Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots September 11, 2018 - Tape Tuesday with Taylor Kyles

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

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Hello everybody, welcome into a taped Tuesday edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield slotted into the big chair on this Tuesday, September 11th, 2018. And you can't say that date, you can't say that date combination without obviously having your mind flashed back to Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, a day which all Americans, all people around the world will remember. I mean, I was in law school that day and having just been in New York City a couple of weeks prior interviewing for jobs in the World Trade Center. And so obviously we think, we reflect, we remember all of the lives that were lost in New York City, in Washington, D.C., in Pennsylvania,

all the first responders doing heroic things on that day and afterward. So do take some time today and think about 9-11 and some of what was lost, some of what was taken from us, and what we're still dealing with now 17 years later. So do take some time to do that. Loaded show for you today. Before we dive into some stuff, I chat with Taylor Kyles. My Tape Tuesday reflection is going to talk some bare front,

going to talk the Gronk influence. 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 Network. Doing a ton of work this season. Got a lot of good content out there already. Had a piece up yesterday and now today over at The Score. The first piece went up on Monday. Break it down. The best run, the best pass, the best coverage design, the best pass rushing design from the week one action. Today's

piece is going to be focused on those three questions. You know, those three questions that I had at the end of last week from a league-wide standpoint. How will the Patriots contain Watson? How will Mahomes handle the Chargers pass rush? Who's going to win that matchup between the Minnesota defense and San Francisco's two-back pass and attack? Some of those questions, all those questions were answered perhaps in in surprising ways, over the weekend. And so check that out over at the score. Tape Tuesday stuff to kick things off. I'm going to talk about two things.

I'm going to talk about the bare front when the Patriots were on defense. But first, I'm going to start with the Gronk effect. And the Gronk effect, obviously, when you have an all-world freak-type player like Rob Gronkowski, obviously, when you have an all-world freak-type player like Rob Gronkowski, he obviously draws a lot of attention. You shouldn't be surprised that on third down or in the red zone, teams are going to look to bracket Rob Gronkowski to get two players on him to try to force Tom Brady to go elsewhere.

Or if Brady still tries to make that throw, perhaps now you've got two players, one of whom might be in a position to make a play on the football. So you can try to contain Gronkowski, make somebody else beat you. And we saw that show up at the end of the first half on Tom Brady's touchdown pass to Philip Dorsett. It's a first and goal situation at the four. And Patriots come out using 11 offensive personnel. That was one of the things I was going to be watching. What kind of personnel groupings were they going to use?

They come out with 11. Three wide receivers. You've got Ryland McCarron and Chris Hogan in a quick stack, you know, quick, tight, compressed slot to the left. You've got Dorsett in a slot to the right and Gronkowski flexed out wide. And Gronk has a corner over him in press coverage alignment. Now, what happens next? Well, we see what the Patriots love to do.

Some pre-snap motion. Dorsett goes in motion from right to left and a defender trails him. Number 30 comes across the formation to trail Dorsett in man coverage. And what does that tell Brady? Well, that it's man coverage. When Brady sees number 30, when he sees Kevin Johnson go across the formation, he knows, okay, they're in man coverage. So that's the first bit of help. Remember, we're all about helping the quarterback here at Locked On Patriots. The other thing Brady sees pre-snap is the safety.

Kareem Jackson, who had a great strip of Gronkowski in this game. But what does Kareem Jackson do pre-snap? He goes from his middle of the field safety spot over to Shade Gronkowski. So basically what happens is this. Kareem Jackson is in the middle of the field. Brandon Cooks is in the right slot. I mean, excuse me,

Phillip Dorsett is in the right slot. Dorsett goes in motion from the right slot to the left side where he's now in a bunch with McCarron and Hogan on the left side. Kareem Jackson in response comes down basically into the slot where Dorsett vacated in order to bracket Gronkowski. They're putting two on one on Gronkowski here. They're going to take away that fade route and they're going to try to take away that quick slant route. Those are the two things you often see Gronkowski run when he's flexed wide alone and that sort of wide iso look.

