Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots September 9, 2018 - Sunday Morning Tailgate

Episode Date: September 9, 2018

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Hello everybody and welcome to Sunday Morning Tailgate here at Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield sliding into the big chair for this Sunday morning to get you ready for everything that's coming our way this afternoon as the NFL kicks off their first full Sunday slate of games. Obviously, the New England Patriots begin their season at 1 o'clock in the East Coast, hosting the Houston Texans in a rematch of a thrilling game from last season. Before we dive into today's show, which will be a little bit different than your usual Locked On Patriots Fair, a reminder to follow me on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. Check out the work at places like InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the head writers.

Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldron's Rookie Skeleton Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation Network, Football Guys. Basically, if there's a website that's writing about football, chances are I'm doing some writing for them. As I said, we're going to be doing a little different show than our usual three-segment format. We're going to do four quick segments show than our usual three-segment format. We're going to do four quick segments for these Sunday morning tailgate shows. In each one, we're going to have some Patriots-specific stuff at the top, some Patriots news and notes, weather, injury concerns,

anything that has popped up before we spoke last on Friday. Then we're going to look around the rest of the league, whether there's injury concerns, guys coming off the injury list, guys on the injury list, things that I'm going to be looking for in some of the other guys coming off the injury list, guys on the injury list, things that I'm going to be looking for in some of the other games. In the third segment, we're going to do some quick fantasy stuff

for you fantasy guys and gals out there, some recommendations that I have for guys that you should sit, guys that you probably want to put in your DFS lineups if that's your game. And at the end, we're going to do some quick college recap in our fourth segment. So we're going to have four quick segments on these Sundayay morning tailgate shows to get you locked loaded and ready to go for your nfl sunday the college stuff is in there because yes i'm going to sneak in some quarterback talk in that fourth and final segment but let's get into it and i just a quick shout out

to all my listeners and friends and fans in the baltimore area that are going to be headed to dog watch tavern down in fells point to watch the Patriots game this Sunday at 1. Wish you guys all the best. I'm going to be getting the family. I'm going to be getting down to at least one of those games this season. Hope to meet all of you, see all of you. If you're in the Baltimore area, the Maryland area, and you're looking for a Pats-friendly bar, please check out Dog Watch Tavern down in Fells Point.

There's a Baltimore New England Patriots fan club that goes there for every game. It's like Gillette up there. My parents go to a lot of games there and meet everybody and just have a great time. So check that out if you're looking for a place to go watch the Pats. It's more of a Pats-friendly bar. Dog Watch down in Fells Point. Let's get into it. Patriots' last injury report, both the Patriots and the Texans before this game, has four players listed as questionable for Sunday's game. And questionable means 50-50 chance these guys are going to go. Marcus Cannon, tackle, listed with a calf injury.

Nate Ebner, defensive back, listed with a knee injury. Jacob Hollister, tight end, with a hamstring injury. We've been talking about that a lot. Sonny Michel, running back, with a knee injury. Now, Coates was a full participant at Friday's practice, so he's probably going to go. Ebner was also a full participant, so he's probably going to go. Hollister and Sonny Michel were limited in Friday's practice, so they're obviously still questionable as we head into today's game.

I wouldn't expect to see Michel Hollister as the one I'm a little bit more curious about, especially with that Steven Anderson sign-in as we talked about. Juwan Bentley, he was removed from the injury list after being limited with an illness on Wednesday. He was a full participant Thursday and Friday, so he should be good to go. As for Houston, Kayvon Webster, cornerback was ruled out with an Achilles injury.

They have four players listed as questionable. Will Fuller, the wide receiver with a hamstring, Duke Edge of four, outside linebacker with a hamstring, Kiki Cote, wide receiver with a hamstring, and Sammy Coates Jr., wide receiver also, stop me if you've heard this before, with a hamstring. So we'll be watching for those guys as well. As for weather, there's going to be some weather concerns around the league as we're going to talk about here in a few minutes, but for the Patriots, things look pretty good. No chance of

rain, at least looking at the forecast right now for Foxborough. Looks to be around 64 come kickoff time. Cloudy skies. Weather looks to be pretty clear. Wind, 10 to 12 miles per hour. That shouldn't be too much of a problem from Tom Brady, but I've often said, look, wind is one of the tougher things to deal with when you're a quarterback, as opposed to, say, throwing through rain, throwing through snow, throwing through things like that. Wind is just much, much tougher to deal with. Let's also, before we close this out, Patriots naming their 2018 captains. I thought this was a fascinating list of players, including two first-time captains. Running back James White, safety Patrick Chun, center David Andrews, quarterback Tom Brady, safety Devin McCourty, and special teamer Matthew Slater.

Fantastic, interesting group there. James White and Patrick Chun were elected first-time captains. White and Chun taken spots previously occupied by Dante Hightower, Rob Gronkowski, and Deron Harmon. So there's your 2018 Patriots captains. Good to see James White on that list. I also think good to see Patrick Chun on that list. Two first-time captains right there. So that's what we've got from a Patriots focus.

Up next, I'm going to look around the league. Le'Veon Bell. We're going to look at weather. We're going to look at Earl Thomas. That's ahead on this Sunday morning tailgate edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you on this Sunday morning here, getting you ready for week one of the NFL season. And let's take a quick look around the league. Got a lot of interesting games that are going to be going off this afternoon and this evening. There's two games where there's going to be a huge factor. Buffalo coming down to Baltimore.

Steelers headed out to Cleveland to take on the Browns. Those two games are going to be in deluge type situations. For example, I live in the Maryland area. I'm down here just 40 minutes from Baltimore. Right now we're under a flood watch. We're expecting anywhere from like one to three inches of rain overnight. So chances are that game's going to be a mess. That Brown-Steelers game looks to be a mess as well. Those are two games that are going to be severely impacted by weather. Part of the other Sunday slate of games, you've got Cincy at Indy, Titans at Dolphins, 49ers at Vikings. That game looks to be a fascinating game between two teams of playoff hopes in the NFC. Buccaneers at Saints, Jaguars at Giants, another 1 p.m. start. As we get into that 4 p.m.

slate of games, Chiefs at Chargers, Redskins at Cardinals, Cowboys at Panthers. That looks to be a good one that I'm excited to keep an eye on. Seahawks at Broncos, and then your Sunday night game, Bears at Packers. That will be a fascinating game to study as well with Khalil Mack going over to the Chicago Bears. Your two Monday nighters, Jets at Lions, Rams at Raiders, both of those games look to be ones in a dome, so we don't expect to see any weather situations there for that Jets-Lions game. Obviously, Sam Darnold's first start in the National Football League, and then Rams at Raiders looks to be a nice night out in Oakland for that one.

A nice night, however, might be had last night, Saturday night, by Le'Veon Bell as he is not with the team. Le'Veon Bell did not make the trip to Cleveland. He will be missing that first game of the season

and he's forfeiting his game check. You know, he's out sort of, I think in the neighborhood of $900,000. So for you fantasy people out there, I hope if you drafted Le'Veon Bell, you had that James Conner handcuff because Conner is going to be the one that's going right now.

Bell not with the Steelers for the opener, did not make the trip. Will surrender his week one game check worth $853,000. He has yet to make a decision on when to show up. He's taking a situation day by day, according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler. Bell's agent has suggested that the runback is willing to stay away for a lengthy amount of time. Bell even told ESPN back in January he wasn't accepting another 400 touches on a salary he felt was below his value and believes that he's a top 10 player and he's going to give up almost a million a week to find out how much his salary could command on the open market.

And so that's going to be a fascinating story to watch. I was on the radio. I hope you tuned in for my Thursday hit, my weekly Thursday hit with my boys, Sat and John at Sportsnet 650 out in Vancouver, British Columbia. And I talked about this Le'Veon Bell situation, and it does feel a little bit different. We always see these stories coming out of Pittsburgh, whether it's Roethlisberger rumbling about retirement, Antonio Brown rumbling

about something, Bell rumbling about his contract. This one feels different because now you've got some of the team questioning his absence. Antonio Brown coming out and saying, look, this locker room turmoil right now, it's unnecessary. Nobody wins when the family feuds. But you've got some of the offensive linemen grumbling about why he's not there. Just show up or don't. We want him to get paid. But now when you're talking about you're looking ahead to next season, what about this season? What about us? What about the guys that have gone to battle with you

for the past couple of seasons? And so that's going to be a fascinating situation to watch. Another storyline playing out out in Seattle. Seattle Seahawks activate Earl Thomas. He's officially back. Safety was activated to the active roster yesterday. He will be active and will play Sunday against the Broncos. It's not known whether he will start.

He's entering the final year of his contract with a base salary of $8.5 million, but he wants a new deal. He stayed away from team activities throughout the offseason, incurred financial penalties for missing mandatory three-day minicamp, training camp, as well as preseason action. But the Seahawks did wipe those fines away once he came back now the seahawks will be without dante johnson as starting cornerback he was questionable coming into their season opener with a hip injury but he was placed on injured reserve saturday with a chance to return they're calling it a groin strain He should be considered somebody that can come back

on week eight. And so now you've got Shaquille Griffin at one corner and a question mark at the other. Nikio Thorpe, Trey Flowers, expected to probably be in that role. They also activated Akeem King from the practice squad as they put Johnson on injured reserve. So that will do it, sort of a look around the league. Also, Shaquem Griffin going to be starting in that game for Seattle, so that's going to be fascinating to watch as well. But that will do it for our quick look around the league. Up next, I'm going to talk some quick fantasy stuff, some guys that I'm looking for,

guys that I would have in my lineups if possible as these games get underway. And that's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, on this Sunday morning tailgate installment of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now, and let's do some quick fantasy stuff for you guys and girls out there.

These are some players that I've been looking at for this week from sort of a scheme-based angle. Some guys that you could look at from an X's and O's profile and say, these guys might be in line for some big weeks. Now, I put a caveat on the week one recommendations here because look, we don't have a ton on a lot of these guys. We've got some preseason film. In some cases, we've got stuff dating back to last year. If there's a rematch situation, we'll start off with but we are flying a little bit blind here in week one as we get two three four weeks into the season we'll have a

much better idea of where these teams are schematically and we might be able to find some better matchups but the way i'm going to structure this i'm going to have a blue chip pick for you in terms of daily fantasy sports but you can apply this stuff obviously to you know week you know season long leagues and things like that. But I'll have a blue chip pick based on fan duel values and then more of a value play that you can look at. And at the quarterback position, I'll start with Sean Watson at Houston, round four Houston at New England. And look, we've talked about it a ton on this show. Everybody's been talking about the fact that the Patriots have struggled at times containing athletic quarterbacks. Rodgers, Smith, Wilson, Watson.

Look, you take those four quarterbacks. They've averaged over 30 points in their previous eight games against New England, their teams have. In those games, they've combined to complete over 65% of their passes for an average of 302 yards per game, 9.1 per attempt, and 2.5 TD passes per contest. Look, he's $8,200 on FanDuel, but when you see what Watson did last year against

this team, now he's obviously more experienced quarterback coming in. He's had an entire off season. Obviously, he's coming back from the knee injury, but I think if you're looking at quarterback plays, looking at how New England has sometimes struggled early in seasons, how they've struggled historically against athletic quarterbacks, I think Watson. If you want to go cheap at QB, Andy Dalton. $6,800 over at FanDuel this week. And maybe it's time to buy in. You know, he had a very nice preseason. Seems like he could produce on a much more consistent basis.

Getting a chance to go off against Indianapolis. You know, a defense that gave up over 17 points per game to quarterbacks on FanDuel last season, making them a bottom 10 defense in that category. If you want to go cheap, Dalton might be a good play for you. At running back, Alvin Kamara, your blue chip pick, $8,700 over on FanDuel, but this Tampa Bay defense, they struggled last year on defense. They gave up nearly 24 points per game last season, putting them well in the bottom half of the league. They had some big coverage breakdowns in the secondary, and they struggled defending running backs. They gave up 15 rushing touchdowns to running backs last year, as well as three receiving touchdowns to running backs. They gave up an average of 23.4 points per game to running backs last year on FanDuel. That was third most in the league. So if you want to go big money

at running back, Alvin Kamara is probably your best bet, especially now when you consider, look, no Mark Ingram now. And so look, Kamara probably a smart player there. If you want to go value, though, I'd recommend Rex Burkhead. And I know placing bets on Patriots from a fantasy perspective, particularly at the running back position, is often a losing proposition. I get it. I've missed many, many occasions trying to guess what they're going to do with a running back. But I think for a couple of reasons, with the thinness of wide receiver and the question marks and the fact that Hollister might not be a go, I think Burkhead is going to be a big part of their game plan. I think they're going to try to get some mismatches with him. I think that he's going to have a bunch of targets

in the passing game. And so if you want to go cheap, Burkhead's a good play. Let's look at tight end. Blue chip pick, probably Kyle Rudolph for the Minnesota Vikings. This is a weird slate for the tight end position this week. Gronkowski, wondering about how they're going to handle the passing game. Do they do a lot of quick stuff to the backs and the wide receivers? If so, he might see a reduced target share. Kelsey might be in a similar position with the Chiefs as they look to go up against that

Chargers pass rush. They might focus more on the quick game. And something that's always kind of been in the back of my mind, even though I've got some Kelsey shares in a lot of my leagues, Patrick Mahomes hasn't traditionally played with a tight end. He wasn't playing with a tight end in college. So I have wondered about that. I'm not reading too much into it yet, but if Kelsey doesn't see a ton of targets these first couple of weeks, you might want to wonder about that. Greg Olson, technically healthy, although he's on the injury report, but that Dallas defense, they're pretty athletic on that second level with guys like Jalen Smith. Delaney Walker and Evan Ingram, both of those guys are banged up. So I almost come to Rudolph

by default, but let's face it. Cousins loves throwing to tight ends. He loves throwing to tight ends. You know, now he's got a healthy one in Kyle Rudolph. Obviously, the two guys on the outside are going to command a lot of attention. And so you look at the Vikings and look at what they like to do, even against the San Francisco 49ers. Man, that was tough. You know, I think Rudolph could have a big game against them

with Kirk Cousins looking to him early and often. If you want to go cheap, you could go Pittsburgh. Vance McDonald is just 4,800 on FanDuel. Jesse James is just 4,600. Both guys have injury concerns, and you've got the weather thing as well. But look, the Browns were woeful last year. Woeful. Woeful.

Covering tight ends. They gave up over 11 FanD duel points per game to tight ends, fourth most in the league. They gave up 10 receiving touchdowns to tight ends, second most in the league. I mean, you could have streamed your tight ends against Cleveland last year and been pretty successful. Part of the reason, look,

Greg Williams insists on putting Jabril Peppers' free safety like 35 yards downfield. It's hard to cover the intermediate middle of the field from a free safety spot if you aren't even in the screen when the play is shown on the broadcast angle. You can't even see him. Sometimes when you see the all-22 angle, they have to zoom extra wide out to get Jabril Peppers in the frame.

So if you want to go cheap, the weather might be a concern, but McDonald and James are some interesting options. Finally, wide receiver. The expensive pick, Michael Thomas. Again, for some of what we talked about with Kamara, that Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, they struggled with breakdowns. They've had some guys, they didn't really address the secondary. Some of the guys that got beat last year, Chris Conte, for example, he's still a safety for the Bucs at the moment, still a starter for them at the moment. And so I think Thomas is in line to have a good game.

I know Matthew Berry's all over him this week as well. If you want to go blue chip, he's $8,500 on FanDuel, but he's probably worth every penny. If you want to go value, I'll go with Dorsett. He's just $5,900 on FanDuel right now. And look, we've seen him this year earning Brady's trust, seeing a lot of targets in their dress

rehearsal against the Panthers, including one on a critical fourth and three to extend the drive. If Brady's looking to a guy like Dorsett on third and fourth down situations, that tells you a lot. If they really go sort of quick strike type of offense, they might be doing a lot of stuff on those smoke routes, those quick throws, those quick screens. Dorsett might see a ton of targets and opportunities there. So a value pick might be Philip Dorsett. So that's a quick fantasy spin around things.

We'll close out this show in a few minutes here. Talking a little college ball. Some of the action from yesterday. Some quarterback stuff. That's all ahead on this Sunday morning tailgate edition of Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you to close out this Sunday morning tailgate. I'm going to recap some quick college stuff for you before you get on the rest of your Sunday. Maybe you're making pancakes for the family right now.

Whatever it is you're doing, I hope your Sunday is shaping up to be a great one. Remember, I will be back after the game probably sometime early evening with your your recap, hopefully our first glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. But let's talk college football briefly. As you know, I'm going to be keeping some eye on some quarterback stuff for you this year because I think this is a very intriguing quarterback class. I think the New England Patriots might be drafting a quarterback. And some guys had some big days. Steven Montez from Colorado, big win for the Buffaloes on the road against my adopted Nebraska Cornhuskers. Montez going 33 of 50 for 351 yards and a touchdown with a 40-yard touchdown pass to give them the lead late in that game.

He's just a junior, but he's somebody that you should have on watch lists. Jake Brownen, 23 of 37, 313 yards, two touchdowns in Washington's 45 to three win over North Dakota. Browning is going to be fascinated from an arm talent evaluation standpoint. He may not have the velocity. He may not meet that threshold. I'm not a huge arm talent guy. I don't think velocity is the end all. You know that from listening to this show, but there is a threshold, and I'm not quite sure he gets there. And when you can see it have an impact on throws, on strip sacks, because there was a play a couple years ago

against Portland State when he really had to load up to try to throw a deep ball, and he got strip sacked. I do wonder about that with him,, a good rebound for him after the week one loss against Auburn. Will Greer. Will Greer got off to a pretty good start against Johnstown State, put up some big numbers. He's been putting up big numbers, put bigger numbers up against Tennessee. So he's going to be a fun guy to watch. And as we get through some of the rest of the, you know, the guys that were in action yesterday on Saturday, you know, I think another name that stands out is Ryan Finley, the kid down at NC State. I think he had a nice, he's had a nice efficient start to this season. You know, made some nice throws in week one against James Madison.

Had some good throws against Georgia State, you know, yesterday as well. So he's going to be a fun guy to watch. Justin Herbert, he might be QB1. He really might be QB1. You know, he comes out and threw the ball all over the place in week one. He had an incredible throw on a fourth down against, excuse me, Bowling Green. It took me a second to dig that up. But, yeah, he had a fantastic throw on a fourth down against Bowling Green

in the week one win. You know, yesterday against Portland State, Oregon hands up 62 on Portland State, and he goes 20 of 26 for 250 yards and four touchdown passes. He's armed talent and velocity not going to be an issue for him. I'm recording this before my favorite dark horse type quarterback takes the field. That's Brett Rippon in Boise State. They get a chance to continue their decent start to the field. That's Brett Rippon in Boise State. They get a chance to continue their

decent start to the season. They're hosting UConn. But Brett Rippon went 20-28 for 3-0-5 and four touchdowns last week against Troy. Other big games though, obviously Alabama looked great.

That was a game I was excited to watch because look, Justice Hanson from Arkansas State, I thought, you know, he's a tough gamer-type kid. But, you know, Alabama just came out gangbusters. Tua Takovila, you know, 13 of 19 for 228 and four touchdowns. I mean, Alabama was firing on all cylinders. Georgia, pretty impressive win on the road, you know, going into South Carolina, you know, putting 41 points on the board.

Impressive victory for them. Elijah Holyfield, nine carries for 76 yards and a touchdown in that game. Ohio State, throttle on Rutgers, 52-3. Dwayne Haskins, 20 of 23 for 233 yards and four touchdown passes. He's young, but he's a young quarterback to watch and keep an eye on for the years ahead. A game I was interested to see, Notre Dame hosting Ball State. Ball State quarterback Riley Neal, another dark horse type guy, struggled a little bit. Brandon Wimbush, quarterback from Notre Dame, struggled a little bit. 17 of 31 for 297 and three interceptions. Nick Fitzgerald returns to action for Mississippi State. Goes 11-27 from 154 and two touchdowns.

He's more athlete and runner, more Tebow than Mariota right now, I think, but an interesting guy to watch. And a game that I'm going to keep an eye on that's getting underway right now, that USC-Stanford game. KJ Costello for Stanford, very interesting quarterback. And that Penn State-Pittsburgh game, Trace McSorley, I think he's more great college quarterback than great pro prospect. But with the Mayfield stuff last year, maybe he's a guy that NFL teams would keep their eye on.

And a late game, in addition to that Boise State game that I'm excited to see, that Michigan State-Arizona State game, Brian Lewerke, Manny Wilkins, two also very intriguing quarterbacks to scout and to evaluate as we look ahead to the next NFL draft. But that will do it. That's your Sunday morning tailgate show. That's kind of the flavor these shows will have. Obviously, as we get into the season, there will be more news and notes

and injuries and things like that. But we'll do fantasy stuff. We'll do some around the league stuff. We'll do some Pat stuff. We'll do some college recap stuff. Everything you need to know to get you ready for your Sunday NFL slate of action. Remember, I will be back later tonight recapping today's hopefully

first win of the 2018 season. Hopefully our first, but not last, glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. Until then, enjoy the games everybody. Have a fantastic Sunday. And until next time, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots.