Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Throwback Thursday: Patriots-Chiefs in Week Four with Super Bowl Implications? — 2/4/2021

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

In Week Four of the 2020 NFL Season, the New England Patriots battled the defending Super Bowl Champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. Despite a 26-10 loss, the Pats actually had several chances to make this a close game; thanks in part to a solid defensive game plan to marginally disrupt Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Host Mike D’Abate revisits this contest and explains why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers might be smart to take a page out of the Patriots’ playbook to find success in Super Bowl LV.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. EchelonGo to EchelonFit.com/LockedOn and try any Echelon Fitness equipment at home for 30 days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello to all of you Foxborough faithful. You are now locked in to the Lockdown Patriots podcast. It is February 4th, 2021, and it's time for a little throwback Thursday here on your daily home for news notes and analysis infused with the occasional opinion on your six-time Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots.

Greetings and salutations, Patriots Nation, and thank you so much for joining me here today on this Thursday episode of the pod. My name is Mike DeBate, your host of the Locked On Patriots podcast, which of course is a proud part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And that phrase, your team every day, means that your questions, comments, and feedback are always welcomed and very much encouraged. Share that feedback, send it to the internet by reaching out to me and following me on Twitter at MDABATEFPC. And while you're out there doing some Thursday traveling through the Twitterverse, please be sure to follow the Lockdown Patriots account as well at LO underscore Patriots.

Pats fans, you heard correctly. It is throwback Thursday here on the pod. Been a little while since we've done this. And you know what that means? That means we've powered up the Foxborough flux capacitor and we have the Belichickian time machine all ready to bring us back to October 5th, 2020. You may remember that as week four of the 2020 NFL season.

It is also when your New England Patriots traveled to Arrowhead Stadium and took on the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. Those same Chiefs that are getting ready to defend their title in Tampa Bay against the Buccaneers in Super Bowl 55 on Sunday. Now the Patriots lost that game 26-10. We all remember that. That was the game the Patriots quarterback Cam Newton sat out because of a positive COVID-19 test. Brian Hoyer came in, Jared Stidham saw some time, but the Patriots ultimately

could never find an offensive rhythm in that game. They did, however, put forth one of their better defensive showings of the year. And in today's Voyage Through Time here on the pod, we'll take a look back at that matchup between the Patriots and the Chiefs. If it wasn't for poor quarterback play and inability to protect the football, could the Patriots have defeated the defending champions on their home field? And because we are just days away from Super Bowl 55, did the Patriots' performance against the Chiefs, both on offense and on defense, provide any insight to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

on how they might be able to neutralize the Chiefs' plan of attack? After all, folks, say what you will about the Patriots' performance in 2020, but they did have one of the more impressive showings against the Chiefs this year, including trying to contain or at least marginally disrupt Patrick Mahomes in that high-flying offense. Pats fans, the time circuits are on, the date is set, and we are nearly ready to begin our travel through time here on Throwback Thursday. But first, some interesting news from the NFL broke yesterday afternoon, courtesy of Tom Palacero of the NFL Network, and it regards the NFL salary cap.

And this does affect all 32 NFL teams, not just your New England Patriots folks, but the Patriots will have a sharp eye on the cap this year. And Tom's report essentially indicates that the NFL and the NFLPA have begun preliminary negotiations on the 2021 salary cap. In fact, those negotiations actually started last month. Right now, several team officials are cautiously optimistic that the cap is going to ultimately land closer to $185 million per club, maybe even a little bit higher. That is definitely higher than the originally projected $175 million minimum that the sides agreed to last summer.

