Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots September 18, 2017 - Glorious Victory Monday

Episode Date: September 18, 2017

Mark Schofield has instant reaction to New England's 36-20 victory over the New Orleans Saints. We cover what we learned about the offense and defense, as well as start to look ahead to the Houston Texans. Also, check out our partners over at MyBookie.AG. Use promo code LOCKEDON when you sign up! http://record.webpartners.co/_DK_3VE4-6vsWqcfzuvZcQGNd7ZgqdRLk/1/ 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. This is Mark Schofield from Locked On Patriots. Today's episode is brought to you in part by our great friends at mybookie.ag. You are Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Good morning and welcome to a very special edition of Locked On Patriots. It's not just any other edition. This is a glorious victory Monday edition of Locked On Patriots.

Mark Schofield here in the big chair with you. And I say glorious victory. It's a little bit of an inside joke. Harking back to my days as a lawyer. Someday I will tell the full story about that expression, glorious victory. But it's always nice when your team comes out with a victory, and that's where the New England Patriots are right now. They come out taking care of business on the road down in New Orleans,

go down there and take care of the New Orleans Saints, come out with a 36-20 victory. Big day for Tom Brady as we're going to get to. What we're going to do today, we're going to do a little what did we learn. We did this a little bit last week about some of the other teams. We can do this with some instant reaction on what did we learn about New England offensively and defensively yesterday

against the New Orleans Saints. We're going to look at what they did on offense, defense. We're going to even start to look ahead at the Houston Texans, the upcoming opponent for the New England Patriots. As I sort of mentioned at the outset, this show is brought to you in part today by our good friends over at mybookie.ag.

Hopefully you listened during Friday's show. I said, Pats will cover, hit that under. Both of those were winners for you. Next time you feel you get a hunch, check out our friends over at mybookie.ag. I'll have more on them in a little bit. Also, our friends at bust.com. They are back again for another round trip offer for you getting

you down to Gillette nice and early for that Houston Texans game this Sunday I'll have more in them as well our good friends over at bus.com but let's get into this game and what the Patriots were able to do on the road down in New Orleans and obviously look at the outset you come into a situation like this where it's basically a must-win game for both teams as we talked about last week with Deuce Wyndham the great guest we had on from ESPN 97.7 down in Monroe Louisiana teams that start out 0-2 it's an uphill climb for them to get to the playoffs so you could almost look at this game as a must-win game for both teams, Patriots, on the road. High expectations coming into the season. But I'll say this. When I saw that photo of Tom Brady in the sunglasses and

the suit looking like he was ready to go, I felt a little bit more at ease before this game even kicked off. And the Patriots, they took care of business right out of the gate. Now, we'll go through some of the plays and some of the turning points and, again, what we learned. But look, you come out on the road, you put a touchdown, you hand a touchdown on your opponents on the open and drive. That's always a good way to start the day. Brady, I don't want to say it was a masterful, flawless performance. There were some mistakes. But 30 of 39 for 447, three touchdowns, quarterback rating of 139.6, close to perfect perfect 158.3 being a perfect quarterback rating another thing to sort of think about what new england did against this secondary this is a

secondary that as we talked about last week had some holes in it had some question marks in it some young guys playing there young talented but inexperienced statistic from jim sands who's over at number fire at jim s a n n e s quarterbacks on throws of 16 plus yards downfield against the Experienced statistic from Jim Sands, who's over at Numberfire, at Jim S-A-N-N-E-S. Quarterbacks on throws of 16-plus yards downfield against the Saints so far this year. 15 of 16 for 413 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions. So this was a secondary where there were going to be some opportunities for New England to take advantage of them in the passing game, and they did just that.

Some plays that really stood out to me and what we learned about Brady in this offense, not really so much what we learned, but what we sort of confirmed, expectations that we confirmed. Brady is still dangerous when he can find mismatches. Josh McDaniels did some great things in terms of mismatches. We'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. But for example, the touchdown to Rob Gronkowski, that 53-yard touchdown, that's a great example of Tom Brady in the pocket. You'll never call Tom Brady an incredible athlete.

