Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots September 25, 2018 - Tape Tuesday

Episode Date: September 25, 2018

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Hello there everybody, welcome to Lockdown Patriots for Tuesday, September 25th, 2018. Mark Schofield back in the big chair for your favorite daily Patriots podcast. We've got a loaded show for you today. It's a taped Tuesday installment of Lockdown Patriots. We're going to talk offensive woes, both in the run game and in the passing game. A little bit later, we're going to talk a little bit of news around the league. We've got some stuff going on in San Francisco that I want to opine about for a few minutes. Before we dive into all that, of course, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the head writers.

Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, MattWaldmanRSP.com, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of networks covering the New York Giants. Got a couple of pieces that will be coming out this week. Doing some stuff on the quarterback rule and the hits to quarterbacks, the way that's been called so far. You look for that a little bit later this week. Also, I'm going to stuff on the quarterback rule and the hits to quarterbacks,

the way that's been called so far. You look for that a little bit later this week. Also, I'm going to cover some Fitz magic. Will Ryan Fitzpatrick still be under center for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers come next Sunday? That will be a fascinating story to watch. But today is a Tape Tuesday show brought to you again as our shows this week might be brought to you by our good friends at Spike Seltzer. Again, that Cape Cod cranberry.

It's the perfect flavor for your early 2018 Patriots season. Trust me on this one, my friends. I know what I'm talking about. We're going to start on the run game. We're going to do the first section here on the run game. Then we're going to talk a little bit about the pass game. I want to start with the run game. I want to start first with numbers and predictability.

Against the Detroit Lions, the Patriots ran the football 19 times. Sonny Michel saw 14 of those carries for 50 yards. He had a lawn of 12 on the game. James White had four carries for 37 yards. He had a lawn of 15. Now three of those carries went for 32 yards and came on New England's sort of final drive at the end of the game, where they were basically just kind of going through the motions. And Detroit was certainly going through the motions. They basically were dropping eight deep. So yeah, we'll let you run the ball down two scores

with no timeouts and two minutes remaining. So that shouldn't really count too much in our analysis here, those three plays. Matter of fact, I didn't go back and break those down. The other run, Tom Brady, a sneak for two yards. So there you go. Out of the 19 carries, the bulk of them were Sonny Michel. Now, of Michel's 14 carries, I found this interesting.

Just one was from shotgun. The other 13 all came with Brady lining up under center. Now we're starting to get to sort of the predictability aspect to the Patriots' offense right now, particularly in the run game. Five of his 14 carries came with some form of two running backs on the field, usually James Devlin in front of him. Now with regard to scheme, there was a mix of zone and power stuff.

There was a mix of runs to the strong side and runs to the weak side. So at least there was some diversity in that. It wasn't like they would line up and the Lions players would say, it's going to be a power run to the weak side of the offensive formation. It wasn't that predictable. But as we're going to see in a second, they could at least break down tendency-wise a run versus pass based on personnel usage.

There are some numbers on that I'm going to get to in a second. Power toss sweep and outside zone, power toss strong, to the strong side of the formation, and outside zone weak were arguably their two best plays and designs of the night. Now I want to get into the numbers and the predictability part a little bit more.

These are some tweets from Evan Lazar, at E-Z-L-A-Z-A-R on Twitter. Good friend of the show. Fantastic Patriots beat reporter for CLNS Media. At CLNS Media on Twitter. And here we go. So far this season. He tweeted these out yesterday on Monday.

The Patriots have run the ball 26 times with Michel in the game. They've passed the ball 10 times. So 72.2% of the time Michel is in the game, the Patriots are running it. Last season, the Patriots were a perfect 50-50 split with Deion Lewis in the game.

Thought that was the goal with Sonny. He goes on. Right now, the Patriots offense with Michel in the game resembles what things were like when they had LeGarrette and Blount in the backfield. Predictable. Opponents know it's probably a run and they know it is probably going to

Sonny regardless because of the targets in the passing game. Another tweet from Evan Lazar, Patriots running back Sonny Michel has played 36 snaps this season. He has 24 rush attempts and five targets. So the Patriots have tried to get him the ball on 29 of his 36 snaps through two games. That means if Michel is on the field, chances are he's getting the ball.