But what does that mean to the other side? You've now got three versus three. So all you need to do is win one of those matchups. And what do they do with Dorsett, who's now just come in motion from right to left with a guy trailing him? You run him on an out-breaking route. Because at the snap,

because that defender is coming across the formation, trailing him in motion, he's going to have inside leverage, giving Dorsett the outside advantage. And that's exactly what happens. Dorsett runs an out-breaking route and does such a fantastic job of sinking his hips into the break. So he gives that defender, Jackson, just that quick moment of concern. Is he actually going to come over the middle?

Will I have good positioning since I already have this inside leverage on him? And then Dorsett just comes away from him, breaks towards the outside, gets enough separation. Brady sees it, reads it perfectly. Perfect timing and placement on the throw. And it's an easy touchdown for New England

given them that lead going into the halftime break. But it started with some of the stuff we talk about all the time here at Locked on Patriots. The pre-snap alignment and pre-snap movement. Brady knows it's man coverage. You've got Gronk in that Y ISO, so what does the defense do? They want to take that away. So they rotate the free safety over to that field.

Brackenham 2 over 1. Well, I'm just going to throw the out route to my guy that's come across the field, that's come in motion, that's going to be working away from the guy that's trailing him across the field in that pre-snap movement. Fantastic design, execution, just great stuff all around from McDaniels, from Brady, from Dorsett, and yes, from Gronkowski, and that's part of the Gronk effect. He can get defenses to do things that give the offense an advantage. So that's one thing I want to talk about. The other thing I want to talk about

is the bare front. The bare front. And you know maybe it's not something that's sexy. It's not something that's exciting to talk about that gets people all fired up. But it's one of the ways that the Patriots were sort of able to contain Deshaun Watson in this game. And what I mean by the bare front is this. Bare front is just a different way of having your guys aligned up front, but it put the Patriots in position to contain Deshaun Watson, to keep him in the pocket. What the bare front looks like is this. You picture the offensive lineman, right? You've got left tackle, left guard, center, right guard, right tackle, right? And usually what you see from defenses these days is you've got somebody on

the center, a nose guard, maybe he's head up, maybe he's shaded to one side or the other, and then you've probably got guys on the offensive tackles or maybe they're in that B gap between a guard and a tackle. But the bare front is something different. The bare front covers those three guys on the inside. It covers them. So you've got somebody that's head up on the center. You've got somebody that's on one guard. And you've got somebody that's on the other guard.

And in this case, they do this on that first and 10 play in the first quarter that looked to be perhaps the intentional ground and safety call, but it was waved off because there was somebody in the area where Deshaun Watson turfed the football. But so what they do, you've got Malcolm Brown. He's aligned over the right guard. You've got Adam Butler or Danny Shelton. Hard to tell from the numbers right now,

but one of those guys is aligned head up on the center. And then you've got Keontae Davis. He's right across from the left guard. So looking at it again, it's Brown, it's Shelton, it's Davis. Those three guys in that sort of bare front head up over the left guard, the center, and the right guard. And what that does is it occupies those three guys. So then now you've got one-on-one matchups on the outside with the two tackles. And what they do with this bare front look is that you walk down linebackers on the edge, outside of those tackles.

So you've got Kyle Van Nooy outside the right tackle. You've got Dante Hightower outside the left tackle. So as the play begins, the inside is occupied with those three guys. The center and the two guards are occupied by those three bodies. And then you've got Van Nooy and Hightower now coming from the outside in, because they're using wider alignment. They're outlined outside of the tackle's pretty snap. They work outside in. So it sort of creates a natural pocket, which if you're a quarterback, you'd like to have that natural pocket around you.

But if you're a quarterback like Deshaun Watson, who looks for those ways to escape to the outside, to get to the edge, to break contain, now you're stuck. Because with Van Nooyen and Hightower working outside in like that, that keeps him trapped in the pocket. And as this play develops, Watson can't go to the outside where he naturally wants to go. He's forced to try to step up into pressure where those three guys are coming. And what happens is Brown gets away from his block,

from the block of that right guard, and he's able to work himself free, get himself into the legs of Watson, who has the strength to sort of stay upright and turf this, avoiding a sack and a safety. But it's a great example of how the Patriots sort of approach this. They use that bare front, occupy the three guys inside. Then you've got your outside linebackers, Van Nooyen, Hightower, working those edges, coming from outside in to sort of create that pocket itself, but then work to close it around Watson, to contain him in there, to not give him a chance to dance around to the outside and then to make a throw in those scrambled row situations

where he can be so dangerous. So looking back back through the tape looking at some of the stuff you know that was something that i really liked i highlighted that in a piece over at the score which you can check out over at the score nfl.com or on the score app which is a fantastic resource as well so that's some tape tuesday stuff for you from me up next my chat with taylor kyle's his impressions from this game his thoughts from reviewing the tape, and some really good thoughts on what to expect next week as we look ahead to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Speaking of

which, don't miss out. Wednesday crossover episode with my boys Chris and Zach from Locked On Jaguars. Two good guys. Had a fun chat with them before the AFC Championship game. Going to be chatting with them for Wednesday's show. You won't want to miss that. But up next, Taylor Cowles from Pat's Pulpit here on Locked On Patriots.

Welcome back, everybody, to this taped Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back here in the big chair. We've done some taped stuff already looking at the Gronkowski effect when the New England Patriots have the football. But I'm going to continue the conversation here with a great, great taylor kiles from pat's pulpit kind enough to spend some time with us right now please please please follow him on twitter he is at tkyles39 during the game on sunday he was tweeting some live take kind of stuff which was fascinating to watch it's always good when people do stuff like that because it helps me i always learn something when taylor's

putting tweets out there and breaking stuff down. So Taylor, welcome back to the show, buddy. Thank you, buddy. I'm glad to be back. Thank you for having me. Oh, thanks for being here. And before we sort of dive into like small scale stuff, what are your sort of big picture takeaways from New England season opening win over Houston? Big picture takeaways are honestly a lot of the things that I think we talked about coming into the game and in the preseason where the national media, you know, it was a big deal about, oh, Edelman's out. How are the Patriots going to move the ball and score? And this defense may even be worse because of the pieces that they've lost and Malcolm Butler and so forth.

And I think that it was a great statement win. I think that it proved that they can still get it done with the pieces they have. A lot of the new additions played a pretty big part last game. And a lot of people that a lot of folks in the national media and maybe outside of New England in that kind of sphere really weren't thinking about, like Philip Dorsett, for example, who I'm sure we'll get into later. But big statement win, and I think it's a really good first step for the team.

Yeah, I'm there with you on sort of the overall big picture. And I was impressed with the defense, which we're going to talk about in a bit. But let's start with the Patriots have the ball. And, you know, it's always easy to say, look, this team has Tom Brady and they've got a chance. And while I don't think Brady was perfect on Sunday, he always makes the right reads. He always makes the right decisions.

The pocket movement was always there. So, you know, even if Tom Brady's not at 100%, he's still one of the best quarterbacks out there doing it right now. But what were your thoughts on Brady's game against the Houston Texans? Well, Brady, he wasn't perfect. And I think at this point we expect him to be, even though it's a little unfair, especially against that pass rush. The fact that he was composed for the vast majority of the game,

I thought was extremely impressive. He had a couple of errant throws. I know the pass to Burke Head was a little further. The first time I saw it, I thought it was actually worse. But it wasn't that bad, but still, you know, it was a touchdown. I'm sure Brady's kicking himself about that. And a couple others where he was pressured and threw it a little further than he wanted to, I'm sure.

But overall I think he did a great job of taking what the Texans gave him. I think I actually mentioned this in one of my tweets, their pass rush is so good that with their defense, they tend to play a lot of off coverage, which gives you a lot of opportunities to hit quick passes. But when the defense recognizes what you're doing, which is what the Texans kind of rely on, it can hurt you. I think one great example was when James White was outside on a, I believe it was third down, he was outside and he motioned into a stack formation. And usually when the team does that,

