Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 13 , 2017 - Jets Gameday Edition

Episode Date: October 13, 2017

Mark Schofield has your Jets Gameday Edition of Locked On Patriots for Friday the 13th. He breaks down the Levels Concept and why New England might use it against the Jets, and puts Nate Solder under the microscope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S!

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J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S!

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J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! J-E-T-S! We feel great for winning justice. We know we're a much better team than we can ever represent ourselves. And we're pissed off. We're afraid to come back and show the kind of defense, the type of team, as well as the kind of character we had. We take a lot of slack. People gave us no chance. Like, we barely made the playoffs.

We're a good football team. It looks like this team played with anger all day long. For all you non-believers, disrespect us. Talk crap about the defense. And we're the third best defense in the league. All we hear is about that defense. They can't stop a no-bleed. 25th in the league.

And we want to get disrespected. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait, can't wait Well everybody, we've made it to the end of Jets Week Mark Schofield here with you on a Friday the 13th edition of Locked On Patriots Locked On Patriots presented in part by LockedOnPatriots.com

Reminder for those of you that may have missed it We now have LockedOnPatriots.com. Reminder for those of you that may have missed it, we now have LockedOnPatriots.com. The dot com, as it were. Podcasts will be posted over there. I will also be putting articles, scheme breakdowns, play breakdowns, snap count analysis, and lots, lots more over there. So check it out, Lockedonpatriots.com. Bringing you all the Patriots news and analysis I can,

both in audio form here with the podcast and in article form over there. So check that out, if you will, lockedonpatriots.com. We have reached our game day edition here for Jets week. Had a tremendous Jets week, I think. Brought you some great information. At least I hope I did. We recapped their game

against the Browns on Monday. Tuesday we talked about their offense, their West Coast passing schemes. Broke down a little slant-flat concept. Wednesday we looked at their defense. Broke down the pressure schemes they've been trying to use to generate

pressure on the opposition passer. Talked about those two rookie safeties, Marcus May, Jamal Adams. If you haven't checked out those episodes, as well as the articles associated with them, again, LockedOnPatriots.com. They're all up there for you. Yesterday, I hope you got a chance to listen to yesterday's

show. If you haven't, check it out. Connor Rogers from Bleacher Report as well as Fangrag. He stopped by. He's a Jets analyst, Jets fan. Gave us his thoughts on the Jets' start, what they might do with Josh McCown at the end of this year. But focused a lot on what the Jets have done so far on the field. So again, check that out.

Connor, one of the great guys out there as well. Give him a follow on Twitter at ConnorJRogers. Again, this is your game day edition. We're going to do what we usually do here. My thoughts, what to expect from Sunday's game. I'm mainly

going to focus on what to expect when the Patriots have the football. I'm going to talk a little levels concept, do some nerdy football stuff. Then I'm going to dive into Nate Solder for a bit. There's a piece up again on LockedOnPatriots.com where I've gone through some of his tape. I solicited some expert advice from my friend and colleague,

Brandon Thorne, one of the great offensive line minds out there in the evaluation business. Got his thoughts on some reps we've seen from Nate Solder. Then at the end, like I do every game day edition, my final predictions. What I think is going to go down on Sunday. So let's dive in here, do some nerdy football stuff here at the outset.

And a lot of people come up to me, they read my work, whether it's here at Locked On Patriots, the podcast, the.com, InsideThePylon.com, Bleacher Report with the NFL 1000 Project, the Minnesota Rivals site where I write about the Minnesota Golden Gophers. You can find me everywhere. But people will come up to me, whether it's on Twitter,

family members, strangers out there on Twitter even, and send me messages and ask me how I know all this stuff, how I know these schemes, these plays, these breakdowns. How do I cram it all in my head? And I'll tell you like I tell them. I read a ton of stuff about football. If you were to get the chance to look at my nightstand next to my side of the bed, you would find the most diverse stack of reading material. Whether it's New Yorker magazines, whether it's The Last of the Doughboys.

I'm going through a World War I phase right now, so I'm reading a ton of World War I stuff. Another book I'm making my way through, Psalm. It's a tremendous, tremendous work on the Battle of Psalm in 1916 in great, rich detail about what those men went through

during that summer, during those months. But you'll also find things on football. You'll find coaching clinic manuals. You'll find coaching the passing game by the experts. And you'll find a book, Coaching the Quarterback by the Experts as well. And in that coaching theback, by the experts as well. And in that Coaching the Passing Game by the experts, there's lots of presentations transcribed for the reader, given by coaches at all levels, NFL, college, even high school.

And one of the presentations that I read was a presentation by June Jones, famous run and shoot offensive mind, coaching at Hawaii right now. And he talked about a play concept, play concept called levels, which I'm going to talk about here. And this gets us into how coaches, good coaches, regardless of their style of play, the schemes that they run they steal from each other they steal from each other all the time

if you're not stealing from other people then you're not doing your job and to quote Jones he tried to come up with a way to use plays from Mouse Davis and plays from Jerry Glanville and continue to stay with his same philosophy.

He brought in some stuff he stole from Bill Walsh. But as Jones says, the one I'm going to show you I got from Ted Marchabrota. I watched it repeatedly when he was in Buffalo during the time they went to four Super Bowls. They called the route Levels. We kept the name as part of our package. And Levels is something I expect to see from the New England Patriots on Sunday against the New York Jets. Why I expect to see it I'll get to in a minute, but let's talk about what it is. To quote Jones, it is an average play with a read progression. The quarterback reads single receiver, inside slot, outside slot, and wide receiver. Last year

we threw this pass about 75 times. We completed it probably 80% of the time. After looking at the play with all of the combinations off the three receiver side, I do not know why we ran anything else. When you look at our cut-ups, when you look at our plays, the fourth option, the outside wide receiver's in-cut, is open every time. This does not look hard to defend, but I watched Jim Kelly throw this in Buffalo for five years. What Jones is talking about there, the three receiver side, that's the levels concept that we're about to describe here, that we're about to walk through here. And what it is, it's a three receiver passing

combination that consists of a short cross and route, an intermediate cross and route, and a deep cross and route. That's its basic sort of structure. You can have variants of it. We'll talk about one where New England just has two guys on it. Some people call that drive, but it's the same thing. It's crossing routes at different levels of the field. And they come to the defense staggered. The typical way the Patriots run it, they have a wide receiver split wide to the right. We'll say Chris Hogan. and he runs the deep end cut at about 15 yards. Then the intermediate route is usually Rob Gronkowski or the tight end. That comes in at about 10 yards. And then you can have either a running back out of the backfield or an extra wide receiver running that shallow one at about five yards. And since they come from

different places on the field, since they have different starting points. They're staggered as they come over the middle. So you don't just have three receivers in a line with then three or four defensive backs in a line. It's not a cluster like that. It comes more in a roll and wave. Usually it's the tight end Gronkowski who will get there first. He'll be coming over the middle

first and then the running back and then finally the deeper one from the wide receiver. Now you're probably wondering, okay, that's great. That's fun. Why are the Patriots going to use this on Sunday? Well,

if you go to LockedOnPatriots.com you'll see it in action and it brings you that wave over the middle. But what it does is it stresses the defense over the middle. It doesn't challenge the boundaries. It stresses the defense. It attacks the middle of the defense. Who do you find in the middle of a defense? Middle linebacker, Darren Lee, second-year player out of the Ohio State University as we talked about with Connor on Thursday he's having a bit of an up and down year

there are some people that are really down on Lee Connor thinks he's played a little bit better he's an athletic type guy sure but a bit more undersized than you'd expect from a middle linebacker type this won't be the first time he'll have gone up against Rob Gronkowski, but it's the first time that guys like Jamal Adams and Marcus May are. Rookie safeties.

So you're getting a second-year linebacker, two rookie safeties in the middle of the field, in the middle of that Jets defense. So that's why I think levels is going to be something we're seeing from the Patriots offense on Sunday. They're going to use this concept to attack those safeties, to attack Lee in the middle of the field, to make those guys make decisions. Think, for example, a cover one situation. Everybody's in man coverage except for the free safety, Marcus May, who will be D.

So then you have a cornerback on Chris Hogan. You have, say, Jamal Adams on Rob Gronkowski. And then you've got Lee on James White out of the backfield. Those are one-on-one matchups, especially over the middle

with Lee on White, Adams on Gronkowski, that you would expect Gronkowski and White to win. And then remember what June Jones said. That backside day cut, which would be Hogan, it was open every time.

Yeah, he's talking about the college game, but still. Anytime you can draw up a play, draw up a route concept where somebody's going to be open every single time, you've got a chance to make a play. So

that's why I think we're going to see this levels concept on Sunday. I think it gives the Patriots offense a chance to make the plays over the middle of the field, to attack those young guys. They're certainly talented. Don't get me wrong. I spoke glowingly about May. I spoke glowingly about Adams earlier this week. But they're inexperienced. And this is an opportunity to attack them in the passing game, get after them early, and see what they're going to bring to the table on Sunday.

So again, check out the article, LockedOnPatriots.com, breaking down the levels concept, some nerdy football stuff for you. But I think this is a way that they can attack the middle of the field. And for those of you out there, and I know there are many of you who are fantasy players who listen to the show for some DFS advice,

maybe even some year-long redraft-type stuff, if you've got Gronkowski on your roster, if you get a chance to get him on DFS this weekend, I think this might be a big weekend for him. Of course, I said that last weekend, then he was out injured, so maybe take it with a grain of salt. Now to hit that backside dig route, that fourth route, that's going to come late in the progression. And what do you need to have in place to do that? Protection.

And that has been an issue for New England so far this year. Look, we've seen the numbers. They've given up 16 sacks, which is, again, more than Brady was sacked last year, albeit in only 12 regular season games, but they're on pace to break pretty quickly the total amount of sacks they gave up last year. Last year, New England Patriots quarterbacks

were sacked only 24 times over 16 games. We are now getting into game six, and we're at 16. And when you look at pressures allowed, there's an alarming number that jumps out. Gil Brandt, the great Gil Brandt, at G-I-L underscore B-R-A-N-D-T. He has been in this game longer than I've been alive. Sent out a tweet yesterday, most pressures allowed through week five.

The most has been allowed is 27 by one player Nate Solder is on the list he's in the top 8 or the bottom 8 depending on how you want to look at it he has allowed 17 pressures through 5 games so I took a look at Solder's film so far.

And I consulted the help of my friend Brandon Thorne at Veteran Scout on Twitter. He is a great offensive mind. Somebody you should definitely be following. And I looked at some of Solder's tape. And he's done some good things. He's done some bad things. And I have some thoughts on what to do going forward.

You know, he had a bit of a struggle against Houston, but we sort of expected that. Houston gave the Patriots fits last year in that divisional round game. We talked about how they would attack the A-gaps, but we also saw them win in one-on-one matchups against Solder. And again, article on LockedOnPatriots.com. You can check it out. I break these down.

But I saw some sort of mechanical issues with Solder, some instances where technique was what held him back. The first is when he gets beat by Jadavion Clowney. And as the play begins, Solder does a pretty good job. He uses what we call a kick slide where he kicks back with his left foot and slides into position.

So kick and slide. And he wins the punch. He gets the first punch in and that's a critical part of pass blocking. You want to be the first to get your hands on a guy because that gives you the advantage. If you let them get into you, if you let them get their hands on you, you've lost the upper hand. So to this point, Solder's done well in the rep.

He gets his good slide out, wins the initial punch. But he stops his feet. He ducks his head a little bit as he punches him. And what that does is it sort of gets you out over your skis a little bit. Because now your momentum is on your upper body, not your lower body. And Clowney uses it against Solder. He uses a pull move. Which basically, Clowney's got his hands on Solder too and he just pulls him towards him. Clowney just pulls

Solder towards himself. And with Solder having all of his momentum in his upper body, with Solder sort of out in front of his skis, out over his skis, what does it do? Solder just basically falls face forward and face plans. And Clowney's not able to get by him for the sack of Brady. And so that was one failure.

There was another mechanical failure a little later in the game where Solder's going up against Whitney Merciless. And here's where we talk a little bit about that punch, getting your hands on the guy first. Because again, Solder good off the snap. He slides. Everything's good. But Merciless keeps his distance at the start of this play. And finally,

Solder's the first to punch, but because of where Merciless is in relationship to him, he misses. The linebacker's able to just swat his hands away and get right by him. So because Solder couldn't get his hands on the defender,

because he misses on that, it leads to the sack. Now, not everything's been bad. Not everything's bad. I broke down two plays in the article where you can see Solder just win one-on-one battles. He had one against Julius Peppers on a touchdown from Brady to Hogan

where he keeps Peppers at bay, does a great job of giving Brady time in the pocket on the backside. Again, remember, Solder's responsible for Brady's blind side. It's a big task. And edge defenders in the NFL, they get paid good money too. They're good at what they do.

So it's a hard job. But on this play against Julius Peppers, Solder does a great job. Again, the initial start is good. Slide is good. What he does near the end of the play is even better because he rides Peppers behind the quarterback. Peppers sees that and tries to spin back upfield to get to Brady. But Soldier does a great job anticipating it.

Slides his feet again. Keeps those feet moving like Brandon talked about. You've got to keep those feet moving. Slides his feet again. Gets one more jab like Brandon talked about. You got to keep those feet moving. Slides his feet again. Gets one more jab, one more punch on Peppers to keep him away to prevent that spin move from working. And the other play I broke down in the article, another great rep from Nate Solder,

was actually on a play-action pass and play. And what was interesting about this one was offensive line, usually you see them in two-point stances. That's the trend in the NFL now. You keep them upright. You let them slide. But sometimes you get them in three-point stances when you want to show run, when you want to run play action.

And there's a play action pass and play against Tampa Bay where everybody's in a three-point stance. They show run. But because you want to sell the run, everybody fires out in a more aggressive nature. They're taking it to the defensive line because they're trying to show the linebackers there

that this is a run and play. Solder fires out against the defensive end and just swallows him whole. You know, it's just a great, great, great rep because he just, he takes the fight to him.

He takes the punch to him. Defensive end doesn't have a chance. He basically just gets stoned. He can't go anywhere. So I'm curious to see if they do more of that. If that's a way they're going to counteract pressure is try to get the run game going so you can do things like that, so you can run those play-action plays.

Let Solder and the other guys be aggressive. Take the fight to them. Pass blockage is not supposed to be a passive thing. You still want to be aggressive. Take the fight to them. Pass blocking is not supposed to be a passive thing. You still want to be aggressive in doing it. But there is a little bit of a disconnect when you're sliding backwards and away from somebody and you're

trying to stay aggressive. But in that play I just talked about where you can fire out of a three point stance and just take the fight to somebody. That's where Soto looked really great. So I'm curious to see if they do some more of that. I'm also curious to see if they give him more help. I end the article breaking down how they've used guys out of the backfield

like Burkhead or even James Devlin. Sometimes you can even see it with Gronkowski himself, putting them in a position to help, to chip on that edge defender where you just throw a little shoulder into him before you release on your pass pattern. Just enough to misdirect them. To stun them just a little bit. Get Soldo a little bit of help on the edge.

Because again. Those guys they're getting paid to. They're good players. Now with the Jets this week. I'm more worried about scheme stuff than one-on-one matchups. We talked about how they scheme pressure with the overload stuff. They might throw some overload

stuff at Solder. So I'm curious to see if they give him help in those situations. I'm just curious to see if the Patriots try using play action, let the guys be more aggressive up front. But that's sort of my breakdown here of Nate Solder. It's been an up and down season.

I'm sure he would admit it if you asked him. He's given up those 17 pressures, but there are ways you can get him help. There are things that you can do on the edge with him to make sure he keeps that blind side protected for Tom Brady. All right, people, let's close this out here. New England, 10-point favorites on the road.

That is a big number. Over under 47.5, not that big of a number. Divisional games are hard. Divisional games are hard. Divisional road games are even tougher. There's familiarity with the teams, with the players, with the concepts.

The fans get up for it. There's a little bit of animosity between the fan bases. There's some of that for the players on the field. Maybe more so than a game against a non-conference opponent, but the rivalry aspect of it, that's more in the stands. That's more on the message boards or on Twitter

or other places like that. But it is a divisional game, and it's a game between two, three, and two teams that are currently tied for first place in the AFC East, which nobody, I don't care who you are, Colin Cowherd, any pontificator, Tony Coronis, or Michael Wilbon, I don't care who you are,

nobody had these two teams coming into this game at 3-2. Nobody did. If you think somebody had this, if you're out there listening to the show thinking you had, I want to see receipts. Nobody had these teams coming in 3-2. But here we are. It's a divisional game.

First place in the AFC East is on the line. Do I think the Patriots win this game? Yes, I do. They've had an extra little couple of days here to get ready for it. I think they've got the communications issues sorted out. We talked about that, that slant-flat concept,

something I'm looking for when the Jets have the football. I bet in here that the Patriots have those issues sorted out, those communication issues. They will be ready for that. But 10 points is a lot of points in a divisional game.

A home team getting 10 points is a lot in a divisional game. Do I think the Patriots win? Yes. Am I taking the points? Yes. Looking at that over under 45.5, again, I expect New England to win. I expect it to be close,

and I don't think we're going with the over here because these games, these Patriots-Jets games, they tend to be a little bit more defensive-minded. Now, of course, what's going to happen, the Patriots are going to come out and they'll blow the doors off. That could certainly happen. Would I be shocked to see a 45-10 type game? No.

But it's not what I'm expecting. And what I'm expecting is a close defensive struggle if the Patriots win. Let me know your thoughts though. Always hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Always love hearing from you guys.

Leave your thoughts on the show. Go to the Locked On Patriots page on iTunes and leave a review. Make sure your Twitter handle is in there. You'll get a chance to win a PFF Edge subscription. I was just scrolling through it today. The information over there is incredible. If you're a fantasy player, you want a PFF Edge subscription.

It's $39.99 if you pay for it. It's free if you leave a review for the Locked On Patriots podcast at the Locked On page on iTunes, leave your Twitter handle in there. We are picking one winner per week. Get yourself one of those subscriptions. Trust me, it's a great value. That would close the book here on Jets Week.

I hope you enjoyed it. Had some fun this week. I will be back Sunday evening with your instant analysis of Jets-Pats from Sunday. Wherever you're going, I hope you enjoy the game. If you're in the Baltimore area,

again, Dog Watch Tavern in Fells Point. There's a great crowd of Pats fans there. My parents, I think, are going to be there for the game too. Let them know I sent you. Let people know you heard about the watching party over at Dog Watch and Fell's Point

from me, Mark Schofield, over at Locked On Patriots. Let them know I sent you over there. It's a great time. People there have a blast. It's like being at Gillette. So check that out. Until Sunday, for hopefully a glorious victory edition

of Locked On Patriots, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, of Locked on Patriots. Keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.