Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 14, 2018 - Sunday Morning Tailgate

Episode Date: October 14, 2018

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🎵 Happy Sunday, everybody. Welcome on into your favorite show of the week. It is Sunday morning tailgate here at Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield sitting down in the big chair for you on this Sunday morning. Hope you get your coffee, your breakfast, and you're ready to go. Got a full slate of NFL action for you, all leading up to tonight's huge contest between your New England Patriots and the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs. We're going to

talk some DFS stuff with DFS recommendations. We're going to get into yesterday's college football action. Fantastic slitting games in the afternoon and the evening. But first, as we do, we're going to get into some news and notes. Before we do that, though, reminder 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. If a place is covering football, chances are they've got me doing some work for them. Let's get into it now. We're going to start, of course, with that Pats Chiefs game, which is for tonight. We're going to get into the injury report right now. We've got some important names

on the injury list, the injury report, the final injury report for both teams. Let's start with the New England Patriots. No players listed as out on the final injury report, nor any players listed as doubtful, but a big group of names listed as questionable. Defensive tackle Malcolm Brown, limited participation in the last practice with a knee. Josh Gordon, limited participation in the last practice with his hamstring injury. Defensive end, Neil Grissom, ankle injury, limited participation. Rob Gronkowski, ankle injury, limited participation. Chris Hogan, who popped up on the injury report this week, also limited with a thigh. Sonia Michelle, officially questionable, as are all these players.

Limited participation with that knee injury. Eric Rowe, limited participation with his groin injury and injuries kept him out in the past couple of weeks. John Simon, shoulder, limited participation. And Danny Shelton, elbow, limited participation as well. Flipping gears now, let's look at the Kansas City Chiefs. They've got some big names on this. Already listed as out, Eric Murray, safety with an ankle injury.

DeAnthony Thomas, lower leg injury. He is listed as out, and he is actually gone for the season. He was placed on injured reserve. He suffered his second leg fracture in two seasons during practice this week. Tremont Smith will take over as Kansas City's kick returner. Doubtful. He suffered his second leg fracture in two seasons during practice this week. Tremont Smith will take over as Kansas City's kick returner. Doubtful. Eric Berry, safety with his heel injury.

He has not practiced. It's going to be a stretch to see him going. He has yet to practice this season. Linebacker Justin Houston, their edge defender with a hamstring. He also has not practiced yet. And it's unlikely he's going to play Sunday night against New England, barring some sort of miraculous sort of recovery as the Chiefs travel east to the New England area. Questionable linebacker, Tano Kampasinan, with his ankle injury as well. Limited participation. So those are your sort of

Patriots and Chiefs sort of last minute injury news on them. Spinning around the league here as we look for some of the other players league wide. Some of the other injuries that we want to either keep an eye on or reports coming in that please players are out. Some players that you're going to want to keep

an eye on as we get into this 1 o'clock slate of games. The Carolina Panthers hope to have, they plan on having, Greg Olson against the Redskins here in Week 6. NFL Network's Tiffany Blackman reported late Saturday afternoon that Greg Olson will play against Washington. Ron Rivera has been commenting throughout this week that Olson should be a go. 49ers, they play on Monday night against the Packers. Matt Brito, he's going to be a game-time decision. Pierre Garçon, Kyle Shanahan expects to have him back.

As for the Packers, Randall Cobb and Jeronimo Allison, they are both questionable for Monday night football. Coach Mike McCarthy this week called both players game-time decisions. And with Green Bay having a week 7 bye, both players might get held out if the Packers decide to go conservative we're going to game in London Seattle and Oakland Martavius Bryant came down with the flu this week he's questionable for week six if he can't go look for Seth Roberts Brandon LaFell to start on the outside along with Amari Cooper and Jordy

Nelson Rams getting some good news here. Both Brandon Cooks and Cooper Cupp were cleared for Week 6. Both were full participants in practice on Friday. They were cleared yesterday morning. So the Rams will have their full arsenal of weapons on hand in what might be an interesting game against Denver. This might be one of those snow game shootouts. Some snow, some weather in the forecast in the Denver area for this game.

