Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 29, 2018 - Thursday Takes

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

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Hello everybody, welcome on into a Take Thursday installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield sliding into the big chair on this Thursday morning, November 29th, 2018. We're just a couple of days away now from December and it certainly feels like December out there, at least here in the D.C. area. Been in the 30s, lower 40s the past couple of days. Certainly feels like that holiday season weather is upon us. Feels like football weather out there. It's exciting to see the calendar turn.

And as we talked about in the start of yesterday's show, Patriots fans should be excited seeing that calendar flip the page over to December because the Patriots have been pretty good in December over the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick era today though our take Thursday show questioners from you the listener got some questions we're going to talk about some stuff on the matchup Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings some stuff on some offseason moves things like that that the Patriots could have done should have done would have done had I been in charge also we get a question about the Browns which is fascinating to think about.

I had a lot of fun thinking about this one, pondering this question from another listener to the show. But before we dive into all of that, your usual and standard reminder. Please follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at 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. Friends, you've heard the refrain before. If they're covering football, chances are they've got me doing some work about this game we love for them. Let's start it off with the first question I want to get into.

Again, focusing more on Sunday's matchup against the visiting New York, Minnesota Vikings. As a question from a faithful listener to the show, member of the Locked on Patriots Slack channel as well, John Limarakis, he's at J-O-H-N-L-I-M-B-R-K-S on Twitter, and he asks, Mark, what are your thoughts on if we can slash should be able to get a pass rush against this Vikings offensive line? Do you like our chances? And that's sort of the standard area of concern, I think, for many Patriots fans.

Going back years now, I remember my times on the Sons of Sam Horn message board, looking around other places, other outlets on the web, calling into WEI, other callers into EEI, callers into Sports Hub 98.5. Why can't this team get a pass rush? You know, since the days of Willie McGinnis, for example. You can't get a consistent pass rush on opposing quarterbacks. And, you know, it's an easy go-to, and it's one that continues this year. Last week, the take of the game from the Locked On Patriots Slack channel

was death taxes and the Patriots' inability to get a consistent pass rush on the road. They finally got to Josh McCallum late in the game, and it felt like a revelation. And this is with Trey Flowers, who has blossomed into a pretty good edge outside linebacker defensive player. If you heard the sort of crossover show we did with Andy Carlson, he talked about one matchup in particular.

You know, Trey Flowers, for example, against Brian O'Neal. And I think that is an area where the Patriots might have sort of a one-on-one matchup type situation

where they can count on Trey Flowers to perhaps win on some one-on-one moments. But before, like, getting too far into the weeds on this matchup, there is something that we do have to remember. It's not like Kirk Cousins is a statue in the pocket. He's not the most mobile quarterback the Patriots will have faced this season.

But he does have some mobility to him. He does have the ability to sort of escape and create. Mechanically, Cousins is a very crisp passer when flushed to his left or to his right, to the point that they will use him on designed rollouts. They will get him on the move a bit. And so while, again, he does not have the athleticism of a Mahomes or a Watson or even to a lesser extent than Andrew Luck or Mitchell Trubisky even there are still some things that Kirk Cousins can do outside of the pocket whether by design or not that should have the Patriots you know a little bit not concerned but at least keep that in mind now more the point, I went back and re-watched

all of Cousins' offensive snaps against the Chicago Bears because, again, that's a defense with Khalil Mack. That's a defense that has a guy that you would trust to consistently win some one-on-one matchups. And Mack got home against Kirk Cousins.

He did. He got a sack, and you look at that. It's a play from late in the third quarter. It's a first and 10 situation. Vikings have the football at the Bears' 17-yard line, and Khalil Mack indeed gets home, but it's not winning a one-on-one matchup at all.

Bears implement that double tackle end exchange, a double text stunt. And they execute it perfectly. Defensive tackle stays upfield, splits that B gap between the left guard and the left tackle, occupies them both. They have Dalvin Cook in the backfield next

to Cousins who is in the shotgun. Dalvin Cook is shaded to Khalil Mack's side of the formation. He starts to the outside. Intending fully to help against Khalil Mack. But Mack does such a great job getting upfield. Selling the outside rush. Dalvin Cook jumps to the outside. Then Mack cuts behind the defensive tackle on his loop.