James White runs an option route. He either goes inside or outside based on whatever the defender who's playing him is aligned as or wherever the space is in the zone and actually um i forget who it was may might have been cream jackson i'm not positive but whoever was covering him actually did a great job recognizing that it was either going to come in or out and as soon as brady let the ball go the defensive back came up and broke up the pass and the patriots had to punch. So little things like that, I think, you know, the Texans had their wins for sure. But Brady overall, I thought, did really well in the game. His accuracy, let's just say there's no cliff coming anytime soon. He looked very good. No cliff indeed, at least not one that we're seeing it coming anytime soon. I think you made a great point there, Taylor, about, you know,

how the Texans would play off coverage and Brady being so willing to just throw those quick smoke routes. I love when a quarterback with an offense is just like, look, if you're going to play me eight yards off, if you're going to be eight yards off on Patterson or Dorsett, I'll throw a quick smoke route. I don't care what it looks like because I'll give my guys a chance to make a play. That's right. We saw without Patterson, like you said, one of the smoke routes that he caught where I actually just really quick tangent, Patterson was exactly what I was hoping he was going to be. He was strong after the catch.

Guys bounced off him. He was great. And that's what makes, I think, the elite quarterbacks. Everyone likes to say that, oh, can he throw a post 12 times a game and hit the guy right in the chest? And those are obviously really impressive plays, and not everyone can do those. But the great quarterbacks are the ones that say, you want to play 10 yards off the ball, I will throw it to my running back in the flat every single time,

and I trust, like James White, for example, he's a guy you can trust to get the most yards he can on a play because he's smart, he understands his strengths and limitations, and he's got that grit. So, I mean, I loved seeing that from Brady. He took shots when he needed to. He didn't connect on all of them, but like I said, overall, really impressive performance

where he took exactly what the Texans gave him on most plays. Speaking of impressive performances, I think for the most part, while they did give up some pressures into the third quarter, into the fourth quarter, I was pretty impressed with the way this offensive line comported themselves, particularly against that Texans pass rush. We didn't hear J.G. Watt's name until I think the third quarter, so I came away feeling a little bit better about this offensive line comported themselves, particularly against that Texans pass rush. We didn't hear J.J. Watt's name until I think the third quarter. So I came away feeling a little bit better about this offensive line.

Did you share that sort of belief in how they fared on Sunday? I definitely did. I didn't get to look at a lot of the offensive line play. I'm going to look closer when the All-22 comes out. You can actually see the end zone angle. But actually, one missed tweet I had yesterday, I called out Trent Brown because I think he gave up two plays to Jadavion Clowney where Clowney happened to catch him when he was off balance and kind of push him back and those were the because I was mostly focusing on

J.J. Watt who was more on the right side against Cannon and Waddle so the only times I really noticed Brown in those instances were when he was on replay but then I looked again he absolutely engulfed Clowney on most plays he used his size very well Clowney had trouble getting around him going he definitely couldn't go through him on most plays and I was really impressed with Trent Brown for one and then on the right side I think when we started seeing the line really start to kind of teeter and give it more pressures was I think J.J. Watt started to get a better sense of the snap count because he was just blowing past Adrian Waddle it seemed like Waddle had a pretty poor performance late, but honestly against J.J. Watt

and his explosiveness, he just doesn't make any sense. He physically doesn't make sense. There were times where Waddle did everything he could. It wasn't a bad set. He just couldn't reach Watt because he had a good snap count. With Watt's length and his power and his technique and understanding of how to take advantage of offensive tackles when you know their technique is even a little bit off it was a tough matchup for Waddle so that's I think what we saw late but I was very impressed Shaq Mason also had some great blocks with excellent pulling in the run game so the offensive line gave us a lot of things to be happy about you know you mentioned sort of in your big picture comments Taylor you mentioned Philip Dorsett and you know what was interesting in the wake of that game was a lot of Patriots beat reporters who were at, you know, training camp, you know, putting out tweets basically saying, look, a lot of people nationally wondered what Philip Dorsett was going to do for this team. But anybody who could see this team at training camp knew that he was going to get off to a good start with how we looked in training camp. Seven catches on seven targets for 66 yards and a touchdown.

I thought the route he ran on his touchdown route was almost as flawless as you can get on that quick little out route, sinking his hips, really getting into and out of the break. I was very impressed with him, and I feel like you feel the same way. Absolutely. The only disclaimer I want, because I'm going to start gushing about Philip Dorsett, the only reason I wanted temper expectations is because we haven't seen how he performs. We're going to get a great taste next week against Jacksonville, but we don't really know how well he performs against press coverage this year with Brady.