I always like to see snow football, so that should be fun as well. Isaiah Crowell had a huge game last week against the Denver Broncos. He's now a game time decision for week six against the Colts. ESPN New York's Rich Kriminey expects Crowell to play through his questionable tag. He got in a limited practice on Friday after missing the last two days. Bilal Powell might be the smarter week six play if you've got sort of workload concerns about Isaiah Crowell. Deshaun Watson officially listed as questionable for week six against the Bills. There's no doubt over his status though. He's going to go. He's a tough kid. Competitive

toughness is the reason why I loved him coming out of that quarterback class. So I'd expect Deshaun Watson to be in the lineup. Kiki Cote, he has a hamstring, but he's been cleared for that game as well against the Buffalo Bills. Keeping around, spinning around for a couple more minutes here as we sort of look to what else is going on around the league here, some other injury news and notes. I've been all aboard the David Njoku train this entire season, particularly with Baker Mayfield returning to the lineup. Report Saturday night from ESPN Cleveland. Njoku expects to see more targets this week. Rashard Higgins is sidelined. Njoku's past game role should grow.

John Ross, wide receiver for the Bengals. Fascinating game this week between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. ESPN's Catherine Terrell does not expect John Ross to play this week. He's been questionable with a groin. He returned to limited practice after being a midweek downgrade in Week 5. The Bengals will take him to game time, but he might be held out one more game. Alex Erickson will probably play in three wide receiver sets

if Ross is ruled out. Looking around, some other news and notes here. We talked about Cooper and Cupps. We talked about, oh, we haven't talked about yet. We'll get into this a little bit later with the DFS stuff, but Derek Willis for the Browns. He was placed on injured reserve. The team, the Browns, signed wide receiver Brashad Perryman.

They were forced to make a correspondent move. Willis is out of the picture now. Rashad Higgins is out for Sunday. Jarvis Landry, Rod Streeter, Antonio Callaway, and now Brashad Perryman are their primary receivers. That's according to Mary Kay Cabot on Twitter. We're going to talk a little bit about Jarvis Landry. I think he might be a sneaky DFS pick this week. Finally, Cowboys defensive lineman David Irvin. He will make his regular

season debut today. Irvin returned from suspension last week but was not active. He's been dealing with off-field issues dating back to training camp. He's a great player when he's on the field but he has not played in since last week 13. The Cowboys need a big boost on their offensive line, and they would love if Irvin could come back and give that to them. That will do it for some news, notes, injury stuff here as we get rolling on this Sunday morning. Up next, my DFS recommendations as well as a look back at some of the stuff I missed. And a little bit later, I'm going to recap what was a crazy afternoon

and evening of college football, including some quarterbacks standing out, some quarterbacks really continuing to slide. That's ahead on this Sunday morning tailgate installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Sunday morning tailgate edition of Locked On Patriots here on October 14th, week six of the NFL season. Getting you ready, everything you need to know for this day's slate of games. We'll get it up until tonight, the huge contest between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Going to do our DFS fantasy recommendations right now for you guys and girls out there looking to play a DFS slate or lineup, or lineups as the case may be. Quick look back at last week. Not the best week. Not the best week of recommendations. Blake Bortles, who was our value pick at the QB spot, even though they lost. He was QB 11 last week in PPR League, so not too bad.

Christian McCaffrey was your blue chip pick for running backs. He was RB 12. Stephon Diggs was your blue chip pick at the wide receiver spot. He was wide receiver spot he was wide receiver eight um last week and ppr scoring everything else was a whiff um from matt ryan to matt brita jordy nelson jordan leggett took a flyer on that one and kind of crashed and burned but we forge on my friends i'm gonna try i know I don't always revisit the rankings from a week before, the suggestions from a week before,

but in the interest of full and open transparency, I need to do more and more and more of that. So I'm going to make a note to make sure I come back each Sunday morning tailgate and let you guys know where I missed because we got to be honest about our misses and there will always be misses. Let's look at this week, though. We're going to start at the quarterback position like we always do. The blue chip pick is Matt Ryan again.

