Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 2017 - Glorious Victory Edition

Episode Date: November 20, 2017

Mark Schofield has his Glorious Victory Edition of Locked On Patriots, recapping New England's 33-8 victory over the Oakland Raiders. This episode has his Great, Good and Bad from the win, as well as what is on tap for Thanksgiving Week.  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 evening, everybody. Welcome into your glorious victory edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you in the big chair of the New England Patriots. Just wrapped up their little road trip in style, taking care of the Oakland Raiders. 33-8 down in Mexico City. Quite the environment for this game as well.

Seemed like a very Patriots-friendly crowd. Heard a lot of Brady chants break out during this game. Great to hear that. Great to see the performance from the New England Patriots, again, taking care of business on this sort of road trip now. Two weeks in a row away from home, but they go back-to-back victories here. Improved to 8-2 on the season. We're going to have, as we do for every glorious victory edition,

your great, good, and bad from the game. Again, not a lot of bad to sort of highlight from this game. Some nitpicky stuff, but we've got to do it. Trying to get better every week. Speaking of weeks, we've got another big week ahead here at Locked On. Patriots had a huge week last week. Ted Wynn, Adam Kirchhen, some great guests coming on. We'll have another great guest this week as well.

Maybe even some more guests, as we're going to talk about here in a second. It's a holiday week, obviously, but we're here five days a week like we are every week. Thursday's show is going to be a little bit different. I don't want to leave you guys in the lurch when you're driving to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. We're going to do something about Thanksgiving football memories. If you'd like to have something included, hit me up on Twitter. Send me a tweet, something you'd like read. Maybe you even want to have something read of your own.

You can reach out to me. Send in a little audio clip, a little Thanksgiving football memory, something to kind of look back on the sport, talk about the sport in a little bit different way. It doesn't have to be Patriots-related at all. But again, I don't want to leave you guys in the lurch on Thursday as you're headed to the families to celebrate Thanksgiving with your family. But football has always kind of, in the past couple of years,

grown to be associated with the holidays. So I thought it would be nice to have something like that. And of course, on Friday, your game day edition of Locked On Patriots getting you ready for the upcoming game. Maybe you're going to be in line on a Black Friday sale. Going to need something to do. I'll have something for you to listen to. Also this week, we're going to be doing a new promo with draft.com,

a different way to play fantasy football. You're going to want to check that out as well. So be on the lookout for that. There's going to be sort of a Lock-on league that will be setting up. Something to look forward to. We'll have more on that in the days ahead. As I said, we're going to have our great, good, and bad from today's game. But I want to start with Marquise Flowers,

acquired by the New England Patriots on August 29th in a trade with the Cincinnati Bengals for a draft pick to be determined at a later date. Now, Mark, why are you starting with this name? Well, you'll see where I'm going with this in a second. Now, he's a linebacker, a depth addition for the Patriots, again acquired at the end of August. First saw some defensive snaps for the Patriots at the linebacker spot in week three. He saw two defensive snaps against the Houston Texans, 2.8% of their defensive snaps in that

game. The next week against Carolina, 22 defensive snaps. That was his highest total coming into this game, 34.9% of New England's defensive snaps. Doesn't see any defensive snaps until week eight against the Chargers, where he sees eight, rather appropriate. 14.3% of New England's defensive snaps. Marquise Flowers is on the field for. And then last week against Denver, he sees 19. 30.2% of New England's defensive snaps. So his second highest playing time on the defensive side of the ball,

other than that week four game against Carolina. Then with 33 seconds left in this game between New England and Oakland, New England has a 14-0 lead, but Oakland has a first and 10 on the Patriots' 15-yard line. They're driving. Seth Roberts catches a pass on the right, and it's Marquise Flowers who punches the football out after the reception. Patrick Chun recovers.

The Patriots go down the field. Steven Gostowski with a 62-yard field goal. And the Patriots enter halftime with a 17-0 lead. Now, this is a game that was looking at 14-7. It was staring at 14-7 in the face. But the Patriots force a turnover. They go right down the field before the half. They turn what could have been 14-7 into 17-0. And then they double dip.

They get the touchdown on the opening possession of the second half. And what could have been 14-7 and a completely different game becomes 24-0. Ball game. And it's Marquise Flowers, a backup linebacker acquired at the end of August who punches out the football

and sets that all into motion. If there isn't a more sort of Patriots type of moment, I don't know what there is because that to me sort of screams what the New England Patriots have been sort of all about in the Brady-Belichick type era. But let's get to the great, the good, and the bad. We'll start with the bad. Again, when you win 33-8, there's not going to be a lot to talk about. Nitpicky stuff. The running into the kicker penalty turned a fourth and six into a fourth and one situation. Gave the Raiders another crack at moving the sticks, converting the fourth down. And they didn't, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But again, penalties

like that can't have them in that kind of situation. You don't want to give an offense another chance to move the sticks, convert a first down. Some misfires from Tom Brady. Again, when a guy has the type of day that Brady did, it feels really sort of nitpicky to critique his performance when he goes 30 of 37 for 339 and three touchdowns. But he did miss a couple of throws.

