Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - OTAs and the Future of Defensive Football - Locked On Patriots May 24, 2019

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

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Hello friends and welcome on into a Friday installment of the Lockdown Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield sliding into the old big chair here on Friday, May 24th, 2019. Yes, it is the sort of official or unofficial, whatever you want to term it, kickoff to summer. Memorial Day weekend is upon us here in the States. And for many, it's a chance to sort of get into summer mode, take some time off, perhaps go away. But it is also a holiday that is incumbent upon us here in the States to pause, reflect, remember, and honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could go out and enjoy a three-day weekend or a quick trip away, or maybe even you're taking a longer vacation.

I know a lot of people like to take a whole week on Durham Memorial Day to get away from work and the grind and things like that. But do take some time to honor those who paid the ultimate price so we can enjoy the freedoms that we have today here in the States. For those of you around the world, welcome on in. It is a Friday here at Locked On Patriots. What we're going to do, we're going to hit the pause button on the old 2018 revisited series.

As I told you yesterday, the plan for this summer off-season series is to go four shows a week on the look back and then take Friday to sort of encapsulate some of the other goings around during the offseason in the National Football League. So today we're going to talk about the future of defense and we'll talk a little bit about some OTA action so to get you into your holiday weekend. Before we do that though your usual bevy of reminders. Please check me out on Twitter at Mark Schofield and do follow the work at places like InsideThePylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, and of course that trio of SB Nation sites, Big Blue View, Bleeding Green Nation, where I'm the co-host of the one and only Kist, not Kist and Solak show,

my name's not Benjamin Solak. The QB's Sko Show with me and the venerable Michael J. KISSED. And of course, Pat's Pulpit, which is where we will start our show. Also, check out our incredible sponsors here at the Lockdown Podcast Network. You've got places like Hotels.com,

Grip It, and Untuck It. Grip 6, excuse me, and Untuck It. Hotels hotels.com you've got some friends that are going away for memorial day weekend don't hate like their vacations book your own right now at hotels.com now the future of football that's where i want to start the future of defensive football specifically and let's begin with a proposition let's begin with a proposition. Let's begin with a premise. Let's begin with some numbers. Passing is king in football today. Not just high school, not just college,

at the NFL level, passing is king. And how do we know this? Well, one of the great things about being a football fan today and being in football media is the absolute plethora of work being done across the spectrum and looking into a number of different ways to think about and study this game from X's and O's, from salary cap, and yes, to numbers and analytics. And there is often, shall we say, a bit of angst, a bit of

frustration, perhaps, I don't want to go as far as to say anger, but between sort of what we will call film Twitter and what we will call numbers Twitter. Sometimes they don't agree sometimes they'll never agree for example the argument on coverage versus pass rush the argument on whether running backs matter which is a rather simplistic way of breaking down the argument but the argument being advanced by numbers or analytics twitter is that the running game isn't as important as it's been made out to be, and that passing is what matters. And the mountain of evidence is backing up that proposition, particularly when you view the game through expected points added. It's a way of measuring on a play-by-play basis how valuable plays are in terms of adding potential points to your score. Viewing the game through that lens tells you that

the passing game is king. How? Well, take for example this piece. Chase Stewart over at Football Outsiders completed a quick study examining how often a passing game flips the outcome of a contest versus how often the run game flips the outcome of a contest. The summation of that study, and I'm quoting here, quote, this would imply that pass offense is about three times as important as Russian offense, close quote, when viewed via the expected points added lens. Ben Baldwin, who also does great work for the Athletic Seattle, conducted a similar study at the end of the season. He found that teams with the higher Russian EPA in a game, they won 60% of the time.

Teams with the higher passing EPA in a game won 83% of the time. So I think we can surmise that passing is more valuable than rushing, at least through various metrics or studies using expected points added. Now, how valuable, whether it's three times as Chase Stewart's study quickly showed, or maybe twice as valuable as, say, Ben Baldwin's end of the season study showed, passing the ball is more valuable. Now, anytime a new defensive coordinator is hired or a defensive minded head coach is hired and you think about their, shall we say, introductory press conference. How quickly do you get to the phrase or phrases, we're going to be physical on defense and we're going to stop the run? It's become canon in the world of football that on defense, you want to stop the run. You want to be physical and you

want to stop the run. But is that really the best thing to do? And as I argue over at Pat's Pulpit, if passing the ball is more valuable for an offense, then as a defense, don't you want to stop the pass? Let's look at it this way. If you could potentially be in defensive packages that give you the opportunities to double-team or even triple-team receivers, play multiple coverage looks. Because you have multiple defensive backs on the field, you're basically in a sub-package. But you still were able to be gap-sound up front, get good run fits, and stop the run.

Wouldn't you want to play that kind of defense? That brings us to the Big 12. That brings us to Ames, Iowa and the Iowa State Cyclones. We'll pick this up next here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you here at Locked on Patriots for today, Friday, May 24th. Again, please do check out our great sponsors, Hotels.com, Untucked, Grip6. You want to get your hands on some of those Grip6 belts.

Look, no holes, no loops, like nothing. It is the most trimming, most slimline type of belt design you can find. And they have a great women's collection too. But we've got graduations coming up. We've got Father's Day coming up. Please check out our great friends over at grip six belts now iowa state let's talk about the iowa state cyclones in their 335 defense and to give the gentle listeners the friendly listeners a window into my summers i spent my summers studying playbooks and studying quarterbacks.

And I recently got done studying Nate Stanley, the quarterback from the University of Iowa. And one of the games I watched was his game against Iowa State. And it was the first time I had really seen this Iowa State defense up close and personal, gotten a chance to study it in a sense. And I didn't know how to read it. I didn't know how to chart it. I didn't know what to call these coverages. And then I read into it a little bit it. I didn't know how to chart it. I didn't know what to call these coverages. And then I read into it a little bit more. For example, Coach Cody Alexander, who is at the underscore coach underscore A on Twitter. He has a fascinating football mind.

He's written some books on match quarters. He's got a great website about defensive football. And he did sort of a two or three part series on this Iowa State defense. And to take a step back for a second, Big 12 defenses have sort of become maligned. They're almost a joke in some football circles. Why are you going to draft Baker Mayfield? He plays in the Big 12. They don't play defense in that conference. Why are you going to draft Kyler Murray? He's short and he's playing in the Big 12. Why are you going to draft Patrick Mahomes? He's playing in the Big 12. He's throwing to wide open guys. But here's the thing.

We're seeing all these air raid quarterbacks come out. We're seeing these air raid offenses come into the game. We're seeing the Patriots run mesh concept. We're seeing now Kyler Murray who's going to be running Cliff Kingsbury's offense. Big 12 defenses have to come up with answers for these spread and RPO and air raid type systems. And Iowa State's answer is this. They're 3-3-5 defense with some twists. One of the main twists is what they call a joker safety.

He's a safety that typically aligns in the middle of the field. But if you want to change this 3-3-5 into a base 3-4 and have seven guys sort of in the box, he's the guy that can come down into the box. You can stop the run with this defense because if they're just going to line up with four wide receivers and put the wide receivers out wide, quarterback and running back in the pistol

or the shotgun in the backfield and just five offensive linemen, you can play with four in the pistol or the shotgun in the backfield and just five offensive linemen, you can play with four in the box and either bring down the safety or however you want to do it, and you can get all the gaps covered. You can do it just with three down linemen and the one linebacker. The nose guard takes one A gap, the linebacker takes the other A gap. The other two down linemen, they come into the b gaps between the tackles and the guards now you've got all the interior gaps covered everything else gets bounced to the outside where you've now got those extra linebackers and those extra corners if you want to get aggressive with it you can bring one linebacker down and either the joker safety or the other linebacker down you can cover the gaps and stop the run.

But of course, what else does this do? When they throw the ball, you've got at least the five defensive backs, if not those overhand linebackers as well, helping you in coverage. And so if they want to drop back and throw, you're basically playing three against two on either side of the field if you count those linebackers, so you've got linebacker, corner, safety. Linebacker, corner, safety. Three over two plus that joker, safety. That gives you the advantage in the pass game. Now, you might be saying, okay, well, this is college. Nobody would be crazy. Nobody would be crazy to do something like this on a down-to-down basis in the National Football League. Especially, and even if they did play some sort of 3-2-6, 3-3-5 type, then it would be on third and long situations. Well, let's get to Bill Belichick now.

And this was the premise of my piece. the New England Patriots played 1,042 defensive snaps. On approximately 15% of those, they were in some kind of three down linemen sub package. And these were not just your third and long situations. For example, I found a play, two from their game against Kansas City, in fact, a second and goal from the four where the Patriots lined up in a 3-2-6 package on their goal line, basically daring Kansas City to run. And Kansas City ran the ball with Kareem Hunt. They were sound up front with their gap responsibilities. Kareem Hunt was forced to make a cut in the backfield. He tries to bounce it to the outside.

And there you get Kyle Van Nooy, that outside linebacker, that overhand defender, waiting for him. So Hunt has to come back into the hole. And there's a Landon Roberts filling that hole, stopping it for just a gain of two or three. And you might think, second and goal from the four, gain of two or three. Okay, you stopped them. Here's another example. A third and one situation. The Patriots come out on a 3-2-6. They run a toss-type play with Tyreek Hill out of the backfield. Gap responsibility is sound up front. He tries to bounce it around Kyle Van Nooy.

Van Nooy strings him out enough into the boundary where there's the cornerback who's filling that, coming up in run support, and they stretch it out for no gain. No gain. Third and one, and they come out in a 3-2-6 package. But the other beauty of this kind of system with how New England's using it is with their 3-2-6, in the Iowa State defense, for example,

that joker safety gives you the flexibility to go from a 3-3 to a 3-4 because you can bring that guy down in the box. With New England, they could go 3-2-6, but with Patrick Chun, they could align him at linebacker, and they did this at times. At times, they did this in the Super Bowl. They did it against Indianapolis that Thursday night. They could get themselves into what looks to be a base 4-3 or a base 6-1. You put the safety Chun at the linebacker spot. You put the linebackers Hightower and Van Noy on the edge,

and suddenly you've got a 6-1 or a 4-3, whatever you want to term it. Rolling a pop Warner defense out there. And why is this beneficial? If you think about how the Patriots play offense, what's one of the great things about how the Patriots have approached offensive football in the past 10 years, 15 years. They want to have the flexibility to get the defense they want to face on the field and then exploit it. Think about the Super Bowl. They run Haas-Waadzouk three times out of the same personnel package. Why? Because they got the defense they wanted to attack and they found a way to spread them out and attack them.

While as a defense, you've got to have the ability, the flexibility, to go from a run D to a pass D without substituting. Whether it's because they're using tempo or whatever reason. This package from New England, this 3-3-5 or 3-2-6, whichever package they use, gives them that flexibility. They can go from a pure dime defense to a 4-3 or 6-1 front in the blink of an eye, without substituting, without calling a timeout, nothing. Nothing. And here's the other thing that it does. People might think, well, you can't rush the passer, so you'll never see this. Well, it's true.

Maybe you can't, because of this defensive front, just line up and beat guys one-on-one because you're only rushing three, right? Well, don't get caught up in the numbers. Think about where they come from. I found two plays, for example, one against Indianapolis, a second and six on their open and drive. They have the three-man front. It's a 3-2-6 package.

They walk Hightower and Van Noy down into each A-gap. They're sugar in the A-gaps. They're showing blitz. Hightower and Van Noy both drop. So you think, oh, they're not blitzing. Oh, they do. Chun and Jonathan Jones come from the outside. The tackles get so caught up trying to pick up the boundary blitzes,

they basically let Trey Flowers loose and he gets home, but they get a 10-yard sack as a result of that. Another play against Pittsburgh. Maybe you don't get home, but pressure is production. Talked about that before the Super Bowl. They show the same look, but this time it's the three down linemen and the two linebackers that come. They don't get to Roethlisberger, but they pressure him. They force an errant throw and it's intercepted. So you can still generate pass rush. Now finally, and here's the key point, I think, you look at how the Patriots handle acquisitions and free agency, and you look at some of the acquisitions they've made, and you can see the pieces come together. Rather than overpaying Trey Flowers, and look, I was Mr. Pay the Man his money, but $90 million is $90 million. $90 million over five years,

that's a big contract. Market, and shout out to all 22 on Twitter, the good old bets, market dictates scheme. If the market is going to be such that elite past Russian talent is going to get overpaid, well, you could either go out there and overpay the guys or handle it a different way. We know what Bill Belichick prefers to do. He's going to let Chandler Jones. No, we're not going to overpay him. We'll trade him. Trey Flowers, thanks for your time. Enjoy Detroit. We're going to let Chandler Jones. No, we're not going to overpay him. We'll trade him. Trey Flowers, thanks for your time.

Enjoy Detroit. We're going to let you go. We're going to bring in Michael Bennett. We're going to draft Chase Winovich. We're going to handle it a different way. You look at the acquisition of Jamie Collins. Imagine for a second a 3-3-5 package with three down linemen, Hightower in the middle, Van Nooyen, Collins on either side,

and then you've got that sort of five defensive back package with Chun as that joker safety who can play deep safety if he wants to, or suddenly you bring him down into the box and you've got a 3-4 look or a 3-3-5 look without going to the sidelines, without calling a timeout, without substituting. The Patriots might be moving towards this kind of defense.

And will it become their base every down defense? Probably not. But having played it 15% of the time last year, I wouldn't be surprised to see them play it 20, 25, 30, 35, 40% of the time next year. And the acquisitions and how they have handled things and how they have used this kind of defense in the past makes me think that this might be the future of football, not just in New England, but league-wide. And after the piece came out, I may have mentioned this,

but you have fan bases from Dallas to Minnesota to Detroit thinking, hey, can our team do this? This might be where the future of defense is, and it's to be found in the Big 12. So go check out that piece, patspulpit.com. A lot of people seem to like it. It's got numbers. It's got analytics.

It's got X's and O's. It's got my inside and more. So please do check that out. Up next, a couple of words on OTAs, and we'll wrap up the week here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. We're going to quickly close out this Friday show this week here at Locked On Patriots. Don't forget,

even though Monday is Memorial Day, we will be back into the 2018 revisited portion of the offseason proceedings. We'll be talking about Week 5 on Monday's show. We'll do Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, and then obviously next Friday we'll do week five, week six, week seven, week eight. And then obviously next Friday, we'll do another show like this, recapping some of the stuff that was the Patriots and the NFL

and the week in the National Football League. A couple of things on OTAs. Ignore it. Ignore all of it. Ignore the noise. Ignore the stats. Ignore all of that stuff. I remember OTAs last year and training camp last year reports coming out of

kansas city that mahomes is throwing a ton of picks he's throwing a ton of interceptions he looks bad he's making mistakes well that was by design it wasn't they were like oh go out and throw interceptions but they were trying to let him push the envelope a bit see what he could get away with in practice so he knew what he could do when he couldn't do on the field and so i want to read basically anything into results at otas or training camp but i do think it's important to look at usage look at how players are being used as best as you can glean from the limited media reports that we get and the one big thing that i want to take away from the otas to date left guard joe tooney getting some reps at left tackle. Now part of it is this, Isaiah Wynn, Yarny Kajus, they're not cleared to go in 11-on-11s

yet. But it's interesting that in the wake of the Veldheer retirement, and look they have some other tackles on the roster, but it's Joe Tooney that is at left tackle. That's going to open up a spot for Hilde Frohl, perhaps to slide in at left guard. Is Joe Tooney going to be the plan C or D or E or B at the left tackle spot? So that's a usage thing that I did think was interesting, that I did think was curious. We're also seeing Danny Etlin getting some reps as a win on the punt team. Are they going to see if there's a role they could carve out for him in that Taysom Hill mold? So that's going to be something interesting to watch.

Also around the league, we did see some player movement. Gerald McCoy, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, mutual pardon of ways, apparently. At least that's the report. That's how they're terming it. Now, Dominick and Sue, he leaves the West Coast and the Los Angeles Rams and heads to the East Coast with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So now, Gerald McCoy is looking for a home. And at any time, yes, a veteran player is now available, the immediate assumption is he's going to find his way to New England. Again, because that's what the Patriots do. And many people in and around the league have theorized, have speculated,

have even reported that the Patriots are one of the teams that he is interested in and one of the teams showing some interest in him. You're also hearing the Colts. You're also hearing the Browns and a handful of teams now I think even with everything we just got done spending 20 minutes talking about McCoy could still come in and serve some role on this team sort of a rotational interior defensive lineman 20-25 type snaps a game at most and I think there might be a role for him on this roster. But the money would have to be right.

And obviously the pitch is this. Look, you haven't sniffed a Super Bowl or anything close to it. Want to come in and win? We won't rely on you as to be a down-to-down player. We'll just need you to get us 20 snaps or so. So you might want to keep an eye on

Gerald McCoy. But again, it's nice to see the guys back. It's nice to see the guys working out. It's nice to see Belichick at media availabilities. It's good to see the rookies in camp. It's good to see Jared Stidham wearing a Bruins hat. Obviously, the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final

against the St. Louis Blues. We're excited for that. We're also excited for the weekend here at Locked on Patriots. And that's it. That's what we're excited for that. We're also excited for the weekend here at Locked on Patriots. And that's it. That's what we're going to get into now because it's happy hour time. It's time to kick off work and enjoy the long weekend. But please, dude, take a moment on Monday. Do think about the true meaning of the day, the sacrifice, the ultimate price that so many paid so we could enjoy a long weekend like this.

So do take some time and reflect and pause and remember. We will be back Monday with a show that you can listen to at your cookouts, on the lake, on the river, wherever you're at, or maybe just when you're headed back to work on Tuesday if you're headed back to work. But either way, I hope you all have, those who are here in the States, a wonderful Memorial Day. I hope you all take, those who are here in the States, a wonderful Memorial Day. Hope you all take some time, enjoy,

reflect, be the family and all that great stuff. We will be back Monday on Memorial Day continuing our 2018 series. 2018 Revisited. Until then, have a wonderful weekend everybody and keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots.