Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 1, 2017 - Everybody Panic

Episode Date: October 2, 2017

As the calendar flips to October, is it time to panic? The Panthers come away with a victory, the defense looks confused and the Patriots were probably just flagged for another critical penalty. Mark Schofield with some Good, Bad and Ugly from the loss. Also, check our partners over at MyBookie.AG to perhaps rebound a bit after the Pats loss: http://record.webpartners.co/_DK_3VE4-6vsWqcfzuvZcQGNd7ZgqdRLk/1/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's for my crazy day. My packed commute. All those unread emails in my inbox. But I'm getting stronger, faster, and pushing myself further every day. I don't care if I'm not like everyone else. This punching bag is the best way to end my day. Fearless is knowing yoga isn't your style. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program.

Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. Hey, everybody. Mark Schofield from Locked On Patriots. And I just wanted to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by our great friends at mybookie.ag. You're Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What we've got here is failure to communicate. Those, the words of the captain from Cool Hand Luke.

In case you'd missed it, what we've got here is failure to communicate. Mark Schofield here with you on the first Everybody Let's Panic edition of Locked on Patriots. Hopefully the only time we'll have an edition like this for the 2017 season, but storm clouds on the horizon right now. The New England Patriots lose at home to the Carolina Panthers in a close game, 33-30. A game that the Panthers had a two-score lead until the Patriots clawed back into it. But the Panthers, at the death with a field goal from Graham Gonneau, come away with the victory. We're going to do a little good, bad, and ugly on this game. And frankly, it was almost difficult to find something that was good.

We're going to go with Tom Brady in the passing game here. And look, at the outset, Brady put up, again, the kind of numbers that should usually win you games in the National Football League. Brady completes 32 of 45 passes for 307 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions. He now stands as the first player in NFL history to throw for over 1,000 yards with 10 touchdowns and no interceptions through the first four games of a season in two different seasons. Brady accomplishing that personal feat today. But this was not what I would consider a flawless game from Tom Brady.

He certainly made plays to get them back in position to win this game. He was 11 of 14 on their final two drives when they needed to get the ball in the end zone to tie this thing up, Brady was almost perfect. 11 of 14, two touchdowns, won a fourth and goal situation. Look, that throw that he drilled in to Danny Amendola in the back of the end zone on that fourth and goal from the one, that was just a great throw. He lets that rip when Amendola looks to be covered,

but he puts it in a spot where only Amendola is going to get it, a perfectly placed throw. Yeah, that's his job. Put it where only he can get it. But he does his job there. And again, 11 of 14 on those final two drives. When they needed plays, when they needed to get back in the game, he ties it up.

They've got a chance now the defense can get them off the field, and we're going to get to the defense in a second. But this wasn't, again, a flawless performance from Tom Brady. And there were yards that he left on the field, and it started on the opening drive. You look at that opening drive. They had a beautifully designed out-and-up route to Brandon

Cooks against a zone coverage look and Brady misses it. That could have been six and he missed it. They have to settle for three on the drive. They could have had six there or they could have at least been down in the red zone.

Next play, it's a second and 10 situation. They set up a running back screen to James White and it looks to be blocked up fairly well, but the throw is high. The pass falls incomplete.

Now you're facing a third and 10. You know, and they end up settling for the field goal. And those weren't the only examples. They had a play-action deep shot to Dwayne Allen along the right sideline, and Brady underthrows it. That could have been a huge gain in that point in the game.

But Brady underthrows it. Allen can't make the catch. It would have been a difficult catch for the tight end having to work back towards the football. Brady gets sacked on the next play. Patriots have to punt. You need a better throw there. That's usually the throw that Tom Brady makes, but he missed that one. A little later in the game, he has Brandon Cooks on a dig route. Throw is high. Again, Brady's pressured on this one. But still, the throw is high.

They had a chance to get a chunk play there. They don't. They miss an opportunity. They're forced to punt there. And that's when Carolina has a 23-16 lead. You need to answer on your own drive. They don't. And that was their,

they only had two possessions in the second quarter. No points. And now suddenly they're forced into a situation where they've got to make things happen in the fourth quarter. And yeah, Brady does it, but they left yards on the field. They left chunk plays on the field. And when you're going up against a defense as tough as Carolina,

you've got to take advantage in those situations, and they didn't. The other thing that I thought was interesting and somewhat concerning, Carolina played a lot of zone coverage. Brady is typically very effective in those situations. But again, he missed some opportunities. Sure, he had some great throws in this game. Touchdown to Hogan. That was a great throw.

A little levels concept he drilled in. Again, the throw to Amendola on that fourth and goal situation when you needed to have it. Tremendous throw in that situation. He had some other good throws in this game as well. I mean, he has, you know, he hits Hogan on a seam route, a nicely designed little bubble seam play. Sells the bubble, great placement on the throw to Hogan.

You know, he had another throw to Gronkowski on sort of a seam look where they caught Carolina in a robber coverage where they showed two high safeties, and they rotated the snap to one high safety, and the guy rotates down. And that's exactly the look you want when you have that sort of seam from an inside receiver. Brady drilled in that throw to Gronkowski.

So he made some great throws. He got him back in a position to win. He was, quote-unquote, the good for this game. Brady drilled in that throw to Gronkowski. So he made some great throws. He got him back in a position to win. He was, quote-unquote, the good for this game. But they still missed some opportunities. And so, you know, we're going to get to the bad and the ugly here in a second. But, you know, the good from this game would be Tom Brady. Again, good performance from him, but he did miss some throws.

So that's something to watch going forward. And again, I'm a little, I don't want to say overly concerned, but you usually see Brady play much better against zone coverage than he did against the Carolina Panthers. We're going to get to the bad and the ugly in a second. I got to take an L here. Missed on this week's picks. I thought New England would recover. They didn't.

Taking an L on that one. But as long as you're listening to my other big piece of advice and visiting our friends over at mybookie.ag, then you're going to be doing okay. And as I've said, where you're better at is usually, if not always, more important than who you're better on. And that's why I always tell people to go to mybookie.ag. Remember, use promo code LOCKEDON for up to a 100% deposit bonus. They will match it dollar for dollar up to your first $1,000. There are a lot

of Alman sports books out there. I know that. But they get my stamp of approval over at mybookie.ag. I've partnered with them on other shows, and that's because I believe in what they're doing. To get my endorsement, I've got to personally use them and that means there cannot be anybody better in the business than them. And mybookie.ag is by far the best that I've used. They've been in this business for years. Their reputation is lock solid. They do 100% cash bonuses. So off the bat, you're making money just for sitting on your couch, watching the games or listening to me. And they have the fastest payout seriously just two business days plus the interface is great i'm scrolling through the website right now you can get live in-game betting plus news and notes on every single game you might want to place a few bucks on plus the mobile sportsbook it's

fantastic if you forget to get in your bet and you're out and about just a few clicks on your phone and you're good to go. It's no different than being in a glitzy Vegas casino. And if, like me, you hate to fly, that's got to sound great to you. So go ahead. Go to mybookie.ag to place your bets and tell them I send you by using the promo code LOCKEDON. Get over there and get the best odds anywhere. mybookie.ag.

You play, you win, you get paid. Now let's talk about the bad. Penalties. Penalties were killers in this game. Carolina got penalized once. New England, seven penalties for 55 yards. Now that doesn't sound like a ton, but where they happened were critical in this game. They happened in all three phases as well. You had an offensive pass interference penalty on Danny Amendola on their first drive. Again, they only settled for three points in that first drive. They could have had more from that drive. You had the miss to Cooks and then you had the pass interference penalty on Amendola. You also have another pass interference penalty on Gronkowski that negates what would have been a big catch for Gronkowski.

You get penalties in special teams. Jonathan Jones, punt catch interference penalty, sets the Panthers up with decent field position. They go on to score a touchdown on the drive. Now, you don't know how the rest of the drive would have turned out if it were differently, but again, you're giving a team a shorter field to play with. That's never a recipe for anything good in the NFL. And of course, penalties on the defensive side of the ball those were killer and two alone on the final drive of the game from the carolina panthers the first third and seven on their own 27 line their line you get a a sack of Cam Newton for an 11-yard loss.

You're looking at Carolina punting from their own 16-yard line. The punt's going to come from near the goal line. It's going to be launched from near the goal line given that the punter's going to be standing, you know, 14, 15 yards deep. But you get an illegal use of hands on Stephon Gilmore.

Automatic first down. So instead of the Patriots having football with probably decent field position and more than enough time for Tom Brady to get downfield and get a game-winning field goal try of yourself, Carolina's offense goes back on the field. Fresh set of downs. Then later you get a defensive hold-in penalty on Patrick Chun. Carolina's offense goes back on the field fresh out of bounds

then later you get a defensive holding penalty on Patrick Chun this was on a first and 10 at the New England 41 that penalty plus the two yards that were gained on the run that the penalty occurred on that basically gets Carolina into field goal range Newton just basically keeps it in himself

the next couple of plays to set up Cano's kick two critical penalties on the final drive of the game you're just helping the Panthers out now I know Gilmore after the game look he said I'm an aggressive guy that's the way I play and I understand that you don't really want to change too much of how a guy's going to approach playing the position. But in that situation, it's just heartbreaking almost to get the sack, to get off the field on a third down, to know that, look, we're going to get Tom Brady the ball back. He's gone 11 of 14 on the last two drives. He's ripped off two touchdown drives, including a fourth and one from the one-yard line, a fourth and goal from the one-yard line.

We're going to get this guy the ball back. Look what he did last week. We're going to get this guy the ball back. Look what he's done throughout his entire career. We're going to get him the ball. Oh, wait. No, we're not. Just critical mistakes in that situation.

Now let's get to the ugly. And this has been a lot of the focus in the aftermath of this game. And this was the defensive breakdowns, particularly in the secondary. We're going to run through a couple of these plays right now. And as the quote said from Kool-Aid Luke, what we've got here is a failure to communicate. And the first comes on the screen pass to Whitaker for the touchdown. And I spent a lot of time this past week talking about Christian McCaffrey,

talking about how Carolina basically runs their offense through him. Well, Patriots coaches must have stressed something similar because we get a first intense situation on the New England 28 yard line and they come out and they split McCaffrey out wide to the left and that starts drawing everybody's attention he's initially uncovered Gilmore before the snap then rotates over to line up across from him. But then McCaffrey goes in motion from the left all the way to the other side of the formation. Gilmore initially points to him

as if he's expecting somebody else to pick him up. Devin McCourty sees that sees the motion and before the snap he starts rotating towards the middle of the field but then at the snap you have both McCourty and Gilmore racing towards Christian McCaffrey you have a linebacker

Kyle Van Nooy on the other side of the formation he at the snap rotates out to where Christian McCaffrey is running what looks to be a little bubble screen. So when the ball is snapped, you have three critical defenders. Devin McCourty, Stephon Gilmore, Kyle Van Nooy, all with their eyes locked on Christian McCaffrey, who is eight yards behind the line of scrimmage. There is nobody left on the left side of the field. Absolutely nobody. Except for, wait, I take that back.

The tight end, who's downfield blocking. The left guard, who's downfield looking for somebody to block, but he's suddenly a man without a purpose because there is nobody for him to hit because everybody has run to the other side of the field because of Christian McCaffrey. And then there's the left tackle who is engaged with somebody, but it doesn't frankly matter.

Whitaker has, he's untouched. He's untouched until he's two yards deep in the end zone when he finally gets nudged by Harmon racing over. You know, and that was an interesting quote from Harmon after the game. He gave it to Mike Giardi. He was asked, you know, if the secondary schemes right now are too complex and harman basically said we can't make it any simpler right now and if you're a patriots fan like you probably are if you're listening to the show that quote might be the scariest thing you've heard since the halloween theme which by the way that movie is coming out again and i'm already terrified but you know that piano theme right well? Well, this Harmon quote's scarier

if you're a Patriots fan right now because if it's simple and they can't figure it out, what's going to happen if they try to make it more complex? Here we get three guys focused on Christian McCaffrey. I don't know.

Maybe all three of them listened to Locked On Patriots this past week. Maybe McCaffrey. I don't know. Maybe all three of them listened to Locked On Patriots this past week. Maybe that was it. I don't know. But if you did listen to Locked On Patriots this week, you also heard our friend Ollie Conley, who came on the show and said, look, I think this defense is going to get better,

but they need to figure out the communication issues back there. So if you listened to this show last week, you were probably as ready as anybody else to see what we saw on Sunday, to see what we saw today. The communication issues in the back half, critical mistakes, and they killed the Patriots today. They killed the Patriots today. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen a screenplay work this effectively. Effectively. And again, these guys have nobody to block. They're just kind of down for a jog because there's nobody they need to hit.

It's amazing. Later, we get another big gain. Biggest gain of the day for the Panthers and it's a similar design. We get an empty full receiver bunch to the left on a 39 situation with just over a minute remaining in the first half. This is a situation, look, you get off the field, you're up by three, you're up 13-10 right now, you know, maybe you get some points before the drive, before the half. They get

four receivers, a quad look to the left. Again, McCaffrey is out wide. We get McCourty who rotates down in sort of a press look over McCaffrey. And right behind him is Gilmore. Off the line, Funchess, McCaffrey, they both run in cuts. McCourty trails inside. Gilmore trails somebody to the inside.

Calvin Benjamin is left alone. And he's wide open. It's not clear here how they should have handled this. Usually you get communication between the defenders. Who's going to take who?

I get first in cut. You get second in cut. I get first out cut. However they do it. usually it's called banjo where you switch off who comes inside who comes outside here we get everybody's running inside except for benjamin he's the only player on both sides of the ball who breaks to the outside and he's wide open for a 43-yard gain. Biggest gain of the day. Huge play in that spot.

Now you've got... So now we get a second-and-six situation. And Funches is just left all alone there's a cross and route that both McCourty that McCourty runs with Gilmour covers the tight end and nobody covers Funches he is wide open in the end zone for a touchdown a failure to communicate that's what killed the Patriots on the defensive side of the ball they've got to sort this out

they've got to sort it out quick you know why? they play Thursday night on the road and they're going up against an offense it out quick. You know why? They play Thursday night on the road. And they're going up against an offense which look, Tampa Bay has some incredible offensive weapons this season. You know, we know about Jameis Winston. You know about

Mike Evans. But they've added some talent to that football team. And O.J. Howard, who caught a touchdown today. Chris Godwin out of Penn State. Cameron Brate, you know, for all the attention that O.J. Howard is getting, Cameron Brate is still a very good tight end in this league. Caught a touchdown against the Giants. Adam Humphreys, nice little slot receiver. I mean, Deshaun Jackson, this team has weapons. They're going to be able to do a lot of things offensively that might cause some confusion again. New England needs to sort this

out and they need to sort it out fast because look, you're sitting at two and two right now. Now you've got a road game on a short week. We're looking at a potential two and three record in the face right now. And I'm not just saying that to get people riled up. I mean, this is a short week on the road, going up against a team that offensively has a ton of weapons. You know, Tampa Bay sitting at 2-1. Yeah, close victory over the Giants. But look, you know, Winston's playing well.

He had three TDs against the Giants. But look, Winston's playing well. He had three TDs against the Giants. He's completed 65% of his passes this year. He's thrown three picks. But their offense looked good against the Giants. Giants are struggling a little bit, but still, short week, anything can happen.

New England needs to sort this out in a hurry. So, that's kind of the lay of the land right now. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And there was more bad and ugly than anything else coming out of this game. Again, the Panthers taking care of business on the road, beating the New England Patriots 33-30. Again, short week, so things are going to be a little compressed for us. Tuesday's show, we're going to do some All-22 stuff,

get you ready for what we might see from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Wednesday, look for a little crossover action. We'll be talking with the people over at Locked On Buccaneers to get ready for Thursday night's game. And then Thursday, your game day edition. Short week, so we've got to get ready. We've got to get rolling. But, yep, your game day edition will be out Thursday,

and then soon after the game ends, I will hop back on the mic and have my instant analysis for you for Friday. Short week. Let's get rolling. Let's bury the game tape. This is one of those bury the game tape types of performances. I'm probably not going to do a lot more on it because, frankly, we're on to Tampa Bay.

That's how we get a look at it. Again, check out our good friends over at mybookie.ag. Let them take care of you. Also, again, Pro Football Focus, their Edge subscription, $39.99 value. You're going to want it. It's a tremendous resource. I use it all the time. Get your hands on one of those. Go to the Locked On Patriots page on iTunes. Leave a review. It doesn't even have to be a good one. Literally, you can leave a one-star review and make fun of my accent for all I care. It doesn't matter. What I'm trying to do is get you taken care of. So go leave that review. Make sure your Twitter handle is in there. Get yourself entered for a chance to win. Also, shout out to all the Baltimore,

New England Patriots fans that went on to Dog Watch Tavern. I know it was a loss, but great atmosphere down there. I saw some photos. I know you guys had a good time again. My parents were down there. Thanks again for taking care of them. Hopefully we get a win next time out. But until then, I'll be back soon. But until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. What you doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting some stuff.

Bye singing dog. Bye goal. Bye wedding ceremony. Stop. At MetroPCS you get two free phones with twice as much memory. Really? Don't say bye to your memories. Switch to MetroPCS and get two free LG K20 Plus phones with 32 gigs when you switch two lines. MetroPCS.

Wireless. Figured out. Coverage not available in some areas. Sales tax not included in phone price. Excludes numbers on the T-Mobile network. See store for details and terms and conditions.