Now that they have that better rapport, timing is one thing, because with good press coverage, the windows are very small. So I still want to see how he does against Mann, but he devoured zone. Actually, on the two-minute drive, he caught a ball on the same route three times they were all out routes just to different lengths of the field and every single one the reason he's so good against off coverage is he eats up cushion really quickly because he's a really fast guy yeah so if you have a defensive back who's afraid of his speed he's gonna flip his hips and philip dorisette i think is smart enough in his route running to know if this guy flips you know one direction I can break out and he's not going to be able to recover fast enough

and that's exactly what happened with the touchdown I think that was the best route because the coverage was a little tighter and the window was a little tighter but he had a really nice body and head lean where he looked inside and kind of tilted his body like he was breaking for an in route and then went outside and Johnson Johnson was cooked. And I tweeted about it. I loved that play, and I'd love to see more of that from Dorsett. You know, Taylor, you make a very interesting point there. One of the things that was very impressive with Brandon Cooks last year was something that you just mentioned in talking about Dorsett,

how he would eat up Cush and he would eat up those off-coverage situations. You could work him on those comeback routes, those out routes, because defenders would have to really respect the threat of the vertical route. Perhaps we're starting to see why the Patriots were willing to move on from Cooks because Dorsett, at least through one game right now, is doing some of the same stuff. Absolutely. And I think where the drop-off may come is you, well, Dorsett, actually another thing I want to mention, he made some great adjustments. There were a couple of Brady's throws to him, and this tends to happen a lot, I noticed, with Dorsett. Maybe they still need to work on that timing,

but the fact that they were throwing out routes is huge because the out routes, especially the deep out route, are some of the hardest throws for a quarterback and a receiver to make. But you see that there were some errant throws that were a little outside of his frame, but Dorsett, being a small guy, you wouldn't expect him to really be able to adjust to balls outside of his perceived know uh perceived catch radius but it's actually wider than i expected um i think it was the first or second catch that he had on the two minute drive was great he laid out for it on the sideline came

down with the catch extremely impressive but where he i think is better than cooks is in his flexibility in the lower half of his body i think he can sink lower he has some looseness in his hips and he can really break on routes a little more crisp than Brandon Cooks did. So that fits the Patriots scheme a lot better than, you know, just the posts and the goes and the, you know, even slants sometimes. So, and I think his ability after the catch is also a little bit better. We saw that when he put the moves on one of the Texans defenders. So I absolutely think that Philip Dorsett was a big factor in them willing to let Cooks go because they knew they were going to have to sign him to big money

and that they didn't have to. Mark Schofield, Taylor Kyles from Pat's Pulpit running through some thoughts after taking another look at the Patriots' season-open win 27-20 over the Houston Texans. Taylor, let's flip the script a little bit, talk a little bit about when the Houston Texans had the ball. And coming into this game, obviously, everybody was wondering how are the Patriots going to approach Deshaun Watson how are they going to

look to sort of contain him in the pocket what were they going to do in the secondary I think the Patriots defensive line the guys up front had a great day in terms of rush land integrity they didn't really give Watson a lot of opportunities to escape out the back door they tried to keep him contained in the pocket as much as possible. Yeah, he had some runs here and there. He had the 13-yarder on their final handle, Mary Drive. But I thought for the most part, this defensive front did a fantastic job. Do you agree with that? I absolutely do. I think it started on the edges because Watson loves to kind of get around, get outside the pocket and buy time. I think Trey Flowers, Kyle Van Noy, Keontae Davis, Claiborne,

those guys did an excellent job at pushing the pocket and putting the pressure on Watson. And then all those guys have pretty long arms, and that's where you really saw the plays being made. When they either got the hit on him late in the pass rush, not even really late, but when they really got there, you could see those long arms were reaching for him, even though they weren't rushing upfield trying to get around him.

And that's where teams struggle against Watson. You want to push the pocket from the middle and then from the edges and condense it and make sure that he feels uncomfortable. They did a great job with that. And also, Malcolm Brown actually surprised me with his hand usage. Honestly, the Texans offensive line isn't the best example. You know, it's definitely. You want to see your guys perform against superior competition, for sure. So it was definitely intriguing and exciting, but

they weren't the best. But Malcolm Brown, with his hand fighting and his power and his persistence and his pass rushing, I think was something that we don't usually see from him. He's more the kind of guy in previous years where if it was a pass rushing situation, he would kind of stall out if he couldn't win initially. But I saw a lot more energy from him, although his run defense wasn't great. He kind of got moved off his spot a good amount. But Lawrence Guy and Danny Shelton were amazing. Danny Shelton was almost unmovable in the run game, unless sideline to sideline he struggled a little bit. But he's a big guy.

It's a little understandable. But if they were running at him, he dominated the point of attack. And Lawrence Guy, he was using swim moves. He was getting in the guy's chest. He was playing through the whistle. He was doing everything he could to make an impact on the play. And when you get a guy his size who really is just putting forth all that effort and understanding how to utilize his strengths,

I feel like even more with Joe Kim, the pass rush specialist, and understanding how to use his hands. That's like even more with Joe Kim, the pass rush specialist, and understanding how to use his hands. That's throughout the defensive line. Yeah, Lawrence Guy and Danny Shelton really impressed me yesterday. What were your thoughts of the run defense overall? Because there was, I think it was Houston's 11th drive of the game, where they had a run for about 20, a run for 10, a run for 5, another run for about 7, where they gashed the Patriots a little bit on the ground. But other than that, I felt like the run D fared pretty well, other than some isolated

plays here and there. Agree completely. And I actually took a closer look to see why that was happening, because I noticed that Danny Shelton was kind of in the mix on some of those, and he was doing so well. I was wondering what was going on. And Adam Butler, who's more of a pass rushing specialist, he's dominated that way yesterday and throughout the preseason. He's really come a long way. But I was wondering why they were having so much success seemingly out of nowhere.

What I noticed was that Alandian Roberts was on the field, and he was a pretty significant drop-off to what was there most of the game with Hightower and rookie Jawan Bentley. Because Bentley has really impressed me in that he's very patient. He understands how to read his keys. He doesn't overrun his gap. And he's actually very sound in pass coverage. Whereas Roberts isn't as good of an athlete.

He's a little stiffer. He doesn't have the best range. And because of that, he'll sometimes overrun the play, also because of a bit of a lack of patience. And what happened on a couple of the runs was it looked like Roberts completely overran his gap, and then Miller took advantage and cut it back where he was supposed to be. I thought it was on the defensive line. I thought it was on Butler once. Another time I thought it was on Shelton. Shelton actually in one of those plays did lose track of the ball thanks to a good

combo block from the Texans. But Landon Roberts really did kind of hurt them on a couple of those plays. And then some of them were just good execution by the Texans. So I would take that drive with a grain of salt for sure. Nothing to panic about, but coaching points that they can learn from next week. One of the things that the Patriots and Bill Belichick as a defensive coach have always been known for is trying to take what you do best and take it away from you. And we touched a little bit on that with Watson, but obviously DeAndre Hopkins, a very dangerous threat in the past game, particularly with the absence of Will Fuller.

But I thought the Patriots had a great game plan for him. They would bracket him at times with Gilmore and then Harmon over the top. Otherwise, they just put Gilmore on an island alone with him. But I thought they really handled him well. What did you think with Hopkins? Completely agree. I think that the fact that Fuller wasn't there actually played hugely into the Patriots' favor. I thought that Gilmore was going to be on an and cornerbacks. That's where Gilmore is also very good. He's great.

If the throw is a little bit off, he'll get his hand on it most of the time, and we saw that actually yesterday. Very tight coverage. But without Fuller, to add that vertical aspect where you have to respect his speed because really no one but maybe Jonathan Jones on the Patriots is fast enough to compete with him deep. Without that element, it was all Hopkins. And there really weren't any other receivers on the Texans who were able to dominate, especially against Eric Rowe, who had a great game. Jonathan Jones had a really good game. So the way they handled Hopkins, the fact that he didn't go off on them was really all you can ask for because he's such a dominant player. Think about Gronk, how many plays that he made in

double coverage when it seemed like an impossible situation to throw into he still came down with him and the fact that Hopkins didn't have a lot of those kinds of plays he had that one near the goal line where he it was actually really good timing by Watson and him to kind of take advantage of some off double coverage um but besides that I thought they did a great job on him another guy that I think you know had a nice little out and he was only in a couple of plays where he really heard his name called but Jonathan Jones you know in that slot corner role you know against Bruce Ellington on a couple of crossers where he really had his active hands you know breaking up some throws what did you think about Jonathan Jones in that slot corner role a role we

probably expected maybe to see Duke Dawson in right I actually thought that John Jones was going to have that position as long as he was healthy. Watching him in the offseason based on his tape from last season, I noticed that he's a really hard guy to get away from because even if you beat him at the beginning of the play, unless you get it right after, he's so fast that you can't really run away from him, which is why he's so good on those crossing routes. Because not only if he's getting physical with you and impeding you with a line of scrimmage or in your route, it makes it that much harder to get away, create separation. So you have to make plays through contact. And if you don't, even if you do make the catch, he's probably going to tackle you right

after. So he played pretty much the way I expected, which was awesome. I think he really does have the potential to be one of the better slot corners in the NFL. And he definitely made a bit of a statement i'm not going to go overboard it's the first week of the season you know teams may have a little more tape on and things like that but very intriguing i'm excited to see what he does for the rest of the season yo taylor it's never too early to start looking ahead and obviously it's going to be a highly highly highly anticipated matchup this upcoming weekend afc rematch fc championship rematch between Jacksonville and New England, down in Jacksonville. Jacksonville also got off to a 1-0 start.

Bit of an ugly win in some wet conditions against the New York Giants. But what are your early thoughts on this AFC championship rematch? Honestly, I think this could be a really tough game for New England, only because if the Patriots get in third and long situations, they're in big trouble. And we kind of saw that last, I'm sorry, last yesterday, where Brady tended to go towards Gronkowski and the running backs in those situations. But by alignment, when you target running backs on long passing downs,

it takes longer for the routes to develop. And they're almost definitely going to double cover Gronkowski in any of those situations. So then it comes down to the receivers. Who can get off the line against press man coverage, get open, make the catch and convert. And I really don't think they have that person on the roster without Edelman right now. So it does kind of scare me a little bit. If the running game can get going and they can really devise a game plan where they're clicking on all cylinders and they're running on schedule and not too many long situations i think they can be competitive because portals doesn't scare me he never has and i'm sorry until i see anything better he never will but um that defense is definitely still formidable they didn't do that well against odell beckham jr but he is the

gronkowski of wide receivers it's it's it's not really saying much of a defense has trouble containing odell Beckham Jr. It's more if you do well against him, then oh my gosh, that's amazing. You know what I mean? Right. So yeah, the defense definitely scares me. The offense, not so much, especially since the Patriots have a better idea of how the Jaguars kind of want to attack them. They want to attack them with speed and really stress them athletically. So as long as the offense can do their thing, if the backs and the tight ends can really thrive, hopefully Hollister is healthy, I think they definitely have a shot.

But it's not going to be easy. He is Taylor Kyles. You can find him on Pat's Pulpit. You can find him on Twitter at T-K-Y-L-E-S 39, the number 39 at the end of that Taylor, man. Fantastic stuff as always. Let the people know what you're going to be working on next, what you've got going on over Pat's Pulpit this season.

Well, on Pat's Pulpit right now, I'm really working on something with Stoney Michelle. I'd like to, even though he's not a big name right now because, you know, he's kind of buried on the depth chart. He's not doing too well health-wise. I want to make sure I can really get the community excited, if they aren't already, about all the ways they can use

him because he's a better Rex Burkhead, and I think people are already pretty excited about Rex Burkhead, the flexibility he has, how he's a legitimate option in the passing and running game. Sonny Michel is even better and a bigger home run threat. So I'd like to get something out to get the fans excited about his return. Fantastic. We'll look for that. That will do it for today's show, this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked On Patriots. I will be back Wednesday doing some crossover stuff with

Mr. Christo, Chris, and Zach over at Locked on Jaguars. A lot of fun talking to those guys. They're probably going to say some stuff about how Miles Jack wasn't down and things like that, and I'll just have to ignore them, but always fun to chat with them. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots. Go for it. And like Tom Petrie.