Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 25, 2017 - Timeline Takes

Episode Date: October 25, 2017

Mark Schofield breaks out some timeline takes in the latest installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark scrolls through the timeline and has instant reaction and analysis of power rankings, whether the Patriots are still the best team in football, thoughts on the Chargers' defense and their NASCAR package, and how New England will handle the CB position going forward. He also gets fired up over DeShone Kizer in Cleveland and the future of the QB position in the NFL. 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 get more. You're Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Good morning, everybody. Welcome on into Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here with you for Wednesday, October 25th, still 2017. Just sneaking that in there for you. Going to do something a little bit different today.

We're going to do some timeline takes. This is something I do sometimes over the Break in the Plane podcast as part of Inside the Pylon. This is an idea that actually originated with John Ledyard. He's the co-host of Locked on Draft with Trevor Sakama. He's also the host of Locked On Steelers. You should be listening to both of those shows.

But the idea of this is pretty simple. Perhaps you don't spend as much time on Twitter like I do. You're not seeing the takes that are flying all over Twitter all day long, sometimes 24 hours a day into the wee hours. And so what we do on these timeline take shows, we pull out some tweets that are interesting, that might spur some discussion, and kind of react to them almost in instant time. And since, again, this is Lockdown Patriots, these are going to mostly have a Patriots theme to them. They're going to touch on issues with the New England Patriots, but I'll get into some other stuff as well.

Try to change things up just a little bit before we really, really dive into the Chargers. Again, Los Angeles, San Diego, it's still tripping me up, so I'm just going to say Chargers all week. But let's kick this off, and what better way to kick off a timeline takes episode of Locked On Patriots than something from the one and only Skip Bayless. At real Skip Bayless on Twitter, he tweeted out Sunday night, the New England Patriots are still the best team in the NFL, in large part because they still have the best quarterback. That's probably an ideal place to start, don't you think?

There are a couple of different things to dive into here. First is, are the New England Patriots still the best team in the National Football League? And they've played well the past couple of weeks, don't get me wrong. It's hard to really say that they're the best team right now. They might be close, but I'm just not quite there with saying that the Patriots are the best team in the NFL right now. I think the Philadelphia Eagles have a strong case to be made for their being the best team in the NFL right now. Obviously, the record stands for itself, 6-1.

That defense from Philadelphia Stout Carson Wentz playing as well as anybody at the quarterback position right now leads the league in touchdown passes looks like the quarterback many thought he was going to become as he came out of North Dakota State

so I'm not quite there that the Patriots are still the best team. They might be. I'm not ready to sort of plant that flag yet. Now, is Tom Brady still the best quarterback in the NFL? I think so. I'm going to talk a little bit later about the NFL 1000 project,

but as somebody that watches every quarterback every week, it's, well, let me say this. There's some bad quarterback play in the NFL right now. You know, and every Monday afternoon when I sit down and try to rank these guys one to 32 or so, it's a lot easier to pencil in number one than it is, say, number 28. Because there are a lot of options for that 28th spot, 29th spot, 30th spot. There aren't too many for number one. Tom Brady is usually the guy. So I'm with Skip on the second part of that Tom Brady still the best quarterback in the NFL

are the Patriots the best team in the NFL right now I'm not quite there I want to see it from the defense maybe one or two more weeks get a little bit of a test again from the Chargers on this coming weekend but I'm not quite there yet almost

not quite similar end, but I'm not quite there yet. Almost. Not quite. Similar timeline take here. This is from Patriots BuzzTap, at Patriots BuzzTap. Getting into a discussion here. The Patriots can be considered AFC favorites once again. They're talking about an article that was written over at musketfire.com. One of the many great outlets that you can go to for Patriots analysis. In addition to lockedonpatriots.com. As far as whether the Patriots are AFC favorites again,

that I'm more likely to get on board with. Pittsburgh's playing well again. They run the ball well. That defense is starting to round into form. They were able to shut down Kansas City's running game two weeks ago out in Kansas City. That running

defense was giving up some yardage, but they were able to shut that down. Pass defense looks like they're rounding into form, but the issue there is historically Tom Brady and the New England Patriots have had success against the Steelers through the air. Steelers like to play zone. Brady usually very effective against that. So I still sort of give New England the nod over Pittsburgh when it comes to maybe

New England and Kansas City yeah we saw what happened week one but if and when those two teams meet again they're going to be two completely different teams so maybe I'm not there maybe I'm not ready to say that the Patriots are the best team in the league but in the AFC yeah I'm not ready to say that the Patriots are the best team in the league, but in the AFC, yeah, I'm on board with them being favorites. Next take we're going to get into from Mike Reese, at Mike Reese on Twitter. I'm sure if you're listening to the show, you follow Mike, but if you don't, you might want to go ahead and fix that. Mike has been following the Patriots for years. He started to get into the Chargers now, started to go through their tape.

Tweeted out earlier on Tuesday this, What Tom Brady has surely seen on film. Hold on to the ball at your own peril against Melvin Ingram and the Chargers defense. Fun player to watch. And he attaches to this tweet a gif of Trevor Simeon just getting unloaded on by Melvin Ingram on a blitz. And we'll talk about this a little bit more as we get ready for Sunday. But I'm going to say some words right now that will probably strike fear into the hearts and minds of Patriots fans. NASCAR front. If you remember

those Giants Super Bowls, particularly the second one, Giants used that speed rushing package. They had Justin Tuck, Osiyo Minoru, Jason Pierre-Paul. They would get those defensive ends,

put all four of them down on the line of scrimmage on passing situations, use four pure speed rushing guys to get after the quarterback. And they harassed Tom Brady with that in that second Super Bowl. Well, the Chargers are going to do something similar. They've been doing it in the past couple of weeks.

On passing situations, they get Joey Bosa and they get Melvin Ingram, two talented athletic edge guys. They bring them inside. And it's given teams trouble. So NASCAR front. We're going to see that again from the Chargers this weekend. New England's going to have to be ready for that. They've had experience with looks like this from different teams.

Bosa and Engelman are really starting to terrorize opposing quarterbacks. They did a number on Trevor Simeon last week. So that's certainly something to worry about, especially as we've talked about on this show and as others have talked about as well. Pass protection, it was an issue in the first half against Atlanta. Bill Belichick said it to Michelle Tafoya at halftime. They shored it up a little bit in the second half, but it's still something to watch, especially when you see a NASCAR front, a NASCAR package,

and that's what we're going to see from the Chargers on Sunday. Next take to get to At Scott Zolak Scott Zolak Color analyst for New England Patriots Former quarterback himself He had a thought From Sunday night's game

And it was this Surprised by Atlanta Just straight lining up No bunch Stack Motion a bunch Just line up and roll And I'm with Scott on that.

You know, I've always talked about how motion, shift, and things like that, it helps your quarterback so much. It helps your receivers too. And if you think back to the Brady touchdown to Gronkowski, the long touchdown against the Jets. That came from a tight stack formation. It wasn't quite a stack, but Hogan and Gronkowski were lined up right next to each other.

And you can get your talented receivers easy releases, free releases. When you get stacked formations, when you use motion and things like that, when you get guys moving around, you can get free releases for your receivers. You can give your quarterback a pre-snap indicator as to what the defense is doing. And so for Atlanta to come out

and just sort of roll into plays like that, not move guys around, kind of had me scratching my head. And especially when you consider they've been trying to get Julio Jones involved. Get him into stacked formations. Use him in motion. Get him moving pre-snap. Give him a little bit of an advantage.

There's no harm in that. You don't just have to line up and go so I was really surprised to see that really surprised to see that at by Kevin Dillon Kevin Dillon on Twitter

he's a writer for MassLive could New England Patriots stick with Johnson Badamosi at cornerback? And he attaches a quote, the guys that play the best play the most. Could they? Certainly. You know, this has always been a team, an organization that, look, if you're doing your job

you're going to be the guy that stays on the field now I certainly anticipate that when healthy Eric Rowe Stephon Gilmore they're going to get their chance to slide back into their roles and to see snaps but if they struggle I don't think there will be any hesitation from Matt Patricia back into their roles and to see snaps. But if they struggle,

I don't think there will be any hesitation from Matt Patricia and from Bill Belichick to get Badamosi back out there. You know, he's looked pretty good these past two weeks.

Gilmore's been out. The defense has looked pretty good. You know, second half against the Jets, this game against Atlanta. So would that surprise me at all? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Again, organizational philosophy has always been if you're doing your job, you keep your job. So that wouldn't surprise me at all. A couple more here.

We're going to dive back into rankings and power rankings here for a second. ESPN had their power rankings come out. Their top 10 teams started at number 10. Number 10, Oakland. Number 9, Houston. Number 8, Minnesota. Number 7, the Rams. Number 6, the Seahawks. Number 5, the Rams. Number six, the Seahawks.

Number five, the Cowboys. Four, the Steelers. Three, the Chiefs. Two, the Eagles. And one, your New England Patriots. And as I talked about a little bit earlier, are the Patriots the best team in football right now? I'm still quite not there.

If you're looking at power rankings as sort of your expectations for how things might play out, I can kind of get on board with that. I think the Patriots are sort of rounding into what the finished product will be. You know, when push comes to shove, look, in a matchup between Tom Brady and Carson Wentz, yeah, I like Carson Wentz a lot as a quarterback. Yeah, I think he's becoming the guy we all expected

him to be, or at least some of us expected him to be. But I'm not betting on Carson Wentz against Tom Brady. I'm not betting on Carson Wentz against a Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia defense. You know, so in a head-to-head matchup, I'm rolling with New England. But just right now, that snapshot, I'd give the edge to Philadelphia. And in terms of a power ranking type thing,

where you're kind of projecting forward as to what these teams might look like going forward, I'm still porting my chips with New England. Let's look a little bit outside the Patriots right now. A couple takes that I want to get into. At SB Nation NFL, sorry Pearl Clutchers, Deshaun Kizer's struggles

aren't because he went out Friday. At Jeff Schwartz Friday at Jeff Schwartz Jeff Schwartz, former offensive lineman now does a lot of great football media work you should be following Jeff he wrote a piece kind of breaking down what a player's schedule was like during the week and what life is like in the NFL

and as he kind of outlines in the NFL. And as he kind of outlines in the piece, look, you've got a lot of stuff going on, life in the NFL. But Friday and Saturday, there's not a lot of work left to be done. Game plans are put in on Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday is usually a quick practice, not a lot of contact. You tighten up the playbook. It's more like a walkthrough than anything. Some teams practice both days and they're basically two different walkthroughs because you're not going to really do a lot on Friday. Look, if you haven't gotten the game plan figured out, if you haven't gotten everything ready for Sunday,

it's almost too late. But Friday and Saturday aren't heavy workloads in the NFL. And as Jeff argues in the piece, look, for him, Friday night was date night with his wife. They'd go out, he'd be home, he'd be in bed by 10. But his teammates, they'd be going out. Is it an optics issue that Kaiser was out at a bar on Friday night after 1 in the morning? Yeah, it's an optics issue, and that's all it is.

There's no evidence of him having a drink in his hand. There's no evidence that he was out falling down drunk or anything like that. So this is the point. The point that Jeff is trying to make here. It's a manufactured non-story. Period. End of discussion.

The fact that Kisler was out late had nothing to do with his play on the field on Sunday. What does have an issue with his play on the field on Sunday what does have an issue with his play on the field on Sunday a couple of things one his play itself

his ball placement his inability to put the ball where it needs to be two he continues to make mistakes he continues to stare down routes three how Hugh Jackson

has used him and how he has managed him I've argued a lot this year spent more time than I cared to admit breaking down Kaiser and looking at how Hugh Jackson has handled him he pulled him at halftime of a three nothing game what message does that send to your rookie quarterback I'll tell you what it sends. I don't trust you to win. I don't believe in you. You can't play the quarterback position when you're looking over your shoulder every time the play ends, worried about what your coach is going to do, say, or how he's going to react. And you know how I know this one? Because that's how

I played it. And I didn't play it well because I was more afraid of what was going to happen, what the repercussions were to be if I made a mistake than just going out there and doing my job. And that's what Jackson has done to Kaiser at this point. You can't play the quarterback position scared. You can't play it timid. You can't play it worried about making a mistake because you know what's going to happen? You're not going to do your job. You're going to be afraid to make throws. You're going to overthink things. You're going to take too long to get the ball out. These are all things that we've seen from Kaiser. That's the main issue with him right now. Don't give me this, he was in a bar at 1 a.m. Oh my God, he's a 21, 22-year-old kid. That's not the

issue. It's a manufactured non-story and I'm getting mad just thinking about it. So let's move on. Final take I want to get into. At Benjamin Solak, I mentioned him in yesterday's show. He's the co-host of Locked On Eagles. Nice of at BR underscore Doug Farrar and at Mark Schofield to get in on the Wensum and Gettin festivities. And what he mentions there is Doug and I over at Bleach Report, the NFL 1000 Project, every Tuesday we come out with our quarterback rankings based on the tape from the previous week, the games, statistical analysis, big picture stuff. We kind of put it all together.

And for the first time this season, our top quarterback last week was not named Brady, Rogers, or Smith. It was Carson Wentz. But the bigger picture that I want to get into is sort of this. There's a lot of bad quarterback play in the league right now. You know, and as somebody that is paid to watch it all, is paid to break it all down, is paid to opine on not just NFL guys, but upcoming college guys, like there's some bad quarterback play in the league right now. But there are some young arms that are coming and on the way up here.

