Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 9, 2017 - Jets/Browns Recap and the Slant/Flat Concept

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Mark Schofield kicks off Jets Week with a new intro, and a recap of the Jets-Browns game from Sunday. He then looks at Jets' OC John Morton, his West Coast roots, and the Slant/Flat concept. Also, Mark has his Monday night pick, so get signed up over at MyBookie.AG today! http://record.webpartners.co/_DK_3VE4-6vsWqcfzuvZcQGNd7ZgqdRLk/1/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey everybody, Mark Schofield from Locked On Patriots and I just wanted to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by our great friends at mybookie.ag You're Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. E-T-S-S-S-S! We were great, but we ain't justice.

We know we were a much better team than we came up and represented ourselves. And we were pissed off. We were 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 to come back and show what kind of defense, what kind of team it was, what 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. 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 you feel that? Is your heart racing just a little bit more right now? Perhaps a little bit of anger rising in the back of your throat? Hair maybe standing up a little bit in the back of your neck? You should.

Changed up the intro to the show a little bit today. A little J-E-T-S Jets chant. And then the words of linebacker Bart Scott after a Jets-Patriots divisional round game from a few years back. Leaded into his famous words, Can't wait. I can't wait for Sunday. Can you?

Let's kick off Jets Week, everybody. Mark Schofield here in the big chair as always for your Monday edition of Locked On Patriots and as I said a little bit of a different intro to the show. We got that Jets chant from MetLife Stadium. We got Bart Scott losing his mind and some different music

as well from unheard music concepts. The song underneath all of that appropriately titled Anger Men. Getting you ready here, kicking off Jets week. We're going to look at what the Browns and Jets did on Sunday. And then a little bit later, we're going to talk a little West Coast offense, a little slant flat. It's a staple concept of their offense. It's a day one install.

I'll explain what it all means with a little story time from Uncle Mark. Also, some announcements. Please do check out our friends over at mybookie.ag. Use promo code LOCKEDON when you sign up. They will match

dollar for dollar up to $1,000. They will match it 100 dollar up to $1,000 they will match it 100% when you sign up using promo code LOCKEDON so get yourself taken care of over there I'll be talking a little bit later near the end of the show about tonight's game between Vikings Bears with my pick

maybe use my pick when you sign up also LOCKEDONPATRIOTS.COM it is now active. I will be posting Patriots articles on that site, as well as all the podcasts will be over there as well. We're going to build that out. Some more Patriots content for you coming your way from yours truly.

But now let's look for a minute at this Jets-Browns game. And having just re-watched that, so you don't have to. This is what I do for you. I take care of everybody here at Locked On Patriots. I watch the games that you don't want to, and then I'll tell you about them, and what I'll tell you about that game is this.

I think more than anything, we learned about the Cleveland Browns and their struggles at the quarterback position more than we really learned about the New York Jets and anything they're doing on offense or defense. And this was a game that was potentially going to be scoreless at halftime. Josh McCown then leads a nice little drive

to get them actually into field goal range for a long distance field goal, a 57-yard field goal to close out the first half that splits the uprights. But it's a 3-0 game at halftime. Cleveland had chances in the first half to take an early lead. Deshaun Kizer throws a bad interception trying to hit Seftaval in the front corner of the end zone, stares it down. That's a great play defensively there to make the interception, but this is one of those where Kaiser just stares it down. May steps in front for the interception. He's a good young player.

Then they miss a field goal in their next possession. Kaiser had some up-and-down struggles in this game. He ends up getting pulled. He gives way to Kevin Hogan in the second half. And Hogan actually leads a touchdown drive on his first possession of the game. He hits David Njoku with a nice corner route, a throw and a nice corner route for a touchdown. It's 7-3, but then he throws the one bad interception. He gives the Jets another chance. Throws a bad pass on an in-cut, throw is high and behind the receiver. It's intercepted.

