Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 13, 2018 - Tape Tuesday Plus Mike Tanier

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

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Hey there everybody, welcome on into a Tape Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back in the big chair on Tuesday, November 13th, 2018. Going to do some Tape Tuesday stuff as voted on by you, the listeners. What we're going to do in the offensive segment. We're going to look at Tom Brady. I re-watched the game, re-watched the All-22, and I've got some thoughts on Tom Brady's performance, both from a play-calling perspective, an execution perspective,

a mechanics perspective, a pressure perspective. I mean, looking back at this game, it just looks like the Patriots were bad from play-calling to design to block- block in to route run into execution from the quarterback. It was just a cavalcade of bad. Also, in the defensive segment of this tape Tuesday installment, we're going to look at the pass rush woes. I actually thought that Stephon Gilmore was going to be the vote winner, but it turned out that people wanted to see what happened with the pass rush. So that's what we're going to look at. We're even going to look at something on the interior that I think people might like to see.

And a little bit later, you might have seen this piece. Mike Tenero does great work over at Bleacher Report. His Monday Morning Digest this week broached the subject of Tom Brady being in decline. Mike was kind enough to accept the invitation to come on and chat with me about his piece and make the case for why what he's seen from Tom Brady, particularly over the past couple of weeks, has him concerned about Brady actually finally sort of hitting that 41-42 father time type wall. But before we do all of that, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work of 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. Let's dive into it now.

And this is a good time to, again, remind people to follow me on Twitter, even if you don't tweet yourself, because I do a lot of video work on there. And all of the plays, or most of the plays that I'm about to talk about, I put together in a little thread, so you can almost follow them along. They came out last night. Like I said, or most of the plays that I'm about to talk about, I put together in a little thread so you can almost follow them along. They came out last night. Like I said, I've threaded some plays. We're going to start at the 10-53 mark of the first quarter. It's the second and 13 play on New England's open and drive.

If you remember how this game began, the Patriots had the chance on first down to get some yardage. They don't get it. They throw that little swing to James White, and Kenny Vaccaro stops it for a second and 13 type situation. It ends up being a loss of three yards on the play. And so what the Patriots try to do is they try to run that Yankee concept, and we've talked about that a ton.

It's the post route, deep, the crossing route sort of underneath that. And they have Brady under center. They're on a play-action fake to the right. They bring Edelman in motion. He fakes the orbit reverse to the other side or end around to the other side and ends up swinging to the outside. They've got this play.

They catch Tennessee in sort of a cover three type of look. The free safety, for whatever reason, bites down really hard on the run action. And what that enables is the corner on the outside, that's across from Josh Gordon, he sort of stays on that post route. They don't switch it up. They don't cut it.

The free safety sort of bites down in the middle of the field, and Chris Hogan is wide open on that sort of over route that comes underneath Josh Gordon in the post route. The problem is Tom Brady just doesn't get a chance at all. You get quick interior pressure. You get Ted Karras getting beat. The left defensive end sort of splits a double team. He fights through that. Brady's forced to sort of chuck and duck to Edelman in the flat. They had this play. They had this play dialed up for a big one.

And I remember what I was doing sort of yesterday's show, the melancholy and the infinite sadness. I said, look, when you're putting together the game script, you typically don't have a play for second and 13 as part of your first 10, 15 plays or so. But they had a play that they wanted. They had this here. They just missed it. And they missed it because of the protection up front. If Brady has a chance to set his feet and make this throw, they've got a big, big, big play. I mean, when Brady releases it, Hogan doesn't have anybody

within five yards of him. And it's that safety who's below him. So he's got a chance for a huge play. Brady doesn't have time. Next play I want to talk about. Remember that deep shot to Josh Gordon. This is second quarter. Actually, you know what? I'm skipping ahead a little bit.

Two plays I want to talk about from the first quarter. There's also a play at the 10-16 mark. This is a play where they just, it's one of the many that they forced in direction of Josh Gordon on vertical routes. And I think they thought going into this game that Gordon on Adoree Jackson was a matchup that Gordon was going to win. And I think we saw the results speak for themselves.

They were wrong on that one. Adoree Jackson had a great day covering him. There were a lot of times when Brady took one-on-one shots, when he saw single high coverage, he saw cover one man coverage on Josh Gordon, and Gordon didn't win those one-on-ones. And sometimes even if he did, Brady's throws weren't quite on the mark. And so I think that's something to keep in mind here. There was also a play at the 5 at the 504 mark of the first quarter

the patriots run sort of a half field half field type concept they go with their gaudy concept to the right side which is an option route from the slot receiver and a go route on the outside and back left they get sort of their ditch concept which is an under route like a five yard in cut from the outside receiver and a post route from the slot receiver there's nobody open brady ends up getting sacked here for a loss of 11 but you look at this play and there's just there's no separation anywhere you know you look at edelman running that option route he's basically bracketed by the slot corner as well as the linebacker gordon's not open on the go hogan's not really open on the post and you get i mean and the end cut isn't open either and so there's nowhere for brady to go with the football and and that was a

problem spinning ahead to the second quarter now um this is that play i was talking about where they designed a deep shot to Josh Gordon. This was second and nine on the plus 39 yard line. They get Brady under center. They bring Dwayne Allen is on the right. They bring him in sort of like short motion from the wing to the inside. They show sort of a wham block underneath with a fake handoff. And then Patterson comes around and if they can end around to him all this eye candy

is really just trying to catch them and fool them because it's basically a one receiver route Josh Gordon going deep it doesn't fool anybody he's double covered and so Brady under throws it by design because if he tries to put this anywhere near Josh Gordon, it's picked. And sometimes you fool him, sometimes you don't. And Tennessee wasn't fooled here. Second quarter, 933 mark, third and four. This is the miss to James White. And I was really excited to see this from the end zone angle because I thought it would give us a good look at Brady's mechanics. And looking at this play, you can see it again on Twitter, Brady's lower body is just off sync. That left leg and lead hip fires open far too early. And the synchronicity of the throwing motion is just off. And what happens when you do that? It's kind of like stepping in the bucket.

What happens is you miss to the left and to the outside. And that's exactly what happens when you do that? It's kind of like stepping in the bucket. What happens is you miss to the left and to the outside. And that's exactly what happens on this throw. It's a mechanical thing. And I don't know if Brady's footing was off on this day. There were a couple of times re-watching this game, you see him after throws sort of look at the turf or look at his feet. I don't know if the footing was bad. And it was something we talked about in the postgame show. Sometimes it did seem like players were losing their footing.

Maybe that was an issue. I don't know. But on this play at least, the lower body, upper body were not in sync. That left hip comes open too quickly and it's a miss. Third quarter now, 14-06 mark. Third and nine. This is again that radar type design that sacks them. They get another shot here to get a first down. They got a bunch look to the right. Dwayne Allen runs a crosser. Hogan runs a corner route. Edelman goes to the flat backside post from Gordon. Brady looks at the backside post first. Again, he's really sort of looking at these, but it's not there. And then he's flushed. Trent Brown gets beat. We get Bayard on the radar blitz. He's flushed and he doesn't have anywhere to escape to, but he's got Edelman open in the flat right in front of the first down marker and nobody within

10 yards of him. But because of the pressure, he doesn't see it. At least I don't think he sees it. If he does see it and doesn't throw it, that's a bigger concern. I think here he just doesn't look for it because he's thinking, I've got to get this thing deep. It's a busted coverage. They get a chance to convert this here, but Brady gets flushed, gets pressured, doesn't make the throw. Final play I'm going to talk about here with Brady.

And I'll admit, this one has me, I don't want to say worried, but this is one that if, you know, we're going to talk to Mike Tenere in a minute, you know, and you'll hear his case for, you know, Brady and perhaps Father Time getting home here, but it's basically the final play of Brady's afternoon. It's fourth quarter, 10-53 mark, fourth and six. You just had the offsides penalty, so it's not fourth and one anymore. You need a play. He throws a dig route to Edelman in the middle of the field, which is open. And it's basically an eight-yard dig route.

And so from where Brady releases it, it's a 5, 10, 15, 16-yard throw, straight over the middle of the field. Edelman gets a step on Logan Ryan and the throw never gets there. And Ryan breaks it up, to be sure. Our good buddy Murph, Patriots Place, having Steve Balistrier,

they do such great work here. Murph thought when he saw this, he thought maybe Logan Ryan should have been flagged. Steve thought that, and he's right, if you look at this play, Chris Hogan is open on the right sideline on a sort of stuttering go. Brady could have gone there and made a play,

but he's got Edelman, sort of his go-to guy, open at the first down marker for the first down, but the throw doesn't get there. Logan's able to break this up. Maybe he gets there a step early, but Brady, I don't know if he takes something off of this. It just, I don't know if he was trying to work this around and underneath the fender because there's a twist up front. Maybe he's worried about, you know, if he tries to drill it in there,

it gets tipped at the line of scrimmage. But it just seems like this one's a step late and as we're going to hear from mike tenier you know part of his case is look you know a lot of guys seem to be able to break up these throws it's a velocity or a lack of velocity and you know mike tania went as far as to say that brady's arm is a piece of overcooked fettuccine at this point. And I don't know if I would go that far. But on this throw, at least, it does have me sort of wondering, is there a velocity issue now? Could it be injury? Could it be footing? Who knows?

I do think that the bye week could not have come at a better time because I think these guys need to get themselves healed up for the stretch run here. But that's a look at Tom Brady and his afternoon. Hit me up on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. If you disagree, if you hate me, if you think I should delete my account, I understand. Talking about quarterbacks gets everybody riled up. Up next, though, we're going to talk pressure, or lack thereof.

That's ahead on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this tape Tuesday installment of locked on Patriots and we're gonna switch gears now look at a defensive side of the ball and just a couple of plays here chances for the Patriots to maybe get some pressure get home on Marcus Mariota and they failed to do that we're gonna look at the touchdown to Corey Davis first. 6.05 mark of the first quarter. Again, this is one of those plays that I did not tweet out. But if you want to revisit it, it's, again, the 6.05 mark of the first quarter. They just bring four.

And Stephon Gilmore gets beat. But the thing that's of note here, and, again, it gets us back to the foot and thing. Patriots print four. They have Trey Flowers sort of in a wide alignment outside the right tackle, and Juno Smith, the tight end, is head up on him. Now, that was probably a bad design. You know, you're going to try to maybe, you know,

not give that tight end a free release. But Smith, for his part, looks to chip Trey Flowers as well. Because Flowers comes inside. Juno goes to chip him. And Flowers sort of stumbles a bit. And then the right tackle just swallows him up. And the pocket is kept clean for Mariota. He's able to make the throw to Davis.

Drops it in the bucket for a touchdown. Maybe it's bad luck. Again, maybe it's the foot in. Maybe it's the design. They're worried about Trey Flowers, so they show the chip at him and get him off of his feet a bit. But they're able to protect Mariota when the Patriots bring four. Later in the first quarter, this is a play I did tweet out,

again, at Mark Schofield on Twitter. This is the play where Chun misses the tackle on Smith in the flat, but it's a great example of Mariota winning pre-snap because they come out, Bunch look to the left, Y-Iso with the tight end split wide to the right, and Derrick Henry in the backfield. And then they move Henry into the slot, and the Patriots are moving around as well. They bring Kyle Van Noy down into the slot to cover Derek Henry. Dante Hightower sort of slides in behind the nose tackle a bit, but then Devin McCourty, and this is where Mariota makes the play and wins it in the pre-snap phase, because Mariota sees Devin McCourty then slide over behind Van Noy.

And what does that tell him? That Kyle Van Noy is going to blitz and that's exactly what happens Patriots go zero blitz here but Mariota sees it makes an adjustment now he knows what they're doing and he throws just the quick access hitch to Smith with Chun playing off coverage when the quarterback is able to get that information pre-snap figure out what the defense is doing and get the ball out with the right decision the the right call, and on time, the offense is going to have success. That's exactly what happens on this play. The Patriots sort of telegraph the blitz a little bit early in the play.