And if you're a defense, you know that 72% of the time, it's going to be on the ground. And as Evan points out on the flip side of this, when James White is in the game, it is a pass 79% of the time. And to put it all together, it's a run 72% of the time with Sonny and a pass 79% of the time with White. There are no sure things in life. But right now, with the Patriots offense, you can be pretty sure, depending on who's in the game at the running back spot, what kind of play it is. And if Sonny Michel is in the game,

you can be pretty sure who's going to be targeted with the football. That's predictable. Now I want to talk about a couple of their run plays here and I don't want to belabor it too much going through the tape. There are some guys that upon re-watching and re-watching and re-watching this game,

I want to fire into the sun. I said this in the Patriots Locked On Slack channel. Dwayne Allen, ready to fire him into the sun. Okay, that's just a joke. I'm not literally going to load him into a treble shade

and try to launch him into the big star orbiting us for millions of miles away. But, second quarter, early second quarter, Patriots face a first and ten. They come out in 12 personnel, two tight ends.

They have Brady under center. Michelle is the sole running back. You probably know it's going to be a run, don't you? They come out in a tight YY wing to the right. So you've got Gronkowski lined up right next to the right tackle, and you've got Allen in a wing.

And they run this design sort of cutback where they sort of show like zone block and move into the left, but it's a designed cutback. So Michel starts out like he's going to go to the left and then cuts back to the right. Allen in the wing, he's responsible for number 27. He's got to get a block on him. And what happens is he sort of goes above, over the top of Gronkowski. And the guy he's responsible for blocking plugs the hole. So Allen is supposed to get to the second level.

He's supposed to block Glover Quinn. He doesn't get there. Quinn plugs the hole, creates some traffic, and this play goes for a minimal gain. It could have hit. There was a crease there, but it evaporated because Allen goes above the top of the block, doesn't get to Quinn.

Quinn does a good job filling that hole. Later in the game, near the end of the second quarter, Patriots come out in the same formation, except they start Allen a little bit wider. He's not in a wing, he's a little bit wider. And they run the same play. The difference is they start Allen wide and they bring him sort of in motion

towards the formation. And the difference is by bringing him in motion, he then, when he tries to make that block, get it out to that second level, instead of going over the top of Gronkowski, he comes underneath him. So he then kind of comes behind Gronkowski and then between the tackle and the

tight end. It puts him in the hole. He gets to the safety, but now because he comes in motion, he brings the corner with him. It's the cornerback who plugs the hole and helps on the tackle. On one hand, I'm okay with that because it's kind of a rule. You block safeties, not corners, okay, in the run game. You force cornerbacks to come up and play and run support. Safety is obviously a little bit better, well-versed at playing and run support. So you go block those guys, and I get it. The problem is because of the failure on the first play,

McDaniels feels he has to try something differently and then by bringing that sort of motion into the play, you bring that cornerback down in and brings him towards the formation, brings him towards the play, brings him towards the hole and he then fills it. Creates some traffic and

it's stopped. Final play that I want to talk about with Dwayne Allen. And this is the last thing I'm going to talk about the Patriots run game until next week. Because this is the play where I legitimately lost my mind when I was watching it again and again and again. It's a minor miracle that my laptop is still in one piece. It's that third-in-one play, late third quarter. Again, it's the same formation with that sort of double-wing tight end look to the right. Gronkowski in line, Allen in the wing.

And it's one of those quick snap-type plays where they get to the line of scrimmage. It's 31. They try to snap it. And Allen gets stood up, stood up by Tavon Wilson, a defensive back. Tavon Wilson, formerly of the New England Patriots, listed at 6'205", just stands him up. Dwayne Allen, a tight end, a blocking tight end, listed at 6'3", 255. So Tavon Wilson giving up 50 pounds to Dwayne Allen. He just comes crashing down, stands him up,

and then fights off of the block and helps with the safety on the tackle to stop this for a two-yard loss. Now, Marcus Cannon, he gets to the linebacker and the safety shoots the gap. Allen gets stood up by a defensive back, which just blows my mind. That can't happen. And the play goes nowhere. So there's a numbers and predictability problem with the Patriots run game, but there's an execution problem as well. There were some good plays. You know, they had the good power toss

to the strong side with Trent Brown pulling in front. They had a very good outside zone run. A little bit later in the game to the weak side that might have been the best blocked play of the night, at least on the front side, the play side. Cannon gets to the edge. Shaq Mason gets to the linebacker. Hogan in the slot blocking as well.

You get good vision, good burst, good read and reaction from Sonny Michel. That went for a run of nine. Michel, pad level was a little bit high on that play, but I'm okay with it. It's a nine-yard gain. I'll take it. But similar to the Allen failed blocks that we talked about, once where he goes over the top, once where he goes under. There was something similar.

After the Patriots ran that sort of power toss to the strong side where they pulled Trent Brown, they tried it again, only going to the right side. This time, you know, where they're pulling Marcus Cannon. And this time what happens is they have Gronkowski sort of in a slot excuse me they have Gronkowski they have a y iso formation so there's just Dwayne Allen on the right side they have Gronk in the left but they motion Gronkowski across the formation something the Patriots do a ton of we talk about all the time using motion to dictate matchups the problem

is they get man coverage. And so the defender trails Gronkowski across the formation, which changes the calculus. It gives them an extra defender on that side of the formation. And even though they block it up pretty well, now that you've got that extra defender, Gerard Davis, that linebacker, he's left unblocked because somebody cracks down on the guy that trails Gronkowski in motion, you get another crack as well, you get the pull out there, but you've got an extra body that's unaccounted for now.

So that's a situation where I do wonder, if you see man coverage in that formation, in that situation, does Brady have the ability to get out of it because the numbers have changed and you don't have the ability to make that block. If it's zone, obviously when Gronkowski comes across the field in formation, in motion, excuse me, you won't have that extra defender trailing him. And so you'll have the numbers advantage for that crack toss type play where you're pulling the tackle around. But because they're a man, the numbers don't change in your favor. And so that was another thing that I highlighted. But now I'm done.

Now I'm done talking about the Patriots' run game for at least a week. Up next, we get to talk about the Patriots' passing game. We're going to talk separation numbers, and I'm going to try to figure out what happened on that intentional ground and play. I think I figured it out. I spent way too much time this afternoon

reading Patriots playbooks. My eyes are glossing over right now. But I do it because I love you guys. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now on this Tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots brought to you by our great friends over at

Spike Seltzer, SpikeSeltzer.com. That's Spiked Seltzer on Twitter. In addition to the Cape Cod Cranberry, their lime flavor. Very nice as well. I strongly recommend that one as well. As well as the pink grapefruit. Spiked Seltzer. I'm a man.

I'm 41. Let's talk about the Patriots pass game right now. And as we did with the run game. I'm going to. I'm 41. Let's talk about the Patriots' past game right now. And as we did with the run game, I'm going to start with numbers, and it's going to be a little bit different. We're not going to be talking about predictability and things like that. We're going to be talking about separation. And one of the great things, and I've said this before about being a football fan right now, is that the wealth of information we have at our fingertips,

it's just amazing. And there's more and more and more being unlocked every single day. The people at NextGenStats, NFL's NextGenStats, of whom Joseph Ferriola is a research analyst over there now, formerly of Inside the Pylon. He's doing fantastic work over there. They're coming up with something called completion probability as well as expected yards after the catch. And what they're really trying to figure out is, for example, with completion probability, where you throw on the field, the route you throw, the coverage and things like that based on the separation, the distance,

the separation from the distance, the separation from the sideline. They're charting this all together. Passer speed at the time he throws it, time to throw versus completion percentage. They're tracking all of this. And they're trying to figure out, you know, their ultimate goal here is to be able to determine like the actual completion percentage plot in each in-play factor. So you can tell you, okay, if you're going to throw a route that has the receiver being targeted 15 yards downfield,

six yards from the sideline, with the passer speed being close to zero at the time he releases the ball, and the pass rusher separation from the quarterback being less than two yards, your expected completion percentage on that route is X. That's pretty cool stuff. And whether it's fantasy football or film stuff like I do, there's all this information at your fingertips. And one of the things that they chart over at NFL's Next Gen Stats

is receiver separation. The average separation for each receiver at the time he catches a pass basically the closest defender nearby and for example jason chrome buffalo's tight end he leads the nfl right now through three weeks with 5.2 yards average separation then evan ingram at 4.9 and you know jakeem grant albert wilson 4-6 and 4-4 respectively and on down the line. And you have to scroll a long, long way to get to a

Patriots player. Philip Dorsett, average separation, 3.3. That's on par with guys like Anthony Miller and Juju Smith-Schuster and Taewon Taylor and Keelan Cole. Odell Beckham is 3.2, and that's an offense that's struggling right now. And then you're going to keep scrolling again and again and again.

Long way to go again until you get to the next Patriot. And that player is Chris Hogan, 2.5, as well as Rob Gronkowski, 2.5. That is not aogan, 2.5, as well as Rob Gronkowski, 2.5. That is not a lot of separation. Again, this is something we saw during this game live. These receivers, including statistically speaking, Rob Gronkowski,

they're struggling to get separation. This is their average separation. So sometimes they're just completely covered. And you watch this film, you watch these games, and you see that the numbers in the film match up perfectly. These guys can't get separation right now. And I, you know, I went back and I charted all of these passing plays from Sunday night. And I mean, I got to say, I don't have a problem with, you know, it wasn't like they were overly predictable. I thought they were pretty diverse in what they did. You know, the Patriots, they do so much with multiple concepts on each play.

So, yeah, there are a number of plays where they ran Haas, but they've got a different concept to the other side of the field. They didn't do a ton of mirrored stuff like you see other teams do. You know, so they're mixing things up. They're mixing personnel packages up. They're mixing formations up in the passing game. I just think it's a problem of execution and it's an ability to get separation. That's really the problem.

I know a lot of people were wondering why so many targets for Sonny Michel. And I think some of them, for example, were designed. One play that it did kind of have a little bit of a problem with was the second passing attempt of the game goes to Michel and they lose a yard and they basically it's a two running back formation

where they've got Michel as a single back in the backfield and they've got White who starts, trips left. He comes in motion across the formation to the right where it's him and Gronkowski. And they throw a designed swing route to Michel. So on the right side of the formation,

you've got White and you've got Gronk. On the left side of the formation, you've got Hogan and you've got Dorsett. You're going to throw a designed swing route where the two receivers in front of Michel are going to be blocking at the start of the play. Put your offensive coordinator hat on for a second. I'm going to ask you a question. If you were going to design a play given those two pairs, Gronk and White on the right, Hogan and Dorsett on the left, where the pair was going to be asked

to block for a receiver catching a pass out of the backfield, which side are you going to throw asked to block for a receiver catching a pass out of the backfield which side are you going to throw it to the side with arguably the greatest tight end to ever play the game who's a very good blocker and james white who's a running back who's tasked with blocking a lot or are you going to throw it to the side with two receivers who admittedly in the patriots organization do have to block downfield as a receiver so it's not like they don't do it. But which side are you more confident throwing this route to? Because I'd throw it behind White and Gronk. But they threw it left and it goes for a loss

of one yard. One yard, excuse me. And so I thought that was a problem. The inability to get separation. There's a play late in the second quarter where they've got 21 personnel, two running backs, one tight end, two receivers.

And they bring a receiver in motion. So they've got Brady under center. They motion it to sort of a weak pro right type formation. And they have Hogan on an out route, a deep cover from Deset, and they have Gronk chipping and going to the flat. Gronk is covered, and he gets a late start into his route anyway

because he's hitting a defensive end first before he's releasing. Hogan gets absolutely no separation on his out route, just none. And there's double coverage on Dorsett. And so it's a situation, where's he going to throw the ball? You know, you're asking Tom Brady to make precision throws because of a lack of separation. And that's a problem. And on a night like Sunday

night, when there were times Brady missed throws, the throw early to Hogan on a dig route on the first throw of the game, the throw to Dorsett on a dig road. Dorsett's open, but it's high and behind him. One of the throws to Michel in the flat. He missed some throws, and it's a scenario where if the guys can't get separation, and the quarterback is asked to make perfect throws every time, and he can't make them on a given night, it's hard to be successful in the pass game. I'm going long here, so I do want to talk about the intentional ground and play because Belichick said that it seemed like there was a failure of communication. He said there was a failure, a misunderstanding of where people were supposed to be.

And I went back and I looked at that play over and over and over again. I spent, like I said, way too much time looking through Patriots playbooks to try to figure out exactly what that play call was. Because what happens is Patterson is confused, Priest, now, as to where he's supposed to be lined up. And he gets lined up late as the outside receiver and a three-receiver trips to the left. Where he's outside, Hogan's in the middle,

Gronk is the inside receiver. And then backside, Dorsett is alone. Hogan, the middle receiver, he runs a wheel route. So he angles towards the sideline and then breaks upfield. The inside receiver, Gronk, he runs like a five-yard out route. Patterson's on the outside. Dorsett's on the outside to the backside. The only receiver to the right. Both of them run the same exact route. A 10-yard dig cut, a 10-yard in cut. And Brady

throws it like he's expecting somebody to run a post towards the middle of the field. And given the pre-snap confusion, something tells me that Patterson was supposed to be running a different route. He runs the same exact route that Dorsett runs. Brady's expecting Patterson to run a post because

Patriots have a number of route combinations where they're called win two-man route combination, where you've got an in route and a wheel route. They also do have a peel, which is a post and a wheel. Maybe that's what Brady was expecting. But instead, we get that in route. And with the two guys running in routes, it just seems like given the pre-snap confusion and with the way Brady threw it, he was expecting somebody to be deep.

And when you match it up with sort of the coverage that you see on the play, it looks like that post route might have been there had somebody run it. Now, you don't know for sure, and I couldn't find an exact play to match it to. And obviously, they're not going to answer that question, you know, did you run the wrong route? But watching it from afar and watching it on tape, I think that's what happened. So that's enough on the Patriots' passing game. Up next, we're going to talk Jimmy Garoppolo.

We're going to talk to Landry Jones to close out this tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you to close out this tape Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Going to talk briefly about two quarterbacks with some ties to the New England Patriots. Now, at first, obviously, some tough news for the San Francisco 49ers organization and their fans as Jimmy Garoppolo lost for the season now with a torn ACL on a hit, which when it first happened, I kind of caught it on Twitter

because I was sort of following him on with games on the old Twitter machine. And it had shades of the Drew Bledsoe-Mo Lewis hit. It was a vicious hit along the sideline, and it looked like Garoppolo was trying to cut back to the field. And then you hear the reports about a knee, and you see it again, and he's trying to cut, and then when he goes down after the contact, you see him reaching for that knee, and it is a torn ACL. And it's an extremely tough injury for the 49ers right now

because this was a team that people were looking to perhaps make a leap this year and perhaps get themselves into a playoff position-type spot with Garoppolo, with Kyle Shanahan. Now they've got to tune to C.J. Beathard, who flashed at times, but obviously it is a drop-off from Garoppolo to C.J. Bethard. And Patriots fans who are listening to this show probably do still have a little bit of a soft spot for Jimmy G. He was named one of the most powerful people in sports by Bleacher Report. This was going to be the year of Garoppolo, and it's cut short due to injury.

And people have said, oh, well, he's not wearing a brace and things like that. A lot of quarterbacks wear knee braces. Brady wears knee braces. Part of the reason quarterbacks do that, particularly if you're a right-handed quarterback on that left knee, it's to protect you when if you're in the pocket and somebody either falls into you or gets blocked into you, then that's your sort of front leg and there's nowhere for it to go and somebody hits you. Remember howady got hurt or for example carson palmer when he was with the bengals you take that shot to that exposed left knee it could end your season so that's why a lot of quarterbacks wear it on that front knee to protect it you know this wasn't a situation like

that for garoppolo he was trying to make a cut on a sideline. And it was sort of a non-contact injury, even though contact was involved on the play. It had no bearing on Garoppolo suffering a knee injury. So tough to see for the 49ers. Wow, that was a bit of a Freudian slip there. And Landry Jones, I mentioned him because why? The New England Patriots printed in Landry Jones for a workout. Now, you wonder about that. The New England Patriots bring in Landry Jones for a workout. You wonder about that.

Is that a practice squad thing? Are they looking for something for next year? Are they trying to get intel on the Steelers already? Strange that the Patriots are giving Landry Jones a workout. I'm not really sure there's much there to see, but very curious. So that's one of those little things. Put that in the back of your mind as we get into the season and into Steelers week

or any other situation like that. Just something I thought would be interesting to notice. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow. It's going to be a little crossover Wednesday action here at Locked on Patriots

with Travis Winfield of Locked on Dolphins. 3-0 Dolphins. This is a huge test for both teams. Dolphins can sort of assert themselves as, you know, the team to beat in the AFC East. You know, if they get to 4-0 here, you know, with a game in hand over New England,

that was a great spot for Miami, for the Patriots. You got to get right to ship. Get back to 2-2. Get back to 500. So it's going to be a fantastic week always look forward to talking with Travis that will be Wednesday's show until then

keep it locked right here to me Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots