Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 7, 2017 - Week 9 Recap and the State of the Patriots Address

Episode Date: November 7, 2017

Mark Schofield is "back in the saddle" for an Election Day Edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark recaps some of the Week 9 action including a look at some games that helped the Patriots in the standings. Also, keeping with the Election Day theme Mark has his quick State of the Patriots address near the end of the show.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Whoop-dee-tie-aye, I go my way, back in the saddle again. That is right, everybody. We are back in the saddle again. That is right, everybody. We are back in the saddle again. Mark Schofield here with you on a Tuesday Election Day edition of Locked on Patriots. It is Tuesday, November 7th. We are back in the saddle. That was Gene Autry, a classic.

Back in the saddle again from 1941. A movie from a similar title, Back in the Saddle again from 1941. A movie from a similar title, Back in the Saddle. I was going to go with the Aerosmith edition, but I don't know. I was feeling a little country today, so we went with a little Gene Autry again. A classic from the Sinning Cowboy. And as I said, look, this is an election day edition of Locked on Patriots. We're going to have a little political theme to it at the end. I'm going to give you my state of the Patriots later in the show.

But look, this is an Election Day edition. It's Tuesday, November 7th. If you're listening to me from the Boston area, the mayor is on the ballot. There are some races nationwide, governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. So if you're living somewhere where there is an election, get out there and vote. Make sure your voice is heard. America is advanced citizenship. You've got to want it bad. You've got to be involved. You've got to make your voice heard. Make sure your vote is counted. I don't care who you vote for. I just want you to go out there and vote. So again, it's election day out there. So if there are races where you live,

if perhaps you're even on a ballot, I wish you the best of luck. So get out there and make sure you're counted today. As I said, we are back from the bi-week project. I hope you enjoyed that. A lot of work went into those interviews with numbers of guests talking about the Patriots' five Super Bowl victories.

If you haven't got a chance to listen through those, again, I'd love for you to do that and send me your feedback on it. Got some great feedback from some listeners, how much they enjoyed the look back, the look down memory lane from some of those Patriots' victories. It was a lot of fun to put those together. Again, I hope you enjoyed it. Check those out as well. Also a reminder to check out LockedOnPatriots.com Putting up articles up there

all the time. Even tried out a little something. Did a little DFS recommendation for you Sunday morning. And of course, turns out one of the players I recommended, Zach Ertz, goes down with an injury. So that was a bit tough. But you can't be 100.

Can't bat 1,000. Try to keep it real as much as I can here. But again, check out LockedOnPatriots.com as well. We're going to start with some whip around coverage from the Week 9 action. Some games of note, both in the NFC and in the AFC. We're going to start on the NFC in the NFC and in the AFC we're going to start on the NFC side before we work over to the AFC because while the Patriots were on a buy it was a very good week for them they got some games that sort of broke their way we'll get into

that in a second but we'll start on the NFC side some interesting games some interesting results we can start with the Rams. That team looks for real right now. Granted, look, it was on the road against a New York Giants team that seems to be lingering or limping to an early end to a lost season. The Giants now 1-7. Talking about shutting Eli Manning down, maybe seeing what they have in Davis Webb. And look, I would agree with that at this point.

This season, it's a hopeless one. And Eli Manning, say whatever you want about him, Patriots fans obviously have their Eli Manning takes. But he can win a Super Bowl. And if the Giants are to perhaps get to at least another Super Bowl in the Manning era before that window closes. They need to make sure he's healthy. And to me, it doesn't seem to make sense to me

to run Manning out there again. This team's going nowhere fast. It's a lost season. Save some reps with him. Save him from any further exposure to potential injuries. Sit him down. See what you have in Davis Webb. That way, look, if you come away satisfied with what you have in Davis Webb

as at least your backup head of the next year, you can move on from Geno Smith. You limit any exposure to Eli Manning and maybe you salvage some knowledge at least from this lost season. Also, Evan Ingram had a touchdown catch in that game. He's turned out to be a beast. And I loved him coming out of Mississippi.

Loved getting to see him down at the Senior Bowl. Tremendous offensive weapon. So they got Ingram as well. So they've learned that at least about their offense. Now they can maybe see what they have in Davis Webb. But let's flip the sideline here and say what you want about Jared Goff. Say what you want about how his rookie season started. How his rookie year ended.

Looked like a disaster. Looked like a bust last year. But under Sean McVay, he's now a confident quarterback. Moving around extremely well in the pocket. His first touchdown pass yesterday came when he slid around in the pocket his first touchdown pass yesterday came when he slid around in the pocket climbed the pocket in a red zone situation found Tyler Higby for a short touchdown pass you know he threw four touchdowns you know one of those was on a smokescreen on the third and 33 to Robert Woods but he took it the distance found Sammy Watkins

on a deep ball you know Goff is playing well. Sean McVay has done a tremendous job getting that team ready to play, getting Goff to where he is right now. Their defense led by Aaron Donald looks great. Don't look now, but look. Los Angeles Rams are in first place in the NFC West, and who thought we'd be saying that right now? Tremendous work from

them today. Other games of note, another lost season type situation, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You know, that game began with Jameis Winston, their quarterback, giving a somewhat strange pregame speech. I'd invite you to find this on YouTube where he talks about eating a W. It was just awkward. There's a great still image of Deshaun Jackson looking somewhat befuddled, shall we say, as that speech sort of went on. But then Tampa Bay came out. They fell down early,

get a blocked punt return for a touchdown by New Orleans. Winston struggled, got pulled at halftime, lingering shoulder injury. There was that little melee along the sideline when Winston seemed to instigate something with Marshawn Lattimore, and receiver Mike Emmons comes over and blindsides Lattimore. But in between all that, speaking of resurgent teams, these are not your father's New Orleans Saints.

These are not your mother's New Orleans Saints. This team is good. Yeah, they lost their first two games to Minnesota and the New England Patriots, but those are two teams that are leading their divisions right now. Since then, they've won six straight. Breeze is playing well. They're getting a great amount of contribution right now for rookie running back Alvin Kamara.

And their defense is playing well too. And for the longest time, as long as I can remember, and their defense is playing well too. And for the longest time, as long as I can remember, the calling card for the Saints has been high-flying offense. Drew Brees puts up points, but they can't stop anybody. Now it looks like they can start stopping people. It's like when Happy Gilmore learned how to putt. So the Saints definitely a team to watch.

They get themselves to 6-2, just a little bit ahead of the Carolina Panthers, who are 6-3 right now. Panthers, they get a victory at home over the Atlanta Falcons, and we're starting to see Cam Newton do Cam Newton things again. The word out of Carolina this offseason was they were going to limit him more in terms of the running game. They weren't going to expose him to so many hits, but he was the leading rusher again this past weekend

against the Atlanta Falcons. He had nine carries for 86 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown came on a scramble situation. Tremendous individual effort from him leaping into the end zone. Almost looked like he dunked the football over a defender. Just a tremendously athletic play. But they were working in some designed runs too. Some quarterback draws.

Some RPO keeps where he kept the ball rather than handing it off. And say what you want about Cam Newton. On the field, off the field, whatever. But he's at his best when he's used as an offensive weapon. He's a big, talented guy. Let him run the ball from time to time. It helps that offense because it allows them to create spacing. Gets guys open downfield as well.

Then they can build the passing game off stuff like that. They traded Kelvin Benjamin. The idea was they wanted to get more speed on the field at the receiver position, work in Curtis Samuel, Devin Funchess, get Christian McCaffrey involved in the passing game. Early returns look pretty good on that move. Again, it's just one week Benjamin hasn't seen the field for the Buffalo Bills, but if this is what we're going to start seeing from the Panthers going forward, getting Newton involved in the run game, letting him create more,

that bodes well for the Carolina Panthers. Washington, big win on the road against the Seattle Seahawks. Another late, tremendous finish out in Seattle. Seahawks take the lead late. Looks like they're going to pull this one out. Kirk Cousins steps up, had a big throw to Brian Quick, then another big throw to Josh Doxson. They get a touchdown run from Kelly, a short one-yard touchdown run,

and they hold on. A tremendous win on the road from Washington. That's the kind of win that can sometimes spark a season, can sometimes spark a turnaround. And, look, they're looking up at two teams, the Eagles and the Cowboys, but that's the type of win that sometimes turns seasons around. So we'll see if it does that for Washington. Coming up, we're going to take a look at some of the AFC action from Week 9.

Some games that really sort of help the Patriots in the stand-in. So we'll look at that up next. Okay, so let's take a look now, starting back on Thursday night. If you can remember back that far, sometimes I struggle to do that. Jets with a 34-21 victory at home over the Buffalo Bills. And, you know, this sort of set the tone for how this weekend unfolded when you're viewing it through Patriots-colored lenses

because you get a win for the New York Jets. You know, obviously, you know, it drops the Buffalo Bills an extra little bit behind the Patriots in terms of the AFC East standings. Big game for Matt Forte. 14 carries, 77 yards, and two touchdowns. So that certainly helped the Patriots in the stand-ins. And more than anything,

it gave us perhaps the greatest hashtag in the history of Twitter, and I kid you not, hashtag JetsDanceToEverything. Because there was that time out in the game when the entire Jets defense just started dancing to a little Uzi and people have taken that clip and just run with it my personal favorite when they mashed it up with one of the songs from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. You know, the one where they're putting together the play

and all the kids are just dancing when Charlie Brown is trying to be the director. But there are some other great ones as well. Somebody said it's a Full House theme. Check that out. It's hashtag Jets dance to everything. It's amazing. But for our purposes here,

a big victory for the Jets helps the Patriots because it gives them a little breathing room in that AFC East. It drops the Bills to 5-3, and that's a team that the Patriots have to face twice now coming up. But it gives them a little bit of breathing room, so that was a good result for New England. Another good result from New England in terms of number one overall seeding. It was late Sunday afternoon.

The Cowboys pull out the win over the Kansas City Chiefs. Cowboys on top 28-17. You know, another impressive game from Dak Prescott. You know, and I think as somebody that loves quarterbacks studies quarterbacks people are going to start looking at this 2016 class Jared Goff Carson Wentz Dak Prescott those guys are playing at a high level right now all three of them Prescott with another impressive game and just has a tremendous array of traits and talents that he brings to the quarterback position whether there's velocity.

He had a couple of dig routes to Dez Bryant that were thrown in there, just drilled in there. Whether it's moving defenders with his eyes and touch and feel. That first touchdown to Cole Beasley was a prime example of that. It was a run-pass option look. Kind of moves one of the safeties with his eyes. Drops in a touch pass on a short slant route for a touchdown. Dak Prescott playing the game on a high level. But again, with the Cowboys beating the Chiefs,

that helps New England. Because now the Chiefs, they dropped to 6-3. The Chiefs right now were holding that tiebreaker over New England courtesy of their open-to-night win. But now New England still controls their own destiny, so to speak, in terms of that number one seed in the AFC. You know, that upcoming matchup in December between New England and Pittsburgh, that's in Pittsburgh, you know, that was looking like a huge game anyway.

But now, those two teams, both sort of in the driver's seat now to that inside track, to that number one overall seat. So it really looks like that game in December, provided these teams win out, keep winning. But it really looks like that game in December at Hydes Field is going to go a long way towards determining the top seed in the AFC.

One AFC game of note that I just want to touch on briefly, and that was Indianapolis against Houston. If for no other reason than to just spend a moment and just share my own sort of sadness at the news last week that Deshaun Watson's season came to an early end with a torn ACL in practice on a non-contact play. And as somebody who loved Watson coming out, as somebody that told strangers on the street,

for goodness sakes, that he was the top quarterback in last year's draft, as somebody that two years ago on Halloween night, October 31st, 2015, you can look it up. I was watching him play. I sent out the tweet to Sean Watson no matter what. Look, I threw myself on Watson Hill early. And he was living up to every little bit of it.

And then to see him sort of suffer that injury, just a tremendous loss for the Houston Texans. But more than anything else, more than his on-the-field stuff, it was everything Watson was starting to do off the field that seemed, and frankly is, more important and more special. Watson was somebody that his family struggled a bit when he was growing up. His mother was sick. Warwick Dunn, who, when he was playing the game,

had a charity that would build houses for needy families. Warwick Dunn built a house for Watson and his family. So when Watson comes into the league, you see him start paying it forward as well. Obviously, the hurricane hits Houston. What does he do? Starts buying furniture for needy families. There's that great video you can find of Watson donating his first game check to three women, three cafeteria workers at the stadium

who had lost pretty much everything in the hurricane. So it's just seemingly that Watson was living up to everything off the field as well as on it. And so to see his season cut short is just a tremendous loss. And he was frankly one of the most exciting players to watch this season. And so it's a loss from that perspective as well. Final game to touch on on the AFC side. Start looking ahead now to next week. And that's, man, the Philadelphia Eagles

and what they did to the Denver Broncos. The Broncos, after a fairly impressive start, they look lost right now. Eagles come away with a 51-23 victory. They're on 51 on the Broncos in that defense. Trevor Simeon had been struggling for weeks. I had been making the argument over at Bleacher Report as part of the NFL 1000 Project for weeks now

that look, Simeon was, he's an okay quarterback, but there's a ceiling there with him there's a ceiling when they don't have the run game working when they don't have that play action stuff working when they put more and more on his shoulders you know bad turnovers can happen and we saw it at the end of their game you know last week against the Kansas City Chiefs. So the Broncos head coach, Vance Joseph, they make the move. They go to Brock Osweiler because last year's first round pick,

Paxton Lynch isn't quite healthy yet. Osweiler comes out 19 of 38, one touchdown, two picks. Their run game stifled. 19 rushing attempts For only 35 yards You know And then when you flip it Look

People Speak highly of Von Miller They speak highly of that secondary But Carson Wentz comes out 15 of 27 For 199 And 4 touchdowns You know

The number of completions The yardage It seems low But they were Given two short field situations thanks to turnovers where they struck quickly. Didn't have to have a lot of long extended drives, so that's why the numbers seem a little bit off.

And for one of the league's top run defenses, Philadelphia comes out. They gain 37 carries for 197 yards. JGI, the recently acquired JGI, 8 carries for 77. Corey Clement, 12 carries for 51. LeGarrette Blount, 9 carries for 37. Eagles look great. Broncos look lost right now. And that's who New England faces this coming weekend.

And that's a game that's out in Denver. Sunday night game. Games in Denver haven't been kind to the Patriots. They haven't been kind to Tom Brady. Now you're talking about a team that looks lost. Unclear who they're going to run out there at the quarterback spot. But going up against a team that is fighting for its life, those are sometimes dangerous moments.

Thankfully, the Patriots have a bye. We've heard it out of Bill Belichick's mouth already. More on Belichick in one quick second. But Belichick talking about how that's an explosive offense trying to set the stage. Don't look past these guys. Broncos look lost, but like that expression, when you get an animal backed into a corner, sometimes that's when they come out swinging,

and that's what I expect to see from Denver on Sunday night. Belichick, by the way, hat tip to the head coach, made a trip down to Middletown, Connecticut over the bye week, spoke to my alma mater, the Wesleyan Cardinals, before their big little three matchup against our rivals, Williams. There's a great picture of Belichick in a suit and tie with a nice red tie. It's not often you see the big man in a tie. Gave a speech to my boys down in Middletown,

and then they go out and they take care of Williams. 35-0. Big, big win. Go West. Huge win for the Wesleyan Cardinals. But this is locked on Patriots. It's now, look, we've covered the AFC. We've covered the NFC. Even talked a little bit about the little three.

Coming up now, my quick State of the Patriots address to Patriots Nation. Coming up right here in a second. Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you just one man, just one voice, one voice in a field of many, but one voice rising to address the team we love football is a game of adversity it is a game of overcoming that adversity and in this

2017 season the New England Patriots have certainly faced their share of adversity they have lost Julian Edelman, a critical component of their passing game. They have lost Dante Hightower, the heart and soul of their defense. They came out on open at night, raised a banner, but lost a game. But adversity, ladies and gentlemen,

is what you must overcome to win championships. Whether it's an injury to a starting quarterback early in the season, whether it's losing your free safety near the end of the Super Bowl, whether it's facing a resilient Philadelphia Eagles team and a player like Terrell Owens playing on a broken leg but leaving his heart and soul on the field.

Whether it's your quarterback throwing interceptions in the Super Bowl, trailing 24-14 late in that Super Bowl, but still coming back. But yet seeing your defense now backed up on its own goal line as a Super Bowl takes down. But a young man like Malcolm Butler rises to the occasion. Whether it's going down 28-3 in another Super Bowl, but then reeling off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. Over the last week, we took a look back at five Super Bowl winning Patriots teams.

All of those teams overcame adversity. And as we look ahead to Act 2 of the New England Patriots 2017 season, we can say again that once more, a Patriots team has, we can say again that once more, a Patriots team has risen up to try and overcome adversity. Whether it's losing to Julian Edelman, whether it's losing to Dante Hightower, whether it's losing their opening night game, whether it's being embarrassed

on the defensive side of the ball at the hands of the Carolina Panthers, whether it's facing the lingering question marks over what they're doing on defense, what they're doing on offense, is Tom Brady done? Overcoming adversity has been a staple of Super Bowl winning teams in the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady era. We are seeing it again. And so listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast,

I stand before you to tell you yet that once again, the state of the New England Patriots is strong. We are now into Act 2 of the 2017 Patriots NFL season. Huge stretch for them coming up.

Trip to Denver. Raiders in Mexico City. Miami Dolphins at home. At Buffalo. Miami Dolphins on the road. Then that trip to Pittsburgh that may very well determine that number one seed in the AFC. This is the kind of stretch that determines the course of an entire season.

I'm fired up for it because I think that we are seeing the New England Patriots round into form. We are seeing them become that complete team on both sides of the football. I think we saw a little glimpse of what this team could be all about that Sunday night game against Atlanta when they looked great, I think, on both sides of the ball. Wasn't the prettiest win against the Chargers the last time they were out on the field. They had a chance to sort of put that game away.

They didn't do it offensively. But still, survive in advance. We've talked about that. But now, look, they've had the bye week, chance to really sort of make their mark on the 2017 season. And I'm excited to see it unfold. I hope you are too. I hope as it all unfolds,

you stay here with me over at Locked On Patriots as we get into this stretch drive. I think it's going to be incredible to watch it play out. I'm excited to break it all down for you. I'm excited to sort of be back in the saddle again after the bye week, recharge the batteries, ready to break it all down

for you every single day, five days a week here at Locked On Patriots. And if I can close on just one quick little personal note, I don't do this often, but if you pray, if you reflect, if you meditate, if you contemplate, whatever the case may be, you know, this is for Tuesday, November 7th. And if you could throw in just a quick prayer or word or something for my family, for somebody very close to me who is facing a major surgical procedure on Tuesday. It would mean the world to me.

I will be back Wednesday getting you ready for the Denver Broncos game. Until then, everybody, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.