He's not somebody like a Marcus Mariota who's going to make plays with his feet. He's not a threat or a true threat to run the football and to extend plays outside of the pocket. But this was an example of Brady climbing and sliding in the pocket, staying upright, keeping his eyes downfield. You get into a scramble drill situation, you the secondary the linebackers to cover for six seven eight seconds deep into a play that's a tough ask for them Gronkowski gets matched up against Alex Anzalone the freshman line excuse me rookie linebacker out of the University of Florida a guy talked about

last week who I like down at the senior ball but again he's a rookie asking Anzalone to stay with Rob Gronkowski for seven, eight seconds into a play, that's a tough ask. He's with him on the crossing route, but when Gronkowski then breaks vertically, that's when he loses Anzalone. Brady drops in a perfect throw for the touchdown. Another throw from Brady that I really liked. There was a throw to Brandon Cooks, late second quarter, that got New England a first and goal at the two.

Brilliant job of Tom Brady manipulating the secondary there. He opens to his left. Tony Romo in the booth. Let out an audible gas when he saw it because he could see what Brady was doing. He moved to safety with his eyes. Drops in a little bit of an underthrown ball, but drops it in. Cooks makes the catch. Gets New England in a first and goal situation.

Other throwers I like. The deep ball to Philip Dorsett late. You know, sort of that deep corner route where he drops in and over the shoulder, over the underneath cornerback and coverage. Great example of using touchdown field, that vertical passing game that the Patriots want to start bringing to their offense. Really like

that throw. Also really like the seam route to James White. I talked that White might see a lot of action both in the run game and what we saw from the Vikings against the Saints last week, as well as in the passing game, getting a matchup on those linebackers. On that same drive, a nice throw to White on a seam route out of the backfield. White had a bunch of catches on this day, actually led the Patriots in receptions.

White had a really nice game as well. White has eight receptions for 85 yards, doesn't get the ball into the end zone, but a great day for him out of the backfield. So I really like some of the stuff that they did in the passing game. Particularly, let's talk about some of the matchups. Talked about this a little bit last week, how they were going to try to basically take advantage of some matchups in the secondary. I talked about potentially that Mills concept where you try to get the dig route and the post route combination. Didn't see a ton of that but what did we see trying to attack

alex anzalone we saw that you know we first talked about that touchdown to gronkowski the first touchdown of the day a touchdown to rex burkhead out of the slot that was another example of josh mcdaniels in this offense sort of dictated matchups to the defense what they did in that situation they start with burk they did in that situation, they start with Burkhead in the backfield and they start with James Devlin flanked out, split out to the right side. You force the defense in that situation. What are you going to do? Are you going to put a linebacker out there or leave a cornerback out there? They put a linebacker out over Devlin, who then runs an in route. But before the ball is snapped, they have Burkhead in the backfield.

They motion him out in a slot to the right. Because of the way the formation and the rest of the defenders have aligned themselves, the only defender that can really go with Burkhead is the rookie Alex Anzalone. Burkhead routes a beautiful seam route. We get the in-cut from Devlin. Brady drops in a perfect throw. Touchdown. So look, first two touchdowns of the day, they go against Alex Anzalone,

attacking the rookie, exploiting some matchups that you might like from an offensive perspective. So what did we learn? Again, not so much what we learned, but reconfirming some expectations that we had. Tom Brady is still a very good quarterback. People might have panicked a little bit, but we can relax on that. Josh McDaniels can still dial up some scheme stuff as well to take advantage of some matchups. Also, in terms of what McDaniels can do, some design stuff that I liked. Chris Hogan had a nice catch on a seam route, excuse me, a slant route in the third quarter of this game.

What I liked there was there was a fake bubble screen to Dorsett. Where Dorsett starts out in a slot type alignment, comes in motion towards the football, towards the middle of the formation, and then bubbles back out right before the snap. And they show bubble screen to Dorsett. Not a look that the Patriots use a ton. Screens they do. But what they do here, which is a little bit different, they show the fake screen and then throw the slant to hogan and what i like about that is it shows you that they know teams

are going to be worried about the speed of dorset the speed of a guy like brandon cooks as well so you show that look get the defense to bite a bit then you throw the slant behind it i thought that was really well designed to play run game stuff, as always, New England uses the passing game as kind of an extension of the run game. They do screens and stuff like that, running back screens and things like that to spread the ball out and attack horizontally. But I feel like watching this game and then re-watching it last night, you get the sense that they really like the matchups they could get in the secondary.

They really like the matchups they could get on the linebackers as well, particularly working against Alex Anzalone. So they relied on that sort of aspect of the game. They did stuff like levels concepts where they're attacking linebackers where you've got two sort of crossing routes, one shallow and one a little bit deeper. They hit Gronkowski on a couple of dig routes using that design. So you really get the sense that they like those matchups in that area of the field.

Any concerns that we have about the New England offense coming out of this game? Well, I mean, the opening drive of the second half, you have two potential interceptions come off the board due to penalties. We get a 12-man on the field. I think Brady just thought that maybe he could get a quick play. Hogan seems covered, so he just kind of floats it up there, knowing that he's got the penalty.

I'm not as worried about that, but it's the second interception that comes off the board due to a defensive holding penalty where he's got Gronkowski on a crossing route, and he underthrows it a bit. Something to watch going forward. Thankfully, that comes off the board due to the penalty, but that's a throw that Bravey probably would want back regardless. A drive to start the fourth quarter.

Patriots get a little bit sloppy there. At the end of that drive, they get some penalties. A penalty takes a touchdown off the board. They end up settling for three. You get a sack on third down as well, where Brady doesn't have anywhere to go with the football. Again, big win for the Patriots. Don't get me wrong, but those are the types of drives you want to finish off.

Final six-minute drive situation of the game, you know, they take over with about, you know, under six minutes to go. Again, they get sloppy at the end of that drive. They couldn't fish it off, couldn't finish it off. They couldn't take more time off the clock. They end up giving the ball back on a punt. You know, that's a situation where they were trying to run the clock out. They couldn't quite get it done. Had some runs against stuff, had some short gains when you'd rather grind out six yards, seven yards, chunk plays like that to sort of keep that clock moving. They couldn't quite finish that.

So, you know, some things on the offensive side of the ball that we'll watch for going forward. But again, still a very solid effort from the New England offense. So those are some of the things that we learned, some of the themes that we had from last week, revisiting those to see how they played out over the course of the game. But now I want to talk to you for a bit, before we get to the Patriots defense,

about our good friends over at mybookie.ag. I've been doing these shows, the game day editions, where I talk about the lines and some prop bets and things like that. It's because ever since I've started shows like this or some of the other podcasts that I do, like Breaking the Plain over at Inside the Pylon, people always ask me for a gambling advice. They always ask me, you know, who do I bet on this week? New England, St. Louis, I mean, New England, the Saints. Do I roll the dice on the Cardinals and taking my chance with Carson Palmer and how they look? And I've been giving you advice here as well, because I know people ask me that question. They ask me it all the time. But frankly,

right now we're four for four right now with the Pats covering this weekend. I told you they would cover whether it was six, six and a half and seven. I told you they'd cover. I told you to play that under as well. 56.5 was big. We were sweating it out at the end, but picked that under hit as well. So let me give you some advice. Where you're betting at is just as important as who you're betting on. So that's why I always tell people to go to mybookie.ag. Go to mybookie.ag and use promo code LOCKEDON for a 100% deposit bonus. There are a lot of online sportsbooks out there. mybookie.ag is the only one that gets my stamp of approval. This isn't the only show I partner with mybookie.ag on, and you should know that as well.

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Go to mybookie.ag to place your bets and tell them I sent you by using promo code LOCKEDON. Get over there and get the best odds anywhere. MyBookie.ag. You play, you win, you get paid. Let's talk for a little bit now about what we learned about the Patriots defense and readdress some of the themes we hit on last week. One of the themes was, can New England get off the field on third down, particularly in the red zone?

We saw that was a theme with the Vikings and how they were able to do that on Monday night against New Orleans Saints. That was something I was going to be watching for. We saw it play out again. New England holds the Saints to a field goal on the opening drive. There's a drive to start the second quarter

where the Saints actually go down and score, and they use sort of a copycat play where they get a little bit of a rub concept. We had seen it on touchdown to Chris Hogan. Well, the Saints hit a touchdown there, so there was a chance for New England to get off the field on third down. They don't. Rub type concept. They get a touchdown.

But then what I really like here was there was a sack of Brady in the second quarter. New Orleans starts with their best field position of the day, starting on their own 39-yard line. They get down into the red zone. We see some pass rush. Breeze gets pressured on a second and eight. The pass rush forces a throwaway. Third and eight, they try that slot fade again,

the play that they had just hit for a touchdown. This time, Jonathan Jones forces a pass break up. Offense settles for a field goal try. Jones actually jumps off sides on the field goal try. New Orleans brings the offense back out. Try to draw the defense off sides. They don't jump, and again, they settle for the three points. So as we talked about last week, as we talked about this matchup,

can the Patriots keep New Orleans to hold them to three points rather than giving up touchdowns in the red zone? They were able to do that. Again, near the end of the second quarter, we have a big play to Thomas. They get down inside the 30. Dietrich Wides gets pressure on Breeze, forces a throwaway. They go for it on fourth down. Pass fall is incomplete.

They don't get any points. Some other things I liked about this game, we talked about, again, the pass rush. Could New England get the kind of pass rush that the Vikings did to force Breeze to make quick throws? Well, we saw some of that. They got pressure on the opening play of the second drive, the draw holding penalty. Breeze is forced to throw it away. The play we mentioned from Wise, there was another play, a sack to end New Orleans' first drive of the second half. You don't want to let them back into the game.

You've got a big lead at halftime. You don't want to let New Orleans come out on the opening drive and the second half. You don't want to let them back into the game. You've got a big lead at halftime. You don't want to let New Orleans come out on the open and drive and punch one in. Wise gets a sack there, forces a turnover, a punch situation. That was a huge play. So they got enough of a pass rush there on the defensive side of the ball where they forced Breeze into some quick throws. They got the defense to settle for field goals down in the red zone.

So I really like that. That was something we talked about at length last week. Can they get off the field on third down, particularly in the red zone? Patriots were able to do that. Also, let's talk about Jonathan Jones for a second. He had the pass broken up in the end zone that we already talked about. He also had a pass broken up on Brandon Coleman, a sort of deep route along the sideline. That led to a field goal try that was missed. Another situation, this wasn't down in the red zone, but it's another situation where you're forced in defense to settle

potentially for three points rather than punching the ball in the end zone. So those were some things I liked from the defensive side of the ball from the New England Patriots and their big 36-20 victory over the New Orleans Saints. And as we start to think about Houston this upcoming Sunday, let's think about how you're going to get to the game. Our friends at Bust.com, they're back trying to get you ready to get down to Gillette for this game against the Houston Texans.

They have that shuttle service from downtown Boston down into Gillette Stadium. I hope you took advantage of the offer they had for Week 1, that opening night game against the Kansas City Chiefs. They're back again with another offer for week three. You can get down there, see the Patriots take on Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans. Again, coach buses, they're air-conditioned, bathrooms on board. You can have a couple of beverages on your way down there and let bus.com take care of the driving for you. And look, we all know getting down to Gillette can be tough.

Route 1 is often a parking lot. You're going to be stuck in traffic. You don't want to be doing that. The train can often be overbooked. Parking there can be a drag. You know what it's like to get out of there even after a 1 o'clock game on a Sunday. It can be a mess.

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You'll get down there early to Gillette. You'll ride with other Patriots fans. It takes off right from 177 Huntington Avenue. It's right around the corner from the Prudential T-Stop so you can get in get out and get on with your life when you're done with the game

and hopefully the Patriots get out of there with a victory so please folks go to patriots.bus.com let them take care of their driving for you with this promo code LOCKEDONPATS you will get 15% off

the round trip fare again patriots.bus.com. Use promo code LOCKEDONPATS. Let them take care of the drive down for you. Let's spend a few minutes now as we close out this show on what has been a glorious victory Monday. Starting to look forward to those Houston Texans coming to town.

We saw them on Thursday night, and there was a lot of attention paid to Deshaun Watson and how he was going to fare in his first NFL start. And whether you like Deshaun Watson or not coming out of Clemson, you had to come away somewhat impressed with how he was able to play in that situation and in that environment. They didn't really have a tight end on the roster. They had a guy that they had signed off the practice squad to play tight end for them. They were somewhat undermanned there.

Obviously, you're on the road. Granted, it's the Cincinnati Bengals, but a rookie on a short week making his first start on the road in that undermanned situation. And they come out of there with a victory. And again, it wasn't a beautiful, flawless performance from the quarterback spot. But Watson did enough where the Texans were able to come away with that game and have a victory. I mean, look, he goes 15 of 24 for 125 yards, doesn't throw a touchdown, no interceptions. He threw a number of interceptable passes, though. And this is something the Patriots will need to take advantage. He had at least two passes, I can remember from my chart and where he stared down the route his eyes led defenders to the ball guys like Adam Jones and company broke on them but they couldn't secure the interception

these were potential pick sixes that get left on the field New England's going to have chances to make plays like that against Watson they'll need to take advantage of it. Then to remember about Watson, something similar to what I said about Tyrod Taylor last week. If you get a chance to get a shot on him, you got to make a count and you got to get him to the ground and you got to expect that he's going to pop right back up. Watson was my top quarterback in this last draft class. One of the things that I pointed to with him was competitive toughness. And it's one of those traits that people say, oh, you know, grid, film guy, wins championships, whatever. It doesn't really translate to the professional game. Well, when you watch Watson take a hit like