I don't know what it is about Matt Ryan this season. I seem to be aboard the Matt Ryan train here. Going up against Tampa Bay, and obviously, look, Tampa Bay, they have struggled this year defending passers. When you look at what Tampa Bay's defense has done against quarterbacks this year, they're giving up 28.9 points per game on FanDuel to opposing quarterbacks. When you look at this defense overall and what they're doing in terms of,

you know, against, you know, opposing offenses, this defense is struggling as well. This is a defense that seems to have trouble getting off the field. You look at the passing numbers they've given up. This Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, they're giving up over 358 yards per game. They're giving up a quarterback rating of 130.5, an adjusted net yards per attempt of 10.0, and their pass defense has contributed minus 71.15 expected points.

That's over at profootballreference.com. This is a bad pass defense. 13 touchdowns, just one interception this year. Matt Ryan should have a good game. They are the only pass defense giving up unadjusted net yards gained per pass attempt over 10 yards. Everybody else is in the single digits. So I think Matt Ryan is going to hit this week.

If we go sort of value pick, believe it or not, we're going to go with Sam Darnold. This Indianapolis Colts pass defense is a little wonky as well. You know, they're giving up over on FanDuel, 20.9 points per game. You know, Donald is just 6,800 this week on FanDuel. I think that's pretty good value at the quarterback spot. I'll let you do some stuff at other positions if you want to kind of go cheap at QB. And when you look at this Colts defense you know they're also struggling giving up you know and they're expected points contributed as a pass defense minus 35.06 again pretty bad so Sam

Donald wouldn't be a bad play there at the quarterback spot if you want to go a little bit cheap going to running backs the blue chip pick here believe it or not it's James White you know he's 7100 there are running backs that are more expensive over on fan duel for example you know some of the running backs that are going to be costing you more toward girly 9500 melvin gordon 8800 christian mccaffrey 8400 so there are guys that are more expensive but i'm sort of putting them in that you know blue chip category because I've got an even bigger value for you a little bit later. But let's talk about this Chiefs defense. They struggle against running backs in the past game. We talked about it in the game day show. When you look at

this Chiefs defense giving up 31.9 points per game on FanDuel, two running backs. They've given up 39 catches on 49 targets for 454 yards and three touchdowns. I talked about that seam angle route, that seam Texas route combination with Gronk and White. I think this is a James White week. That's why I'm going James White.

If you want to go cheap, Tariq Cohen. Maybe this is my Pro Football Weekly colored glasses clouding my vision here. But I've been studying the Matt Nagy, Mitchell Trubisky, Bears a ton. I love the way they use Tariq Cohen in the passing game. Dolphins giving up 28.1 points per game on FanDuel. Two running backs. They've also given up three receiving touchdowns to running backs this year.

That's tied with the chiefs you know 47 targets 36 receptions they've also given up four russian touchdowns cohen's a big part of their offense he's just five thousand nine hundred dollars on fanduel and so if you want to go cheap at running back, but still get some good value for it, Tariq Cohen is a good play this week. Let's go to wide receiver. And again, I sort of tinker here with the question of blue chip. Because you could go, for example, Antonio Brown, 9,100. You could go Julio Jones. If you want to talk about, again, that Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, they're struggling against wide receivers.

They're giving up 40.7 points per game. Every week, I did this last week, I mentioned, look, Julio Jones going up against a defense that struggles. Last week it was Pittsburgh. This week it's Tampa Bay, 8,500. The problem is Julio doesn't get in the end zone. Steve Sarkeesian, man, you're killing us. And so I look at Jarvis, man, you're killing us. And so

I look at Jarvis Landry, believe it or not. His Chargers defense, giving up 36 points per game, two wide receivers, nine touchdowns to wide receivers this year. They've given up 87 receptions to wide

receivers this year as a team defense overall against the pass. They've given up 87 receptions to wide receivers this year as a team defense overall against the pass. They've given up 270 yards per game, adjusted net yards per attempt to oppose and quarterbacks of 7.4. Expected points contributed minus 29.88. It's a defense that struggles a bit. And Baker and Jarvis, they got a little thing going.

And so when I look at this matchup for Cleveland against this defense, I think it's an opportunity. And so Jarvis Landry, he's 6,900 on FanDuel. There are going to be some more expensive players. We talked about some of them. But I think that that would be a way to go. And another thing to remember here with the Cleveland Browns

is that they're losing a guy. Derek Willis, that wide receiver who had that huge catch, he's out. Rashad Wiggins is out. Jarvis Landry and Antonio Callaway, that's like it. And so you're going to see heavy targets

for both of those guys. This is a Landry week. I'd be all over that. If you want to go even cheaper, Mohamed Sanu. Mohamed Sanu. For some of the reasons we talked about, Jones not getting into the end zone, Julio

not getting touches. Sanu, he's just 5,800 against this Tampa Bay defense that, as we've beaten to death at this point, struggles in pass defense. And so I'd go there. Let's go to the tight ends, lock this out. I know he's hobbled with the ankle.

I know it hasn't been a monster season for him so far. This is a good Gronkowski week, I think. That Chiefs defense has struggled. It struggles against running backs, what we talked about. It's also struggling against tight ends. 14.4 points per game on FanDuel. Just one touchdown to tight ends so far, but 47 targets, 33 receptions. That's third most overall in the league. Again, 14.4 points per game. That's third most overall in the league this year against tight ends. Gronkowski going off at 7,900. I think it makes sense to me.

And finally, I know I did it last week, but I'm going to do it again and I'm probably going to regret it. Ricky Seals Jones, just 5,000 against Minnesota. Against a Minnesota Vikings defense that, believe it or not, has struggled.

Believe it or not, has struggled against tight ends. 12.6 points per game on Fandle. They've earned two touchdowns to tight ends this year. Seals, Jones, and Rosen, like I said last week, even though I got burned on it, they've got a growing relationship too. Ricky quarterback, younger tight end. I mean, this is probably my last ride or die situation with Ricky Seals-Jones. So we're going to do it this week.

Hopefully he pans out. If not, I'll own up to it next week. So those are some of the DFS recommendations I've got to remember to get my lineup in now with some combination of these guys and some others. If you do play this week, play responsibly. I wish you all the best of luck. Coming up next, we're going to take a look back at yesterday's college football slate of games. That's

ahead on this Sunday morning tailgate edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you. Now I'm going to close it out with some quick recap of yesterday's college slate of action. And it was a fantastic, particularly afternoon into evening slate. And

that like sort of 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. time block really sort of gave the remote a workout during that period of time. I mean, what you had going on, you had UCF Memphis going down to the wire. You had LSU Georgia. That game was going down. You had, you know, that Washington-Oregon game going into overtime. You've got Michigan State, Penn State, you know, going down. You had that Washington-Oregon game going into overtime. You've got Michigan State, Penn State going down late into the fourth quarter. So a lot of interesting games. We'll start. I kind of want to start for my own particular reasons here.

What is going on at Auburn? I mean, we're hearing some bad things now. It seems like a locker room is sort of turning on each other right now. Obviously, Auburn, they lose to Tennessee at home. Just a bad game for Auburn. They drop to 4-3, 1-3 in the SEC. And this is an Auburn team that many, myself included, were fascinated to see watch this year because you're hoping,

look, Jared Stidham might sort of make the leap, right? Well, look, it doesn't look like that is going to happen. You know, Stidham in that game, not the best performance yet again. 28-45, 322, two touchdowns, two interceptions. QBR of just 23.9. John Ledyard over at the Draft Network as well as Locked On NFL Draft tweeted out, Jared Stidham just ain't it.

I don't know what it is, but Jared Stidham just ain't it. And so I don't know what Stidham does. I mean, you know, he's just a junior, so he could go back and try to fix things. But for the year, just five touchdowns with two interceptions coming into this game. And so, you know, actually I take that back. Yeah, five touchdowns, two picks coming into this game.

Now he's got seven and four on the year. You know, completion percentage isn't exactly great. It's just not good things. Also not good things. Me and Nebraska, my Nebraska fandom is getting just a tough test this year. Nebraska actually had the lead against Northwestern. You know, they were up in the fourth quarter of that game, and they just can't finish it.

They can't finish it. You know, the game goes to overtime. Northwestern with the comeback. You know, game goes to overtime. Northwestern with the comeback. They've nailed field goal in overtime to take the league. Clayton Thorson, 41-64 for 455. Three touchdowns. Big day from him, but I just can't figure out this Nebraska

team and the rebound, the rebuild is going to take some time it looks like. Some other big scores, some other stuff to look at. LSU just sort of taking it to Georgia. A fantastic win for Ed Ogeron in that program. LSU 36, Georgia 16. That game down in Baton Rouge.

I know the guys from Stick to Football on that podcast, they were down there. Jake Fromm, he goes 16-34 for 2-0-9, one touchdown, but a severe lack of pocket presence. He also throws two picks. Georgia had a chance to sort of get right back into this game, but he takes a really bad sack. They had a chance to take advantage of some good field position in that game. It was a 19-9 game, and he takes a nine-yard sack on a third and six

at the LSU 34. Worst-case scenario, and he takes a nine-yard sack on a third and six at the LSU 34. Worst case scenario, you've got a good kicker. Your kicker, Rodrigo Blankenship, he's a good kicker. He could make that. He can't take a sack in that situation, but he did. Then they're forced to take a delay of game to get more room for the punt. Then LSU goes right down the field, Six plays, 86 yards, and a touchdown. And what could have been worst-case scenario, 19-12 game, it's 26-9.

And just bad. I was texting with some friends, made the point to look. Jake Fromm's pocket presence is worse than my cat's. At least it was on that play. So that tough, tough loss for Georgia. And you do wonder, look, do we see some Justin Fields now? You know, the young freshman quarterback for Georgia, a true freshman, very talented kid.

So that was an interesting game to see play out. Washington, Oregon, probably the game of the afternoon. You know, tremendous sort of quarterback battle between Jake Brown and Washington, the number 17 in the country, going on to take number 17 on the Oregon Ducks. Jake Brown goes 15 of 25 for 243, one touchdown, one pick. Justin Herbert, 18 of 32 for 202, two touchdowns, no interceptions. Brown might have had the better numbers,

but it's Justin Herbert and the Oregon Ducks who come up with the win in overtime. This was a game that was basically even back and forth, back and forth. I mean, you look at it, it's 10-10 at the end of the first, 17-17 at halftime, 24-24 at the end of three. Neither team scores in the fourth quarter. Then Washington gets a field goal in their possession. Oregon, they score a touchdown to win it in overtime. Fantastic win for Oregon. That SEC, it's shaping up to be a fascinating conference scene, how that's shaking out. Other scores of note, other stuff of note here.

UCF, they get sort of taken to the final minutes here against a game Memphis squad. That was a game where Mackenzie Milton goes 17 of 29 for 296. One touchdown in that game. This was a game that at halftime it was 30 to 17. Memphis at the half. But UCF, they score 14 unanswered in the second half to pull out the victory. Big win for them.

Florida looks surprisingly decent. They get a win over Vanderbilt, 37-27. Other games of note. This is the other one I want to come back to. Penn State, Michigan State. This is a game in Happy Valley at Beaver Stadium, but it's Michigan State. The visitors who come up with the victory, 21-17. They get a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Brian Lewerke finds Felton Davis for a 25-yard go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. Kind of a big game, kind of a statement game from both Michigan State. Their head coach, Mark D'Antoni, was kind of under the hot seat.

Big win for them. Brian Lewerke, big game from him. 24-52 for 259. So the average is just five yards per attempt. Not great. But two touchdowns, including the sort of go-ahead TD, you know, late in that game for the win for Michigan State. Excited to see Lewerke up here in a couple weeks down at College Park. As the Michigan State Spartans, they come east to take on the Maryland Terrapins. Going to be excited to see that game.

So that's kind of a recap of what was the afternoon in college football. That will do it for today's show. That will do it at least for the first of today's two shows. Because let's be honest, I'm going to be back here as soon as I can. Once this game goes final tonight, obviously the Kansas City Chiefs, undefeated Kansas City Chiefs, come to Foxborough to take on the Patriots. Shape it up to be a fantastic day and night of football. Enjoy all the games, everyone.

I'll be back later tonight, hopefully, fingers crossed, with a glorious victory edition of the Locked on Patriots podcast. Either way, until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patriots. Thanks for watching!