Jets go down, two plays later, score a touchdown. When Josh McGowan hits Austin Safarian Jenkins for a two-yard score on a red zone fade route. And ASJ, obviously, he's had his off-the-field issues, but they're featuring him more and more in the Jets passing game. He's seen a lot of targets over the past couple of weeks. Caught a touchdown here. He's somebody that the Patriots are going to have to contend with on Sunday.

He's definitely somebody that's going to be a featured part of their passing attack. Then Cleveland gets the ball back. They get stopped on a fourth down. Jets get the ball, go right down the field. Use the little no huddle here at times. That's something else to watch for from the Jets on Sunday. They used tempo in this game. A couple of times they went no huddle.

They go no huddle here. And we get a long touchdown pass, 24-yarder from Josh McCown to Jermaine Curse. Gets it to 17-7. Browns tack on a touchdown in the final two minutes on a long screen play from Kevin Hogan to Duke Johnson Jr., 41-yard catch and run for a touchdown on a screen play. But then the Jets recover the onside kick, and they can just run off the clock. As I said, this was a game where I think we learned more about the Browns

and their struggles at the quarterback position than anything else. Josh McGowan, his numbers, 23 of 30 for 194, two touchdowns. Did throw one interception in this game. But McCown's a guy that, you know, he's efficient, makes pretty good decisions with the football in that West Coast offense, which we're going to talk about in a second. He's not going to turn the ball over a ton. The interception that he threw was Jason McCourty,

a name Patriots fans know on the interception. He tries to throw a quick out route, but from the right hash mark to the left sideline, and McCourty reads it well. McAllen gets the ball out quickly on the play, but it's a long throw, and Josh McCown doesn't have the overpowering arm of, say, an Aaron Rodgers or somebody like that, and throw has to travel a long distance. Hands up there just enough so McCourty can come under it for the interception.

So there will be opportunities in situations like that where the Patriots might be able to get an interception or two, might be able to make a play on the boundary. And as we'll talk about here in a few minutes with their West Coast offense, they're going to try to get the ball out of Josh McCown's hands quickly. That slant-flat concept I'm about to break down for you. That ball is three-step drop, get it out of your hands. That's what they look to do offensively in the passing game.

They'll take some deep shots. I mean, the touchdown to Curley was a nice, well-designed play where they show you bubble screen to the outside, the two receivers over there in the trips, make it look like they're going to block, but then they release vertically on vertical routes, and they're wide open because it's just a nice design play. You get the defense thinking you're going to go bubble screen

and then throw it deep. So that was a nice little design. So there will be some stuff we'll go through this week. We're going to look at their defense in tomorrow's show. But today we're going to focus on their offense here in a few minutes, talk about their offensive coordinator, his influences, his West Coast background, the stuff he likes to do in the few minutes, talk about their offensive coordinator, his influences, his West Coast background, the stuff he likes to do in the passing game,

focusing on that slant-flat concept. And there will be an article posted on LockedOnPatriots.com breaking down the slant-flat concept as well. So maybe as you're listening, head over there. You can see it in action on LockedOnPatriots.com. We'll break that down in a second but first I want to remind everybody about our great friends over at MyBookie.ag

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You play, you win, you get paid. Check out our good friends over at mybookie.ag. Use that promo code LOCKEDON when you sign up. As I close out today's show, I'm going to be talking for a few minutes about what to expect from Bears-Vikings tonight and where my head is at on that game. But now let's talk about John Morton. He's the current offensive coordinator for the New York Jets.

Before joining the Jets, he's had a number of jobs in and around the game of football. He was a wide receiver himself, bounced around the NFL for a time, played at Western Michigan after starting his collegiate career at Grand Rapids Community College, saw some time with the Raiders, the Packers, the Raiders again, Jacksonville,

then the Toronto Argonauts the Canadian Football League then back to Oakland back to Toronto then to the Frankfurt Galaxy remember the World League I used to love the World League he was with them for a time but then he started coaching again with the Raiders he was working as an offensive assistant a senior offensive assistant under head coach Bill Callahan for that team that made it to a Super Bowl before losing to Tampa Bay. Two years later, he was then promoted to tight ends coach under new Raiders head coach Norv Turner. Turner more of a Eric Correale downfield type guy. Callahan more of a West Coast guy. But when he makes his next move,

we're going to start to see those West Coast influences really take root in John Morton's coaching style. He moves to the University of San Diego under their head coach Jim Harbaugh. He coaches the passing game and the wide receivers. And this team goes 11-1 and they win the Pioneer Football League. He parlays that into a new gig

with the New Orleans Saints under Sean Payton. He was an offensive assistant with them. That team made it to the NFC Championship game. Then he goes to USC. Again, coaches the passing game and wide receivers for the Trojans. Then he becomes their offensive coordinator and he's there for two years 2009 and 2010 and then he moves back to the nfl spends some more seasons in the national football league as a wide receivers coach for the 49ers

and then back to the saints rejoining sean payton in two more years as their wide receivers head coach before he comes to the Jets as their offensive coordinator. Now the influences on his coaching style, his scheme usage, are West Coast guys, Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton. These are guys that run West Coast concepts. And the West Coast mastermind is, of course, Bill Walsh, head coach for the San Francisco 49ers for years. And Walsh has influenced so many coaches. His coaching tree has influenced so many play callers, so many offensive minds,

you know, down to guys like Andy Reid and Doug Peterson. You know, that Walsh's impact on the game of football and the offensive schemes that you see from Friday nights to Monday nights cannot be overstated. And if you really want to dive into the weeds here, there's a great 230 or so page document that is just Bill Walsh coaching manuals, how he coaches quarterbacks, how he coaches different routes and things like that.

And it's amazing to read. It's really super nerdy football stuff. I'll tweet it out after the show so people can take a look at it. But again, the core component of the West Coast passing game is what we see in the Jets today, among other teams. Quick route concepts, getting the ball out of the quarterback's hands quickly, and then receivers make plays after the catch.

But Walsh had this stuff down to a science, as we're going to get to when we talk about the slant-flat concept, which is something that the Jets run a lot. It was their first pass and play against Cleveland. I've charted every single Jets offensive play so far this year, and slant flat is something that they run a ton. Earlier in the show, I teased that it's a day one install, and you might be wondering what that means. Well, now we're going to do a little story time with Uncle Mark. And when you think about how teams get ready to start their season,

they don't go into training camp with everything in the playbook ready to go. They install things from a day-to-day basis. And day one installs are those plays that are going to be a core component of your offense or your defense. That you're going to be running a lot. And so you get those in the playbook on day one. Those are the things that you're going to be running week in and week out. Game in, game out. Drive in, drive out.

You're not going to install your Hail Mary plays on the first day of training camp because you might run those once or twice a season. But something like slant flat for a team like the New York Jets or the Wesleyan University Cardinals, that's a day one install because you're running slant flat five or six times a game, maybe even more.

It's going to be a critical component of your game plan week to week. It's going to be a critical part of your two-minute offense. And so you get that installed day one. Now picture, if you will, a young college freshman who looks a little bit like me. And it's four in the morning. And he's leaving his dorm room to head to his first college football practice. And slant flat is the play that he was given last night

in the first offensive meeting of the year. And that's the play that he's going to be running all day long because it's their day one install. Now picture, if you will, this same college freshman, bleary-eyed, trying to wake up, trying not to be depressed when he sees some of his classmates who aren't football players who were just there for freshman orientation stumbling back to their dorm rooms after a night drinking.

That was always depressing when you're headed out to the practice fields and everybody else, all your friends, all your other buddies that aren't playing football are coming home. That was always a tough pill to swallow. But then you go into a practice, your first double session ever as a college football player, and the only throw you make, and you make it a ton that day,

is on this play, slant flat. Because it's that critical to what we were doing on offense, and it's that critical to what the Jets do on offense. And it's a simple two-man passing concept. Outside receiver, inside receiver. Inside receiver can either be a running back out of the backfield, like the Jets sometimes do.

It can be a slot receiver, like the Jets sometimes do. It can even be a tight end on the line or in a wing, like the Jets sometimes do. It can even be a tight end on the line or in a wing like the Jets sometimes do. Outside receiver, he runs your slant route. Five to seven steps, then breaks diagonally. Inside receiver runs that quick flat route. Two to three yards upfield and right to the sideline. And it's a day one install because it can beat man coverage. It can beat zone coverage. And so it's one of those plays that you put into the playbook because you know when you call it, this should get completed,

regardless of what the defense shows the quarterback. If the quarterback sees man coverage, you're going to throw the slant route. If he sees some sort of zone coverage, chances are he's going to be throwing that route to the flat. And that 230-page manual on quarterback play and passing concepts from Bill Walsh that I mentioned, he devotes some space in there to the slant-flat concept. In his words, this slant-flat concept, particularly the slant pass, it's a big chunk play. Now, that's a little crazy at first blush because it's just a quick route. Why is it considered a big chunk play?

Well, if it's executed properly and you catch the defense in sort of man coverage and that slant route even just has a step on the defender, a good throw and good catch and you're off to the races. This is sort of the central tenet of West Coast offense. Get the ball out to a receiver quickly with a chance to make a play in space. Think Jerry Rice running this.

He looks to that slant route, take a 12-yard split away from the tackle, 5-7 steps, and then break. Walsh liked to run this best to the weak side. He thought throwing it weak side to attack the weak part of the coverage, the weak part of the defense, was the best look for a quarterback.

If you wanted to throw it to the strong side, according to Walsh's notes, you should probably use a deeper drop and use some sort of misdirection component to it as well now when i said walsh had everything down to a science when it comes to the passing game here's what i mean by that he wants that throw to the middle of the receiver and above his waist if anything he wants the quarterback to almost slow the receiver up to catch it. You want to put it right on him. You don't want to lead him too far because that's when bad things happen. When you see teams throw interceptions on this play, it's sometimes the result of leading

the receiver too far. He gets his hands out because it's a quick throw. And if it's going to be made with velocity, there's a chance that it bounces off the guy's hands. I've seen that happen a couple of times this year with a couple of different teams. So you basically want to put it right on the defender, right to his sort of upfield shoulder. And you're basically playing for a body catch type situation, because as the receiver, you want to have your body between

the ball and the defender on this play. The receiver should always be aware of relationship between corner and safety. Got to keep your head on a swivel here. Know where that safety is because as you come over on that slant route, the safety can be in position to light you up. And as a quarterback there, you've got to do your job too. They sometimes call it blinking, blinking in front of a throw, making sure you don't leave your guy out to dry. The ball should be caught one foot in front of receiver's numbers. Again, to that upfield shoulder. You're not leading him too far, but just sort of that upfield shoulder. And're not leading him too far, but just sort of that upfield shoulder. And here's a very interesting note. Always practice half as many throws to the outlet,

which is the flat route, as you do to the primary receiver. And that's because, again, you're reading that flat defender, whether it's an outside linebacker or the strong safety that's rotated down. You're reading him as a quarterback. And you're going to react to what he does. If he sort of squats and tries to get under the slant route, it's easy. Throw it to the flat. Now, if it's a man-covered situation and that flat defender races out to the flat that's going to open up the throne lane for the slant route and then you put it on the receiver like walsh talks about

you know and again this was the first play the jets ran against the browns slant flat and what was interesting about that instance was there's also a blitz off the edge. The Browns play sort of soft zone coverage behind it. It's an easy decision. And that's one of those instances where as a quarterback you replace the blitz with the ball.

Blitz comes from that side, from that edge. Soft zone coverage behind it, ball is instantly out of McCown's hands to the guy in the flat, easy throw, easy catch, easy five-yard gain. They will do this early and often. It's almost an extension of their run game.

So look for that. Look for that slant-flat concept. The Patriots are going to have to have some communication in the secondary if they go man. Because if you're in man, the best way to sort of combat this is to do what we call banjo,

which is to switch your responsibilities on the fly so again back to this where you have cornerback over the guy running the slant route and then we'll say a safety over the say tight end running the flat route so say there in man covers responsibilities and stefan gilmore is supposed to cover the guy that runs the slant and then inside patrick shun is supposed to cover austin that runs the slant. And then inside, Patrick Chun is supposed to cover Austin Zafarian Jenkins, who's going to run that flat route. They need to know and call out Banjo when the play begins and then just switch. So as the receiver comes inside on that slant,

then Chun picks him up and Chun passes off the tight end on his flat route to Gilmore now on the outside. That's how you best sort of cover that from a man coverage perspective. Now, we didn't see a ton of man coverage from the Patriots Thursday night against Tampa Bay, but I'd expect to see man coverage again. I'd expect that they took the time over the past 10 days or so, sorted out their communication issues. So I'd expect to see man coverage again, and I'd expect to see them

using banjo when they go up against Slant and Flat. So that's a little bit of story time from Uncle Mark, a little bit on what it's like to be a college football freshman player, and seeing your buddies out carousing while you're headed to practice. But slant flat is a critical component of what the Jets do in the passing game, and the Patriots will have to have an answer for it.

Also, check out LockedOnPatriots.com. There's an article up right now about Slant Flat. Now, before we go, a couple of words about tonight's game, the debut of Mitchell Trubisky. And, you know, it's interesting that Chicago's going to Trubisky now. I think it's understandable that they waited, given the schedule that the Bears had to start out with. I think it was kind of overdue in a sense in that, you know, Mike Glennon, you knew when you signed him what he was. You knew when you saw him play this year what you were getting from him. You know, he's not the long-term answer there.

Mitchell Trubisky, they hope's not the long-term answer there. Mitchell Trubisky, they hope, is the long-term answer there. And he gets a chance now to start at home. But Vikings, 3.5-point favorites. And that's where I'm going to go. I think that Trubisky will play okay

because they've had sort of a mini-bye type here. You know, coming off playing two Thursday nights ago, and they'll have him ready. I think Trubisky can play in this league. I think he's a good quarterback, but I think tonight the Vikings will have enough on their side of the field to pull out the win. So head over to mybookie.ag.

Get signed up. Use promo code LOCKEDON. Maybe look at that Bears-Vikings game. Maybe look at those Vikings tonight. So that will close out today's show. Started off Jets week. New intro. Getting you ready.

Did a little slant flat. Talked about their game against the Browns. Go ahead and check on LockedOnPatriots.com as well. Got an article up there right now on this slant flat concept. So check that out. I'll be back tomorrow. We're going to start looking at what they do defensively.

And then a little crossover action. Thursday's show again. I'm going to be taking some of your questions. So hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield with some questions. Facebook as well.

I'm Mark Schofield on Facebook. Leave some comments on articles over at LockedOnPatriots.com as well. Ask me some questions there. And then Friday will be your game day edition of Locked On Patriots as we get ready for Jets Pass. Hope you had a great weekend.

Hope you're having a fantastic Monday. Hope you're getting ready now for Jets Patriots because it's rivalry week. Hope you enjoyed today's show. Let me know your thoughts on Twitter. You can leave reviews also on the iTunes page for Locked on Patriots. I will be back tomorrow. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield,

and Locked on Patriots. What you doing? Ran out of space on my phone, so I'm deleting some stuff. Bye singing dog. Bye goal. Bye wedding ceremony. Stop. At MetroPCS, you get two free phones with twice as much memory. Really?

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