On their third drive of the game, he had two routes to Rex Burkhead, one a swing route, one a route in the flat. He missed both of those. On their field goal drive before the half, he had Brandon Cooks on a deep in-cut. Throw was behind him. Brady missed it. He knew it. You could see him after it.

He knew he missed that throw. So again, some nitpicky things, but worth mentioning. Speaking of Rex Burkhead, the fumble. Dwayne Allen heads a play to recover that, but you're not always going to recover those. Bounces don't always go your way.

So Burkhead with a fumble doesn't hurt the Patriots here but something again that you really sort of need to clean up going forward. But that was the bad stuff. Up next here we're going to take a look at both the good and the great from New England's 33 to 8 victory over the Oakland Raiders. That's here next with me Mark Schofield and Locked On Patriots. Okay, now let's look at some of the good stuff that I saw from that game.

Danny Amendola had a catch early, a conversion on New England's open and drive, and I've talked a lot about motion. We saw a lot of motion and movement from the Patriots. And this was a play where they motioned him into a stack slot. Gets a nice little easy release off the line of scrimmage. Again, the Patriots used motion so effectively. This was a great example of that.

Brady's first touchdown of the day, the touchdown to Deion Lewis. Every once in a while, I see things which I call a great no-throw from a quarterback where he's about to pull the trigger, he's about to throw the ball, and he pulls it down for one reason or another. Sometimes it's the coverage change. Sometimes maybe a receiver falls down. For whatever reason, the quarterback pulls the football down, and sometimes those are great plays in a game.

This was a great no-throw because Brady opens to his left. He wants to throw to his left, but the edge defender then steps into the throwing lane, gets his body, gets his arms up, a potential tip, potential interception even. Brady pulls it down. That comes back to the right, finds Lewis sort of in the right flat in that hook area. Lewis with a great move after the catch. But I thought, you know, from the quarterback there, a great sort of no throw. On Oakland's second drive, they had a first and 15. Trey Flowers had some great pressure on that play.

Got a hit on Derek Carr. Impacted the accuracy. Carr was trying to hit Crabtree. Pass was short, fell incomplete. Good pressure from Trey Flowers on that play. The interception from Harmon. That's a situation where great sort of rotation from Harmon, the safety to get over there.

Jones gets beat by the receiver, Holton, on the play. Holton had a rough day because he fails to come up with his reception, hits him, I think bounces either off his hands or off his shoulder pad, up into the air. Harmon, great job rotating over in that situation from the free safety spot from the middle of the field to security interception. Holton, tough day for him. He went into the concussion protocol on this play when I think it was Harmon basically stepped on his head. And then later he had the penalty where he threw a punch in the direction of Jonathan Jones, I believe. But I thought that was great rotation from Harmon to safety. Trevor Riley saw some defensive snaps, had a great sort of rotation out to the flat on a

running back swing route. When the play was happening live, I thought that the running back had a lot of room to run, but Riley rotated over. Great hustle on that play. It was a five-yard gain, but it looked to me when it was happening live that that was going to go for a long gain for the Raiders. But great sort of hustle and rotation from Riley. Devin McCourty had a great pass breakup.

Hand fighting with Michael Crabtree on a deep ball. Looked like Crabtree would sort of box him out, but McCourty did a great job sort of getting that left arm over to break up the pass at the last minute. Something else we've talked about before.

First down running. I charted that out again. Patriots had 15 rushing attempts on first downs for 70 yards. That's a 4.67 average. Again, when you're getting into basically second and five situations as an offense when you run on the ball in first down, you're doing good work. Patriots have been really good at this so far this year. Lapsed a little bit against Denver, but they were really good with it this week.

They were helped by two big runs. Actually, three. Deion Lewis had a 20-yard run on first down. It was after that fumble by Seth Roberts near the end of the half. That's a situation where you try to run the ball, maybe you break one, and then you can sort of go up-tempo because there's not a lot of time left. Well, this is a situation where they run it and you do break one. Lewis with a 20-yard gain, that completely changed the complexion of how the Patriots were going to approach that last drive.