Mariota reads it, doesn't fool him, doesn't disguise him. He's able to get the ball out. First down and more, Tennessee's back in business. Second quarter, late in the second quarter, four-minute mark. Third and 14, chance to get Tennessee off the field. It's third in business. Second quarter, late in the second quarter, four-minute mark, third and 14, chance to get Tennessee off the field. It's third and long. Tennessee's at the plus 41.

Maybe if you get a sack here, maybe you force a long field goal try. Last thing you want to do is give them a touchdown. Well, what happens? Patriots try to bring pressure. They're going to blitz Van Noy to the right side of the office. In addition, they've got Trey Flowers lined up inside. They kicked him inside. I was talking about this all week. They've got Adrian Claiborne kicked inside as well. And they tried that little nut twist up front where Flowers is supposed to cross one way, Claiborne goes around him. What happens is Claiborne and Kyle Van Noy are going

to end up both on the left side, bring impression from that side. You need Flowers to sort of work across to the other A gap to keep that sort of rush lane integrity. But what happens is Titans do a great job. The center and the right guard do a great job of just swallowing him up. So even though Van Noy and Claiborne get that pressure, there's a vacated alley now. Along between the left guard and the left tackle, where Flowers is supposed to get to

but he can't because he gets swallowed up by the double team so that gives mariota a lane to sort of step up away from kyle van noy who gets pressure and he just drops a dime they're able to convert third and long they would go on in to score a touchdown finally last play i'll talk about a play from the third quarter 1204 mark0-4 mark, third and five. The Patriots have been beaten by that radar look, so they try it of their own. They show zero blitz. They've got everybody but Adrian Claiborne

in that sort of two-foot stance here. Claiborne's the only guy in all fours. They bring everybody, zero blitz. Mariota's got the corner out. He just misses it to Tajay Sharp. If he hits that, well, I mean, it wouldn't have changed too much. But again, Patriots were bringing pressure. It just never really got there. And even on the previous play, when they sort of had a chance to get some pressure, Flowers gets swallowed up by the center and the right guard. You lose that rush lane discipline.

Mario is able to find a crease, exploit it. First down. So that's some deep Tuesday stuff. Thank you to all of you who voted. Nice to talk about what the people want to hear. That's what I'm supposed to do. Again, this is your show. I'm just the caretaker of it.

Up next, my conversation with Mike Tenier from Bleacher Report on his piece, Monday Morning Digest, where he gets into Tom Brady and whether he's finally getting the stand-in aid count, perhaps, from Father Time. That's ahead on this Tape Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots.

Welcome back, everybody, to this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield still in the big chair yes the sun did come up on Tuesday morning everything is fine the sky is not insanely fallen as we thought it was on Sunday afternoon but as I've talked about Tom Brady myself I've talked

about Stephon Gilmore we've worked our way through the tape but it's time to bring in another perspective and I'm proud to have on Mike Tenier from Bleacher Report his His Monday morning digest pieces are always fantastic. They are must read for me every morning. You can follow him on Twitter at M-I-K-E-T-A-N-I-E-R. Mr. Tenier, how are you, sir? I'm doing well. I'm here in Philadelphia where we're having our own little set of crises here in Philly, which are probably much more severe in the long run than I think going on anywhere else in the sports world.

Is it insane how right now both Super Bowl teams from last year are going through this sort of crisis of panic right now? It just seems strange in a sense. Yeah, and it's very new for Philadelphians who have never been, who are defending champions in any sport like once every 17 years or something like that, to be like, oh my gosh, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. We were in a parade in February, and that doesn't happen a lot around here,

but that's the mentality. This is a team that's falling on hard times, and the Patriots aren't necessarily falling on hard times, but there have been some clouds on the horizon. And, Mr. Seder, those storm clouds might have been brewing for a while now, but in your Monday Morning Digest piece this week, you looked at Tom Brady and your sort of reviews of him were less than stellar, basically saying, you know, okay, friends, the decline might be here. And I do know that you're probably not the most popular person in New England right now.

So I did want to have you on to talk about this. And let's start here. You know, Patriots fans, they might sort of point to an external injury component. You had Gronkowski out against Tennessee. Shaq Mason, arguably their best lineman right now, he was out as well. Trent Brown was battling an illness. He was in and out of the lineup against the Titans. Seemed to be bothering him. Could that be sort of a component behind at least some of what we saw against Tennessee? Well, I don't know because I've seen this team be injured on and off for the last 10, 12 years. I can remember Deontay Thompson

and guys like that play and Malcolm Mitchell and all these guys being the receivers. And seeing games where statistically Tom Brady didn't have great statistical games because he had nobody to throw to, but he was recognized with Tom Brady. That extends to times when they were shuffling offensive linemen and rotating linemen and getting guys in and out for injuries. That's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about a loss and a weak statistical game.

We're talking about here. We're not talking about a loss and a weak statistical game. We're talking about throws that look like throws that you've never seen Tom Brady make before. That you would see some seventh-round rookie make. Balls fluttering up the guys. Balls arriving late. Balls going up out of bounds that he would normally hit.

Balls tagging away from the receivers. We're not seeing it for one game where Gronk was hurt against Tennessee. We're seeing it for three game where, you know, Gronk was out hard against Tennessee. We're seeing it for three games, because you can go back to the Buffalo game where it was a very nip and tuck effort for most of the night. There is something here, and it's not just a blip, and it's not just, oh, you know, one loss and everybody overreacts to the Patriots.

This is a different, athletically different Tom Brady who isn't doing things that look like he was able to do successfully, certainly last year and even more like five, six, seven weeks ago. Now, you know, Mike, you know that the book on Brady, like so many other quarterbacks, is to get quick pressure on him, get him off rhythm, get him off the spot quickly in the play. Don't let him get into rhythm because he's such a rhythmic thrower. Tennessee's sort of radar defensive lineman, putting everybody in a two-point stance. You don't know where people are coming from.

Seem to give the offensive line some trouble. Seem to give him some trouble as well. Could that be sort of a schematic component to this? The Patriots and Josh McDaniels need to figure out how to counteract as they go forward because you know if there's a blueprint on beating Brady, people are going to try to emulate it. Yeah, and years ago the blueprint on Brady was something that the Broncos with Von Miller and all those, and DeMarcus Ware could use, or the Giants and the Super Bowl could use.

If it's something now that Titans and Bills can use, I think that's an issue. But I think it is part of that. It's like, yes, in the past, if you got Brady on the move a little bit, he was a less accurate thrower. Now when Brady's on the move a little bit, he looks more like a rickety thrower. So this goes back to what I'm saying. We're talking about arm, arm, arm, and I got guys telling me on Twitter, it's not about arm. Okay, well, maybe it's not about arm. Maybe it's the fact that a season or two ago, or even at the beginning of this season, he could slide in the

pocket, adjust more quickly, and then make the throw. Now if he's trying to slide a little bit in the pocket, that's where you get some of these weird throws. And, of course, we saw him on the move a couple of times. We've seen more quarterback sneak against the Titans where he didn't look particularly quick and particularly athletic getting in there. You're seeing all these things, and they're all components of the same issue, and that's that whatever this is that works, it looks like it's much easier to counteract now. And I think a lot of it comes back to Tom Brady is finally

and shockingly showing signs of age at age 41. In your piece, Mike, and again, I invite everybody please go check it out. Read Mike every week. Monday Morning Digest, it comes out, talks about a bunch of the games. It's always great work. You mentioned a potential underlying injury as a potential factor, and again, we haven't heard anything about that. He hasn't't really been on injury reports so there's nothing at least externally that points in that direction but with Patriots fans sort of clinging to maybe there's something else going on we put that out there and I've talked on this show and again on Sunday night about his mechanics might seem off a little bit and he's always been somebody that's been fanatical about everything including his mechanics but on throws like I think you've alluded to you know you have James White in, in the left flat, he misses him by three yards out of bounds. He has

Hogan before halftime when they're trying to get a few extra yards to get into field goal range, he misses Hogan out of bounds. Could there be something to that injury possibility where it's impacting mechanics and the throwing, or do you think it's, look, he's 41, father time is undefeated? Well, I think that's the way they would perceive it. If he's got little aches and pains and little stiffnesses here and there, he's like every other 41-year-old in the world, particularly a 41-year-old athlete, and they would never put that on the injury report, but that could be it as much as anything.

So, you know, that's in the ballpark. You say, I mean, remember when Peyton Manning had the bad season at the end of his career? Oh, when he had a couple of weeks to rest his shoulder, he came back and he was better, and I guess he was slightly better, but he was not certainly Peyton Manning of his career. Oh, when he had a couple of weeks to rest his shoulder, he came back and he was better. And I guess he was slightly better, but he was not certainly Peyton Manning of the old. It's another one of those pieces of information where it's like, okay, fine, maybe there's an injury.

I don't know what to do with that. Because an injury at 41 is not something that heals quickly. It's not like, oh, it's a chronic neck or shoulder or a twinge. The twinges are the thing. We're all made out of twinges at a certain age. And if that's the case, maybe it's something that he bounces back from after a bye week, but maybe it's something

that he only bounces back from for a week or two or three, because those kinds of things are called chronic for a reason. Right. And we'll let you get out of here on this one, Mike, and I'll ask you to sort of maybe put Patriots fans at ease. If it's possible, if you can't, then by all means don't. But, you know, can you put on a Patriots hat for a second and try to find a silver lining here with me? There were some throws that did stand out against Tennessee. The early 39 to Gordon against that Tampa 2 look up the seam. You had a couple more crossers to Gordon to Edelman

where it seemed like you could dial up velocity. Is it possible that, and maybe this is your underlying point, what we're seeing is a lack of consistency from him, which is the sign that, look, Tom Brady's usually consistent with his ball placement. It's not there right now. And that, more than anything, is a sign that, look, the decline is here. Yeah, and I think you hit on the head. The consistency and ball placement and the velocity is a little bit of the same.

When you're trying to fire that ball over the middle or towards the sidelines, you're not getting that kind of velocity. And that's going to affect your ball placement because it's going to affect your timing and things like that. You know, the crystal ball for all of this is, okay, what if you have a Tom Brady in decline? Well, you still have a Josh Gordon working his way in. You'll get Brock back at some point.

You've got all these weapons. You've got your Edelmans. You've got this scheme. You've got this system, and you've got a terrible division that you should be able to win games for just by kind of showing up, and you have to use those things to your advantage at this point, and you're certainly capable of doing that. You know, schematically, you can make things easier on yourself. You can make things easier on Brady. You can do things to get guys in space. You can be a little bit, you can run the ball more. You can, you know, tighten up some things

on defense that you sort of get away with because you know you're going to win shootouts. All of these things are possible. What they have to recognize and the realization here is some of the things that were working like a charm aren't working anymore. Like those little throws into the flat defenses creep up on them now more because the safeties can creep up because they're not worried about the deep stuff. So that's the new reality that the Patriots are living in, or I'm certain they're living in at this point.

Can you compensate for it? Yes. What you can't do from an organizational standpoint is say, oh, everything's okay, we're going to try to run things the same way. I guarantee you the organization's not doing that. The fans can do that. That's fine, because you're fans, and you can do that, but the guys who are actually getting paid for this are not going to be

making decisions that way. He is Mike Tenier. He does fantastic work. over at Bleacher Report, his Monday Morning Digest, and all of the work he does is definitely must-read. Michael, thank you so much for coming on with us and sharing some insight on what might be the new reality of the New England Patriots. My pleasure. Take care and enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you, sir.

That will do it for today's Tape Tuesday episode. I will be back tomorrow. Since it is the bye week, it is sir. That will do it for today's Tape Tuesday episode. I will be back tomorrow. Since it is the bye week, it is Wednesday. I will do what I did last year. The State of the Patriots Nation, my State of the Patriots address. We'll dive into Tom Brady and more. That will be tomorrow.

Until then, keep it locked.