he did against from Geno Atkins, and on the very next play, rip off that 49-yard touchdown run that was the single biggest play of that game. It reminded me so much of that national championship game against Alabama. Not the first one where Watson almost won. The second one where Clemson and Watson actually did win. When he got helicoptered by Reuben Foster, Alabama's star linebacker. And this is one of those plays where if you're a defender, if you see your star middle linebacker put a shot on that quarterback

and the quarterback just pops right up, you start to worry a little bit. And that guy's coming. That guy's going to keep coming. And that's what we've seen with Watson. He took some shots in that game, but he kept coming. He gets drilled by Atkins on what was basically an instant meme-worthy type hit. I mean, that hit could turn into a gif in a matter of seconds. But as that gif was starting to get tweeted out on the timeline,

Watson's rumbled into the end zone with that 49-yard touchdown run. And later in this game, granted, it doesn't end up in a touchdown, but he rips off another drive for the texans it gets him a field goal it extends their lead you know it's a 13 place 66 yard drive that begins on their own 10 yard line a lot of it was watson throwing the football it wasn't pretty you know it wasn't you know no offensive coach is going to go to a clinic this next sprint or summer and put on that tape and say, this is what you should be doing. But it was a gutsy performance from the rookie.

Now Houston's going to have that sort of middie bye like the Patriots had this last week, but you play on Thursday night, you get a little bit of time to get rested up. Maybe they get one of these tight ends back, so we might see a little bit of a different offense. But Watson is somebody that you shouldn't take lightly. It wasn't a great performance from the quarterback standpoint from like the coachable tape type standpoint but he certainly did enough

and the other thing that he did was he force fed targets in the direction of DeAndre Hopkins Hopkins saw a ton of targets that night you know Watson seemed to be looking for him almost solely down the stretch there I mean he saw 13 targets seven receptions for 73 yards a lot of what they had success with was when they went 12 personnel two running backs and Watkins had a running back to each side of him and they had two receivers to one side of the formation you get Hopkins alone on the other side you sort of isolate him so that's something that the Patriots are going to have to think about if they see that sort of 20 personnel, three receiver, look with two receivers to one side, Hopkins alone on the other side.

What are you going to do in that situation? Are you going to put Gilmore on him? Maybe you put Butler on him, but that's something to think about and we'll have some more thoughts about that going forward. So that's kind of a quick look at what the Texans do on offense. Defense, we know J.J. Watt, that's a guy you've got to worry about at the outset. You've got to make sure that he's protected. You've got to make sure he's blocked up.

You might want to consider either having Gronkowski or Dwayne Allen chip and release, having a runner back perhaps chip and release, but you've got to know where J.J. Watt is on every snap, particularly on pass and plays. Know in advance that you've got a plan for him. Don't just leave a guy like Nate Solder or Marcus Cannon on a one-on-one situations like that. You want to have some help there

because Solder could beat Versac. They moved J.J. Watt around at times, and so that's something to consider as well. So we'll have more on this upcoming game between the Patriots and the Texans as we go through this week. We'll have a crossover show with the guys over at Locked On Texans.

Again, send in your questions. At Mark Schofield on Twitter. You can find me on Facebook. Mark Schofield there as well. You can also find Locked On, the Locked On Podcast Network on Facebook. You can send questions over there. Check out our good friends and sponsors. MyBookie.ag.

I keep giving out these tips. I think we're four for four right now. You can fact check me on that one. But not off to a bad start there. So mybookie.ag for those. Use promo code LOCKEDON. Patriots.buzz.com. Use promo code LOCKEDONPATS.

Let them take care of the drive down for you. And don't forget, go to iTunes. Leave a review for all of the Locked On shows, including Locked On Patriots. Make sure your Twitter handle is in there. You'll be entered for a chance to win a PFF Edge subscription. So that has been a glorious Victory Monday. The first of what we hope

will be many glorious Victory Mondays here on Locked On Patriots. I'm Mark Schofield. Thank you so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed the weekend. We're back at it. You know, Monday morning, here we are ready to go. We have another Monday night game tonight. We're going to get right back into it because we're on to the Houston Texans.

Thank you again so much for listening. Check out our good friends and sponsors. And until then, keep it locked right here with 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.

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