Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - September 24, 2018 - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome on in to another melancholy and the infinite sadness edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield here on the mic in the wake of a rather uninspiring performance from your New England Patriots as they fall on the road to the Detroit Lions, 26-10, in a game in which I'm tasked to come here after that performance and give you, as I usually do, as I always do when the Patriots lose a game, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I'm going to be honest.

It's hard to find anything good after that performance. And I know I said that last week. And it's true again for the second state league. This looks like a bad team right now. It just looks like a bad football team. And yes, the Patriots have had some bad starts before. The Patriots have had some brutal starts before. The Patriots have had some brutal starts before. Last year, they started 1-2.

I mean, 2-2, excuse me. And they were giving up something like 32 points per game. This one feels different. This start feels different. And yes, there's the Edelman suspension. Yes, there were injuries tonight, which I believe played somewhat of a role with Trey Flowers and Patrick Cheung. But this just feels different.

And it seems to fit with everything I've been talking about and others have been talking about since that Super Bowl loss. The sense of unease around this team. And the day that began with a story about Rob Gronkowski potentially being traded to the Detroit Lions ends with the Patriots just laying an absolute egg to those same Detroit Lions, a team that couldn't stop anybody before tonight, a team that couldn't run the ball. They finally got a 100-yard rusher, and it came against

this run defense. First one and two star for New England since the 2012 season, and that team finished 12-4. That team made it to the AFC Championship game, but they lost to the Ravens. So they've been in spots like this before, but this just feels different. And I know in a sport where there's so much in the way of analytics and there's so much in the way of film evaluation and tape study, the stuff that I do, it's hard to just rely on a gut feeling. But sometimes the gut feeling is right. Sometimes you've got to listen to your gut. And right now, my gut's telling me this is a bad football team. This is a team that Dave Archibald said it in the Locked on Patriots Slack channel, at Dave Archibald on Twitter.

If you didn't know this was a Bill Belichick team, you would have said this was a poorly coached team. Now, I think it's more than that. I think coaching might be a part of it right now. I think a lack of talent and injuries might be a part of it right now. But this just looks like a bad team. Now, I think it's more than that. I think coaching might be a part of it right now. I think a lack of talent and injuries might be a part of it right now, but this just looks like a bad team. And the main thing I'm looking at right now is a team that outside of Gronkowski and maybe Stephon Gilmore can't consistently win one-on-one, whether it's guys up front, whether it's linebackers against running backs, whether it's linebackers against running backs, whether it's linebackers against tight ends, whether it's receivers against defensive acts and vice versa.

They can't consistently win one-on-ones. And there's a play I'm going to talk about a little bit later in the ugly part of the show, which might last 45 minutes, that exemplifies all of this. And there are some good things that I will get to. But the first good thing I'm going to mention. My great friends over at Spiked Seltzer. SpikedSeltzer.com.

You can check them out. I've been digging the stuff they put out. Their Cape Cod Cranberry. It's just fantastic. Tasty. I'm going to have to open one up right now. Oh, that's nice. Nice and cold.

Oh, that's a tasty beverage. Check them out. SpikedSeltzer.com. They're slowly becoming my product, my sponsor for the 2018 Patriots season. But let's get into it. Before the good, the bad, the ugly, I need to remind you to check me out on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can find me at places like InsideThePylon.com where I'm one of the head writers for Football Weekly, The Score,

Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites. But you know all that. What you want to hear are the takes. As I said, themes for this night. They can't win one-on-ones. That's the big theme. They can't.

I should just stop the show right now. I could just put my feet up. Just let the record button go. You guys can listen to me just keep sipping on my little spike seltzer here and trying to ease the pain after that. As far as good stuff, the opening kickoff return from Patterson takes it from five deep in the end zone and gets it up to the 40-yard line. And you're thinking right there, all right, this is a good start.

Good field position. Maybe worst-case scenario, they at least have a good field position to start this, then they can pin them deep. No, they go 3-0. Kyle Van Nooy. There were two guys on the defensive side of the ball that I thought performed admirably and performed well in spots.