Because if he gets stopped there for maybe a gain of one, now you're thinking, okay, let's take this thing to halftime, 14-0. Lewis busts one. Great blocking up front. Great job by that offensive line, too. One sack of Brady. Talked a lot about Cleo Mack this week. Just one sack of Brady.

Great job by those guys up front. Great job from Karras who came in in replace of David Anders who got sick this week. But great job by those guys up front. And it showed on this play. Lewis rips off the 20-yard run. Changes how you approach that final drive. They go down, they get three points.

17-0 at the half, so that was big. Lewis also had an 11-yard run on first down, a 12-yard run on first down. First down running played another sort of key role in this victory. So those were some of the good things I saw from the Patriots in this victory over the Raiders

but there was even some better stuff we're going to get to that next here with me Mark Schofield and Locked On Patriots okay so we've just kind of taken a look at the bad the good now let's talk about the great, the great stuff that I saw, the takeaways that I had from this win.

And start on a random play, 30-19 that Oakland had early in the game. They ran one of these sort of designed shallow routes. This is something that I actually wrote about for Bleacher Report last week, some of the new schemes that are coming into the NFL. I wrote about why RPOs in my mind are here to stay. And another thing I wrote about were these sort of designed one read throws we're seeing. Sometimes it's into the flat. We have maybe three receivers to one side of the formation and the quarterback is only going to throw to the flat to the inside guy with the other two guys blocking.

It's almost like a screen. Other teams are doing it over the middle on crossing routes. If you watch the Pittsburgh Steelers, they do this with Antonio Brown a lot. If you watch the Chiefs, they do it with Tyreek Hill. On this third and 19 play, they did it, the Raiders did, with Amari Cooper on a shallow route where the other receivers look like they're running core routes, but they're really just getting ready to block. And you're trying to free up some space, get yardage after the catch. Malcolm Butler was in man coverage on that play.

Did a great job staying on his receiver, making a great open field tackle. The Raiders got the look they wanted. They got man coverage. Cooper just has one guy to beat. It's Butler's job to make that tackle in the open field, and he did it. Just a great play from Malcolm Butler. We're going to talk a little bit more about Butler in a minute. The Brady deep shot to Brandon Cooks, the one that didn't go for the touchdown,

just a tremendous job there from Brandon Cooks running over the top. Basically a double-covered situation where you had safety help rotate it over. Cooks running over the top basically a double covered situation where you had safety help rotating it over Cooks just goes by both of them Cooks had a tremendous day just a tremendous day from Brandon Cooks and you know for those of you like you know I know I've got some listeners here

that listen to the show for fantasy purposes Captain Huggyface at Captain Huggyface on Twitter. Shout out to my boy. I got his name wrong last week, and I do apologize for that. Called him Captain Huggy Bear. My bad. Sorry, buddy. But Cooks, big game from him.

Six receptions for 149 yards. One touchdown. The first big reception though there was a situation where he had safety help over the top Brady with a great throw Cooks with a great catch while we're talking about Cooks the touchdown

64 yarder longest play of New England this season sort of a quick little out and up he's matched up against Obi Malafonwu, a rookie out of UConn. Toolsy, athletic guy, but a bit of a projection type in terms of where he's going to fit into the secondary. Cook got him there. Malafonwu might have been hoping or expecting some safety help. Whatever the reason, whatever happened back there, tough to really tell live, but just a great route.

And another great route that Cooks had, probably won't get as much attention, but on their sixth drive of the game, New England's sixth drive of the game, he had just a simple catch on a curl route off of play action. And when you have plays like this, these big deep shot type plays, it opens up that stuff because as a defensive back, you have to respect the deep ball.

You have to respect the vertical route. And so when teams see cooks on film with these big catches, these 64 yarders, these 62 yarders, these 52 yarders, they're going to give cushion. They're going to respect the deep ball. And that just opens up some easier throws. And we all love the deep ball, but it's those 10 yard comebacks and those 10 yard curls on third and seven that extend drives. Those are big plays too. And that was just a great example of it. So again, huge day, huge day from Brandon Cooks.

The second touchdown, the one amandola in the back of the end zone another example of the patriots using motion using shifting to help their quarterback and this was just a master class from the pre-snap phase to the finish of the play from tom brady because they come out in an empty formation. They have the running back split wide to the left. They have Cooks in the middle of that trip. They have Gronkowski in a wing. And then they move everybody around. They move the running back into the backfield. Gronkowski goes for the wing until he splits out wide left. Cooks slides down a bit. While all this has happened and Brady's watching the defense and they're just kind of sliding around. Nobody's running with guys

or shifting with guys. If you've listened to the show, if you've read the stuff over at Locked on Patriots, you know that means zone coverage. That's exactly what Brady gets. Zone coverage. So he's able to find Amendola in the back of the end zone. And we also see,

again, the pocket movement from Brady sliding around, buying enough time to let that route develop, let Amendola find that soft spot in the back of the end zone. Just a master class from snap to finish. Another great play. Again, we already talked about it. But the fumble that Flowers, Marquise Flowers, forced near the end of the half.