They were bracing at that point for empty stadiums, and there was a great deal of uncertainty as to what the future was going to hold for the NFL financially. Now, Tom was also very careful to report that the league hasn't provided clubs with its annual cap projection, nor has it committed to exactly how to spread the impact of what has been an unprecedented multi-billion dollar revenue shortfall in 2020. That's expected to be done over the next few years. And Tom went on to provide a nice explanation here, saying that each year's cap is based on revenue projections for the following season, as well as a true up from the prior year projection. Had the sides not agreed to the $175 million floor for 2021 as part of that overall package on COVID-related economic matters,

it was highly likely, in fact near certain, that the cap would have plummeted much further from this season's $198.2 million per club. Also, per Tom Pelissero's report, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt commented and told reporters this week that the final number may actually not be set until hours before the league's official start date of the 2021 season, which is March 17th. Realistically, teams should find out the number a few days before the free agent negotiating period begins on March 15th. Bottom line here, folks, both the league and the union are going to take all the time they need to assess the climate and budget, which will be impacted by at least one new media

deal that has to be finalized before the NFL makes the expected move to a 17-game regular season for 2021. And there are still many unknowns. Now, a lot of you out there are going to be asking, how does this impact the Patriots? Well, thanks to our good friend here at Locked On Patriots, the cap guru himself, the Wizard of Benzahn, Miguel Benzahn, aka the Pats cap, we know that the Patriots were in pretty good position to withstand the cap drop, maybe even more so than other teams in the NFL. According to Miguel's most recent calculations, which you can find on his Twitter page,

at Pats cap, the Patriots are projected to have approximately $59,023,455 in cap space available. That currently stands at fourth most in the league, behind only the Jacksonville Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts, and New York Jets. So for the first time in recent memory, the Patriots are not going to be strapped financially by the cap. However, keep in mind that they do have 23 players currently headed for the open market, and that includes some longtime cornerstones on this team, folks. Offensive lineman David Andrews, Joe Tooney, they're unrestricted free agents.

James White is headed for unrestricted free agency, as is Lawrence Guy and Adam Butler on the defensive line. Cornerback Jason McCourty, also an unrestricted free agent. Quarterback Cam Newton is on that list as well, folks, and there are some rumors throughout Patriots Nation right now that his return to New England might not be as far-fetched of an idea as most people had originally thought. By and large, Bill Belichick, the GM, has not really liked applying the franchise tag

too much. They did it with Joe Tooney last year, and that surprised me, and it surprised a lot of people, including our good friend the Pats cap. But with so many potential cornerstones headed for unrestricted free agency and the Patriots having a lot of holes to fill, it might be interesting to see whether or not the Patriots choose to utilize that franchise tag for the second straight year, especially with the cap projections being higher than expected. Folks, that's a great question for the future.

Actually, it's a great question for the Wizard of Benzón himself. I might just have to give him a call and ask him if he'd like to join me here on the Locked On Patriots Airwaves next week to help sort all this out for us. Until then, folks, the important takeaway from all of this is that the increase in cap means much more interesting decisions for the Patriots this offseason. And with the end of the 2020 season in just days or even hours, depending on how you're tracking time these days, the 2021 league year is fast approaching and it is definitely time to look ahead. But not before we hop into that Belichickian time machine and take a look back. The time

circuits are still on folks. The destination is set for October 5th, 2020. The Foxborough flux capacitor is flexing and when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious, well, you know the rest. Patriots Chiefs Throwback Thursday, when the Locked On Patriots podcast continues. Locked On listeners, when it comes to repairing or maintaining your vehicle, why would you spend 30%, 50%, even 100% more for the exact same auto parts at a chain store or a new car dealership? It's still possible to take pride in your ride and even save a little in the process. Visit my good friends at rockauto.com.

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Patriots fans, it is throwback Thursday here on Locked On Patriots, and we've survived the temporal displacement, and we have arrived in week four of the 2020 NFL season, October 5th, 2020. Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri. And at the time, it probably wasn't too much of a stretch to think that the Kansas City Chiefs would be playing in Super Bowl 55. They're the defending Super Bowl champions, arguably the most electrifying player in the league, an amazing offense, stifling defense, great coaching. Let's face it, folks, the Kansas

City Chiefs have it all. But if there has been one team that has proven to be a little bit of a thorn in the Chiefs' side over the last few years, it's been your New England Patriots. And despite a 26-10 loss during Week 4 of the 2020 NFL season, the Pats actually played the Chiefs very strongly, especially under the circumstances. Let's not forget that even though this game was played on Monday, October 5th, it was actually scheduled to be played on Sunday, October 4th. But as we all know, plans for that were quickly halted on Saturday when the Patriots confirmed that a player had indeed tested positive for COVID-19.