Kyle Van Nooy was one. First play of the game on defense, he's backside, run away from him, but he chases it down from backside. I thought of the game on defense. He's backside. Run away from him. But he chases it down from backside. I thought that was a good play. Jonathan Jones on that same drive, that opening drive for Detroit. He had a nice play. A catch point situation where he knocks the ball away on a vertical out.

The Patriots blitz. Shocker. Spoiler alert. Whatever your favorite phrase is. They don't get there. So Stafford has a one-on-one matchup that he throws, and Jones does a great job breaking that up. Kyle Van Nooy later on that opening drive, great initial penetration.

He forces LeGarrette Blount to cut. He's tackled for no gain. Detroit gets three. So you're thinking, okay, okay. Field goals don't usually beat Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. You're thinking that's an okay start. We'll get to some of the other bad stuff. I'm flipping again like I was last week for the good stuff. The Juwan Bentley interception. Yeah, yeah. Now we're getting into the second half. Again, just like last week. It's like,

well, I can't find good stuff here. It's hard to find it. I mean, they did get a field goal in the first half. Rex Burkhead, who leaves the game due to injury, a neck injury. They got him on a second and six. They used that quick little smoke route. It was the same type of play that they hit to Edelman against the Panthers in the preseason. So they seem to be using him in that sort of role,

Burkhead at least. There was a good velocity throw from Tom Brady to Rob Gronkowski. So that was good. But there's a third down and one when you're looking to perhaps keep the drive alive. They get smoked on,

which I'll come back to in the ugly portion of the play. But yeah, the Bentley pick. That was a great play by Bentley, okay? It was a good play, took advantage of the situation. It was great coverage when you're that middle linebacker running with that number three receiver vertically. You've got to stay with that and that cover two look. So it was a great play from him, okay? The problem is it's hard to really say, oh, that was a fantastic play from him because Stafford just made a bad throw. If Stafford put the slightest bit of touch on that, it's a big game. But he tries to drill it in there and it

allows Bentley to kind of get underneath it. So it was a good play from him, but it was just also a poor throw. Following drive from New England, it starts with a toss sweep to Sonny Michel for a gain of about 12. Trent Brown pulling in front of it, making me eat a little bit of crow, because remember, I wondered back in the preseason, could Trent Brown be an athletic pulling type tackle? He was on that play, so that was good. And then the touchdown to James White. It was just perfect throw from Brady, getting through his progressions, coming to his third read in the system. Perfect placement on that wheel route to James White. That was a fantastic,

fantastic play. And that's literally the last good thing I saw from this team that night. That's it. Maybe I'm missing something. Oh, Dietrich Wise. That's right. I did want to mention Dietrich Wise. He had a couple of plays. He won a one versus one against Taylor Decker with a nice in and out move to get his sack. He showed some heart.

He showed some emotion. He was fiery up. He had a run stop as well where he was trying to get the team fired up, trying to get the defense fired up. I liked seeing that. Okay. There's your good stuff from tonight. What else is there?

It's all bad right now. And that's what we're going to talk about next on this melancholy and the infinite sadness edition of Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. Again, sipping my Cape Cod cranberry from my good friends over at Spike Seltzer. Check them out, SpikeSeltzer.com. Trust me, the way the season has started, you might want to get your hands on some of this stuff. And the Cape Cod Cranberry, it just feels right, you know, with shaping up to be somewhat a crisp fall evening here in the D.C. area.

And, yeah, look, I don't want to start talking about what I have to talk about now, so I'm really just kind of killing time here. I'm kind of hoping for a power outage or something. But let's get to the bad stuff. And I could literally just say the rest of the entire game was either bad or ugly and just flip a coin on a given player, a given player, and it was either bad or ugly. You could put it that way. The offense started like garbage.

You go three and out. You waste that good field position. Brady, on a third and fourth situation, they go gun empty. Get Hogan open in the middle of the field. Brady's throw is kind of high and behind him. And you could have basically just summed up the entire night that way because Brady missed a lot of throws.

Detroit goes down the field. They get their field goal in there, open and drive. You get a second and 10 situation, a post route to Golden Tate. And as my notes indicate, Stafford had all bleep and data throw. I edited that for you, friends. New England's second drive, shocker. They went 3-0.

Third and 10 situation, after you get sort of a drop from Dorsett in the design swing route to Sonny Michel, who apparently was getting lit up on Twitter, partly because Kerryon Johnson, the Auburn rookie running back, now on the Detroit Lions, kind of outplayed him. Third and tenth situation, you go gun empty again, you get one of those set

reset moments from Brady, and he throws high to Dorsett. High and slightly behind him, even though he was open, and the Patriots punt again. What do the Lions do? Well, that entire drive, their second drive, is just highlighted in blue, which was tonight's bad color in my notes. They just go right down the field and score.

No pressure. No pressure. Blitz doesn't get home. No pressure. Just that entire drive was just bad. They get a situation of first and goal. Adrian Claiborne, he gets penetration on the run and play. Just whiffs on Kerryon Johnson, who turns that, what could have been a loss of three, four yards, into a gain of five.

And then touchdown is scored on, oh guess what, a crossing route. A crossing route. Could anybody have possibly seen a crossing route going for a touchdown against the New England Patriots? Other than everybody on the planet Earth. Including my cat. Just awful. And then New England's third driver of the game. What do they do?

They go 3-0. They go 3-0. They get a 31. They can't even get that blocked up. Shaq Mason just gets obliterated off the snap. Almost to the point where I thought he was just, either didn't hear the snap, didn't know the snap count. I don't know what happened, but he just got blown into the backfield,

blown into my lap. I'm sitting here in Maryland. Suddenly Shaq Mason's getting blown through my bedroom door. It's kind of odd. Man, you got to get back to Detroit. So that was ugly. And then Detroit, you know, they go right down the field again.

You know, they have to settle for three, but the only reason they have to settle for three is, you know, even though Jason McCourty gets beat by Jones on a post route, Stafford's throw is high. They could have had six there too. I mean, it could have been worse. You know, it could have been 17-0.

It was only 13-0. It felt like 20-0. You know, the Patriots, on their ensuing possession, they settled for a field goal. It could have been worse on a play that we're going to get to in the next segment of the show. Second half stuff, again, a lot more stuff. Stafford made a great throw on a cover two situation with, maybe it was cover two or cover three, couldn't tell, now that I'm thinking about it,

where he got it over Jones, but in front of the safety on a 39 situation. That was bad. Because look, you get it to 13-10, it's been a huge turn of events. As a defense, Wise gets a sack. Huge play in that moment. We talked about that one where he beats Decker.

There's a little 2nd and 17 situation. They run a little slip screen. They stop it for a gain of 8, so it's 3rd and 9. This might have been the play of the game. If they get off the field on this third down, you know what Detroit fans are thinking. You know what the Lions are thinking. They're going to go right down the field and score. It's going to be 17-13 New England here in a matter of minutes. It's similar to one of the plays we talked about from last week,

but they don't. Stafford makes that throw, and then they go right down the field for a touchdown, which we're going to talk about in the ugly part of the show. That was just a pivotal moment, and the defense didn't get off the field on third down. Other bad stuff, the rest of this is purple, which is ugly, which we'll talk about in a minute. Look, again, this was bad. It was just a bad game. That's two bad games in a row. And one of the things we were trying to come up with in the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel about this game was, when's the last time they had two just bad games in a row? You know, people were talking about that back to like 2002.

I mean, it was just a bad performance. And I don't want to talk about it anymore. But I got a job to do. You know, what's that line? Brian Adams, ain't no use in complaining when you got a job to do. Yeah, I get to talk about this some more. And I will. Up next, I'm just struggling now.

I'm going to talk about it a little bit more. Just ahead. The ugly stuff from tonight's 26-10 loss to the Detroit Lions. That's coming up here at Locked on Patriots. Mark Schofield back with you now. We're going to do the ugly stuff from tonight's debacle in Detroit as well as our take of the game. Part of me wants to turn this into another boom-roasted installment

of the Locked on Patriots podcast where we just rip people. For those of you that follow me, that listen to the show, you know that I've long held the belief instilled in me by Dan Hattman over at the Scouting Academy that it's easy to crush a guy. It's easy to rip a guy.

But tell me what a guy can do. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do. But on a night like tonight, all I really want to do is crush some people. That's all I really want to do. I'm going to try not to, but we'll see how this segment ends up. Also, we're going to have the take of the game

again from Dave Archibald. This is pretty much a unanimous pick in the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel. People were pointing it out in the moment, but let's start roasting some people. Dwayne Allen. Look, man. My boy. You're on this team for a reason.

You're on this team to serve as a blocking tight end. You're not giving us much in the past game. So when the Patriots are down 13-0, but they got it sort of in least feelable range, facing 3rd and 1, the chance to extend this drive and potentially cut this to a 13-7 game, we need you on the edge

blocking on a run to the outside. We can't see you get smothered up and destroyed. You just get smothered up and destroyed on that run to the edge. That can't happen. The touchdown where Marvin Jones beats Stephon Gilmore. And this is something that Collinsworth pointed out. I had flashbacks. Maybe you did too to the interception of Deshaun Watson back in week

one. This was one of those situations where you've got that route breaking across the field. We expect to see that sort of cut call where the corner that initially is covering this receiver who's breaking across the field away from him, he goes to the middle of the field, the middle of the field safety, then picks him up. Collinsworth pointed out it looks like Gilmore was expecting Daron Harmon to do that. Harmon doesn't. Makes it look like Gilmore gets beat, but really, it looks like that was supposed to have been a cut call. So Daron Harmon, if that's the situation, again, I wasn't in the huddle. If that's the situation, then that's a boom-roasted type of moment, man. You got to be there. Soto-Michel, New England's following drive. It's 20-10. First and 10 situation. Play action,

throw to the flat. Michel was kind of outside, but was catchable, drops it. Next play, much more catchable, drops it. There's a reason why he was getting the boom-roasted treatment on Twitter. This was part of it. Not what we want to see from the rookie running back. Expected more from him as contributing in the pass game. Detroit had the second and seven late in the third quarter, slant flat.

Golden tape was so wide open. It was a rub concept, I understand. It's just so wide open. First play of the fourth quarter. Garrett Blount had great vision to identify a cutback lane on a zone read. Collinsworth said something in the moment there that wasn't quite applicable because it's not really a hole on a zone type play whenworth said something in the moment there that wasn't quite applicable

because it's not really a hole on a zone type play when you're making that cutback read, but it applied to the rest of the night, which was these are some of the biggest holes I've seen in the national football league. That kind of speaks for itself. The run D can't stop anybody. Pass defense can't stop

anybody. Offense can't win one-on-ones. The theme of the night. It's just a bad team right now. Brady. Long-time listeners of the show know that it's rare that I crush number 12 because even when he's bad, he's better than most quarterbacks out there. But the intentional grounder, which was eerily reminiscent of that Super Bowl

against the Giants where he took an intentional grounder for safety on that first offensive play. I don't know why that happens. I can't tell if somebody was supposed to be running a different route or what, but it just seemed bad. And then on your next possession, the pick to Dorsett. I mean, that looked, as I said in the Locked Up Patriots, that just looked like garbage all around. From the decision to throw it into double coverage, it's second and eight. You know, you don't

need to force that throw. And then the throw itself was bad. It was just garbage all around. Their next possession, you get a second and two situation after a completion to Gronk. Trump Brown gets beat. It's more of a coverage sack.

And this is the play that sort of exemplified the entire night. They have a double on Gronkowski. They've got two guys on him. And nobody else can get open. Nobody else has a prayer of getting open. Not Hogan, not Patterson, not Dorsett. Nobody. Nobody.

And if that's the type of offense this is right now, then they better hope for the 2013 version of Josh Gordon, and they better hope that Julian Edelman has the season of his life. Because otherwise, that's what teams are going to do. They're going to go bracket coverage on Gronkowski and say, look, somebody not named Gronkowski beat us. Because right now, nobody can. You know, that's where this team is right now. And that's the ugly stuff.

And the whole game was just ugly. It was an uninspiring performance. And even their final drive, I know it's technically a two-score game. You have no timeouts. You're not going to win. But it just all felt flat. And I know there's going to be

comparisons to the we're on to Cincinnati game that lost to Kansas City on a Monday night which was another just disgusting debacle but I'm getting more of a vibe from a Monday night game that they had against the Saints years ago where they're I think it was a season they ended up getting blown out by the Ravens and the wildcard round. And they laid an egg on a Monday night national TV audience against New Orleans, and there was a mic'd up moment between Belichick and Brady, and Belichick just saying, I just can't get these guys going. I can't figure it out.

He was just pulling his hair out. He can't motivate this team. He can't get this team ready to play. And I'm getting a feeling like that right now. And if it were just the on the field stuff, I'd probably feel a little bit better. But it's hard to overlook the off the field stuff. And you all know that I don't care about the off the field stuff. I try to keep everything between the white lines, focused on the games and plays and the schemes and the execution. But given all of the other

smoke and the unease and the lingering questions about this team and the soap opera stuff going on behind the scenes, it's hard to have a very good feeling. It's hard to feel optimistic about the state of the 2018 New England Patriots.

It's just hard. But tomorrow is a new day. The sun will come up. The takes will be there to be made on the timeline. And I'll be back for Tuesday's show to try to make sense of it from a tape perspective. Right now, this is a tough one. This is a tough one as well. Two weeks in a row, this team has looked bad.

Two weeks in a row, there was a slight window in each game for this team to get back in. But they were at a hole, and they couldn't quite climb out of it. Now they're in a hole at 1-2. And you've got now a 3-0 team waiting for you in the Miami Dolphins. And it's hard to say these are now must-win games,

but the NFL is weird. Obviously the Jags, they don't look great right now. They lose a 9-6 game to Tennessee. They don't look good right now. But you look around the rest of the schedule right now and what the Patriots are facing coming up. Okay, so they've got Miami at home.

Okay, still. Thankful for that. Then you've got that Thursday night game, a short week against Indy, and then you've got the Chiefs coming to town. So it looks rough right now. The Sun will come up tomorrow. We'll try to make sense of it all on Tuesday's show.

Try to get some sleep. Hopefully, if you listen to this Sunday night, you can just move on and just forget about it on your Monday. If you're listening to this, hopefully, if you're listening to this on your Monday morning commute, hopefully this is the low point of your week and it just gets better from here. Take a nice long lunch.

If you need a note for your employer, I can send you one. Let me know at Mark Schofield on Twitter. I'll try to give you a little excuse note to take a little extra long lunch. I'll come up with some creative language. I used to be able to do that as a lawyer. Not so much anymore, but I'll try. We'll try to make sense of it together as we will over the next week ahead. We'll try to make sense of it together, as we will over the next week ahead. We'll do some crossover stuff with Travis Winfield over Locked on Dolphins. Travis, always good to talk to him. I don't know.

I'll try to get some guests in, you know, because I don't want to talk about this stuff much longer because it's tough. It's a bad team. Maybe it'll look better in the light of day. We'll find out together. Until then, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.

No, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop the music, stop the music. I almost forgot, almost forgot, almost forgot. The take of the game from the Locked on Patriots Slack channel. Gotta get this in. Dave Archibald, at Dave Archie on Twitter, who said they might as well change

Chris Hogan's name or nickname to the post office because he's never open everybody kind of liked that line I liked that line very much fit in the theme of the evening nobody winning one on ones

thought it was a great take from Dave Archibald you can follow him on Twitter at Dave Archie okay now cue the music.