Wentz, Watson, Marcus Mariota, Derek Carr, Jared Goff. You know, the changing of the guard is around the corner. We've seen Ben Roethlisberger struggle at times. We've seen Eli Manning struggle this year. Aaron Rodgers is out with an injury right now. Drew Brees, who knows how much longer he was going to play. Obviously, look, Tom Brady says he's going to play until he's 45. That'd be five more years.

We all wish it could happen, but father time is undefeated. But we've got some young guys in this league that I'm really excited about. Wentz, Watson, Mariota, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff. You know, even Mitch Trubisky, who's just getting some starts. I think Patrick Mahomes is still an exciting electric quarterback who, once he gets on the field, is going to be fun to watch as well. And so I think, looking at the quarterback position

yeah there's some bad play but we're starting to see some guys that are your non-traditional types your Watsons your Marcus Mariottas come into the league and have success

and so I think as you start to project the next couple of classes guys like Lamar Jackson you know there's excitement to be. There's excitement to be had. There's excitement to be had about the position and the future of the quarterback position. And so I think in the weeks,

months, and years ahead, we're going to see some more exciting guys come into the league, some more talented players come into the league. The changing of the guard is coming, but I'm excited about it. And as somebody that watches more quarterback play and more football than I care to admit, I'm excited about it.

And if I'm excited about it, you should be too. Last sort of thought on this quarterback thing. Kristen Dyer, at Kristen R. Dyer. She quoted an article from sportandnews.com that he wrote. He spoke to an NFL general manager on the overrated

2018 quarterback draft class. Quote, the production isn't there. This happens every draft cycle. This happens every single year. It started last February. Last February at the Scouting Combine, the most talked about player wasn't Deshaun Watson

it wasn't Deshaun Kaiser, it wasn't Patrick Mahomes it wasn't Mitchell Trubisky it wasn't even Miles Garrett who went first overall the most talked about player in Indianapolis was Sam Darnold Darnold wasn't even draft eligible but people were saying oh man he's going to be incredible.

This quarterback class that's here, that's with us, they're not good. Oh, but next year's? Oh, next year's is great. But this happens every draft cycle. Every year, it's the same thing. This quarterback class in front of us

isn't any good. That's what we hear, say, from November through the draft. These guys aren't good. But the next group is great. And then once the draft ends, the new mocks come up. The early mocks. The way too early mocks. Where you start seeing, even though it's May, nobody's even practiced yet.

Guys are filling out mock drafts and saying who's going to be the top players taken. So last draft season, I actually went back and wrote a piece talking about this sort of cycle. And I looked back at way too early mock drafts throughout history. You know, a mock in June of 2011, a way too early mock,

has Andrew Luck, the first quarterback off the board in the 2012 draft. And it nails that. Got it right. But the next two quarterbacks listed, Matt Barkley, Landry Jones. Two guys who weren't listed,

Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill. April of 2012. Projecting again to the 2013 draft. You have Barkley again who stayed in school, listed as the first quarterback to come off the board. Then Tyler Bray, Tyler Wilson, and again Landry Jones who stayed in school. listed as the first quarterback to come off the board, then Tyler Bray, Tyler Wilson, and again, Landry Jones, who stayed in school.

In reality, E.J. Manuel was the only first-round quarterback taken. Geno Smith came off the board at 39. Mike Glennon came off the board in the third round. Barkley finally gets drafted in the fourth round after two mocks, two years apart, had him coming off the board in the first round. So my point is we always think the next quarterback class is better. We always think we know how these guys are going to pan out, and it never pans out that way. Because what happens is we love these guys in May.

We love these guys in June. We love these guys in February, like Sam Donald. Once they start playing, everybody starts digging in. Everybody finds things they don't like, and that's what we're seeing with these guys right now. Donald's thrown too many interceptions. Josh Allen doesn't even look draftable. The guys that have played well,

Josh Rosian, all their off-field concerns. Lamar Jackson, oh, we've got some concerns about his frame, his style of play. Baker Mayfield, is he tall enough? So even the guys that have risen to the top of the board based on their play this year, where people are finding flaws in them. But don't worry.

Oh, next year's draft class is going to be great. It happens every year. It's going to happen again. Which is why to circle back to the New England Patriots. That's why you draft a quarterback every other year. 16 drafts

since they've drafted Tom Brady. They've taken a quarterback in eight of those. Because it's better to be a year ahead and figure this all out internally than to try to have it

play out through the draft and try to figure out who the actual replacement for Tom Brady is going to be. Those have been some timeline takes.

I hope you enjoyed it. Trying to do something a little bit differently make you think. Got me angry a little bit. I got fired up on that Deshaun Kizer stuff. I'll be back tomorrow. Really start to dive into the Chargers and what to

expect on Sunday. Until we meet again, until we talk again, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, in Locked on Patreon. Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.