It was very shortly thereafter revealed that that player was in fact Patriots starting quarterback Cam Newton. What a lot of people forget about that game is that Kansas City also had a positive test that week. Practice squad quarterback Jordan Ta'amu had also tested positive, so the NFL had no choice but to postpone the game. Some were actually wondering whether or not this game would actually take place, but thankfully additional tests conducted on Sunday and Monday morning returned no additional positives from either team. Now, it was a step in the right direction.

No one's going to say that negative testing is a bad thing when it comes to COVID-19, but at the time, it was far from the all-clear that I thought was going to be necessary for the league to ensure that both teams were playing healthy. Especially when the league is constantly telling you that they value player safety above all else. That might be a conversation for another day. But despite there being a tangible risk of players still returning some positive test results, the NFL felt comfortable to say game on.

Monday night, 7.05pm at Arrowhead Stadium. And from a Patriots perspective, it seemed like this one was doomed from the start. Cam Newton was out for this game. The Patriots had to make the trip to Kansas City on game day, taking two separate airplanes, one for potential COVID positives and one for negatives, just to prevent the type of spread that we were fearing at the time. Not to mention that once the Patriots landed, they only had about a two or three hour window to eat,

meet with team personnel, arrive at Arrowhead Stadium, prepare for a 6.05 p.m. Central kickoff. Don't forget, Central time is an hour behind us here in the Northeast. And then, after the game was over, repeat the process, return to New England early morning on Tuesday. But, hey, game on, right? Despite all of this, the Patriots actually put up a pretty good fight against the Chiefs. In fact, a lot of us in Patriots Nation, myself

included, believe that the Pats actually had a decent chance to win this game if they had a little better quarterback play, better protection and management of the football, and it's hard to argue with that. So seeing as that we've traveled back in time here a few months here on Throwback Thursday, let's take a look at the action on the field. And of course, Cam Newton was not active for this game, sitting out during COVID-19 protocol. Brian Hoyer, the savvy veteran, was the starter in this game. Hoyer went 15 of 24 with 130 yards and an interception before he got benched. Not a great performance for Brian Hoyer in this game, folks.

That stat line did little to endear him to Patriots Nation, but what made it even worse is that Hoyer's biggest problems in this game came in the red zone. He had two possessions which should have resulted in at least Patriots field goals. They ended with zero points, and one of them with a pretty inexplicable sack. The first of those plays came in the closing seconds of the first half. The Patriots had used their timeouts to drive into field goal range, but Hoyer took the sack by Frank Clark on third down, apparently not realizing that he couldn't stop the clock. The clock hit zero, and the Chiefs would take a 6-3 lead into the locker room for halftime.

And granted, a 6-3 halftime deficit is not exactly an insurmountable hole to crawl out of, but when you're facing the defending Super Bowl champions in their home stadium, being tied at halftime is a much bigger advantage than going into the break trailing. That being said, Hoyer's final and most fatal mistake would come in the third quarter. Hoyer once again felt the pocket collapse on a third down play. This time, the Chiefs stripped the ball loose and recovered it. That kept New England from scoring another field goal, at least. And, the Chiefs being the Chiefs, if you give them enough chances, they are going to close

it out. Far too much talent not to. They took advantage of the swing and momentum. Patrick Mahomes hitting both Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey with long passes, got the Chiefs down the field pretty quickly, and then Hill took a jet sweep to the pylon for a touchdown. The Chiefs had their breathing room, and they really never looked back after that. As for the Patriots, well, they had seen enough of Brian Hoyer, and in came Jarrett Stidham. Stidham was far from perfect in this game, and he struggled throughout 2020, but he actually did show some flashes in this game that led people to believe that maybe he could be