And that A-gap is just wide open. And now Dalvin Cook can't help because Mack has settled him so well on the outside pass rush. That the running back jumps to the outside. And now when Mack loops around behind his defensive tackle and into that A-gap, Cook can't get over there. He's stuck in a bind. Either he follows him, which is going to lead to a block in the back, or he does what he does, which is to get out on a pass route now

because you're not going to be able to help. And not being able to do something is what Kirk Cousins was left with because he can't get the ball out of his hands. Mack does a great job. Again, looping behind him, finishes the sack for an 8 yard loss and so there you have their best pass rusher Khalil Mack not really winning a 1 on 1 situation

but instead relying on a stunt another sack in this game comes in the 4th quarter the 12-33 mark this is again a red zone sack so the Bears stepping up in the red zone defensively. And this is one from Akeem Hicks.

And this is just a pure, I don't know if it's confusion or what up front. But when the offensive line fans, the center, the left guard, and the left tackle, they fan to the left. The right guard and the left tackle they fan to the left the right guard and the right tackle they fan right and the right guard sort of just passes off Akeem Hicks on the inside and slides out to the Leonard Floyd and he's got help there with Brian O'Neal. The right guard does. And so Akeem Hicks has basically a free shot at Cousins. And the running back is not involved in this protection at all. He has a free release. So it's a four-man rush against your five offensive linemen.

And I think what happens here is they slide the protection at least on one side to the left because you've got Cleo Mack to that side the guard thinks that the center is going to handle Akeem Hicks he doesn't Akeem Hicks with a quick swim move and a sack and so there you have basically a twist slash stun and perhaps a miscommunication or at least somebody not doing their job up front leading to the two sacks can the Patriots get something like that I think so

but it shows you that you know this offensive line while it was much maligned at the start of the season you know Chicago needed some breaks to get their two sacks and that's the Chicago Bears defensive front that is looking like one of the best in football. One of the best edge defenders in football. And so this is kind of a long-winded way of saying that those of us waiting for this to perhaps be a breakout game for the defensive line.

And I'm not saying, John, that you were saying that. But we might have to wait a little bit longer. At least looking from this Chicago-Minnesota team. Maybe not. Maybe we'll be surprised. You never know. Up next, we're going to talk some off-season stuff, some personnel moves, and a little bit later, we're going to talk a little bit about the Cleveland Browns.

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We thank them so much for sponsoring the Locked on Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Take Thursday installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast and got two more questions here we're going to get to in this part sort of dealing with, you know, personnel moves and things like that.

First is from Ian McDonald, another fantastic listener to the show, longtime listener, huge, huge fan of Ian's. At Ian, I-A-N-C-M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D on Twitter. Based on performances to date this year, what do you think have been the best and the worst personnel moves for the Pats

since the Super Bowl? And this is a fascinating question and i actually read a piece over a police report that tried to address this at least from the worst sort of free agency personnel type moves for every single nfl team for all 32 teams and what was interesting about about that one was they picked basically new england's failure to address the cornerback position specifically not added another veteran you know by the trade in den not and i thought that was a an interesting selection because you know for me i think it sort of overlooks yes the added jason mccordy but you also draft Duke Dawson. Yeah, injuries kind of didn't really pan out, but you're still hoping to get him back into the mix.

J.C. Jackson, Keon Cross, and you've added them as well, so you've got younger guys that you're going to get the talent infusion of. I think it sort of overlooks how the Patriots sort of felt about Jonathan Jones. Maybe he hasn't played as well as we would have liked to have seen, at least to this point, but he's had his moments and I think they were hopefully counting on more from him. And so I think they did a fairly decent job addressing the cornerback position and setting themselves up for some success at that position down the road. Now, I could stay completely on brand here and I'll get to the best move in a minute, but we'll start

with the negative stuff. I could stay completely on brand here and say I was disappointed that they did not truly address the quarterback position for the future you know as somebody that spent so much time clamoring about the 2018 quarterback class you know you didn't have to go get uh Baker Mayfield or Josh Rosen at the top of the draft. But there were some guys sort of later that you could have gone out and gotten. You could have gotten yourself a

Luke Falk or Mike White or a Kyle Lauletta or even later in the draft, a Logan Woodside. I mean, you name it. There were other names out there that they could have gone after. You know, Chase Litton. Blanking on some other names in this group.

But there were some other guys. Alex Magoo, for example. The kid from Florida International who's starting to get some buzz. Kirk Bankert. These were guys that I would have much preferred to Danny Etlin when they got him. And so, you know, I could stay, you know, these were guys that I would have much preferred to Danny Etlin when they got him. And so, you know, I could stay completely on Brandon and say that, but at the same time, the fact that they did it gives me a whole bunch of stuff to talk about, hopefully after the Patriots redeem themselves with a victory at Super Bowl 53. So I'll come

down here and tie this answer into what we were just talking about. The Adrian Claiborne move, I don't think, has panned out as well as we would have liked, at least to this point. Now, preparing for this show, getting ready for this show, I got to thinking about the Claiborne move, and I'm starting to wonder if Belichick's doing a traditional Belichick thing, which is this, which is keeping a veteran-type player on somewhat of a pitch count.

You remember Belichick did this last year with Danny Amendola, sort of keeping him on a pitch count, keeping him relatively fresh for the playoffs. And then Amendola has two fantastic games in the playoffs, in the divisional game against Tennessee, and then the AFC Championship game. And so part of me wonders that, you know, are they sort of keeping Claiborne on somewhat of a pitch count? You know, keeping him rested, keeping Claiborne on somewhat of a pitch count? You know, keeping him rested, keeping him fresh, keeping him ready to go for sort of a playoff stretch run.

I wouldn't put that past Belichick. I mean, looking at Claiborne from a snap-based perspective, you know, he saw a season-high 44 snaps against the Colts back in Week 5. Buffalo, 20. Green Bay week five. Buffalo, 20. Green Bay, 17. Tennessee, 8. They had 29 against the Jets coming out of the bye. I mean, so I'm wondering if, you know, that little downward trend we saw in weeks eight, nine, and 10

was a little look towards maybe getting them a little rested up, get them into the bye. Now you've got, look, 29 snaps in that game against the Jets. Didn't notch any tackles or anything. But you do wonder if they're gearing him up now for sort of a playoff drive. You know, he's, in terms of the snap distribution

amongst the Patriots at the defensive end spot, Trey Flowers has 498, Dietrich Weiss 325, and then Claiborne with 262 overall. That's ahead of Keonta Davis, who's there at 184, Derek Rivers at 62, Geneo Grissom at 23. Now, the other thing to remember is the Patriots have been doing a lot of sort of that bare front look. Maybe they don't feel as comfortable with Claiborne

sort of sliding down inside a bit, a lot more as a de-tackle than a defensive end, because they're using that 3-3-5 bear look, where you're bringing guys like John Simon and Kyle Van Noy down on the edge, as two-point stands outside linebackers. So the Claiborne thing is where I'd sort of go with this. Again, if I don't stay completely on brand and say, didn't get the quarterback I would have liked. Now switching gears, though, be a little bit more positive the best personnel move to date for the pats i think

to date and i think for beyond at least the next two or three years it's going to be sony michelle i think we got a good look at him over the past couple of weeks particularly last week against the jets seeing what he can do seeing the complete tool belt he has at the running back position. Power, strength, balance, vision, change of direction abilities. If they got to go into the playoffs, they got to make this stretch run in the playoffs, relying on the ground game. Sonny Michel is a nice little piece to have. So we'll say Sonny Michel there.

The other question we're going to talk about again from a personnel roster construction standpoint from our good buddy john lamaracus at j-o-h-n-l-a-m-b-r-k-s if mark if you could add one piece to this defense what would it be and why it doesn't have to be a player it could be a pass rusher or swiss army knife type safety who can cover the slot etc and let's stay with the theme of the show. Give me a consistent pass rusher who can win one-on-one matchups. That's it. That's the list. Now, that's what I'd want right now.

We talked at the beginning of the season how important the number four was. And what I meant by that was, could the Patriots get consistent pressure rushing four? That is the be-all, cure-all, end-all of defensive woes, at least when you're talking about going up against the pass game. If you can get pressure with four, you can drop seven into coverage.

You're really taking away some throwing lanes. You're making life really difficult for the opposing quarterback. But if you can't get pressure with four, you've got to blitz. If you're going to blitz, chances are you're bringing an extra guy, you're playing man coverage behind you, unless you're doing some fire zone type stuff. Either way, you're exposing yourself to some potential plays in the secondary if the blitz doesn't get home. Remember that phrase.

If you blitz and it doesn't get home, the band is going to play. And that's been sort of a thorn in the Patriots' defensive side. So that would be it, John. A pass rusher that can win in those one-on-one situations. That's what I want. That's it. That's the list. I gotta think that they look pass rusher

in this next draft. We've already started talking about it on the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. And it doesn't seem like that's a position where they're really excited about using draft capital. I mean, over in the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, Dave Archibald, at Dave Archie on Twitter, pointed out this morning, or yesterday morning, Wednesday, no team has used less draft capital on edge rushers

than New England. Chandler Jones is their only top 50 pick at the edge rusher position. Now, Dave and others brought up an interesting point. The edge rush might look better if they got more middle pressure. Quarterbacks could just step up and avoid the edge. They've looked the best in games where Flowers has kicked inside, but they could use a true defensive tackle who can push the edge. They've looked the best in games where Flowers has kicked inside, but they could use a true defensive tackle who can push the pocket. And so that

raises the question whether that player that can win one matchups has to be an edge rusher. Could it be somebody on the interior? And maybe that's the way to go. But I want somebody that can fill that pass rushing role, whether it's off the edge

or, as Dave and others point out in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel, which if you'd like an invite to, add Mark Schofield on Twitter, is somebody that can push the pocket on the inside. But somebody that can help them win with four. That's what I want. That would do it for this portion of the show.

Up next, got one more question. It's a Browns slash Patriots question, which I we can actually talk about it. It's a fascinating question that we get to talk about here in a second. That's ahead on this Take Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots.

Mark Schofield back with you now to quickly close out this Take Thursday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And listeners to this show know full well that while this the Locked On Patriots podcast. And listeners to this show know full well that while this is Locked On Patriots, it's probably 70%, maybe 65%

Patriots, maybe 25% Locked On Quarterbacks. And if my math is right, maybe I don't know, 10% everything else. College football, other leagues,

other teams. So we get listeners to this show that are fans of other teams, including Jared Muller. At Jared, J-R-E-D-K-M-U-E-L-L-E-R. Who is a Browns fan. Does Browns contact over at at the OBR on Twitter, which is the Orange and Brown Report.

You can follow him on Twitter, like I said, at Jared K. Muller. And what he asks, and it's an absolutely, absolutely fascinating question, is when will the Browns, what year will I have the, this is how he phrased it, the Browns will what year will have the, this is how we phrase it, the Browns will have a better record than the Patriots in what season? And what's fascinating, fascinating about this question is this.

As we've talked about, the calendar is about to turn to December, which, again, Patriots fans are probably pretty excited which means you know Patriots getting into the time of the year when they do the best get into the time of year when they're usually pretty unstoppable what's amazing about this question is this as we sit here today on the cusp of december it is still mathematically possible for the cleveland browns to finish the season with a better record than the new england patriots and the last time i think that was mathematically possible, if my math is right here, was 2014.

I believe that was the last time that that was still mathematically possible at this point late in the season. Back that 2014 season. Actually, no, no, I don't even think it was possible that year. 2014, the Patriots stood at, on the cusp of, they were at 9-3 around week 13 of the season. 7-5. No, that was the last time it was possible.

On week 13, November 30th of the 2014 season, the Browns, after a loss to the Bills, they were 7-5. But they still could have finished the table, finished at 11-5. Meanwhile, the Pats, at that same time, they were 9-3.

They could have lost the rest of their games and finished at 9-7. So it was still theoretically possible. Of course, the Browns being the Browns, they lost the rest of their games and finished 7-7. So it was still theoretically possible. Of course, the Browns being the Browns, they lost the rest of their games and finished 7-9. But the point is, it's been a while since we could sit here at the end of November and say the Browns could finish with a better record than the Patriots. It is mathematically possible. This year it is. The Patriots, they lose their last five games, they go 8-8. The Browns, they win their last five games. They finished 9-6-1. So it's mathematically possible this year that it could happen. Now, I don't think it's going to happen this year.

And frankly, I'm not quite so sure it happens next year either. Obviously, a lot of it depends on when Tom Brady decides to stop being TB12 and start being Tom Brady, just a guy again. But say that happens two years from now. So not the 2018 season, not the 2019 season, but the 2020 season. And that's year three of the Baker Mayfield era. Year two of Cliff Kingsbury, your full-time offensive coordinator. I'm just speculating there. And that might be year one AT after Tom. I think that is the year you could see it happen. So 2020 could be a tumultuous year all around

for everybody. I'm just saying. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow. Your game day edition talking a little bit more about the Minnesota Vikings, what to expect, what I'm watching for on Sunday. Then we'll also preview some of the college football championship games that we're going to see this weekend.

Then Sunday morning tailgate, get your DFS slates ready, get your college football recap stuff, some final news and notes, and then hopefully the glorious victory installment of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.