Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On September 6, 2018 - Patriots Timeline Takes and Listener Questions

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

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Hello everybody, welcome to Lockdown Patriots for Thursday, September 6, 2018. Mark Schofield in the big chair and folks, we made it. We actually, actually made it tonight. Lincoln Financial Field. Actual, actual NFL games that count. Well, obviously a little bit bittersweet because, you know, the Philadelphia Eagles will be raising a banner tonight. And Patriots fans who are listening to the show know that, well, you know, we were on the wrong end of that game. But meaningful football is back.

So it's fantastic to be here for this Thursday installment of your favorite Daily Patriots podcast. Before diving into the loaded show we've got for you today, 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 where I'm going to be the Mitchell Trubisky, Matt Nagy soothsayer of sorts. The Score NFL where I'm going to be doing some scheme work. Matt Waldman's rookie scouting portfolio,waldmanrsp.com and a new place that I can now announce now that one of my first contributions is actually up footballguys.com I'm going to be doing some fantasy work over there contributed on the staff roundtable for this week excited to be a part of the group over there they got a great group of people writing about fantasy stuff so if fantasy is your bag guys and girls

head over to footballguys.com. You can check out some of my work over there as well. As I said, loaded show for you today. We're going to talk some news and notes as well as get into some reader-listener questions for the first two-thirds of the show. And then we're going to do some Patriots timeline takes, dive into some stuff that I saw on the timeline. Basically just some tweets I saw from Andy Benoit.

I always forget how to pronounce that. Over at Sports Illustrated about the paths that I want on the timeline. Basically just some tweets I saw from Andy Benoit. I always forget how to pronounce that. Over at Sports Illustrated about the Pats that I want to dive into. But let's get to some quick news and notes just at the top here because the Patriots released their first injury report, their first official injury report of the 2018 season. I mean, that's when you know we're back. It was Belichick playing with the injury report. And we have four players listed with limited participation.

Juwan Bentley with an illness. Duke Dawson and Jacob Hollister both with hamstrings. And Sonny Michel with a knee. Two players with full participation. Good to see these names backed at full participation. Tackle Marcus Cannon. And defensive back slash safety slash special teamer Nate Ebner with a knee. Good to see those guys back to full participation.

Hopefully the four guys listed as limited will be able to go on Sunday. Perhaps what's most notable about this, who's not listed, and that's Rex Burkett. So it seems like he's ready, going to be full go for Sunday against the Houston Texans. Looking at the Texans injury report quickly, nobody really of note. Two guys you might expect to see there, Sean Watson, J.J. Watt, not listed. So there look to be full go as we get back to NFL action this Sunday.

But I want to dive into some questions that I got from some of the listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast. And they're all listeners that are members of the Locked On Patriots Slack channel. And again, I keep talking about this. Look, conversation is going on there 24-7. It's going to be hopping tonight with NFL Football Back. You

probably want to be part of it when we get Patriots game on Sunday. So if you want to be a part of the group over there, hit me up on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Shoot me an email mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com to get an invite. We're going to start with a question. We're going to do some overall stuff at the beginning.

It's a question from Mr. Pink. Mr. Pink. I like that. Who are the ultimate jokers on the roster that will be needed for this team to hit its full stride? And I'm going to do one for offense, one for defense, and I'm going to do the first one on offense. It's an actual joker joker. That's right. Somebody that sort of fills the role of joker on the Patriots offense, or at least we hope will fill that role, Joker being the move tight end type. But I'm going to talk about Jacob Hollister here for a second. Because I've said on this show, I've said elsewhere, that given what we have at the wide receiver room right now, given some of the question marks we have at the wide receiver room right now,

you can probably anticipate that this is going to be a two tight end type team, a two running back type team. I mean, you might see two running backs, two tight ends, and one receiver at times when they're not going goal line. I think it's shaping up to have that kind of feel to it. I might be completely wrong. Won't be the first time, won't be the last time. But if this is going to be more of a tight end type feel, if this is going to try more of a tight end type feel,

if this is going to try to replicate the Rob Rockowski, Aaron Hernandez type offense that could create so many different mismatches, then Jacob Hoster is going to have to truly fill out that joker type role, that move tight end type role that they were using Aaron Hernandez in. And if he can do that, this Patriots offense is going to create those mismatches.

If he struggles, and this is going to be, again, an 11 personnel type offense, well, your 11 personnel three wide receiver package right now without Julian Edelman is Chris Hogan, Phillip Dorsett, and Cordell Patterson. And that's probably not the group we anticipated seeing run out there back when we were around draft time. So Hollister on the offensive side of the ball is one defensive side of the ball I'm going to just go position and then two names the slot corner position we're going to talk about pass rush in a minute obviously that's important we're

going to look the defense the secondary I think it's suddenly outside with Rowan Gilmore I think it's set the safety spot with Chun your box box-type safety. Harmon and McCourty, your deep safety types that can play half-field and cover two looks. They can play single high if necessary, cover one, cover three looks.

You've got McCourty now there for depth. But that slot corner is going to be a critical position when you remember that so many other teams, 11 personnel is base for them. That three wide receiver set is their base package.

You're going to need three corners that can cover. And whether it's Duke Dawson, whether it's Jonathan Jones, they're going to need to figure that out. And so on the offensive side of the ball, I'm looking at Hollister. On the defensive side of the ball, I'm looking at somebody to step up and fill that slot corner role. Whether it's Duke Dawson, whether it's Jonathan Jones, whether it's Keon Cross, and whether it's JC Jackson, somebody's going to fill that slot corner role. Whether it's Duke Dawson, whether it's Jonathan Jones, whether it's Keon Cross and whether it's JC Jackson. Somebody's going to fill that role. And whoever does, they're going to play a pivotal

role for this defense. Sticking with the defense here, question from Chris. Chris does great work over at DieHardBostonSportsFans.com. Check them out. They were kind enough, Chris and Stephen Thompson. They were, Chris Blakely, Stephen Thompson. They were kind enough to have me on their podcast last week. Check them out, diehardbostonsportsfans.com. And he asks, what type of an impact do you see Danny Shelton bring

into the run defense next to Brown this season? And I don't think we could overstate just what he might bring to this table, what he might bring to this defense. Because if you go back, and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, if you go back and rewatch Super Bowl 52, obviously the big question mark when the Eagles had the ball, how were the Patriots going to defend those RPOs, those run-pass option plays? And while every time Collinsworth said RPO, it wasn't always an RPO, there's a great meme out there.

You've probably seen it with the guy with the butterfly on Twitter, and he's asking, ooh, is this instant replay or whatever? And Michael Kist, our good friend Michael Kist NFL, formerly of Locked On Eagles, now on BGN, BGN Radio, did a great one with, is this an RPO?

With the butterfly just being a play-action pass and play. Maybe that's a joke for one. I thought it was funny. I digress. Anyway, back to the Eagles and the Patriots in the Super Bowl 52. There was so much questioning, so much hypothesizing about how the Patriots were going to defend those RPO-type looks. And what they seemed to try to do was to force the run read by the quarterback.

Sag the linebackers, get under those slants, those quick routes, take away the throwing lanes, say, look, run the ball. We're going to stop the run with the guys up front. And they didn't do that. And then when they tried to make adjustments, the Eagles were ready for it. Now, if you've got four guys up front, one's Danny Shelton, one's Malcolm Brown, or maybe you've got a Shelton-Guy combination or a Shelton-Butler combination, whatever. You've got guys now that can stop the

run. And if they can't do it themselves, they're going to occupy two guys. I mean, you've got one gap, two gap type guys in both of those players that can occupy blockers and keep guys from getting to that second level. So I think Shelton's ability to help against the run is huge for this team right now. So those are some early questions. We're going to get to some more as we get into the second segment of the show. We're going to talk a little pass rush. We're going to talk about how I expect them to defend Deshaun Watson. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.

