Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - March 5, 2018 - Scouting Combine Recap: Offense and QBs

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

Mark Schofield breaks down some winners on the offensive side of the ball, talks quarterback workouts, and more on this Monday edition of Locked On Patriots.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome into Locked On Patriots for Monday, March 5th, 2018. Mark Schofield here in the big chair, as I will be four days a week until we get a little bit closer to the draft, and then we'll kick it back up to five days, doing everything I can to bring you all the patriots news notes and analysis you need to stay up to date with the goings on in and around foxborough remind you to follow me on twitter at mark scofield follow the work over at inside the pylon.com we're getting ready for our itp draft guide 2.0 more on that at the end of this show also check out the videos over at youtube youtube.com backslash InsideThePylon. Add in more and more videos all the time, particularly on the quarterbacks.

And what we're going to do today, we're going to dive into the scouting combine, which is still underway out in Indianapolis. We're going to focus on the offensive side of the ball. I'm going to talk about some guys that really helped themselves, some guys that the Patriots might have in mind. Some quarterback talk as well because the quarterbacks took the stage Saturday. Some of them putting on a show, some of them maybe not as much. We're also going to break down one guy that really sort of hurt himself on the offensive side of the ball. And as I said, some more news on the ITP draft guide at

the end of this show. But let's start with some guys that really help themselves at the combine. We're going to focus on some positions of need here for the New England Patriots. And one guy that really, really helped himself, Mike Giusecchi, tight end from Penn State. And we've talked a little bit on this show over the past couple of weeks or so about the potential need at tight end for the New England Patriots. Question marks over Robert Gronkowski, whether he wants to come back, whether he's just angling for a better contract. There's still some lingering concerns there. Plus, when you get Dwayne Allen, Martellius Bennett, who didn't really pan out the way the Patriots might have hoped.

Given all of that, the Patriots might want to get in on a tight end in this draft. And Mike Chiseki had a combine for the ages. When you look at some of the metrics, the athletic testing that he put out, 4.54 40-yard dash, 6.76 3-comb, a 20-yard shuttle of 4.1, a 60-yard shuttle of 11.3. You put this together, and in terms of athletic metrics, the third best combine for tight ends after Vernon Davis and Dustin Keller, Zach Whitman, who does the spark metrics analysis, put him as a 2.4 sigma athlete in the 99th percentile amongst tight ends. That's incredible athletic

metrics. And it stands out on his film as well. When I was watching Trace McSorley this fall, this winter, started watching him again, get ready for the next draft. Yeah, that's right. I'm already there. You see Juseki win all over the field. When we saw him down in Mobile, I talked about him after the Senior Bowl. Had an incredible performance down in Mobile. Really helped himself down there. Showed that he could win on routes and not just sort of with the ball in the air. Really liked the way he ran his routes.

Really liked the way he sort of sunk his hips. You could see some of that athleticism because Penn State used him on a couple of different routes. Flat routes off of RPO plays. They liked him on post routes over the middle. They liked to run wide iso with him and get him along the boundary. There wasn't a ton of variety to his route tree. So you didn't really get the full chance,

the full picture for his athleticism. But you didn't really get the full chance, the full picture for his athleticism, but you did over the combine. And that 6.76 three cone, third best by a tight end since 2016 at the NFL combine. So if the Patriots want to address tight end, those are numbers that jump out. Now, that probably pushes him up the board a bit. There are other guys like Hayden Hurst who had a really good combine.

Mark Andrews had himself a pretty decent combine as well. So those are some names to keep in mind as we get closer to the draft. But Mike Giusecchi is certainly having a good showing out in Indianapolis. Now let's look at two offensive linemen that have been linked to New England as the mock drafts keep pouring in and really also stood out at the combine for a number of different reasons. He was somebody that we had already mentioned after the weigh-ins. But then when you see what he does on the bench, 37 reps, runs a 5.15 40-yard dash, 7.56 three-cone drill. Those are pretty impressive numbers from a metric standpoint. And I want to give a shout-out here to Ken Lee Platt,

who is at MathBomb on Twitter, who puts together what he calls the Relative Athletic Score, or RAS. Taking height, weight, 40-yard dash, 20-yard shuttle, 10-yard splits, bench, vertical, all sorts of stuff where he puts together athletic profiles on players. And when he put together his RAS on Will Hernandez he caused him an elite player an elite athlete 1.76 10 yards put in the 40 which is really good for an offensive lineman somebody of his size you know he You know, he comes in at 6'2", 3 eighths of an inch, 327 pounds. Again, 37 on the bench was the top performer by offensive lineman, 1.76 10-yard split in the 40-yard dash.

That's a very athletic offensive lineman. Now, I'm just sitting here right now thinking of both Hem and Shaq Mason on pull-in plays in front of guys like Deion Lewis. Now I'm just sitting here right now thinking of both him and Shaq Mason on pulling plays in front of guys like Deion Lewis. And even though it's early March, getting a little excited seeing that. I'm just thinking about it. Will Hernandez had a great showing

out in Indianapolis. Certainly helped himself. I've seen him in the 34-36 range on most draft boards. Wouldn't be surprised to see him slide up. Maybe he doesn't last to 31. I'm seeing reports that maybe Jacksonville might be in on him because they had issues at guard. Remember, we talked about that before the AFC Championship game.

But if Will Hernandez is there at 31, I know I've talked about Isaiah Wynn a lot, but that's a nice addition to the offensive line. Another offensive lineman who truly helped himself during the metrics test and during the athletic testing portion, UCLA's Colton Miller. We mentioned him after the weigh-ins. I've seen him mocked to New England at 31. Obviously, a lot of that depends on what they do with Nate Solder. But again, using the RAS put together by Ken Platt at MathWomb on Twitter, top five of all time amongst offensive linemen. Third out of 897 offensive linemen that he's put this together

for. He's talking about somebody that's 6'8 and 5'8 of an inch, 309 pounds. Runs a 495 40-yard dash. 1.6710 yards split on that 40. 24 reps on the bench. Yeah, not great. Still pretty good. Vertical of 31.5 inches. Bra jump over 10 feet. Set an offensive lineman record for the bra jump.

Three cone of 7.3 seconds. Those are outstanding athletic testing numbers for an offensive lineman. It's incredible athleticism for an offensive lineman. And when you're talking about going up against really athletic, explosive guys on the edge and trying to stay with them, you like to see numbers like those. So Will Hernandez, Colton Miller, two offensive linemen that really helped themselves

during the athletic testing. Some wide receivers that help themselves. DJ Moore from Maryland has played himself into wide receiver one discussion. There are some questions about him and his size. Comes in at six feet, 210 pounds, which is bigger than people thought. There were a lot of frame questions about him.

But he's moved himself into that discussion as one of the better wide receivers in this group. It's a wide receiver group that maybe doesn't have a lot of true wide receiver one types. But if you're looking to upgrade a wide receiver two, it's a good draft for that, I think. DJ Moore getting himself into the mix. DJ Chark. We talked about DJ Chark a little bit on this show.

4.34 40-yard dash. 40-inch vertical. 10 feet 9 inches on the broad jump. Pretty good numbers there on that explosive test. And Deion Kane from Clemson. 6.713 cone. Not quite under that 6.71 three-cone.

Not quite under that 6.7 mark that the Patriots have often looked for, but still a pretty good number. And if you want to talk about a wide receiver in terms of three-cone, Cortland Sutton from SMU. 6.57 on the three-cone drill. We've talked about the three-cone being an important measurement in terms of the New England Patriots and what they look for

in players. 6.75 three-cone, that's quicker than Deion Branch. That's quicker than Julian Edelman. That's quicker than Brandon Cooks. That little factoid dug up by Ethan Hammerman, who you should follow for Patriots news and analysis. He's a good Patriots follow.

At Ethan, E-T-H-A-N-H-A-M-M on Twitter. But Ethan pointed that out during the offensive testing on Saturday. So those are some receivers that certainly helped themselves. Other positions, obviously, Saquon Barkley had an incredible combine. He's not going to be anywhere close to being available when the Patriots make their selection in the first round unless they try to get up to number one because he's in the mix for the first overall pick.

But a receiver that sort of did help himself again, somebody that we've talked about on this show, and that's Naeem Hines. We've talked about Naeem Hines. Ran a 4.38 40-yard dash. and that's Naeem Hines. We've talked about Naeem Hines. Ran a 4.38, 40-yard dash, best 40 of the day among running backs. Very fast athlete.

The one thing that sort of gives me pause now about Hines and the Patriots, that three-cone of 7.18, maybe doesn't have the change of direction quickness that we expected him to, but the strength with Hines was always going to be lawn speed. And we see that with a 4.3840. 35.5 inch vertical as well, pretty explosive. 9 foot 11 inch broad jump. So pretty good numbers for Hines. Again, we're talking about Hines in maybe the fifth, sixth round, that kind of area. And so,

although the Patriots don't have a fifth round pick right now, but that might be where they could get him in the fifth or sixth round. And with somebody like Longspeed like that, that's pretty good in that area of the draft. So those were some guys that really sort of stood out

as we get through the offensive guys. I don't want to really dive into losers for too long because this is a big stage, and I don't want to dwell on that. But there is one guy that you do have to mention when you're talking about guys performing at the combine, and that's left tackle from Oklahoma, Orlando Brown, who is being talked about as a potential first-round choice.

19.5-inch vertical might be the worst of any player ever drafted. 82-inch broad jump might be the worst of any player ever drafted. 82-inch broad jump might be the worst of any player ever drafted. 5.8740-yard dash would be the second worst of players ever drafted, tied with somebody who was a seventh rounder in 2001. 14 reps on the bench, tied for fourth worst among offensive linemen in history. Orlando Brown had a bad combine. And it almost makes me wonder, just putting the lawyer on hat for a second, if you were his agent, his advisors,

you saw what he was doing, maybe wait till his pro data put him through the workouts because those are not good numbers. It was a bad combine for him, through the workouts because those are not good numbers. It was a bad combine for him, but when asked about it, Baker Mayfield, when are you going to watch Orlando Brown run 40 yards down the field? Never. Go watch last year's tape when he allowed zero sacks.

Mayfield coming to defense of his left tackle. Matt Miller at NFL Draft Scout on Twitter pointed it out this way Orlando Brown combine update 14 bench reps official 5.85 40 yard dash yelled at by coaches during drills for low fin Orlando Brown has some work to do before his pro day

but he's the only guy I want to sort of highlight here in the loser category because it was a historically bad combine for him, and he's running out of time to make things right. Up next, we're going to dive into the quarterback workouts. QB's taking the field on Saturday. We're going to talk about what we saw there. We're going to try not to overreact to a lot of this.

That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you here for this Monday edition of Locked on Patriots. And we're going to talk some quarterback workouts here. Because Patriots will be in on a quarterback. We've talked about that a lot on this show. And the quarterbacks took to the field on Saturday. I'm going to run through briefly what I saw when I watched and then re-watched their tape. Let's start quickly with Lamar Jackson.

A lot of talk about Jackson and his position in the NFL. He said, I was going to throw. I'm a quarterback. He didn't do any of the athletic testing, which caused some consternation. But as far as throwing the football, I'd say inconsistent was, again, what we saw from Lamar Jackson and that's what we saw on tape. He's not an inaccurate quarterback. He's inconsistent. He missed a deep ball early but hit some others. He's really confident, really anticipated well on routes breaking to the

inside. Between the numbers, Lamar Jackson looked great. Routes along the boundary, outroutes, outbreaking routes. He's a bit more of a 50-50 proposition on those. Now, you don't want to, again, the underlying thing is you don't want to overreact so much to these guys throwing at the combine to guys they've never thrown to before. It's like the first day of the senior bowl practices. It's a baseline thing. But those routes were a little bit of a 50-50 situation.

The ball came out of his hand pretty well his feet looked good i'm good with his release that wrist flick i've talked about that i'm fine with it again accurate and decisive between the numbers had three shots of that deep post corner route first two were pretty good the third hunt up there a little bit so again an inconsistent day from Lamar Jackson. I know some people have even said he was one of the losers, which I would disagree with. I think it confirmed a lot of what we saw on tape. And that was the story for a lot of these guys.

Josh Allen, who you will hear, is perhaps the big winner of the quarterbacks. And this set of circumstances, the throw and drills at the combine, that's home turf advantage for him. This was the situation to show what he can do. And Mike Mayock in his Saturday wrap-up press conference said this was a chance for him to show off a little bit. And he did that. The arm strength has never been a question with him. It's elite. He's throwing the ball 75 yards on the fly. His arm is as advertised. Now, his first two throws, go routes up the seam.

He missed them. Overthrew one, drifted the second towards the outside. But then when you start getting into the outs and the ins and the digs and the posts, you can tell the velocity is a different level between him and most of the other guys in this group. Now, the thing with Allen that has everybody excited is the stuff he can do in the deep game, those long throws, the deep post corner outs, where he can put them in there close to a line at a 35 to 40-yard range. And that looks great at an event like this, but to use a comparison we've used a couple of times on the show, I'll come back to it,

that's like the guy at the driving range before your round of golf that's hitting 375 right down the middle. It's just striping every time he swings the driver, and that's great, but then he goes out and shoots 120 because you need the driver five that's great but then he goes out and shoots 120 because you need the driver five times during a round but anytime he needs to use a wedge or a short iron or a long iron you're just spraying it you know it's like asking happy gilmore to come out and win the

masters you're only going to use the driver a couple of times you need to do the other stuff and that's been the question mark with Josh Allen. And as people get really excited about his ability to throw the ball deep, I went through QB splits for the top 10, well, top, say, 13 quarterbacks according to adjusted net yards per attempt last year, okay? Because I wanted to see how much of those deep throws really matter. And for example, Jared Goff, who led the league in adjusted net yards per attempt, 7.72 adjusted net yards per passing attempt. Of his 477 passing attempts last year, 434 of those, or 91% of them were less than 20 yards.

Only 9% of his throws, 43, were more than 21 yards. Only 7 of his 477 passing attempts were more than 41 yards. Drew Brees, 536 passing attempts. He's second in ANY Adjusted net yards per attempt Only 4 passing attempts More than 40 yards 0.7% of his passing attempts Went for more than 40 yards

Now there are guys on here that threw the deep ball a little bit more Jameis Winston Who's 11th in adjusted net yards per attempt Last year 22.4% of his throws Were more than 20 yards. But he's the only guy on this list, I've gotten to the top 13 so far,

with more than 20% of his throws going for more than 20 yards. So if you want to get excited about Josh Allen's ability to throw the deep ball, that's great. But Winston, who runs a very vertical-based offense, still only threw it more than 20 yards on 22% of his passing attempts. So if you want to draft a guy

because he can throw the deep ball, you're doing it for 20% of your offense, sometimes 15, sometimes 10. It's what happens 20 yards and in that makes the difference in NFL offenses today. And so, it might again sound like I'm being down on Josh Allen. I'm just saying put it all sort of in context.

Again, the arm is incredible. But it's like that guy that can hit the ball a ton at the driving range. You got to do the other stuff too. But to Allen's credit, I'll say this, the delivery, the mechanics, they looked a little tighter, a little crisper. Seemed like he's really working on that as well. So he had a good day.

I expected him to have a good day. He delivered. But everybody will go back to the tape on this and see the same things they saw coming into the combine. Josh Rosen. Josh Rosen had a nice day as well. I've read some say that, you know, Rosen distanced himself. I mean, excuse me, Josh Allen distanced himself, and I disagree with that. I think Rosen had a very good day as well. He had some deep throws early. He had one where he went from his own 15-yard line to the other 30. He's got a good enough arm as well. It doesn't top out with the RPMs like Allen does,

but it's sufficiently good. And one of the better ones in this class. He's very scheme diverse. His arm doesn't limit him at all. He missed on a slant route earlier. A lot of people point to that. But then he got dialed in after. Showed really good timing on three-step quick game stuff.

A bit lazy on one of his drops. Still, seeing Josh Rosen, again, doesn't dissuade me from thinking he's the best QB in this class. Baker Mayfield, people were excited to see his velocity. That was never a question for me. He always seemed to have enough RPMs on his throws on tape, and when I saw him down in Mobile, similar to Rosen, a little spotty early,

but then he settled in through some nice in-cuts. Missed on an out route, but then he settled in on those too. And the thing with Mayfield that, again, I saw with him and didn't see with other guys, he's out there looking off safeties, looking off defenders, practicing like he hopes to play. I love seeing that. I saw somebody say that he had slow eyes, he had lazy eyes. He's the only one out there doing that stuff. So I think that's a little bit of a mystery to that situation. Kyle Lauletta. And if you want to know why I started taking the time to break down these NFL numbers, throws by distance, it wasn't so much about the Josh Allen stuff as it was the Kyle Lauletta stuff because I keep seeing people say that he doesn't have the arm strength

and the velocity to work in the NFL. It's just a scheme issue with him. I don't think it's a barrier to him playing in the National Football League because everything in the 10, 15, 18 to 20-yard range, velocity is sufficient. Now, when you get to those post-corner routes, those 35, 40-yard routes down the field, he's got to put more air under it. He's got to really get himself into those throws. But again, you're talking about 15% of an offense, 15% of an NFL offense is that. And the idea when you draft Kyle Lolleta is, in most situations, he's not going to play right away because he does need

some development, especially in New England. He might not see the field for two to three years. So you can add some velocity, some strength, get him into an NFL strength and conditioning program, and he'll be just fine. Nothing'm not, nothing I saw in his workout really sort of concerns me about Josh Allen's ability to play in an NFL offense. A couple more guys I'll mention quickly. Luke Falk struggled a bit with accuracy and velocity. I know people have talked about Falk

as the potential successor to Brady. I'm not aboard that train. I don't think he's a bad quarterback. There's other guys that I like. Some other guys that really helped themselves, Nick Chiminok from Texas Tech made some nice throws during these drills. I wasn't blown away by what I saw on him on tape.

There's some raw talent there. But he helped himself. Logan Woodside had a nice day. If the Patriots decide to wait and draft a quarterback on day three because they feel like they don't need to do it early or the board shakes out in a way they don't expect, he might be the guy. And similar to La Letta, yeah, you don't have the high-end velocity

and the deep stuff, but he can do 90% of what you're doing on offense. Very experienced quarterback, great footwork and feel for the pocket. So Woodside had another nice day. But those were the quarterbacks and those were sort of the main takeaways. I don't think anybody really sort of hurt themselves. I think it was sort of as expected. The big thing for the quarterbacks in Indianapolis is the interview rooms, the podium, the whiteboard sessions, and from what we're hearing, what I've been told,

some guys that really sort of stood out there, Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield, and Kyle Lauletta. I've been told that by a couple of different people now that those guys really impressed during those meetings. Lamar Jackson as well. But those are the people we're talking

about. One guy that maybe didn't help himself, maybe didn't put himself in the best light was Sam Donald because he chose not to throw. Again, he's working on some mechanical stuff, so I get it. When you're really sort of tearing down and rebuilding the lower body, especially because that's what he said he's working on, that's the bigger issue for me, not his windup. Maybe it's better to wait for your throw day when the throws are scripted. You's the bigger issue for me, not his windup. Maybe it's better to wait for your throw day when the throws are scripted. You know the 65 throws you're going to be making. You practice those every single day in the weeks leading up to your pro day. So you know in and out, you know in your sleep, throw 17 is going to be a 15 yard to 18 yard dig from the left.

That's how scripted these are. And so when you're going through all that and you're going to be focused on mechanics sometimes it makes more sense to have everything scripted out for you so you don't have to worry about what you're doing but how you're doing it before we close quick word on the inside the pylon draft guide

and I teased this out on last thursday show we're going to be dropping this april 1st pre-orders are ready and for the loyal listeners of the locked on patriots podcast if you want a copy of this i'm helping you out because there's a promo code you can use for five dollars off the itp draft guide if you like my work if you like the work over inside the pylon you can support us by picking up a copy. And if you want $5 off, there's a promo code. It's four letters, TOTO. Use promo code TOTO when you pick yourself up a copy of the Inside the Pylon draft guide. Again, that promo code is TOTO. go to ITPDraftGuide.com you can read about the process we used

I explained that a little bit and when you get your copy you can pre-order it now use that promo code Toto that will do it for today's show a couple of notes on the rest of this week tomorrow I will focus on the defensive side of the ball we're going to spend a lot of time

talking about Shaquem Griffin I'm going to tell you that right now because he puts up 20 reps on the defensive side of the ball. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about Shaquem Griffin, okay? I'm going to tell you that right now because he puts up 20 reps on the bench, again, with one hand. He's got a prosthetic that he uses the bench press with. Runs a 4.3840-yard dash. He's strong. He's fast. We saw it on tape. We saw it on mobile. He's blowing the door off the combine.

I'm at the point now where if he's on the board at the end of the second round, I'm fine with the Patriots taking him. He's that kind of player. He's going to be special. He's going to make a defense special. So I'm completely on board with Shaquem Griffin and the New England Patriots wherever they can get him.

Period. Full stop. I'm fully on board with Shaquem Griffin. It will be the first time. If he ends up in New England Patriots, wherever they can get him. Period. Full stop. I'm fully on board with Shaquem Griffin. It will be the first time. If he ends up in New England, it will be the first time in my life I will buy a defensive player's jersey. Look, I'm a quarterback. But I'll make an exception for him, man.

He's going to be a special kid. Later in the week, we're going to do some mailbag stuff. Get in some questions at Mark Schofield on Twitter. Mark.Schofield at insidethepylon.com if you want to email me some questions. That will be for Wednesday's show. Thursday, we'll get a guest on, do some combine recap. Then it's into the pro days.

Maybe I'll make a trip to a couple. But that will do it for today's show. Until tomorrow, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.