even get it off because of that radar look which by, by the way, on New England's open and drive of the second half, you get a chance. Okay, you're down 24-10 at the half. Hey, if you come out, you go down the field, score a touchdown, make it a 24-17 game, it's going to be a different feeling down there in Nashville. People are going to be thinking, okay, well, here comes New England, right? Well, what happens? 39, radar look, sacked again.

So the radar look just gave them fits. And I've just walked you through a couple more examples of it. That's all the bad stuff I want to talk about. And I just scratched the surface of the second half so you know that there's a lot of ugly left. And we're going to get to that, but before we do, look,

for those of you that are following or listening to the show, but you're perhaps a fan of another team, you're going to be checking out the Locked On Network at LockedOnNFLNet, where we're doing great work. That gives you insight to all of the shows across the network. They're retweeting stuff from all of the hosts of the shows in real time. For example, my ranting and raving during the Patriots game,

that was getting all retweeted. So if you want to take a more global look at what we're doing over here at the Locked On Podcast Network, you should definitely be following that Locked On NFL Net Twitter account. Get yourself insight from all of the hosts of the Locked On NFL Podcasts. Mark Sofio back with you now on this melancholy and the infinite sadness installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And I'm not even going to fake a drumroll here

because there's nothing to really build up momentum into. Let's talk about the ugly from today's 34-10 loss at the hands of the Tennessee Titans. And I could have dumped the entire show into this segment, frankly. You know, I probably gave too much credit to some of the stuff we were just talking about because we could have dumped it all and just had 30 minutes of ugly. Not Nolan Richardson's 40 minutes of hell. Those Arkansas basketball teams.

No, we could have had 30 minutes of ugly. Maybe I'll just scrap this whole thing now. I'm too close to the finish line here, and I don't want to talk about this game much longer. Let's talk about some ugly stuff though. Again, big picture. Special teams. We get a missed field goal. We get the opening kickoff return where

let's see, I had Hogan losing contain. Devin McCourty did a good job running him out of balance, but Hogan sort of cut inside, lost his contain. Again, losing contain. These are fundamental things that any Pop Warner kid can tell you. You don't lose your rush lane when you're covering a kickoff.

Blood pressure's rising. My cardiologist is not going to be happy, kids. Special teams were bad. We get a missed field goal. I know Matthew Slater was apparently battling an illness. He failed to properly down a punt. They had a chance to pin them deep. I'm going to talk about that play in a minute. Special teams was bad.

Penalties. Penalties. Let's just look. Generally speaking, you might look at it at first glance. Patriots were penalized four times for 31 yards. Now, some of those weren't accepted. But you had some bad ones. Jumping off sides on fourth and one late in the game when you need points, bad.

You can't, you cannot do that. That's just one of those things where you just can't do it. You can't win games when you're committing penalties like that. So special teams were bad. Boom, roasted. Penalties, bad. Idiotic. Boom, roasted. Idiotic. Boom. Roasted.

Early down offense. Dave Archibald pointed this out on the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, and it was so accurate at the time, and it only got worse as the game wore on. This team just sort of lacked any sort of identity, and it lacked any sort of consistency on early downs. Just walking through it quickly. Their first play of the game, first and ten,

you go quick swing to James White. I mean, we've seen it a ton this year, so they might have been ready for it. They seem to be because Kenny Vaccaro chops them down three yards behind the line of scrimmage. Now you're suddenly in second and 13. When you're putting together your game script as an offensive coordinator, as a play caller,

for the first ten, the first 15, you're not really dialing up something. Okay on our second play of the game i know we're going to be facing second and long so here we go and then what happens on that second and long they go you know play action inside play action on the orbit to edelman but there's interior pressure brady forced to chuck and duck it getting into second and 13 doesn't help you, but it wasn't the only time that they did it. You look at let's see,

their second drive of the game. You're down 14-3. You need a drive. What happens? Slant flat. It's the play we talked about to James White. You missed the throw. Now it's second and 10. New England's third drive of the game is the one they get the touchdown

drive on. Yay, good for them. Guys all want some cookies and orange slices. Then you get into, let's see, New England's fifth drive of the game. Okay, well you got Sonny Michel running for four yards on first down. Hey, that's good, but then they don't fail. They go three and out anyway.

Drive before halftime. We already talked and out anyway. Drive before halftime. We already talked about that. The drive after halftime. Again, you're hoping down 24-10 coming out of the halftime break that you get points on your opening drive. What do you do on first down? Sonny Michel, one-yard run. Then they're blitzed.

Pressure. Forced to throw it away. Now you're in third and nine. It's this inability to do anything on first down that really sort of hurt them. And it wasn't the only time. Again, New England's eighth drive of the game. They get a 70-yard gate on first down. They get a second down conversion on another run by Sonny Michel. You get yourself first and 10 again. Pressure, another chuck and duck. So you're into second and long, third and long. Brady was able to convert that third and long on a huge throw to Josh Gordon.

But again, what happens after that? First and 10, Brady pressured again, forced to throw it away. So all of these drives, you're seeing it. Second and 10, second and 9, third and 9. That's the recipe to lose games. Failures on first down. Failure to have that consistency on first down. Such a problem for this team.

The first half was ugly. Most points allowed all season in the first half. Just ugly. Injuries, ugly. Edwin comes off. Dwayne Allen comes off. Trent Brown was struggling. Josh Gordon and his finger.

Injuries are a problem right now. Other big picture, field position. Now, the numbers ended up being a little bit different, sort of like all the precincts haven't reported yet kind of thing. But at one point in the game, it was like late third quarter, CBS flashed the graphic. Tennessee's, New England's average starting field position,

their own 24. Tennessee's, plus 42. Actually, no wait, I take the back, I take the back, I'm revisiting. Their own 42. Either way, it doesn't even matter. It's, you know, 16. That's another recipe for losing games.

Losing the field position battle. So, ugly all around. Specific ugly stuff. The Jonah Smith play when Tennessee's third drive of the game. They blitz Mariota. He makes a quick throw to Smith in the flat. If you're forcing a quick throw to your tight end in the flat, you make the tackle. You make it second and seven, right?

No. Chun misses the tackle. Gilmore pops it loose, but of course it's tapped out of bounds. This play, New England's touchdown drive. They converted a fourth and one, which on paper is fantastic. They should have never been in fourth down. Why? For some reason, on second and five or so, they throw a slant flat to Edelman. He stopped about

a yard or two short of the first down marker. They go tempo and they sneak Brady on what's a long two yards or so, and he gets stopped. I don't understand that one. I don't know if something mixed up with the spot. I don't know if they had radioed in, look, he's short. He's just short. Just go sneak it. And they didn't realize that he was about two yards short, but that was ugly and it could have been costly. So I don't know what happened there. It seems like a miscommunication. Ghost misses in the field goal. That was ugly.

We talked about Brady's ugly throw before that. That was ugly. Getting into the second half. Hollister, third and five situation. You've got to make a catch in that moment. Pass goes right through his hands. Mariota, the zone read keep. You got to be expecting that.

Adrian Waddell. I know he got sort of put on double duty here playing both right side and left side, but New England's ninth drive of the game. They're trying to run Zod to that side. He just gets beaten to the inside. And the run goes for minus five. And Tom Brady's

helping James White get up out of the backfield. I mean, just ugly. Matthew Slater gets deked on a punt. A couple of plays after that play, punt rolls into the end zone. You have a chance to pin them and maybe make some lemonade out of the lemons you're currently dealing with, but they don't. The false start by Marcus Cannon, that turns fourth and one into 4th and 6. Then you go incompletion. Julian Edelman, who then gets helped off the field and into the locker room early. What does Tennessee do?

Then they come back. They go the same quarterback throwback. I mean, long-time listeners to this show know that I really don't care about the off-the-field stuff. I try to keep the show as much as I can between the white lines. But seeing the Patriots run that throwback to Tom Brady, and Brady sort of stumbled on the poor foot, and I think that field had some poor foot.

You know, you saw Tennessee's third running back go down. Gordon slipped a couple of times. But to see Tennessee then come out, throw the same play for a big game. If that wasn't one of those moments, and Vrabel intimated as much, saying, I wanted to see if we could do it better,

and it looks like we did. You know, that response drive after they stopped New England on fourth and six was the ultimate sort of FU drive. Because they pull out the throwback. They go speed option with Mariota and Derrick Henry. Then they go wildcat touchdown with Derrick Henry. And just basically like, look,

we're still going to do whatever we want. You know why? Because we can't. Because today we're better. And you know what? Maybe we are better overall. That's the sense you got from that drive. Now, do I think the Tennessee Titans are a better team overall? No. But I'm a little less sure of that answer than I was a couple of days ago,

a couple of hours ago. So that's where we are. And on the bright side, we get a bye week, which means after we do our Tape Tuesday show, I'm going to put out a poll like I did last week, see what you guys want me to break down on Tuesday's show. We get to ignore the noise for a bit. We can, you know, last year I kind of took the bye week off and just did some canned shows, recapping the Super Bowls. And I might retweet those out this week,

but I'll still do some new stuff looking forward. You know, on Wednesday I'll probably do sort of a State of the Patriots. I did that last year during the bye as well. Thursday we'll do some Take Thursday stuff. Friday we'll talk about the other games. And then we'll get back into it next week here. But this was a bad one. There's no way to make this one look good. next week here. But this was a bad one.

There's no way to make this one look good. You know? You got beat. This team got beat. They got beat in a big way. And you hope they improve. You hope they get better. You hope they get healthy.

But right now, this is a team at 7-3. Maybe where we thought this team might have been, looking at the schedule preseason. But now, this is a team at 7-3, maybe where we thought this team might have been, looking at the schedule preseason. But now, it's not like things get that much easier the rest of the way. I mean, yes, we're lucky in the sense that you've got two games against the Jets left. You've got Miami down in Miami, but it seems like Miami seems to be sort of fading here,

although they're still technically in the mix. And you've got another game against the Bills left. But in there, you've got two games that really, really can worry you right now. You've got that Minnesota game. Thankfully, that one's a Gillette. But you've got a game at Pittsburgh.

And this is a team that, so far, has lost three games on the road. That's not good. And you wonder about where this team is going to end up. But a loss. We hope to learn something from it. We hope to move on from it. And I'm done talking about it for now.

Like I said, I will be back for Tape Tuesday. I'll put out a poll on Twitter, see what people want me to break down. Check out our friends over at Locked on Titans. Hats off to them. Great, great win for them. Until next time, everybody. Keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.