Mark Schofield back with you now on this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. And taking some listener questions, some reader questions. And again, all of these came through the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. I can't recommend it enough. If you want to be part of the conversation over there, please reach out to me at Mark Schofield

on Twitter, mark.schofield at insidethepylon.com. Conversation is rolling on right now as I record this, talking about the defense, the secondary, talking about the pass rush, and that's where we're going to go next. Calvin S. asks, How important is the Patriots' young pass rush, Dietrich Wise, Derek Rivers, Keonta Davis,

to the success of the defense. And it's critical. Similarly to what we were just talking about with Danny Shelton, the ability to get what you need with the minimum amount of players is critical on the defensive side of the ball. And what I mean by that is this. If you can get pressure with three, if you can get pressure with four, that's going to help you. If you don't have to blitz, but you can still get pressure, that's going to help you.

Because anytime you can get pressure with three, pressure with four, but still have seven, eight guys in coverage, it makes it that much harder for a quarterback to be successful. And so you look at the guys that Calvin asks about, Dietrich Wise, Derek Rivers, Keonta Davis, they've all flashed either with last year with Wise or this preseason with both Rivers and Davis. The ability to get to the quarterback, the ability to string together a pass rush move

or two. In Davis's instance, the ability to sort of split double teams if necessary and still apply pressure on the quarterback. These are all sort of pivotal things that young defenders can do, young pass rushers can do. And if they can get that kind of consistent pass rush from the guys up front, that's going to have such a positive trickle down effect on the rest of this defense. If you can get those guys winning one-on-one matchups up front, if you don't have to blitz, if you don't even have to stunt or twist to get pressure, you're in a very good position as a defense. Now, that being said, I still expect the Patriots to bring some pressure looks. We saw Dante Hightower talk about it again today, how excited a lot of the players are with Brian Flores so far. He talked

a lot about how the defensive play calls, at least to this point, have been sort of simplified. The playbook is the same, but it seems to have been simplified for the guys. And Hightower says that's allowing them to play faster. This day and age in the National Football League, against some of the offensive looks we're seeing, you've got to be fast as a defense to match the speed, the quickness, and the misdirection that teams are using offensively. And so that's a long-winded way of answering Calvin's question. Those three guys, those young pass rushers,

pivotal, I think, to the success of this defense. Thanks again for the question, Calvin. And also on the pass rush, Stephen Thompson, again, that one half of that Die Hard Boston Sports Fans podcast, check Steve and Chris out at diehardbostonsportsfans.com. Steven asks, will we see a conservative pass rush due to Watson this weekend? And that's sort of the flip side of the coin with facing mobile quarterbacks.

Now, coming out today is a piece that I have that I'm going to be doing each week over at the score, where I'm going to be breaking down sort of the three schematic type questions I'm going to be watching each weekend. And I talk about the Shanahan two-back passing offense against the Minnesota linebackers who were so stout last year against the running backs. That Minnesota defense was so stout last year against running backs in the past game. I talk about Mahomes going up against that Chargers pass rush

with guys like Ingram and Bosa coming off the edges in some of the speed rush packages they use. And I talk about can the Patriots contain Deshaun Watson given their previous history with mobile quarterbacks? And just look back to last year when, you know, Alex Smith, obviously he didn't run a ton on open a night, but threw for over 400 yards. You know, guys like Cam Newton gave them fits. Guys like Watson gave them fits who threw for two touchdown threw for over 400 yards. Guys like Cam Newton gave them fits. Guys like Watson gave them fits. He threw for two touchdowns and over 300 yards and just his second NFL start on the road against a Bill Belichick defense, which is impressive. And so you do wonder, how are you going to defend Deshaun Watson? And just generally speaking, defending mobile

quarterbacks is tough. It's very tough for a defense. Let's kind of take it step by step, starting with the secondary. If you're defending a mobile quarterback, you might think, look, let's go man coverage across the board, right? Because if he starts running around back there, at least we've got guy on guy. We'll stay on our receivers.

Well, there's two problems with that. One, all it takes is one guy to miss. All it takes is one guy to whiff. All it takes is one guy to bite the wrong way on a fake, or you get in that scramble drill situation. It's hard to cover offensive receivers if you're a defense six, seven, eight seconds into a play. I mean, I remember a play a couple of years ago. Aaron Rodgers was back there for, I think, 13 seconds on one play against Detroit. Maybe was 11 seconds it was something crazy you can't as a defense cover that lawn into a play so that's problem number one problem number two is this from the quarterback standpoint you drop back you see man coverage across the board what are you going to see you're going to see the backs

of the secondary as they're running away from you because they're staying on their receivers right look at that AFC divisional game between Pittsburgh and Jacksonville. Rewatch a couple of plays from that game. Every time Blake Bortles saw the backs of defenders in the secondary, he just took off and ran because by the time they figure it out, it's too late. You're already downfield. Go back to Super Bowl XVI. Those NFL films like Super Bowl recap shows, the olden ones, not the America's game ones. I used to love watching those as a kid. And I remember vividly they had this slow motion play of Joe Montana taking off downfield. And you see a Miami defensive back just locked

on whether it's Roger Craig or Freddie Solomon, one of those 49ers receivers, running backs, and man coverage. And he doesn't even see that right behind him is Joe Montana with the ball. And they made the point on that that Walsh basically told Montana, look, if they insist on playing man coverage, just run. Forget about throwing it. If you see their backs, just run. And so many times during that game Montana did that and set a Super Bowl record for Russian Yarns by a quarterback that was eclipsed I think by Steve McNair and that Super Bowl that the Titans lost I could be wrong on that I'll have to double check that and so that's the problem playing man coverage tough to do so do you think maybe we go zone

problem zone is like you might expect you get get those scramble drill situations. One guy gets out of place, gets out of his zone, or it's easier just to find grass anyway, find the soft spots of the zone. The quarterback can make plays in those scramble drill situations just by finding guys downfield. And so it's tough from the back end. It's tough from the front end. Do you use that conservative-type pass rush like Steven asks, that sort of mush rush where you're not trying to get home, you're just trying to contain?

Or do you say, forget it, we're going to go after him? Or do you say, we're going to spy this guy? All different ways to approach this. I sit in here right now, again, not a wise defensive mind. I'm not to be confused with a wade phillips although sometimes i feel like we're the same age maybe if he's even a little younger than me with his fortnight references but sitting here right now i think you go mush rush i think you go zone i think you do that for two reasons one with the zone more chance of again the ability of Deshaun Watson to make plays as a quarterback, it's high. He

plays at the high level. But one of the areas where he still needs to develop is when he locks onto targets very quickly into plays. He will lead defenders to the ball with his eyes. So I think for that reason, you want to play as much zone as you can because it gives you chances to read and react to his eyes. Now, if he's developed, you might want to get out of that because if he starts moving guys out of position with his eyes, that's a problem. But I think you want to play as much zone as you can. So that's one part of it. The other part is that little mush rush. And we've seen this happen already. Footage from Patriots practices with the defense trying to work that contained the pocket type of pass rush with Keon Cross and of all people trying to

simulate Deshaun Watson at least in this defensive line URL so I think what we've seen so far lends me to believe we're going to see that much more Stephen and I'd play some zone behind and try to read Deshaun Watson's eyes but thank you to all those guys for those questions and there is one more Ricky Keeler the Rickonator from Staten Island I think he's Rickonator555 on Twitter he's been a huge friend and fan of the show and psyched to have him as part of the Locked on Patriots live channel. He asked, who do you see as the X-Factors on both sides of the ball in this game? I think for the Texans, their two X-Factors just generally are Watson and Watt.

Are they healthy? Can they go? I mean, that's one thing I'm looking at right away. And then beyond that, I'm very curious about Ryan Griffin. You know, the tight end that they have. He had some big plays against the New England Patriots last year. So that's something I'm watching. On the defensive side of the ball, obviously the matchup's up front.

That's a stout front seven, as we heard in yesterday's show with our good friend Robert Land of Locked On Texans. So I'm very curious to see those guys up front. Clowney, Watt, are they able to get after the quarterback? We talked a little bit last year about how they like to sugar the A-gap with guys like McKinney, guys like Zach Cunningham, guys like Whitney Merciless. They like to sugar the A-gap of those guys, show you pressure in the A-gap. That's usually the playbook on Tom Brady.

And so we might see some of that. On the Patriots' side of things, look, I'm watching Trent Brown. Can he hold up against the Watts, the Clownies? Can he hold up on the edge like we need him to? When the Patriots are on defense, I come back to that slot corner role. We look at this Houston Texans offense. DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller on the outside, yeah, you've got to contend with them. But a guy like Bruce Ellington or even Kiki Cote,

the young kid, the rookie they drafted in the fourth round, he's got a hamstring injury he's dealing with, but he could pose some problems. So that slot corner, that third receiver issue, that's going to be something that could rear its head in this game. So those are some X factors that I'm going to be watching on Sunday. Up next, we're going to close out this Thursday and start with a on Patriots with some

quick Patriots timeline takes. Some stuff I saw tweeted out by Andy Benoit from Sports Illustrated. Going to run through that next here with me, Mark Schofield in Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you to quickly close out this Thursday installment of Locked on Patriots. Remember, we are not done this week. We've got our game day edition tomorrow. Taylor Kyles is going to be back with us to join us for that game day edition.

And then, remember, Sunday morning, get your Sunday, your game day started with me. Going to be doing a little Sunday morning tailgate. We're going to have some new stuff, probably have some clips and stuff put together from the shows over the course of this week, some stuff from Robert, some stuff from Taylor. So that will be a fun little quick 15, 20 minutes to get you rolling on your Sunday game day morning. Let's close it out with some points from Andy Benoit, Andy Benoit over at Sports Illustrated.

He's been rolling through and going through team by team and tweeting out some takes, and I wanted to highlight a couple of those. First, the Patriots have one of the NFL's best play-action games, often comes off of fake power runs. Gronkowski down the seam. Very good point there from Andy. The Patriots do do a great job with that play-action.

And remember, you don't need to be successful running the football to be successful with play-action. There's that old adage that, look, if you run the ball, if you run the ball, you set up the play-action stuff. That's not necessarily true. The stats don't bear that out. Look at example, Washington last year, they struggled to run the ball, but they were one of the most successful teams when it came to passing the football on play action. Their DVOA over at Football Outsiders, that jumped to such a level, you know, on play-action plays versus non-play-action plays.

I believe it was the biggest jump out of any team in the league. And so just because you're not running the ball doesn't mean you can't be successful on the play-action passing game. But the Patriots do a good job of it, often like he says with those seam routes off of play-action. Rex Burkett is still a potential dark horse star for the patriots excellent skill set for their flex passing game and that flex passing game i think is something we're going to talk about with his next couple of tweets because again if this is going to be an offense that has multiple looks to it multiple tight ends multiple running backs using running backs as receiving threats like we saw so many years throughout the brady belichick era with guys

like shane varine guys like Kevin Falk, you know, now into Burkhead last year, and as we'll talk about in a second, James White. Yeah, these guys, guys like Burkhead, they can certainly emerge and be stars for this team. And if you are worried about wide receiver death, let's not forget that they use guys like Burkhead and James White as wide receivers. As Andy points out, many teams view James White as a receiver, not a running back. And I think that is a very good point. And he points out that James White over the last three years, 104 carries, 156 catches, has nearly 1,000 more yards receiving than rushing. And James White can be a running back

in this league and the Patriots would use him as a running back, but he might be a running back in this league, and the Patriots would use him as a running back, but he might be a running back in name only, or he might be an offensive weapon, wide receiver slash running back. So both those guys, White and Burkhead, they're going to play big roles for this team, not just as running backs, but as receivers as well, and so that's going to be something to watch. So I just wanted to close out this show highlighting those takes from Andy.

I think they're pretty accurate about the state of the New England Patriots and in particular their offense right now. That will do it for today's show. I will be back tomorrow with your game day edition. We'll start it out with my thoughts, my expectations for Sunday, and then we'll have our chat with Taylor Kiles, what he's expecting when the Patriots have the ball, what he's expecting when the Texans have the ball, what he's expecting when the Texans have the ball, with our predictions for Sunday. And then Sunday morning, back with your little Sunday morning tailgate show,

getting you ready for Sunday afternoon, the season opener. And I will be back Sunday night with what we hope will be the first glorious victory edition of Locked on Patriots. Until tomorrow, everybody, keep it locked right here

to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Until tomorrow, everybody, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.