Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 28, 2017 - Tape Tuesday

Episode Date: November 28, 2017

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Good morning everybody, welcome into Locked On Patriots for Tuesday, November 28th. Mark Schofield here with you in the big chair and it is a Tape Tuesday edition. That's right, we're going to get super, super football nerdy up in here for your Tape Tuesday edition. That's right. We're going to get super, super football nerdy up in here for your Tape Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Going to break down a couple of things from New England's 35-17 victory over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. First, we're going to look at two touchdown passes, two short touchdown passes, first to Rob Gronkowski, then to Rex Burkhead, because it's just amazing how the Patriots use motion.

It's almost blinding at times. And even with the ability to fast forward, rewind, pause, use two different camera angles when the All-22 comes out, it's still sometimes tough to even keep up with what it is that they're doing. And I have the pause button at my disposal. Defenses don't. So we're going to talk about those two touchdowns. Then I'm going to focus on two defensive plays.

First, Alandon Roberts. I'm going to highlight three plays from him, two of his sacks, as well as one of his plays in the run game, which when I watched the game on the All-22, when that came out Monday, I was just blown away. I was just blown away by his effort on this one play. And then we're going to talk about the guy that I gave a game ball to, Jonathan Jones. And I talked a lot last week about how the Patriots needed to tackle,

they needed to worry about Jarvis Landry and those crossing routes. And the beauty of the All-22 is you can see things that you don't see in the broadcast angle, things that you miss live. And there is a way that the Patriots sort of attacked Jarvis Landry, gave Jones a little bit of help that I'll get into a little bit later in the show. But Jones still had an amazing game, and I want to break down three of his plays as well. Also, check out our friends over at Draft.com. Use promo code LONFL when you sign up. A little bit later in the week, I'm going to be getting together a live draft

for some of the listeners for the upcoming weekend's slate of games. You get a chance to go head-to-head with me. Put your superior football knowledge as opposed to my knowledge to the test. Seriously, I mean, I'm not kidding. I'm getting crushed in all my fantasy leagues this year. It's embarrassing. I was brought into a league almost as a rainer. It was a league I'd never been in.

A buddy of mine brought me in. They couldn't believe it. They're like, you're bringing a sports writer into our fantasy football league of just dentists and lawyers and consultants? This isn't fair. Well, guess who's basically in last place right now? Yeah. Hi. It's me.

Anyway, quick digression. Let's dive into some tape right now. We're going to start first with the touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski that comes midway through the first quarter. Patriots have a 7-0 lead. They face a second goal at the Miami 5-yard line. And if you want to follow along, there's a piece up right now called Anatomy of a Touchdown, Brady to Gronkowski.

Go to LockedOnPatriots.com. You can follow along with the stills and the video over there. Don't forget, LockedOnPatriots.com. Uploading stuff as often as I can. Articles, play breakdowns, analysis. If there's anything you want to see over there, let me know. Hit me up on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. So this play in question. Patriots again, second goal, the Dolphins five-yard line.

They come out using 12 offensive personnel, which is one running back, two tight ends, two wide receivers. And they empty the backfield at the start of the play. Brady's in the shotgun by himself. Brandon Cooks is split wide to the left with Rex Burkhead right next to him. Rob Gronkowski lines up as an in-line tight end on the left side of the formation. So you have three receivers to the left. You have two receivers to the right. Tight end Dwayne Allen is in the slot. Danny Amendola, the other wide receiver, is split wide to the right.

Now seeing this personnel package in its second and five, it's not really a run-heavy look, Miami stays in sort of their 4-2-5 nickel. Four down linemen, two linebackers, five defensive backs. Then the fun starts. First, Burkhead shifts back into the backfield and stands to the right side of Brady. Now in response, Rashad Jones, Miami's strong safety, he was initially sort of off the line of scrimmage on that left side of the Patriots offense. He now cheats down basically into a linebacker spot over Gronkowski. The next movement we get is from Amendola.

Now, he's aligned wide to the right. He comes in motion and aligns basically in a stacked slot right behind Dwayne Allen at the snap of the ball. And the defensive back across from Amendola, he trails him in coverage, comes right with him. Now, if you've listened to the show, if you've read some of the work that I've done over at LockedOnPatriots.com, you probably know what I'm about to say.

This is some sort of man coverage, right? Not only do you see Jones, the safety, cheat down over Gronkowski, you see that cornerback slide with Amendola's motion. So Brady's expecting some sort of man coverage here. And the Patriots run a dual passing concept on this play. They have two different passing concepts. One on each side of the field.

We'll start with the right side. That's where you have the stack slot with Amendola and Dwayne Allen. They run what's called a smash concept. I've talked about it before. Allen runs a corner route to the back corner of the end zone. Burkhead runs the shorter route on this concept, this smash concept. He runs a route to the flat, and that sets up a little high-low look to that side of the field. That's a good sort of coverage if you're facing zone, because you try to high-low that cornerback on the outside. Amendola will run a spot route over the middle of the field. It's like a

slant route where he sits down right over the middle of the field, right over the football. Then they have sort of their man-beater concept to the backside, a slant-flat concept, something I've also talked about a lot. Cooks runs the slant, Gronkowski runs the flat. And Rob Gronkowski, the big man that he is, gets matched up against Rashad Jones, a 6'1", 210-pound strong safety. That's the matchup that you get when you get all this motion, all this shifting. You get that matchup of Gronkowski on Jones, and it's a mismatch. And that's right where Brady goes with the football. Jones sticks with him pretty well, but Gronkowski gets just enough separation, just a couple of steps, and when he breaks down the end zone towards the sideline, Brady puts a perfect throw on him, and it's an easy touchdown. The usage of shifts of motion of moving guys around pre-snap allows Brady to sort of identify that look and take advantage.

Let's look at the other touchdown I want to talk about. It's basically a similar play. The short touchdown, the one-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Rex Burkett. But how the Patriots get to a mismatch and a flat road is wildly different than the previous play. Here, it's second and goal from the one. This is, you know, like the 8.52 mark of the second quarter. And this time the Patriots come out and they're showing run. They line up with a heavy offensive package.

23 offensive personnel. Two running backs, three tight ends. Miami sees this. They have their goal line package on the field. Everybody's expecting a run. Brady lines up at the center. You have an high formation. Devlin, the fullback, his hand in the dirt, three-point stance. I mean, this is Pop Warner football type stuff that we see here. But then the crazy stuff happens because first, Jacob Hollister, rookie tight end, he's in a wing to the left. Dwayne Allen is the in-line tight end to that side of the field. First, Hollister shifts from the wing out wide to the left, and he draws Rashard Jones with him.

Then, Allen and Gronkowski both shift. Allen moves from an in-line tight end spot on the left to now an in-line tight end spot on the right. And Gronkowski splits out wide to the right. And he brings linebacker Lawrence Timmons with him. And now you're basically left with six down linemen, two linebackers,

and a safety in the middle of the field. But the Patriots aren't done moving because now Burkhead vacates his tailback spot and he splits in a slot to the left. Now only two players could move with him. The middle linebacker or outside linebacker Chase Allen, a rookie. And the Dolphins slide Allen, the rookie, to the outside.

And there's your mismatch. Burkhead runs a simple little flat route. Makes one quick jab step to the inside before cutting to the outside. And Allen is frozen. He tries to recover, but it's not enough. Brady puts in a perfect throw, touchdown New England. Again, the motion, the shift, and all the stuff that happens pre-snap helps Brady identify the fact that it's man coverage.

They then get the matchup that they want, creates an easy throw, easy touchdown. It's just a tremendous job all around by the New England Patriots on those two plays. And if you want to see more about them, go check out Anatomy of a Touchdown. There's one piece on each of those throws, each of those scoring plays, on LockedOnPatriots.com. So go ahead, check those out. And bookmark LockedOnPatriots.com. So go ahead, check those out. And bookmark LockedOnPatriots.com as well. Tell a friend about the dot com, as it were. Putting stuff up there all the time.

So that's a look at two touchdowns from the tape. Up next, I'm going to take a look at Landon Roberts, Jonathan Jones, and some cool stuff I saw from both of those guys from Sunday's game. That's up next, here with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Okay, let's talk a little defense now, and I'm going to start with a Landon Roberts. Roberts had a great game against the Dolphins on Sunday, and he's really starting to impress me with his play of late. I'm going to talk about two of his sacks,

but first I'm going to talk about a stop of the run game and just a great individual effort play from Roberts. This comes around the 825 mark of the second quarter. Dolphins face a second and seven on their own 25-yard line. They line up with quarterback Matt Moore under center. They're using 12 offensive personnel as well. We're going to get some motion here. They start with both tight ends on the right side as well as one wide receiver. But then one of the tight ends motions across and Patrick Chun follows him. And what this creates, it creates a natural hole because Gilmore, the cornerback to that side, that offensive right side of the field that's

now been vacated by that tight end motion. Gilmore is in press man alignment over the wide receiver. The defensive end, Dietrich Wise, he's on an inside shade. He's aligned to the inside of the tight end. And that creates a natural little alley, a gap, that somebody's going to have to fill. And that's a Landon Roberts. He's the linebacker to that side. Because what's going to happen here is Wise cuts down to the inside.

Off the snap, the tight end goes to block down, and Wise tries to beat him inside to that gap, that C gap. But now that means somebody's going to have to fill that alley because that's the next gap that needs a run fit because the Dolphins are going to run to that side of the field. And they're going to pull the left guard as well. But what's amazing on this play, from snap to finish, is first the recognition from Roberts. Because he sees that action up front and immediately, immediately races downhill to fill that gap.

