Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 11, 2018 - Listener Thursday

Episode Date: October 11, 2018

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Hello there everybody, welcome on in to a Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield sliding into the big chair for this Thursday, October 11th, 2018. Going to do some listener questions today. Got a wide array of topics we're going to dive into. I put out the Clarion call for some questions from people. I got stuff from quarterbacks to the Chiefs-Pats game to getting back into football and even, yes, Toto. Before we dive into all of that, though, remind you to 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. As I've said, if there's an outlet cover in football, chances are I've done something for them about the game. Let's dive into some non-football stuff, though, at the outset. Again, I've got a ton of questions to get to. Thank you so much for all those who sent in questions via the Twitter machine.

We do have some non-football stuff to sort of talk about here at the outset. First, everybody in the southeastern area of the country, specifically the Florida Panhandle, certainly on all of our minds right now, for those of you that are down in that area, thoughts and prayers are going out to you i hope you all are safe obviously hurricane michael coming ashore yesterday and cat strong category four times it even looked like it might even get upgraded to a cat five storm something that the florida panhandle has never seen and what's

scary about this between the storm surge and the winds course, is not just for that panhandle area, but how it's going to sort of linger into the Carolinas, places that are already inundated with rain, with flooding from Hurricane Florence. And so it's going to be a bad situation in the southeastern part of the country. Hopefully, those of you listening down in the area are okay. Hopefully, you've heeded the advice of emergency personnel and evacuated if necessary and getting yourself into a safer ground. And we're thinking of you and hopefully all goes well with this storm in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. Also, and this is something more near and dear to my heart here, and it's an issue that I've talked about a ton on this show and

other places. This is Mental Health Awareness Week, and I haven't issue that I've talked about a ton on this show and other places. This is Mental Health Awareness Week and I haven't got a chance to talk about that yet and I did want to take a couple of minutes here at the start to address it. This is a week dedicated to mental health. Wednesday was World Mental Health Day. Today, Thursday, is National Depression Screening Day. And as I've said before on this show, elsewhere, this is important. And it's important for people to sort of be open about this because it is hard. It is hard if you are struggling with depression, if you are struggling with mental health sometimes, to be open about it. And so I've always thought that as somebody that has been through that, that has been through the darkness and sort of come out of it, thanks in large part to my new career and to people like you who listen to the show and give me a reason

to keep going and doing this and not going back to the life that I had before where I was struggling with this stuff on a more regular day-to-day basis. You know, it's important now that I've sort of come through it to be open about it, to be honest about it so people know that, you know, things like talking helps. And I've offered before many times on the show, and I'll reopen that offer. If you are struggling with depression, if you are struggling with anxiety, if you are struggling with these issues, and maybe you don't feel like going to a family member, you don't feel like going to a doctor right away, or you just, you want a place to start, reach out to me at Mark Schofield on Twitter, mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com if you want to do it via email. If you'd want to talk on the phone,

just reach out to me via one of those ways and we can set that up. I'm here to help you. I'm so lucky right now in that what I do has sort of helped to eliminate the depression, the stress, the anxiety that I used to suffer from on a daily basis when I was a lawyer. But I've been through that. I know how hard it can be. And I know how when you're in that moment, when you're struggling with that stuff and you hear somebody say, oh, just reach out to me. It's sometimes like, look, I can't because you're paralyzed. It can be crippling at times.

And so please, I know it sounds hard. I know it sounds like maybe the last thing you want to do, but if there's a way that you feel more comfortable reaching out to a guy you listen to on a daily basis who has been there rather than a family member or a clergy member or a professional, if I could be that first outlet, that first step, that first resource for you, or any kind of resource for you, please do not hesitate. Please do not hesitate. Because you guys who have let me into your homes on a daily basis now for over a year do mean a lot to me. I get to do this because of you. And so it's the least I can do to try to help those of you who are going through this.

And so I did want to say that here at the outset. Let's get into some stuff. We're going to start with some Patriots-Chiefs related questions at the outset. First, a little bit of news. Andrew Reid yesterday in his press conferences did say that Justin Houston, defensive end, edged player for the Kansas City Chiefs, it's going to be a stretch if he goes. That obviously is something to watch as we get closer to Sunday night. He's a big sort of integral part of what they do on the defensive side of the ball. Let's get to some questions now. First question. And this first question comes to us from Steven Thompson, who is at WePlayForTitles on Twitter. He is also the

founder of DieHardBostonSportsFans. That's at D-I-E-H-A-R-D-B-O-S-F-A-N-S on Twitter. He also hosts with Chris Blakely a podcast over there as well. So check them out, DieHardBostonSportsfans.com. And Chris asks, how will the Patriots defense attack the Chiefs offense? And that is obviously for many the place to start when analyzing this game, because that does seem to be sort of the matchup. Patrick Mahomes in a high-flying offense against Dante Hightower, Kyle Vannoy in this Patriots defense, the chess match betweenen, and this Patriots defense. The chess match between Andy Reid and Bill Belichick and Brian Flores.

And having done the crossover show with Ryan Tracy and Chris Clark, a lot of people sort of look at the fact that Andy Reid has sort of had his number, had Belichick's number over the past couple of meetings between these two teams. That does seem like the place to start. And when I sort of watch where this Patriots defense is right now, specifically what they did last week, you know, I'm writing about this for the score, for my X's and O's preview for this weekend's slate of games. I've talked about it on the Tape Tuesday show. It does seem like that switch to a 3-2-6, that was almost a base package against Indianapolis. Sometimes they went 3-3-5, sometimes they went four-man front,

but it did seem like they used that 3-2-6 package a lot. With Chun as a swing defender between the second and the third levels, might be a nod or a wink in the direction of what they expect to do or what they are going to try to do Sunday night. And we all know that Super Bowl XXV defensive game plan from Belichick against Jim Kelly and that K-gun wide open offense. When that Giants defense that prided itself on stopping the run, and we know the stories about when they were handed that game plan

and Belichick stood in front of that group and said, look, we're going to let Thurman Thomas rush for 100 yards. And that defense, they went nuts in that meeting room. There's no way. No, we stopped the run. He is not getting 100 yards. And Belichick explained to them, look, we do that. We let them run.

We give them the opportunity to run do that. We let them run. We give them the opportunity to run the ball. It slows them down. It takes the ball out of Kelly's hands. It takes the ball out of that K-gun wide open passing game offense. So my thinking is we're going to see a version of that game plan where they show you 3-2-6 a ton. And they show you these light defensive packages and they say, look,

Reid, Mahomes, if you guys want to run it with Kareem Hunt all day long, fine. We'd rather have to stop that and make you work

the ball down the field than giving you some easier look, some deep ball type stuff, two plays, drive, touchdown. If you work it downfield and work a 14-play drive on us, having to run the ball and hitting short routes, okay, we'll tip our hat to you. But we're not going to make it easy for you.

We're not going to give you the deep stuff. We're going to make you earn it up front. And we're going to play behind it. We're going to play soft zone coverage and take that stuff away. And the trust will be in guys like Patrick Chun to play more like a third linebacker in that situation to help stop in the run.

So that's my thought on how they're going to approach this game. It's going to be similar to that Super Bowl XXV game plan. Let's sort of flip the script here. Talk about the Patriots on offense. And this is from Baldo Blue at B-A-L-D-O-B-L-U-E on Twitter. You know, give Baldo a follow. How would you scheme Gronk and also Gordon to exploit weak Kansas City safety position? And I think that's a great

question and it's something that the Patriots are going to look to do. You know, that Kansas City defense, despite, you know, sort of stopping it and getting a number of turnovers from Blake Borders last week, it's still a weak link for this team with that safety position in particular, given the fact that Eric Berry still has yet to play this season, given that heel injury that he's suffering from. I do think that we're going to see a couple of different concepts, concepts that the Patriots have run before. And I think a good way to attack this defense would be using those two guys on those elements. First is the dagger concept. And this is a play that Brady threw an interception on against the Dolphins when Bobby McClain sort of came off the seam route and jumped the digger

out. But that's a route where you've got the seam from the inside receiver and a dig route from the outside receiver. It sort of stretches that safety. You want to stretch him with the seam, make him work upfield, and then you get that dig route working underneath. And you get the safety sort of jump that then you get the seam route over the top That's a one way another way is a play we've talked about before the mills concept You can run that with those two guys as well. You get drunk Gronk on the dig Gordon on that post over the top Kansas City is Traditionally a single high safety team a lot of cover one lot of cover three of cover three. So that's a way to do it as well. Finally, if they are going to give you those single high looks, cover one, cover three,

what's one of our favorite cover three beaters, our favorite single high beater? We talk about it a ton on this show. You guys and girls probably know where I'm going right now. That Haas concept. You can go mirrored Haas. You know, we get the hitch routes on the outside, say from a Dorsett or a Hogan and an Edelman on the other side. Or you could go Haas wide juke where you get Edelman in the middle of that, running that juke route.

And you've got the, you know, matching hitch routes outside from Dorsett and, you know, Hogan. And you get in the seam. You get Gronk up one seam, Gordon up the other. If you do get that single high look, then you're bracketing that safety with arguably your two best sort of vertical threats right now in Gronk and Gordon. So those are some looks that I'd expect sort of New England to roll out on Sunday. Up next, we're going to do some other stuff. We're going to talk passing concepts that I've

seen this year and studying other teams. We're going to talk rookie quarterbacks. We're going to talk building a basketball team with NFL players. And a little bit later, we're going to talk about getting back into football. We're going to talk about skill sets for punt returners and kick returners. And of course, a little bit of Toto, because every time I open it up for listener questions, I get some Toto questions. But first, I want to remind everybody of what our great new friends over at Low-KI.

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Since they are friends of the show, they're offering you an exclusive discount of 25% off all game day collection bracelets. Just use the promo code PATRIOTS25 when checking out and boom, you can thank me later for the savings. Go to LOKAI, that's L-O-K-A-I.com and use that promo code PATRIOTS25

to take advantage of this amazing deal. Up next, we're going to get into rookie quarterback stuff, some passing concepts. That's all ahead on this Thursday edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. Doing some listener questions right now. And we're going to continue. We're going to talk more big picture stuff right now. Question from my boy Michael Kist at Michael Kist NFL. He is one of the great minds over at

Bleeding Green Nation, as well as one half of the fantastic Kist and Solak show. I'm not going to tell you if he's the good half or the bad half because I like Ben too, and I don't want to get in any bit of trouble here. But Mike asks, what's the new flavor in the passing game concepts? And it's a fantastic question and one that I'm going to love to talk about for a little bit here because studying the passing game and route concepts and things like that, that's what I do basically Tuesday through Thursday each week, looking at trying to get a handle of 10 or 12 different offenses each week, cycling my way through quarterback study and things like that,

even working down at the college game. And what's been interesting about this season, and sort of to get to Mike's question here, is while in years past we definitely saw designs that we were like, oh, man, this is what everybody's going to be using, and soon enough everybody was. Like, for example, last year we saw Yankee concept. Patriots ran it a ton.

Texans were running it a ton, and pretty soon you're seeing teams running it you know the cardinals have been running it a lot this year with rosen um bangles i mean the dolphins have been running it some and so we're seeing you know that matriculate into this year last year the other one was that sort of jet sweep running back seam route think the play that the chiefs hit you know to Kareem Hunt on open night last year, or the Rams used it last year, or Jared Goff, and now more and more teams are using that. What's been interesting about this year is I haven't really identified something that's new, that's different that teams have been doing in that vein. But what we're seeing is more and more usage of sort of the spread air raid type concepts. That's, you know, one issue. You know, we are seeing more usage of jet motion. You know, teams

are using that. Watch the Rams, who are sort of the vanguard at the forefront of a lot of the new stuff in the National Football League. They use jet motion as an extra element of play action. And the Patriots have started doing this too, as have other teams. You know, using jet motion. So you'll see plays where you get an inside fake to the running back working towards the middle, then a jet motion fake to a receiver fake in the end of the round. And then you've got the defense

and the second and third level defenders going every which way. You know, it's a way to sort of get that misdirection type of action. And so that's one thing I've noticed. And another thing I've noticed, you know, similar in the vein of, you know, these West Coast concepts,

more and more teams are running mesh. More and more teams are running that sort of dual shallow crossers underneath. The Patriots have been running it. The Colts under Frank Reich have been running it. Obviously, the Eagles run it. More and more teams are doing that. So we are seeing more of these sort of air raid spread type concepts work their way into the

national football league so you know massive shout out to mike for the question follow him on twitter at michael kissed nfl next question and this is one i had to you know rack the brain a little bit it's from greg armstrong who's at greg g-r-e-g-a-r-m-s-t-r-o-n-g underscore on twitter if you had to build a start in five for a basketball team out of current NFL players, what would it look like? And I'm not the world's biggest basketball guy. I played it in high school, but I was not very good. Not very good at all. Problem when you have small hands and a lack of height. And I barely watch March Madness these days. I barely watch the NBA these days. It's just, you know, as you get kids, you start, you know, a new career and things like that,

the outside interests start to get whittled and narrowed down. And the time you have to dedicate to watching other stuff gets whittled down to the point where, look, if I've got spare time, chances are I'm hopping in front of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which, my friends, is a very—I just get it into it. But I'm hopping in front of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which my friends, is a very, I just, just getting into it, but I'm very excited, as I've said, this October and November, fantastic two months here for gamers, you know, you guys and girls out there that love playing video games, you've got Assassin's Creed, you've got, you know, Fallout 76 coming, you've got Red Dead 2 coming, you've got, you know, Battlefield 5 coming. It's just a fantastic time for video games. And I've been saving up the gift

cards and saving money, socking it away to play a lot of video games over the fall. So I don't watch a ton of basketball, but I still know a little bit about the game. And so the first thing you're going to have to understand is you're going to have to go small. You're not going to really find a true

center type in the National Football League. And so that's the first thing. So you're going to have to understand is you're going to have to go small. You're not going to really find a true center type in the National Football League. So that's the first thing. So you're going to have to go small. You're going to have to go three guard, two forward type lineup. And obviously, one forward, I think you're going to have Jimmy Graham in there because remember, hey, he played basketball. I've heard that once or twice. And so you're going to have Graham there. The other forward type I'm going to go is Gronkowski. I think he'd be a good pick too. So you've got your two guys down low. Again, we're going to be going small. We're going to be doing a lot of running here.

It's going to be more like those Arkansas teams under Nolan Richardson, for example. Hit the Google machine, kids. Look those up. 40 minutes of you-know-what. I'm going three guards here. We're going to have Julio Jones and Antonio Brown as sort of our swing guard types, kind of like what they can do sort of in the off-ball situation. And we're going to have somebody running point. And who better right now to run point for a basketball team, if you're

going to be making it from NFL players, than Patrick Mahomes. And the guy can deal. So I mean, that's going to be my start at five. My team's on the floor. So again, Gronk, Jimmy Graham, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, Patrick Mahomes. That's my five. Boom.'s on the floor. So again, Gronk, Jimmy Graham, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, Patrick Mahomes. That's my five. Boom. That's the list. Next question from my boy at Captain Huggyface at C-A-P-N-H-U-G-G-Y-F-A-C-E. He's always sending in questions. Huge, huge, huge fan of the show. Huge fan of his. Please give him a follow on Twitter. For each of the rookie quarterbacks who have started this year, name their best and their worst trades. And I thought about, you know, just sort of rehashing where they were pre-draft, but having watched a lot of these

guys to this point, I think it's better to sort of update it to where we are right now. Let's start, you know, with Sam Darnold. And I think coming into the league, anticipation was probably one of his best traits. It sort of set him apart from some of the other guys. A lot of young quarterbacks can't make those anticipation throws. But right now, I think something that's really helping him acclimate himself to the NFL is sort of his playmaking ability, his ability to make plays off structure, outside the pocket. You watch his game against Jacksonville, for example.

He was faced with a lot of situations where he really had to make something out of nothing against a tough defense, and he did that. And so as this offense begins to grow around him, as Jeremy Bates begins to grow as a play caller, that's going to help him. The bad right now with him is still the mechanics. And I said it when we were talking about him for Tuesday's show. Mechanics, they're not a problem until they are. I think right now they are a little bit of a problem for him.

So that's something certainly to watch with Sam Darnold going forward. Josh Rosen, accuracy, still stands out. Watch that game against Seattle. Watch his game against San Francisco. Guy can put the ball into his shoebox. I've been very impressed with his ability to make throws to all levels with accuracy and velocity. That still stands out.

What I want to see him sort of clean up is process and speed, not all the time, in the red zone. You know, I talked about this play before. I'll talk about it again then. He had a great chance to make a play in the red zone against Seattle, but he came off a concept too quickly. He got fooled by what he saw pre-snap into post-snap. Thought he saw what man coverage.

Roll do, cover two, red two type look, red zone cover two look, and he missed an opportunity to make a big play in the passing game for a touchdown. I want to see him get better in those moments, but I've been very impressed with Josh Rosen. Josh Allen, no surprise. His best trait is his arm. It is as advertised.

The kid has an absolute hose, an absolute cannon. Now, it is a double-edged sword because there are times when the mental side isn't up to snuff and he's still too slow and he doesn't trust what his eyes are showing him. And as a result, he's late with throws. But he still thinks he can get away with it. And at times, he does. So I do wonder if this arm of his is going to almost stunt his development from a mental standpoint. Because if you don't have to be quick with your mind because your arm is so great, you might not ever really try to improve that.

Because you won't have to. So that's something that I'm really sort of watching with him, the arm being a double-edged sword. Also, worst trade for him right now, it remains his feel for some routes, particularly routes to running backs out of the backfield, those shallow routes underneath. Everything remains a problem that can be solved with a fastball. He needs to get away from that.

I've been impressed with him. I think he's ahead of where many, myself included, thought he was going to be. But it's still a work in progress. Finally, Baker Mayfield. Look, the competitive toughness. Watch that mic'd up thing that they did with him against Oakland. He's talking about dinner reservations for number 11, Antonio Callaway, in the end zone, and he's going to be ordering the ceviche. Yeah, he's talking about ordering the ceviche and stuff. It's just great stuff. And that was always sort of his calling card, the competitive toughness. It's one of the reasons why I had him as QB2 in this group,

in this group of very talented quarterbacks. It's because he's that guy that just wants to beat you no matter what. And so that remains his best trait. His worst trait right now, I think there are some turnovers and trying to do too much. I still think there's a little bit of that with him that he's going to need to clean up. But I've been impressed with Mayfield, as I've been impressed at some level, at some degree with all of these guys. And so it's been fun watching them. Very cool to see these guys sort of develop. Final question I'm going to deal with in this segment. A little bit later we're going to do some, yes, some Toto.

It's from NMAC, at reluctant underscore trade on Twitter. A couple of questions from a newish fan of the NFL. What was the best Patriots offseason move in the past year? Free agency, draft, whatever. Why is there a different skill set needed for kickoff returns and punt returns? Really enjoy the podcast. A mini NBA in the National Football League. And MAC, I thank you so much for those questions and the comment.

I really appreciate that. That's kind of what I'm going for, trying to educate people as best as I can, even though sometimes I don't always know what I'm talking about. But let me try to answer your questions here. Best Patriots offseason move in the past year, I think, is the acquisition of Trent Brown. We're still seeing Sonny Michel acclimate himself to the NFL. I think in the next three or four years, we might come back and say, no, it was Sonny Michel.

I think he's that kind of player. Isaiah Wynn, with the injury, I thought he might have been the answer. Unfortunately, the injury has prevented him from seeing the field. I think the Bentley pick was good. But I think Trent Brown has locked down that left tackle spot, which, as we all know, no matter what else, protecting number 12 is job one. So the acquisition of Trent Brown and how he's sort of become that staple left tackle,

that anchor type guy on this offensive line, even though guys like Shaq Mason are fantastic. I had my ode to Shaq Mason on Tuesday. I think that was a fantastic acquisition. As for a different skill set needed for kickoff returns and punt returns, there is obviously some overlap. But I think the biggest difference between the two skill sets, the biggest difference between the two positions,

and I say this as somebody that used to do some of this in high school and a tiny little bit in college. On kickoff returns, you need more of that lawn speed because you're going to be getting the ball with some space. So the ideal skill set is one that can cover a vast amount of ground in a short amount of time, that lawn speed. Because it's going to be 10, 15 yards until you're going to be seeing people. The more distance you can cover in that sort of period of time, the better field position you're

going to have. Whereas for punt returners, it's that burst, short area, quickness, and change of direction. Because you might have some guys pretty much bearing down on you when you're fielding that punt. And there's also a process and speed decision-making element to being a punt return. You've got to know where you are on the field. You've got to be smart. If you're near your own end zone, you've got to put the heels on the five or even the 10, depending on what your coaches are telling you. And if it's over your head, just let it go. Don't field punts inside the 10, inside the five. You know, play for that sort of potential roll into the end zone and touchback situation. Know when to fair catch it. So you've got to be able to sort of read what's happening on the field

while still finding and identifying where the ball is so you can make a secure catch because that's kind of job one. And if you do decide to forego the fair catch, you've then got to evade people quickly. And so those are the major differences between the two. Hope that helped answer your question. Up next, we're going to do, yes, some total stuff as well as talking about getting back into the game of football that we all love. But first, I want to remind everybody about our great friends over at Swap.com.

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Plus, you can find new deals every day on Swap.com's homepage. Swap.com, the world's largest online consignment and thrift store. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of Locked On Patriots. And I know we're running a little long here, but I wanted to take the time to make sure I got to all of your questions. And we're going to go a little bit long in this segment as well. I hope you can bear with me here. I don't usually do this, but hey, you know, I'm having some fun here and I want to make sure I get to everybody. Let's close it out in this final segment here with one more sort of serious question.

This is from Amorelian, at A-M-O-R-E-I-E-L-L-A-N on Twitter. I really like football, never played in college, coached freshmen for a year. Have a great interest in the game, even outside of my two teams. How would I go about getting involved in the game again? Coaching? Writing? Reporting? And it's a fantastic question, and it's one that made me think a little bit. And I'll come back to where I usually do on questions such as this one, which is it is such a fantastic, fantastic game. I mean, excuse me, fantastic time to be interested in football. You know, from the reporting side,

from the writing side, from the coverage side, obviously there are so many different outlets, so many ways that you can, you know, lend your voice to coverage of the game. And you can just do it. You know, I've given a personal friend some advice on this area before. I come back to, for example, I'm a movie guy. So I come back to The Martian and sort of the end of that movie where Matt Damon's character basically started to teach a class to astronauts.

And he basically says, you begin. You solve a problem. You work the problem. You find a solution. And if you find enough solutions, you get to go home. And it's the same way now. If you want to get into this, you just begin. You start your own site.

You reach out to places like Inside the Apollo and say, you want to write there. So if you want to get into the coverage side of it, you can just do it. You can start your own blog. You can start your own YouTube channel. And if you do enough good work, you do enough creative, insightful content, people will find you. People will discover you, and you get to go on doing it. That's the path that fell into my lap. And it can be hard at times. It can be overwhelming at times. I mean, there have been times when I, a year or so ago, two years ago, even now, there are times when I get on Twitter and I see all the great work that people are doing. I'm just like, I can't

keep pace with this. Everybody out there, this guy's better than me. This woman's better than me. These people are better than me. This site's better than anything I'll ever do. But if you keep at it, you keep doing the work, you know, people will find it, people will appreciate it, and you'll get more opportunities. And to the other aspect of the question there, this is a great time to get into coaching the game because let's be honest. I think we can be honest here. I and others, if you listen to this show, chances are you love the game of football. And I love this game to its core. This game has done so much for me between setting me up for life with teaching me lessons from when I was a kid playing the game to putting me on the path to a college and later on a law school that I might not have gotten into without the path that football

put me on where I ended up meeting a woman who's not my wife and now we have two kids and a great family and so football has done so much for me but between the rules and the NFL and the NCAA and yes the the CTE issues, the game does have some problems. The game does have some things that people might be worried about. And so it's a great time to get involved at the coaching level, whether it's Pop Warner or high school, and start teaching these kids the right way to approach the game,

the right way to tackle, the heads-up method of tackling, so we can keep growing this game and people don't have to be afraid of it. I know the head injury issue is a scary one. I have a son that loves this game. I have a son that is going as Carson Wentz for Halloween, which as a Patriots fan kind of, you know, cuts me to the quick, but as a guy that evaluated Carson Wentz and loved Carson Wentz as a quarterback, I'm kind of proud of him. But I do wonder about that day he comes home and asks me, Dad, can I play tackle football?

And I'm going to say, look, we can play flag until you get a little bit older and stuff like that. But there are great ways to get involved as a coach. Coach flag, if you want to. Teach this game to kids so they learn to love it because the game itself is a beautiful game. And so that's kind of how I'd approach that. Let's close it out with some Toto.

First, from my buddy Richard Schrager at R-S-S-C-H-R-A-G-E-R, any truth to the rumor that Toto and Weeziser are going to combine to form Tweezer? Richard, any truth to the rumor that the New York Yankees were eliminated the other night by the Boston Red Sox? I know. I know. I know. But Schrager and I, that's what we talk about when we are trying to play golf and hack our

way around Blue Mash. But there's no truth to the rumor that Weiser, Toto and Weiser are going to combine to form Tweezer. But I did get this question from the great Jeff Risden, at Jeff Risden, friend of the show. Jeff wears many, many hats over at the WIRE network of websites, managing editor for BrownsWire and LionsWire, as well as doing NFL and draft work for at Real GM on Twitter. And he asks, best Toto song that isn't Africa. And then my man Iconoclast,

at I-K-O-N-O-C-L-A-S-T, responded to that. Not sure Mark remembers any others. Should be a compelling take. And it will be a compelling take. And it is tough. It is tough to sort of divorce yourself from the genius

that is Africa. But as somebody that did host a Locked On Total episode, there are different directions you can go. You could go with 99. I've been waiting so long On 99 Well, we're wrong On 99 I love you I mean, that's just some quality, quality, you know, 80s music right there. So you could go with 99, and I would totally respect that take. You could go with Rosanna.

Obviously, that was one of Toto's biggest hits. I believe they won a Grammy for that one, and I think people would get that take as well. I never thought that a girl like you would ever care for me. Rosanna. All I want to do in the middle of the evening is hold you tight. Rosanna, Rosanna. I didn't know you were looking for more than I could ever be I'll admit, it got a little bit hard to hit the stop button on that one.

And it probably tells you how close that Rosanna came to being the pick here. But also a very, very quality, quality total song. I would totally understand if that's the direction where people would go. There's another pick here. And this one was the selection by John Henry Smith at JHS the third, third spelled out on Twitter. He is sports director for NBC Connecticut. And he went with, hold the line, 100% their best song ever,

including a YouTube link to the video. And I agree. it's a fantastic fantastic song one that I think many people would pick for their favorite you know non Africa total song I mean just listen to it it's great stuff It's not in the way you look Or the things that you say that you do For the life Love isn't always on time Oh, oh, oh For the life Love isn't always on time

Oh, oh, oh I love the marriage there between sort of the vocals, the background vocals, the guitar work. I think it all just syncs up so well. It's like a well-designed and well-executed passing concept where the quarterback's feet and footwork in the pocket time up perfectly with the route concepts and the breaks from the wide receiver. It just flows and syncs so well. And I agree with, like I said, I agree with John there. It's a fantastic

song, one that I more than understand being the selection for John and I'm sure many others. But for me, for me, my favorite non-Africa Toto song is I Won't Hold You Back. And it's got lyrics, it's got emotion, it's got that ballad sort of element to it that sort of hooks you and grabs you. You know, I'm a big sucker for lyrics, for emotion, for music. And that's why this song for me is my favorite non-Africa Toto song. If I had another chance tonight I try to tell you that the things we

had were right Time can erase the love we shared But it gives me time to realize just how much you care Now you're gone, I'm really not the same I guess I hang myself to blame Time can erase the things we said

But it gives me time to realize That you're the one instead. You know I won't hold you back now. Love we had just can't be found You know I can't hold you back I just love it. It almost has some angst to it. Some pre-90s, pre-grunge angst.

Some emotion, some rawness to it. And I love how the drums kind of come in there out of almost nowhere. You haven't heard a drum yet in that song. I just think it goes so well. So there it is. I Won't Hold You Back, my favorite non-Africa Toto song. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow doing our game day stuff,

what I'm looking for when the Patriots have the ball, when the Chiefs have the ball. And, of course, what better way to play a out than a little bit more of Toto, and I won't hold you back. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and locked on Toto? You can You know I won't hold you back now The love we had just can't be found Listen to me baby You know I can hold you back