effective in leading this team on the field. Stidham did lead the Patriots to a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to close the gap to 13-10, but he also threw two interceptions in this game, the most egregious of which was a pick-six to Tyron Matthew, slipped through the fingers of Julian Edelman, and that propelled the Chiefs to their fourth straight 4-0 start and a 26-10 victory. It wasn't all bad for the Patriots on this night, though. Running back Damian Harris, essentially in his debut as a feature back in a Patriots uniform, finished the game with 17 carries for 100 yards, and this was pretty impressive. The Chiefs knew coming in that the Patriots' strength of their offense was the running

game. Especially with Cam Newton out, you knew you were going to want to establish your running backs quickly. Run the ball early, run the ball often. Despite being largely untested and having the spotlight squarely on him, Harris still did that effectively. He ran efficiently, he ran powerfully, and this really started to turn the heads of Patriots Nation saying, this guy could be our new feature back. This also could be a point that I'll revisit in our next

segment. But before we get to that level in our time travel experience, Pats Nation, what really impressed me the most in this game was the New England Patriots defense, particularly their game plan in trying to limit the effectiveness of Patrick Mahomes. Not an easy thing to do. You look at Mahomes' stat sheet in this, and he did put up some numbers, 236 yards passing, two touchdowns. But when you look at the overall performance in this game, it was somewhat shaky, at least by Patrick's standards. And a big reason why was the Patriots employing man-match coverage schemes that were designed to help keep their coverage players, meaning some of their linebackers and some of their defensive backs, stay leveraged on Kansas City's receivers. The Patriots wanted to give their coverage players the opportunity to limit

the big chunk plays that Kansas City does so well, but also try to limit the effectiveness of that short passing game where Patrick Mahomes is so good. The Chiefs did connect on a couple of big yardage chunk plays in this game. It's hard to keep them from doing that, but the Pats only limited them to three plays in which they would amass more than 20 yards. Against this team, folks, that's pretty impressive. Another little change that they made in this game that ended up working out pretty well is going away from the five-man rush that they usually use against Patrick Mahomes and only committing four or fewer pass rushers for the majority of the game.

I, for one, was a little surprised that they did this, but it worked out very well. It limited Kansas City's run game, and they really got great efforts, meaning the Patriots did, from guys like Chase Winovich, Lawrence Guy, Dietrich Wise, Adam Butler all stepped up big set the edge put the lid on Clyde Edwards Hilaire the Chiefs running back who really started off pretty hot in this game at the end of the day New England was able to put a fair amount of pressure on Patrick Mahomes and only held the Chiefs to an average of 3.8 yards per rush but as impressive as the Pats front seven was in this game their defensive backs continued to show why when they're healthy and clicking on all cylinders, they're still among the elite secondaries in the NFL. Stephon Gilmore definitely proved why he was

the reigning defensive player of the year heading into this game. He was all over the field when the Patriots switched to zone coverage for much of the game. When he was in man-to-man coverage, he virtually shut down Sammy Watkins. And that was important because it allowed guys like J.C. Jackson, Devin McCourty, to really be able to roam about the field. And in fact, both J.C. Jackson and Devin McCourty dropped surefire interceptions in this game. And New England was going to need all the points and the turnovers from their defense that they could get. Missing these opportunities to intercept Mahomes proved to be costly. If Devin or J. or JC or both held on to those interceptions, this game could have looked a lot different, folks. Last but certainly not least, our trip down memory lane here when it

comes to October 5th, 2020 wouldn't be complete unless I did mention the officiating snafu in the second quarter. And you can call this one sour grapes all you want to, but if you remember this correctly, folks, this definitely cost the Patriots some points. I'm talking about Chase Winovich making a great beat of Chiefs left tackle Eric Fisher, put an excellent move, and grabs a strip sack on Patrick Mahomes. Shaliqui Calhoun picked up the ball before it hit the ground, and at least in theory, it looked like Mahomes would have had his first interception of the 2020 season. I looked at the play then. I've looked at it several times since now,

even brushed up a little bit in anticipation of today's show. I still think it was an interception by Shaliqua Calhoun. And I'm really impressed with the job that Winovich did to force it. The play was blown dead by the officials, and in a post-game pool report, Tony Carrente, who was the referee for this game, said that the ruling on the field was forward progress. Mahomes was in the grasp.

We all know that phrase pretty well, don't we, Patriots Nation? Conversation for another day. But ultimately, this prevented the Patriots from picking up any points on this play. And really, this should have been an interception. A lot of people were upset that Bill Belichick didn't throw the challenge flag. Keep in mind that a forward progress ruling, which is exactly what this was, cannot be challenged. As a result, the Chiefs were able to punt, flip the field position, New England did get the ball, but I still wonder whether or not that enhanced field position that

they would have gotten with Shalikwe's interception would have put the Pats in a better position to put points on the board. Again, not crying over spilled milk, just saying it's possible. In the final analysis, considering everything that the Patriots had to go through, it's pretty remarkable that they were able to keep this game as close as they did for as long as they did. You listen to the Patriots postgame, none of them made any excuses. All they said was we have to be better. They didn't whine about the officiating. They didn't cry about having to travel on game day, all of which they had valid complaints on, mind you, but the Patriots never used that as an excuse. But at the end of the day, this week 4 matchup in the 2020 season

didn't really end up doing much to the Patriots' final outcome either way. Patriots finished 7-9 and likely would have missed the playoffs anyway. But if you are looking for a silver lining through this game, all is not lost. Because even though our reliving of this contest on October 5th might be through, we're not quite ready to turn the time circuits back on and head back to 2021 just yet. We're going to spend some time in the time-traveling doctor's lab and take a look at how the Patriots' performance against the Kansas City Chiefs might just have laid some seedlings for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to follow if they want to be successful on Sunday in the Super Bowl. Could the Patriots be poised to help out Tom Brady once again?

Find out when the Locked On Patriots podcast continues. Locked On listeners, the countdown to kickoff for the big game can now be measured in mere hours. Kansas City, the defending champs, taking on Tampa Bay. It's a big day for sports fans, a holiday for football fans, and a chance for all you prognosticators to show off your skills. And if you intend to do so, there's only one place that has you covered and one place we trust. BetOnline.ag. Sign up today for a free account at BetOnline.ag and use that promo code LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Whatever soothsaying skill you want to show off, Betonline.ag has you covered.

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EchelonFit dot com slash Locked On. Folks, Thursdays on Locked On NFL are a must listen as Ryan Tracy and Jake Lisco break down teams across the NFL from an analytics and team building perspective. Get the expert analysis of your favorite teams from Ryan and Jake every Thursday. Subscribe to Locked on NFL wherever you get your podcasts. Patriots fans, despite the good time traveling doctor's warnings never to go back to 2020, I just couldn't help myself on today's pod. I needed to travel back to October 5th, 2020 to remind all of us here in Pats Nation that the 7-9 Patriots did

take on the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and gave them a pretty good game despite a 26-10 loss. The Patriots employed a pretty solid game plan defensively to try to contain Patrick Mahomes and really didn't have too bad of an offensive game plan either. Their problem was execution and poor quarterback play. Improvement in either one of those areas, and that could have been a whole different ballgame. But, alas, the Chiefs are trying to become the first team since your New England Patriots to go back-to-back when it comes to Super Bowl titles. But standing in their way is a guy who knows a thing or two about winning Super Bowl championships.

We've all watched him win six up here in Foxborough. That's right, I'm talking about Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And you might wonder why I took this Belichickian time machine back in time today to revisit a game that really didn't have that much of an impact on the Patriots season. Well, when I started doing my analysis of the Chiefs and the Bucs and what the Super Bowl might look like, I discovered that your New England Patriots actually had more success than most people would believe against the Chiefs earlier this season.

During our travel through time and recapping the game in our previous segment, we discovered that Patrick Mahomes, although he still had a very good game, was shaky at times thanks to a very good defensive game plan by the Pats. The Patriots were also able to utilize their running game pretty effectively against the Kansas City defense. It got me to thinking that if I'm Bruce Arians, Todd Bowles, Byron Leftwich, and the coaching staff down in Tampa Bay, of course Tom Brady figures prominently into that, that this game film might be one that they might want to check out.

Especially seeing that the New England Patriots are one of the very few teams that have had some success when defending against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Now folks, don't misconstrue. I'm not saying it's easy to defend this team. Mahomes is one of the most talented quarterbacks I've ever seen. This Kansas City offense has weapons up and down the roster. But Bill Belichick's defensive prowess has been able to hold him in check at times. And if the Buccaneers take a page out of the Patriots' playbook, it might end up leading to some success.

As the Great Don says, I'll give you my reasons. This is not going to be the first time that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs have played this year. They played each other back in week 12. The Chiefs took this one and it was a close one, 27-24. In this game, Patrick Mahomes took a few more chances downfield than he usually does. He attempted eight passes of 20 or more air yards, completing four of them for 163 yards and two touchdowns. One of the main reasons why was because Tyreek Hill found himself open more often than not. For some reason, and I'm still trying to figure out why myself, the Bucs left their

cornerback, Carlton Davis, on an island with Tyreek Hill. Folks, this did not go well. Davis allowed 12 catches on 15 targets for 236 yards receiving for Hill, 50 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, no interceptions. A passer rating from Mahomes to Hills was 158.3. That's a perfect passer rating. If I'm a Bucs fan, I'm looking at that and going, yikes. So what do the Patriots have to do with all of this? Well, if I'm Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay's defensive coordinator and that defensive staff, I'm watching the Pats defensive game plan from October 5th. Put your players in man-match coverage.

That's going to allow your coverage players a better chance to limit the opportunities of guys like Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey. Stephon Gilmore on October 5th against the Chiefs essentially eliminated Sammy Watkins as an option. As I said in the previous segment, that allowed guys like J.C. Jackson and Devin McCourty to roam throughout the field and be in position to intercept Patrick Mahomes. Watkins has been a bit banged up lately, but if he's healthy, maybe Carlton Davis gets him one-on-one. Then you can use guys like Jamel Dean, Sean Murphy Bunting, Jordan Whitehead. These guys can cover

the remainder of the field. Do not go alone on an island with Tyreek Hill. You will not win that matchup. I do think Todd Bowles has learned from his Week 12 mistake. Instead, employ a team effort from all of your defensive backs and try to marginally disrupt the routes of the supporting cast that Mahomes has to work with. I have no doubt that Todd Bowles watched that Patriots-Chiefs game from October 5th. Employ your defensive backs in smarter packages, and you just might have a little bit more success. The other side of that coin is to bring pressure on Patrick Mahomes. Tampa has a very good front seven, and they're going to be tempted to blitz Patrick Mahomes

early and often. But Patrick is too good for that. Eventually, he's going to figure it out. And even if that constant pressure prevents him from getting the ball downfield for some of those big gains, he's going to utilize the short passing game to his advantage. And that's where Patrick Mahomes is at his best. Chiefs coach Andy Reid is so good at misdirection concepts, and the Chiefs have so much speed. They're probably one of the best teams I've ever seen at getting teams to bend in the wrong direction and then utilizing a great quarterback along with great receivers to change the complexity of the game. Where you can get to

Patrick Mahomes, however, is taking advantage of the cracks in the Kansas City offensive line, and on Sunday in the Super Bowl, there's going to be a big one. In their first matchup between these two teams, Mahomes was sacked twice. He was pressured on just 18 of his 53 dropbacks. That was with pretty good protection by Kansas City, who had Eric Fisher in the lineup at left tackle. He will not be there on Sunday. And folks, losing Fisher is a big blow for this Chiefs offensive line. The Buccaneers have a lot of prowess when it comes to pass rushers, especially Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre Paul. They know as well as anyone that Eric Fisher is not going to be in this lineup, and they

have to be licking their chops at the opportunity to be able to get to Patrick Mahomes. If you don't think they can do it, take a look at what they did against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game. Aaron Rodgers is one of the best at being able to elude the sack in football that I've ever seen. As a team, the Bucks came away with five sacks, but Barrett and Pierre-Paul made up all of them. Barrett brought down Rodgers three times, JPP sacked him twice.

How did that happen? Well, the Packers were without their all-pro left tackle, David Bakhtiari, and the Bucs front seven was able to exploit their lack of protection for Rodgers. I know they're going to be looking to do the same thing on Sunday against Patrick Mahomes. To me, this is the key for the Bucs. And to bring it back to the Patriots, I'm not saying that the Patriots and the Bucs have equal front sevens. The Bucs is much more lethal than the Patriots were this season. But if you look at that game film from October 5th, the Patriots found ways to keep Mahomes under duress, and they did so by setting the edge.

Chase Winovich, Dietrich Weiss, Lawrence Guy, Adam Butler all had big games that kept pressure on Mahomes and prevented the run from becoming a factor we've seen the Patriots do this before in 2018 and in 2019 and believe it or not it was actually working pretty well in week four of the 2020 season the problem is the Patriots kept turning the football over and you keep giving the Chiefs opportunities they're going to take advantage of them the Bucks absolutely cannot afford to turn the ball over and I'll get to that in just a moment. But staying on the defensive side of the ball, the key here is keeping your defense prepared for the short passing game. Again, this is where Patrick Mahomes is at his best. Per Sports Info Solutions, on throws in

which the quarterback has taken zero to three steps back at the snap, only the Steelers have allowed more touchdowns than Tampa Bay's 29. That's a lot of touchdowns and short yardage that Tampa Bay has allowed this season. Now the Bucs have been a lot more on point with this in the playoffs. They've only given up two touchdowns and one interception on throws of that nature. But they need to continue to be on the ball from the moment it snapped. Tampa Bay tied for fourth among all NFL teams in sacks this year with 48 and ranked second in pressures per game at 10.9 during the regular season.

Something that should really work to their advantage will be the presence of defensive tackle Vida Vea, who did not play in Week 12, but is a solid, big body in the middle of that interior of the defensive line, and his presence alone should be enough to help stifle the run and allow the other linemen to be able to set the edge more effectively. This is what the Patriots did with Lawrence Guy and Adam Butler, kind of playing a hybrid-type nose tackle, and allowing guys like Dietrich Wise and Chase Winovich to set the edge. The Patriots did this fairly effectively on October 5th,

but again, you keep giving the Chiefs an opportunity to score, and eventually they're going to wear you down. Tampa Bay has much more talent, and they have more healthy bodies this time around, and if they play their cards right, they might be able to take a page out of the Patriots playbook and put it into action more effectively. Bottom line, if you're the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, don't go into this game hoping to stop Patrick Mahomes. Your goal should be marginally disrupting him, but it's going to take discipline. Latch on to a man if you're playing man-to-man coverage. If you're playing zone, match on to one player. Take away his zones, take away his reads. If you do that and set the edge effectively, you can get

after Patrick Mahomes as quickly and as fast as you can. This is a great quarterback, folks, that can make things happen both in and out of the pocket. But a sound game plan and a balanced approach could be the difference between playing from behind by significant amounts or keeping this game fairly close or, dare I say, even maintaining a lead throughout the contest. Now, in theory, that may help to limit the amount of points that the Kansas City Chiefs are able to put up on the board on Sunday. But what about putting up points of your own? I know, folks, we're all looking at what Tom Brady can do in the postseason. We're looking at that endless supply of weapons that he has at the offensive skill positions and at the offensive skill

positions and at the tight end position as well. Brady's gonna air it out. He's gonna hit Antonio Brown. He's gonna hit Rob Gronkowski. He's got Chris Godwin. He's got Mike Evans. He's got Scotty Miller. That's an impressive arsenal, I'm not gonna lie. But believe it or not, the best bet for Tampa Bay to be able to control the offense and put points on the board might just be on the ground in this game. And once again, the Patriots-Chiefs game on October 5th might have just provided, as Captain Barbosa once said, after all, we're talking Buccaneers here, folks, guidelines than actual rules.

And those guidelines are to take a page out of the Patriots playbook and run the ball. Again, no one is arguing that Tom Brady is not a master at picking apart the zone, making reads, and throwing with accuracy. Recent interceptions aside though, don't look for Brady to take a lot of chances in this game. He'll be accurate, he'll be precise, because he knows it's the best way to fight through the interior pressure that a Steve Spagnuolo defense is going to bring to him. One great way to neutralize its effectiveness is to run the ball the way the Patriots utilized Damian Harris on October 5th. Don't forget, Damian Harris rushed for 100 yards in that game. He ran with power. He ran with purpose. You can get to the Chiefs defense if you do that. When these two

teams met back in Week 12, the Chiefs jumped out to an early 17-0 lead. Tom Brady was forced to throw 41 passes, so they needed to air the ball out in order to be able to move it effectively. Therefore, Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones had only 12 rushing attempts between them. But here's something interesting on those 12 rushing attempts. Jones and Fournette actually gained 76 yards on those attempts. With Ronald Jones really being the force there, he picked up 66 yards on 9 carries. So a very limited sample size, but in that sample size, the Bucs had a great deal of success running the football. Why, you may ask? Well, Kansas City loves to run a dime defense. That means six defensive backs, and Tampa Bay's offensive line

is all about power. They understand they have an advantage from a power situation, and they know how to use it. Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire of USA Today has provided some great analysis this week. I strongly suggest you check out some of his work in anticipation of Super Bowl 55. And he pointed out recently that the Chiefs play a ton of dime packages. That's essentially their base defense under Steve Spagnuolo. Only the Packers and the Panthers have played more snaps this season in dime than Kansas City. And only the Patriots and the Panthers played more dime snaps against the run than Kansas City as well.

The reason why Steve Spagnuolo loves to play dime so much is it allows the Chiefs to do all kinds of great things in coverage, like putting interior pressure on quarterbacks like Tom Brady. But it can leave a vulnerability. And if you're the Bucs, here's how to exploit that. These dime packages, or even big nickel packages, big nickel packages, folks, or three cornerbacks and three safeties, can lead teams like the Chiefs to be vulnerable to power running situations. And because of the way the

Chiefs are designed, they don't see it as a specific liability. When all else fails, they know they can outscore you. But if you're effective in finding the balance, you can create problems. The Patriots did this to a much lesser degree with Damian Harris on October 5th. They utilized his power in the running game to find cracks in the Chiefs defense. If I'm the Bucs, as good as Tom Brady is, I try this as long as the game is close. In week 12, the Chiefs were caught in a dime on six Buccaneers runs. That resulted in 48 yards and two first downs for Tampa Bay. Throughout the season, both Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette have combined for 118 yards, 71 yards after contact, and one touchdown when they play defenses with six defensive backs. So if I'm the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense and I see the dime or the big nickel,

I'm Tom Brady, I'm utilizing Ronald Jones. I'm utilizing Leonard Fournette. This can facilitate play action. And Pats fans, we all know how dangerous Tom Brady can be in play action. With the supporting cast he has around him in Tampa Bay, might just be the ticket for success. And wouldn't it be extremely ironic if it might have been the New England Patriots on October 5th that helped outline those guidelines which leads Tom Brady to ring

number seven. After all, he might be temporarily a buccaneer, but once a Patriot, always a Patriot. Of course, folks, I'm making this sound easy. A lot of us up here in New England are hoping that Tampa Bay is able to defeat Kansas City, not because we don't like the Chiefs, but simply because we have an allegiance to Tom Brady. But make no mistake about it, beating Kansas City is definitely a lot harder than I've made it sound today. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to need to be flawless in their execution if they even want to have a chance against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. But it can be done, and maybe, just maybe, the Patriots on October 5th provided one or two examples of how you might game plan to do just that.

And with that, it's time to turn the time circuits back on, set them for February 4th, 2021, and use that Foxborough flux capacitor to power the Belichickian time machine back to the present day. But we're not quite done with our Super Bowl coverage just yet here on the pod, because on Friday we'll be previewing Super Bowl 55. And of course, keep you apprised of the latest news notes and analysis from Foxborough. And as this temporal displacement takes you back to the present day, be reminded that

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wherever you get your podcasts. Just make sure that you're staying locked in to Locked On Patriots. Until tomorrow, Patriots Nation, stay safe, stay well, continue to be the change you wish to see in the world. Have a great day, everyone.