He beats the pulling guard to that spot. And what that does, it allows him to use his downhill run, his momentum, and then his pure upper body strength. He meets that pulling guard on the edge, stands him up using just his right shoulder and arm basically. So he has one half of his body taken on the pulling guard. And then with the other half of his body, his left arm, he's able to get his hands on

the running back. And then he scrapes off the guard, wraps him up, and pulls him down for a minimal gain. When you hear people talk about run fits, this is exactly what they mean. This is an incredible play from Landon Roberts. And when I first saw it on the All-20s, I couldn't believe it. Just an incredible, incredible play from him. You know, the next play I want to talk about is one of his two sacks.

And this one is another incredible effort-type play. It comes at the 5.05 mark of the third quarter. The Patriots have a 28-10 lead. Dolphins taking over on a first and 10 at their own 20-yard line. And Robert shows blitz pre-snap. He comes down right over the center, pouncy. He's in a two-point stance right over him. And sure enough, he blitzes.

He heads for that A-gap between the right guard and the right center, and Pouncey's responsible for him in protection because they blitz both linebackers here. David Harris, who's in a normal linebacker's alignment, he comes as well, and the running back has to pick him up. The running back does a pretty good job of blocking Harris. But Roberts

is able to fight through Pouncey. It's a great individual effort. Because when the ball is snapped, Pouncey opens up his hips and is in pretty good position to block Roberts. But Roberts just uses pure speed to get around him and sort of run that arc. And then when you factor in the blitz from Harris, you have both of these defenders, Harris and Roberts, applying some inside pressure.

Moore starts to bail the pocket. He starts running to his left. But Roberts just chases him down and drags him down from behind for a sack on the play. You know, that's just a great individual effort. Great play from Landon Roberts here. Now I'm going to talk about another one of his sacks. This was one that I wanted to see from the end zone camera to try and decipher because watching it live, it looked like there was a protection breakdown. I do think that there was a breakdown from the Dolphins here in the protection scheme.

And I'm going to tell you about it here in a second because this is a play that comes fourth quarter, about the 10-28 mark. This is kind of a critical moment in the game. It's a first and 10. Patriots have a 28-17 lead. They need to sort of put this game away. And this time, Roberts comes on basically a delayed blitz. He's aligned

on his linebacker spot across from Kenyon Drake. Pre-snap, the Dolphins have their tight end Julius Thomas on the left side. But Moore adjusts the protection, moves him over to the right. It's not so much of a delayed blitz. It's just Robert starts deeper than he does in the previous one. He comes immediately, so he doesn't really delay.

It's not like a green dog, but he does come immediately. Now, where the protection breaks down here is as follows. I went through some old playbooks, tried to do some super nerdy football research, and I think I found the protection scheme that the Dolphins were running here. If you're listening, if you've seen this play, and I'm wrong, feel free to call me out on it.

But it looks like they're running a variation of check 80, which is a protection scheme where the running back isn't involved in the protection at all. You bring the tight end in to help with protection. You slide the protection to one side and the other. So here the left guard and the left tackle kind of slide to the left to take the guys over there.

The center, right guard, right tackle, and the tight end, they're responsible for the guys on the right. Because the center is uncovered, he's going to block towards the Mike linebacker, who's David Harris on the spot. Running back, he's going to run a quick route. He has no pass protection responsibilities, but he is the hot receiver. The person who technically is responsible for blocking a Landon Roberts here is the quarterback. And I know you're probably thinking that sounds odd. But in some protection schemes, like the one I think the Dolphins are running here, if a guy blitzes, it's the quarterback's job to get the ball out of his hands

and throw the hot route. And what I think happens here is this. Moore's responsible for Roberts. He's late to pull the trigger on the hot route, doesn't anticipate it well, doesn't get the ball out of his hands, and it's simply too late. He runs out of time.

Roberts gets home for the sack. So this was an easy one for Roberts, but I wanted to talk about that sort of protection scheme and what I think the Dolphins failed to do there, and it's really on the quarterback. Because again, there are protection schemes where the quarterback's responsible for a defender, and if he comes, he's got to throw the hot rod.

So that's some nerdy football stuff with the Landon Roberts. Up next, we're going to close out the show looking at the guy who gave a game ball to Jonathan Jones and some of the stuff the Patriots did to give him a little bit of help dealing with Jarvis Landry. That's next here on Locked on Patriots with me, Mark Schofield.

Okay, so let's close this up by talking quickly about Jonathan Jones, who I thought had a tremendous game. He was matched up against Jarvis Landry for most of the afternoon. And I talked last week about how it was going to be important to quickly tackle Jarvis Landry because of the way the Dolphins run their offense. They look to create after the catch. And here's a stat from Pro Football Focus.

Again, if you want an Edge subscription, leave a review of the show at the iTunes page for Locked On Patriots. Make sure your Twitter handle is in there. We're giving these out each week. And according to their charted, wide receivers created missed tackles. Who's created the most this year? Well, in first place

in that statistic, Golden Tate with 18. Then you've got three guys tied for third. Des Bryant with 10, Cooper Cupp, the rookie with LA, with 10, and Keenan Allen with 10. But in that second spot by himself with 13 missed tackles created is Jarvis Landry. And so tackling him, particularly on those quick little crossing routes, was going to be a big challenge for the Patriots defense. And Jonathan Jones stepped up in a big way. First player we're going to talk about, one of the first plays of the fourth quarter.

It's a first and ten. And again, there's a stack slot situation. Jarvis Landry's lined up against Jonathan Jones, and he runs a crossing route from left to right. Jonathan Jones gets an initial jam on him, but Jarvis Landry gets separation across the formation. Moore's pass is to Landry. It's slightly behind him. It's to his back hip, but he still catches it in full stride.

But as he looks to turn upfield, Jones is there with an immediate tackle. And for his effort, he gets a little pat on the backside from Jarvis Landry. And anytime the opposition pats you on the butt, you know you're doing something right. So that was just one example of Jones being able to just quickly close on that route, hold it to a minimal gain. This went down for a gain of one. But there were a couple of plays earlier in the game where you saw Landry run those crossing routes and Jones get a little bit of one. But there were a couple of plays earlier in the game where you saw Landry run those crossing routes and Jones get a little bit of help. And this next play that we're going to talk about here,

this comes midway through the second quarter. It's a second and eight play. And the Dolphins this time, they start with a bunch set to the left, but then they motion Landry across the formation. So he's aligned on the right side with a tight end inside of him. And Jones trails him across the formation. Landry runs one of those shallow crossing routes from right to left, and as he looks to come inside, Kyle Van Nooy, the linebacker who is aligned across from the tight end, he steps outside a little bit and gets a shoulder into Landry.

Landry gets knocked off his track for a second, then recovers, stays on his crossing route, and catches a pass, but Jones is there with an immediate tackle. And that was one of the ways that the Patriots looked to give Jones some help on these crossing routes. Having somebody get a little shot onto Landry, slowing down just a little bit, preventing him from getting a ton of separation on those routes.

And there was another example of this earlier in the game. This was on one of the first plays the Miami had the football this is a play that came at the 303 mark of the first quarter and again we're gonna see another little shot from an underneath defender Landry aligns on the left side of the offense. He's got Jones across from him. And he runs another one of these shallow crossing routes. And as he comes over the middle, it's a Landon Roberts who does a tremendous job with his right arm.

Just giving a quick little shove to Landry's right shoulder. And it kind of spins Landry just a bit. He catches the pass on the crossing route but Jones is right there even though Landry has separation that quick little shot from a Landon Roberts gets him off track a bit allows Jones to close down Landry makes the catch but there's an immediate tackle so there's no yardage after the catch and so Jonathan Jones had a tremendous game. But team defense played a role. Getting him a little bit of help played a role on a couple of these plays.

Now the first one we talked about, that was all Jones. But it was clear that New England knew going into this game they needed to disrupt Jarvis Landry on those routes. Give Jones a little bit of help to close down that separation and prevent big plays. Because as those stats bear out from PFF, guy creates a ton of missed tackles. So you've got to make sure that defenders are in position

to make immediate tackles. Don't let them get going upfield with a full head of steam. It's fine if he wants to catch those little crossing roads running east-west, but don't let him get turned north-south. And Sunday, the New England Patriots were able to prevent him from getting turned north-south. That's been your Tape Tuesday

show. A look at some of the nerdier football stuff. We've got a big week ahead over here at Locked On Patriots. You may have seen the story on the Boston Globe. Noah Princikati, beat reporter for the Boston Globe,

did a story on Nate Shoulder and his family. Nate Shoulder's son battling a rare form of kidney disease. She's going to be our next guest for Wednesday's show. We're going to talk to her about the state of the New England Patriots, her story on Nate Schilder, which I implore you to check out.

It's a great piece. That was in Sunday's Boston Globe. Also, she's going to talk a little bit about that little road trip of sorts, covering the Patriots while they're out in Denver and then Colorado Springs and then down to Mexico City. So I'm looking forward to talking to her. Also, we're going to do a little crossover show with the great folks over at Locked On Bills to get you ready for Sunday's tilt between the Bills and the Patriots.

And then Friday will be your game day edition of Locked On Patriots. So a big week ahead here at Locked On Patriots. Hope you're ready for it, as I am. Thanks for tuning in to your Tape Tuesday edition of the show. I will be back tomorrow. Until then,

keep it locked right here with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots.