Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 13, 2017 - Glorious Victory Monday

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

Mark Schofield has your recap of New England's 41-16 victory over the Denver Broncos. He recaps his own predictions heading into Sunday night, then has his Great, Good and Bad from the Patriots' victory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Good morning and welcome to a glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield here in the big chair for Monday, November 13th, recording this late Sunday night, early Monday morning. Patriots just got done taking care of business. When I was in college, when I was playing football in college, my head coach, Frank Hauser, always said, road trips, they're just business trips. And that's what this was for New England.

That's what this is for New England as they're going to stay out west. But they take care of business on the road, dispatching the Denver Broncos 41-16 in a game which, thanks to some special teams plays that we'll get into, never really felt like it was that close. What we're going to do here, go through the game. We're going to revisit the predictions I made, the things that I was thinking about,

keeping my eye on in our game day edition show. Then we'll have our great, good, and bad, like we do after every victory, taking you through the great stuff, the good stuff, and some things that the Patriots might want to work on going forward. But at the outset, big night for New England. Big victory on the road. Always great to get a win on the road,

especially in a venue against a team that has given you some trouble in the past. One of the things that I spoke of on Friday's game day show was, look, I thought Rob Gronkowski was going to go out and have a, a big game. And in a sense he did look four catches on seven targets for 74 yards. Didn't get in the end zone, although he may have,

we're going to talk about that in a second, but still tied with Brandon cooks for New England's leading yard receiver on the night with 74 yards fairly decent night for Gronkowski would have liked to have seen him get in the end zone and again I think he did we're going to talk about that in a second something else I talked about was worrying about Vaughn Miller Adrian Waddle was going to have to step in and handle him with Marcus Cannon out. How were the Patriots going to do that? I thought we'd see a lot of two running back sets.

A lot of chips from running backs and tight ends. I thought we'd see divide packages with two running backs. But we did see a lot of two running back sets. They were just a little bit different than I expected. James Devlin played a big role on the night. Saw a lot of action. Even caught a pass. Caught two passes, actually, for 16 yards.

Devlin, the fullback, saw a lot of playing time. He was involved in a lot of situations where he got chips on Von Miller. And again, Von Miller, really quiet night from him. We're going to talk more about the job that the Patriots did protecting Tom Brady and Bennett. Finally, the last little thing I was worried about when Denver had the football was their ground game. They build everything off their run and attack, play action stuff.

They run to set up the pass. That's what they've done throughout this year. That's what they've tried to do is to establish the run. And look, as a team, 28 carries for 118 yards, not a huge night. But more than anything, the game script sort of got away from Denver. I mean, the way this game game started New England goes three and out but they get a muffed punt they go score a touchdown right after it Denver comes back with a field goal Patriots return the ensuing kickoff it's 14-3 in the

blink of an eye you know in the game script kind of gets away from you in that situation so while Denver kind of gets away from you in that situation. So while Denver kind of got the run game going a little bit, wasn't really enough to throw off what the Patriots were looking to do defensively. Let's sort of hop into it now. Let's get into our great, good, and bad from Sunday night's game. We'll start with the bad and the nitpicky stuff here.

That was a very complete performance from the New England Patriots, at least watching it live and charting it while the game was going on. Three things I want to talk about just briefly because I don't want to wallow in bad stuff when we're talking about a performance like this. There was that sequence of events when New England had to settle for a field goal. They have a second goal at Denver's five-yard line.

Brady looks to Burkhead. We get a defensive pass interference penalty. It gives New England first and goal at the two. They run Burkhead off left tackle for one yard. Now they get second goal at the one. Brady looks to hit Dwayne Allen on a crossing route off of play action. There's good play there by the defender to sort of rake Allen's arm, prevent the completion.

Now you get third and goal at the 1. Denver blitzes Justin Simmons, and James White whiffs in pass protection, leading to a sack of Tom Brady, the only time Brady was sacked this entire game. That was just the entire sequence. When you get first and goal at the two, and you end up with three points,

and you get a sack on third down, third and goal at the one, that's just a poor sequence from the offense to come away with three points right there. Now, again, you can't argue with how the game ended or anything like that, but that was just a poor sequence. I thought James White needs to do a little bit of a better job there

and blitz pick up, and he knows it. You saw him immediately knew that he'd whiffed on Simmons on the blitz. Simmons made a great move on him. You know, that happens. But, again, just nitpicky stuff here, but we got to talk about it. So that sequence of events lead into the sack and the missed pass protection assignment there by james white look we got to talk about malcolm butler he drew manuel sanders tonight and

sanders had a really good night sanders 11 targets six receptions for 137 yards that's a big night you know butler drew him in a lot of man coverage situations. When they went man, that's who Butler was trailing him. Butler went to whichever side of the field Sanders was on in those situations, in those man coverage situations. And he got beat a couple of times. A couple of times, look, Butler was in really good position. And Sanders just either made great adjustments

or just won at the catch point. But Sanders, yeah, goes for six catches for 137 yards. When you draw a tough draw like that as a cornerback, you're going to miss you're going to get beat.

But you hope to see Butler come back from that. He might draw another matchup next week with Amari Cooper who's another very good route runner. So as a cornerback you've got to have a short memory. Hopefully that's what Butler has here.

Move on. Again, Patriots come away with a win so you can't complain about that. Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is that sequence of events where it looks like the Patriots have a touchdown and 10 at Denver's 19-yard line. This is the drive after the blocked punt, which we'll talk about. Their first play is a pass to Phillip Dorsett for 11.

Gets it down to the 19. Brady looks to hit Gronkowski on sort of a seam skinny post route. And it's ruled incomplete on the field. Which, okay, it's fine. But looking at the reviews, looking at the angles, Collinsworth and Michaels in the booth, they were starting to talk about it. Patriots line up to take their next snap. And then they burn a timeout with the play clock running down.

And then they challenge it, coming out of the timeout. And then when the ruling on the field is upheld, they lose the timeout. Again, it's a very nitpicky thing, but you would have liked to see them handle that situation a little bit better. If they were going to challenge it, challenge it right away. Because basically you just double down on burning timeouts there. So I just would have liked to see New England be more decisive in that moment. Throw the challenge flag.

Challenge it right away. Because if the clock's running down, that's a way to sort of stop the clock there. Just throw the challenge flag, challenge it right away. Because if the clock's running down, that's a way to sort of stop the clock there. Just throw the challenge flag. And so that little sequence, I think, sort of got away from the sideline a little bit. Would have liked to see them better in that situation. Again, we're talking about nitpicky stuff here, my friends. You win 41-16 on the road, that's a good night. So we're talking nitpicky things here.

We're going to get into the good stuff that we saw on Sunday night and then the great stuff after that. That's up next here with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. All right, let's get into the good now. And we can start with Tom Brady. Tom Brady, another clean, mistake-free kind of night. 25-34 for 266, three touchdowns, no interceptions. The things we've been talking about Tom Brady all season long, we saw them again.

The pocket movement, taking care of the football, ball placement, velocity. These are the things we've been talking about with Tom Brady over and over and over again they were apparent again tonight the first completion to Martelli is Bennett we saw a good subtle climb in the pocket little jump pass to get it out to Bennett

the touchdown pass to Rex Burkhead on the slant good placement there. Even the placement on the Gronkowski play, which was ruled an incompletion. I love that. I like that. The touchdown pass to Dwayne Allen. Perfect placement there.

They had Gronkowski on a wide iso early in the fourth quarter to convert a third and nine. Just great timing on that. He had a throw to Brandon Cooks on a slant route. Incredible timing and anticipation. The ball comes out well before the break. So again, just another clean,

crisp, effective night from Tom Brady. The kind of stuff we've seen from him over and over and over again. And it's always odd to see Tom Brady on the sidelines with somebody else taking snaps. And that's what we saw. Brian Hoyer came on late.

Hoyer goes 3-for for three for 37 yards. And you know that probably ate a little bit of Tom Brady. Not taking snaps there near the end of the game. You could almost see it on his face. He didn't look happy when he was watching that final drive from New England. But that's life. Can't afford Tom Brady getting hurt in a situation like that. But another clean, crisp night from Tom Brady.

Good to see. Martellius Bennett. Whatever you want to say about the situation that brought him back to New England. Makes his debut. Three catches, 38 yards. Seemed effective in the time that he was on the field. And obviously

he and Brady have a relationship. They have some chemistry together and so it was good to see Bennett get some run. It was good to see him contribute right away. I mean, they went to him early. I mean, it was the third drive of the game where they opened it with a play-action play

and Brady found Bennett on sort of that crossing route. Hit him again on a play-action crosser for a gain of five. So, you know, that's one of those things where if you start to spin this year, this season forward and you look at playing teams like Kansas City or Pittsburgh down the road, it's good to have that extra option, another tight end type guy that you can get matched up against linebackers.

So it was good to see that from Bennett tonight. They're going to need that going forward. Good to see Dwayne Allen contributing as well. They were trying to get him the ball in the end zone. They missed on an early play that we talked about, but then he did have the touchdown catch, which was great to see. We saw some stuff defensively that I really, really liked. Obviously, Chun's interception I thought was a tremendous play. It was a slightly poorly placed pass from Brock Osweiler,

but Chun did a great job. He was in perfect position right on the receiver's hip, undercut the route perfectly. Early in the game, we saw some sort of schematic stuff. It was a third and two when they stopped the Broncos, forced them to try a field goal. They showed Blitz up front. Osweiler then tries to throw a slant route. Landon Roberts, who was showing Blitz, sort of sugar in that A-gap. He drops off, constricts the throwing lane a bit, which causes the pass to be a little bit behind the receiver.

Stephon Gilmore then able to rake the arm and break that out. Dietrich Wise had a nice pressure on a second and 10 situation to force a throw away. Ricky Jean-Francois, look, he had a tackle on a second and seven play of C.J. Anderson, which was held into a minimal gain. He had two tackles on the night, so he's contributing pretty quickly.

Trevor Riley, we're going to get to him too, but he had three total tackles, two solo. He had a huge hit, which we'll talk about in a second, special teams-wise, but he was in there defensively as well, had some snaps. They did some good stuff sort of setting the edge. Jordan Richards on a C.J. Anderson run did a good job sort of setting the edge there.

Didn't let the run get bounced to the outside. There was that toss play to Jamal Charles early in the game where Kyle Van Noy really stretched that play out well. Forced the cut back to the inside where Devin McCourty was there to sort of clean that up. Landon Roberts had a big hit on Brock Osweiler on Osweiler on Osweiler's first throw of the second half

came on a delayed blitz got a really good shot on him David Harris there was a third quarter route where Jeff Heuermann the tight end for the Broncos was running the seam route Harris was a step late just a step late on it but Jeff Heuermann, the tight end for the Broncos, was running the seam route.

Harris was a step late, just a step late on it, but made a good play on him, prevented the completion. Jonathan Jones had a great open field tackle later on that play, later on that drive on the third and ten on Jeff Heuermann to force a punt. Just a tremendous open field tackle, one of those situations where the Patriots actually dropped into zone. They were playing a lot of man, at least it looked to me watching it live. They were playing a lot of man Sunday night. But on one of those plays, they did drop into zone.

Jonathan Jones with a great tackle. So those were some of the things that stood out. Some good things that stood out, sort of as we go through this, the great, the good, and the bad. Up next, the great. There was a lot of great stuff to talk about. We're going to get to that next.

Here with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. All right, now let's get to the great, and there was a lot of really good stuff, really great stuff that happened in this game. I want to start first with the offensive game plan. Clearly in the passing game, the thought was we're going to attack their linebackers

and their safeties with our running backs and our tight ends. We didn't hear Chris Harris' name a ton. Didn't hear Aqib Tlaib's name a ton. Dorsett and Cooks, you know, they were involved in the passing game. You know, Cooks had 11 targets, so he did have a team high targets for six receptions. You know, but then Dorsett,

you know, two targets, and that was it. So out of the 37 passing attempts, 13 went to wide receivers. Actually, I take that back. 17 went to wide receivers because Danny Amendola got in the mix too. He was targeted four times for reception for 36 yards. So 17 targets to wide receivers, the other 20 running backs and tight ends.

Kind of a almost what you come to expect from New England, but they were definitely going after those linebackers, those safeties, trying to neutralize guys like Tlaib, guys like Chris Harris Jr. And a lot of those targets were routes to the inside, slant routes and things like that where you're almost getting them isolated on guys in the middle of the field anyway

when you target the receivers. So that was definitely the game plan. They executed it to perfection. And again, we saw the use of motion. And Chris Collinsworth pointed this out as well. You know, the use of motion to get Brady to identify the coverage pre-snap. There was a play, and this is what triggered Collinsworth to talk about it, where they brought Amendola in motion across the formation.

Nobody trailed him. So when Amendola started his route from the slot to the left, he knew that Brady knew that his receiver would be isolated on a linebacker. And that's where it went in the football. And we've talked about it a lot over the course

of my time here hosting the Locked On Patriots podcast, which I love to do. Tell your friends about how the Patriots use motion, and they use it so well. They use it so effectively, and it sometimes boggles my mind when I'm studying other teams and other offenses how little motion I see because it just seems to me that anytime you can help your quarterback before the play make up his mind and figure out what the defense is doing, you're doing something right.

So for all you coaches out there that are listening, all you offensive coordinators that are maybe finishing up your high school seasons or whatever, use some motion. Get some motion involved in the game plan, my friends. Special teams. Just a huge night from a special teams perspective. Let's top level here. Okay. We get a muffed punt that they recover, a kickoff return for a touchdown. We get a punt block and we get the punt team catching Denver with 12 men on the field, snapping the ball with 12 men on the field.

Great job by Cardona there. Ryan Allen, the punt protection guy, drawing a blank who that is right now, but just a great job by that unit to recognize that. Turn a fourth and five into a Patriots first down. Armed with the extra set of downs, what do they do? They go down the field and score. So it's just a tremendous job by that unit. And on the flip side, look, if you're Brock Olivo,

the Broncos special teams coach, man, I would not feel comfortable right now. Because your units had a bad night. You know, your punt return team had a bad night. Your kickoff coverage team had a bad night. Your punt return team couldn't get on the field. Your punt team gave up a punt block. That's a rough night. but on the flip side look if

you're the Patriots Bill Belichick stresses this all three phases matter all three phases of the game matter and it begins with that muffed punt I mean the Patriots start the offensive game they start the game on offense they go three and out they line up to punt. You've got Isaiah McKenzie back there who, he's a fast kid, but he had four muffed punts, four

lost fumbles coming into this game. And then we see Ryan Allen, the left-footed punter. As Collinsworth said, sometimes it's difficult for guys to handle. He muffs it. Patriots recover. They go right down and score, and it's difficult for guys to handle. He muffs it. Patriots recover. They go right down and score, and it's 7-0. Then Denver gets a field goal.

They cut it to 7-3. What happens? Dion Lewis returns the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown. And on that one, Devontae Booker, I know he's a running back. Probably hasn't played a ton of special teams in his career. He had a shot at him late, and he almost shoves him closer to the end zone. He kind of shoves him downfield. Then on the punt block by Rex Burkhead,

an incredible individual effort to split the block in there. And then, and this was so critical to how guys should approach blocking punts, attacking a spot in front of the punter, not headed right towards the punter. That's the sort of art to blocking punts is aiming for a spot three yards, four yards in front of that punter. Because that way if you miss and you don't hit the ball, you're just hitting air. You're not hitting the punter himself. Aims for the spot. Blocks the punt.

Patriots recover. Nice short field to start the drive. Again, that was a drive where they only ended up coming away with a field goal. They had that first and goal to two, and they only got three points. But still, huge special teams play there. And then finally, just the awareness from that punt team the goal to two and they only got three points but still huge special teams play there and then finally just the awareness from that punt team to snap the ball when denver's struggling getting guys in and off the field what was interesting watching that was akib talib actually waved

somebody back onto the field and i don't know if that contributed to or what but there was confusion on denver's sideline. Patriots snapped the ball. Turn a fourth and five into another first and ten. Go down and score again. So just a tremendous job from the Patriots special teams units and multiple, multiple special teams units did a great job Sunday night. Conversely, again, Brock Olivo. Coach your guys up, man.

Those guys had a rough night. night finally let's end on this and that's that Patriots offensive line coming into this game worried about Vaughn Miller how are they going to protect Brady Vaughn Miller's name was barely called on the night matter of fact,

I saw more of Vaughn Miller during commercial breaks than I did during the game. And that is just a tremendous job from a game plan perspective on down. From Josh McDaniels putting together protection schemes to the guys executing them up front.

Adrian Waddell, tremendous, tremendous game from him. Did they give him some help at times? Sure. But that's what you do. Brady gets sacked once. We talked about that play. James White whiffed on a blitz pickup and pass protection.

Sometimes a guy's going to win the one-on-one matchup, and that happens. But it was the only time that Brady got sacked. He barely got knocked down. It was just a tremendous job up front from those guys. Dante Skarnacki, again, just tremendous work from him. Just a great job by that unit tonight. Anytime you keep number 12's uniform clean, anytime you give him time to throw

and feel comfortable in the pocket, chances are the Patriots are going to win, and that's exactly what we saw tonight. So if there are game balls to go around tonight, you give some to the special teams guys, and you give the rest of them to this offensive line coach, Dr. Escanacchia. Just a tremendous job. James Devlin, get him in there too. Maybe the tight ends as well for what they did in pass protection. Just a great job. James Devlin, get him in there too. Maybe the tight ends as well for what they did in pass protection.

Just a great job all around. But a tremendous win from the New England Patriots. Get to 7-2. Keep pace with the Pittsburgh Steelers. That Steelers-Patriots game just looming out there. But you can't look ahead too far. Look how to do your job week in, week out. Next week, looking to

go down to Mexico City, take care of an Oakland Raiders team, and just keep this rolling. But a tremendous performance from the New England Patriots on Sunday night. Just a great win. Let me know your thoughts. You can hit me up on Twitter,

at Mark Schofield. Going ahead, we'll probably take a look at some Tape Tuesday stuff for tomorrow's show. And then we'll start getting ready for Oakland. But look, New England Patriots are 7-2. Maybe it's not exactly where we hoped they'd be. I know a lot of people had some loftier goals in mind. But 7-2 and standing atop the AFC is probably exactly where you'd want to be right now. So they look to keep it rolling next week.

We'll get you ready for it here over at Locked On Patriots. So take care, everybody. Hope you enjoyed the show. As always, go over to the iTunes page for Locked On Patriots. Leave a review. Let the people know you're digging the show. Let me know your thoughts on Twitter or elsewhere as well. You can always

email me if you want. Mark.Scofield at gmail.com Hope you had a great weekend. We're back at it. Hope this show helped ease your transition back into the work week. Until we talk again everybody

keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.