Seth Roberts does a horrible job putting the football away. Wanted to make sure I mentioned that because Nick Valachos, at Valachos1221 on Twitter, give him a follow. He saw a picture that I tweeted out tonight saw my handwritten notes notes written using a Pilot G2 to the fine people at Pilot Pen if you'd like to sponsor the Locked On Patriots podcast

let me know, hit me up but some keen eyes from Nick, he saw my notes saw that I had written horrible job asked who had done the horrible job it was Seth Roberts on this play. Failing to put the football away, allows Flowers to punch it out. That set into motion sort of that sequence at the end of the half

and the start of the second half. And that drive before the half, too. Yeah, Brady missed Cooks on that one play, but moved around well. We had the run from Deion Lewis, had a slide in the pocket where he found Danny Amendola, and then Kostowski drilled that 62-yarder before the half. Could have been good from longer. Ghost had another big day as well.

Hit from 50 at one point. It was 4-for-4 on the day. And I'm reminded of a couple of weeks ago when I had to respond to something where people were saying, maybe it's time to get rid of Gostowski and trade for Adam Vinatieri. Well, how do you like me now? As I said at the time, that was ludicrous, and it certainly looked ludicrous again today.

Alandon Roberts, nice game from him. Had a couple of good plays in coverage. There was a throw to Jared Cook. Roberts got there right when the ball arrived. Good hit on the tight end. Forced the ball into an incompletion. Later in the same drive, he was in zone coverage.

Forced an open field tackle on Ola Wale after a catch. Good game from Alandon Roberts. Butler again. I mentioned that play on Amari Cooper. Oakland tried to hit Amari Cooper later in the game on sort of a wheel route.

And Butler with a great pass break up there, sort of raking his arm at the catch point, separating the receiver from the ball. Just a great play there. And finally, that fourth and one. You get the run into the ball Just a great play there And finally that 4th and 1 You get the run into the kicker penalty Turns a 4th and 6 punt situation Into a 4th and 1

They bring the offense back on the field They run it Defense stuffs it Forces a turnover and downs Just great play from that defense And just frankly a great game overall From the New England Patriots. Whether this team is really rounded into form, like I think it is,

or we've just seen the Patriots get a chance to really get themselves sorted out, really sort of get right against two teams that are maybe starting to spiral out of control. You know, the future will really tell us the answer to that question. But to me, watching this Patriots team over the past couple of weeks, it really seems like they are rounding into form. They are becoming that team we expected them to be sort of in the offseason when people were making those 19-0 predictions and things like that. But we'll see going forward.

We'll see going forward. But right now it does look like the Patriots are rounded into form. They get a chance to come home now. And look, you've got home against Miami, at Buffalo, at Miami. Three games against two teams that are, I mean, you want to talk about spirals. I mean, the Dolphins seem to be just falling by the wayside. The Bills

are a train wreck right now. They bench Tyrod Taylor. They bring on Nathan Peterman who threw five interceptions before they have to go back to Tyrod Taylor. Questionable decision to bench Taylor to begin with. Now it just looks, in hindsight,

looks just to be the complete awful decision. So, I mean, you got three weeks now against inferior-looking opponents before that matchup against Pittsburgh. So, really, sort of, Patriots seem to be in a sweet spot right now you're eight and two you got some favorable matchups coming up and then the big one against Pittsburgh so maybe it's all sort of coming together at the right time but we'll see in the future we'll bear it all out but that's

been your glorious victory edition here of locked on on Patriots. Hope you enjoyed it. Again, big week ahead. If you'd like to have some stuff included in the Thanksgiving, sort of Thanksgiving Day football memory show, hit me up on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. If you want to have me read something,

if you want to create a clip of your own that I can have just played during the show, would love to have some input from all of you. You know, Thanksgiving, it's become about football, it's become about family and friends and community, and that's what I kind of want to do with this show. Would love to have some input from all of you. Thanksgiving, it's become about football. It's become about family and friends and community, and that's what I kind of want to do with this show. We'll see. Maybe I get nothing. It's just

me talking for 10 minutes, but we'll see. Either way, it's going to be another great week here ahead at Locked on Patriots. Look for that stuff on Drafted.com as well. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here, everybody, with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.