Showdown: Drake Maye & Patriots Ready For Battle Versus Chargers

0:00This Sunday night, it's Chargers, it's Patriots, it's the wild card playoff round. And it's time to dive deep into a preview and predict the winner. This is Lockdown Patriots. You are Lockdown Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Was that happening? I am your host, Nick Cattles, born and raised in New England, been covering the patch for the past 16 years, also the co-host of the Greg Bedard Patriots podcast with you guessed it, Nick Cattles, and a sports radio veteran. Welcome to Lockdown Patriots. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Now, the number one sports podcast network, your team every day. And as a reminder, we're going to go live on Sunday night, following Chargers, Patriots on YouTube, catch us then as well. On today's show, though, we're going to do a deep dive preview. We give you the name of a Patriots X factor on Sunday night before predicting the final

1:03score. Also, find out how the patch defense can get the best of this Chargers offense. But first, Drake May versus L.A.'s defense is all about strength versus strength. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandall. Before tip off, check the Fandall app and see what's dropping during NBA happy hour. Every Friday from 6 to 7 30 p.m. Eastern L.A.'s defense is impressive. They've got tons of talent. They have a very talented pass rush. They have linebackers that are fast and play downhill. They have a safety and German James, who is a fantastic chess piece, a la Kyle Hamilton from Baltimore, and their defensive secondary is more than capable of playing good coverage. So what will the Patriots do? What will Drake May do? Let's start with the quarterback. Let's start with this Drake May versus Jesse Mentor matchup. Jesse Mentor is the defensive coordinator of the Chargers. And what Jesse Mentor likes to do is he likes to change the looks, pre snap, post snap.

2:04He likes to disguise his coverages. And so Drake May has to be ready for that. I think he will be. But it's going to be a challenge. Now when I talk about strength versus strength, the Chargers, they deploy zone coverage at the fifth highest rate in the NFL. They play zone coverage more than 80% of the time. Now here's the thing. They play a ton of zone coverage and Drake May has been fantastic against zone coverage. He is first an EPA per dropback against zone. He is first impassurating against zone. Stefan Diggs has made this season a personal attack on zone coverage. Stefan Diggs is fantastic finding the soft spots in zone coverage. So the Chargers love playing zone. Drake May loves playing against zone, strength versus strength. Greg Bedard wrote at BSJ this week that the Chargers, they play in two shell.

3:07So two high safeties at the eighth highest rate in the NFL from weeks 14 through 17. So over the final month of the season, before that Broncos game where they sat starters over the final month of the season, the Chargers played a lot of zone and they played a lot of too high safety. Again, that's something that Drake May has seen and he has played well against. He has seen a ton of two shell safety work this football season. And when you look at what Drake May does, the strength is not just against zone coverage, right? It's super powers of Drake May in one of the super powers of this offense this season has been the deep ball. And there's an opportunity for the Patriots to take advantage of the Chargers defense and secondary by throwing the football deep. Evan Lazarot at Patriots.com. The Pats have produced a 20 yard pass play on 13.6% of Drake May's dropbacks.

4:09That's number one in the NFL. Meanwhile, Bill Barnwell of ESPN wrote that Drake May is number one in total QBR on deep passes. Now, why is that a big deal? And why can the Patriots take advantage of the Chargers defense? Well, the Chargers versus short and intermediate passes are a top five defense. But when you look at what they do against deep passes, they're a middle of the pack defense. Bill Barnwell wrote their 16th and EPA per play against deep passes. Evan Lazar points out that cam heart defensive back of the Chargers. He has allowed a 45.5% catch rate on deep targets. So when you throw the football deep against cam heart, you pretty much for all intents and purposes have a 50, 50 shot of completing that pass. You'll take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday. See what I did. So you attack them deep and you attack cam heart deep. Now the Chargers are going to get their top corner back Dante Jackson back. He's expected to play.

5:10But I expect the Patriots to test this Chargers defense deep and I expect them to be capable of completing at least one, if not two, maybe even three of those deep passes. And when you talk about big plays in playoff games, that could change the entire demeanor of the game. And it can certainly change your postseason trajectory. So Drake may against zone, Drake may attacking the Chargers zone with deep passes and especially trying to attack cam heart, something else we got to talk about Patriots offense versus Chargers defense, the past protection, the past protection has to be great. This past rush is really difficult from the Chargers. You could look at Tully to we pull out to he has 70 pressures and he lines up against right tackle and left tackle. You've got to know where he's going to be and you've got to have your protection plan set.

6:11Khalil Mac, he's an oldie, but a goodie. He still has some juice left, Adafee away, who was traded from the Ravens to the Chargers this season. He is 10th in past rush win rate. As a matter of fact, the Chargers are one of only 13 teams in the league that have 40 plus sacks on the season. They can get after it. And Jesse mentor again, the defensive coordinator, he will load up on third down, he'll get aggressive on third down. Now the past protection, here's the good news for the Patriots, Ben Baldwin posted this week, the Patriots, they finished sixth in the NFL in composite past protection ratings. When you look at three different metrics, the Patriots were ranked sixth overall in past protection, unbelievable. From a team that was always 30th to like 30 second in 2024, Ebony Lazar notes that, you

7:13know, you look at the Chargers, they have the fourth highest unblocked rusher rate, 9.2 percent. Again, those are the games they're going to play up front. Those are the pre snap post snap disguises that they run, all these different elements. You'll see a free rusher way too often when you're playing against the Chargers. The Patriots cannot allow that to happen. You can't allow guys to have free runs against Drake May all night long. That'll be a disaster. Now the charges of 14th and pressure rate, they're 18th and time to pressure, but they've been better this past month. One of my biggest questions is, how much will the Chargers actually blitz? They don't blitz a ton, they're 30th in the NFL and blitz rate in Drake May is the best quarterback when you look at QBR versus the blitz. So the Chargers don't blitz a ton. Drake May is great against the blitz. How aggressive will Jesse Mitz or be? Let's note that Jesse Mitz or got very aggressive after CJ Stroud of the Houston Texans a couple of weeks ago came out and not only through one deep touchdown pass, but two deep touchdown

8:19passes right out of the gates. So if Drake May does find the deep ball and the Patriots offense gets aggressive early, don't be shocked if Jesse Mitter responds by getting more aggressive with the Chargers defense. Final thing I want to talk about regarding the Patriots offense against the LA defense, the Patriots and their heavy run personnel. They need to win up front with this heavy personnel with this jumbo personnel, the six offensive lineman, Josh McDaniels has been leaning into this since the by week going six offensive line against Miami, 17 snaps according to Evan Lazar. And they were very successful in doing so. I mentioned this during the crossover, Taylor Kyle's of CLNS had this note, Ramondre Stephenson leads the NFL with 7.8 yards per carry since week 13, Travian Henderson is eighth at 5.7 yards per carry. When you're looking at those jumbo sets, man, they're working.

9:21Drake May said to the media this week that those jumbo sets also set up the play action because you get bigger defenders on the field. You go with six offensive lineman, the defense gets big and you respond by throwing against the bigger defenders and using a lot of play action. And if you were wondering, according to Evan Lazar, the LA Chargers are 23rd in the NFL against duo runs, which again, you're you're thinking duo downhill duo was double teaming guys, double teaming dudes going downhill, six offensive lineman, the Chargers 23rd in the league against duo runs in their 21st and EPA against play action. So you can see this game plan, you can see this game plan running downhill duo jumbo sets for the run game. That sets up your play action. Your play action sets you up to throw the ball deep down the seams and take some deep shots while also attacking the zone with the fond digs.

10:24That I think is the recipe. Protect your quarterback, run downhill, run duo, player big personnel on those jumbo sets, get those big defenders on the field and start chucking it with the play action. Patriots will have opportunities. There's defense again, very, very good, very talented, but there will be opportunities on Sunday night and all you need is a couple of big plays and you can win this football game. All right. The path to a victory would be made easier if the paths can prove they can do something they haven't done mostly all year. That's up next. This is Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. What have sports were traded like markets? Now you can put your sports IQ to work in real time with Robinhood prediction markets. It's not you against the house. It's you participating in a live market. You can buy or sell your positions live all game long.

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12:30learn more. Also, if you're watching us on YouTube, don't forget to click that thumbs up. Give us a like always helps us. Don't forget to like. Don't forget to throw your comments in. I always want to know what your prediction is for the upcoming game. And of course, that means Sunday night. What do you think happens? So don't forget to like. Don't forget to comment and don't forget to subscribe. Justin Herbert has been awesome this year, especially considering the circumstances. His offensive line has been trash. He's been injured with a fractured non throwing hand. His left hand been fractured since I think it was like week 13. He got hurt. He's got a big arm. Justin Herbert is very athletic. He's actually number two in rushing yards at the quarterback position this season. So he can absolutely kill you with his legs, extending plays, scramble plays, uh, sprinkling a designed run. Justin Herbert is a handful. Now of course, a lot of people I know have been looking at Justin Herbert in the post season. He's owing to and he has completed only 52% of his passes has two touchdowns and four

13:35interceptions. Now a lot of that. It's a small sample size. He's played two games. A lot of that is that Houston game. I mean, it was just all four of those interceptions was against Houston in last year's playoffs, but they were not all on him. And you can listen to the Greg Medard Patriots podcast, uh, that he and I recorded earlier on Thursday and he will break down that Texans game and tell you why that game wasn't all on Justin Herbert, but he has certainly not been the same level of quarterback in the post season as he has been in the regular season, no matter what the reasons are. He has not been the same guy. So defensively, what do you do here? The most critical aspect of this matchup Patriots defense against the Chargers offense is getting home on Justin Herbert with four pass rushers getting to the quarterback without having to rush anybody extra Bill Barnwell wrote at ESPN that this

14:36Chargers offense was 26th in EPA per play without Joe Walt. As soon as Joe Walt went down, this offense crashed. It crashed and it burned for the most part. Now they began the season without Rashan Slater. They're a left tackle. He got hurt. Joe Walt moved to the left tackle. Joe Walt got hurt. So you're two starting tackles, Gonzo done. Now left tackle, Jamari Sawyer, uh, is practicing. He's expected to play according to offensive coordinator Greg Roman, uh, their center Bradley Bozeman is also practicing that will help, but it won't solve all the problems. There's still not a good offensive line. Can Harold Landry give the rush some juice after setting out the last couple of weeks? Reading comments from Mike Smith outside linebacker's coach pass rush specialist for the Patriots. You know, he talked about Harold Landry and said he's running around at practice. Looks, looks like a different guy. Now of course, maybe that's trying to set up the chargers. I'll have to see it to believe it, but Harold Landry took a couple of weeks off.

15:39There's no doubt that that was in preparation for the playoffs. And if Harold Landry looks like the Harold Landry from the first month of the season, that will help you out significantly in this matchup. The chargers, when I say they're offensive line stinks. I mean, they're offensive line stinks out loud. There are 30 second. Last time I checked, there are 32 teams in the league. They're 30 second in past block win ring. 21st in time to pressure. I'll bring up Ben Baldwin's composite pass pro ratings again. Guess where LA is? They're 30 second. We're talking all time bad. Nobody this season, no offensive line has been close to as bad as the chargers has been. And that's because again, of the injuries at tackle and their interior offensive line also has not been very good. So you've got to get home, Justin Herbert, number two in QBR against the blitz. Remember Drake May is number one. Right behind Drake May, QBR versus the blitz is Justin Herbert at number two.

16:44Now the pass don't blitz a ton. Their blitz rate is 19th in the league. When you look at Justin Herbert, what's interesting is he is great against the blitz, but he's not great against pressure. Justin Herbert is 18th in EPA, according to Evan Lazar, he's 18th in EPA against pressure. So when you can get to him with four pass rushers, he is not nearly as effective as he is against the blitz or when you're not getting pressure. Now, of course, the case of, you know, whether or not a quarterback plays great when you get four man pass rush, that's across the board. Pretty much every quarterback struggles more when you can get a four man pass rush. I don't need to go back to 07 for all of us to understand that. But again, Herbert, he drops down to 18th in EPA when you get pressure on him by only sending four.

17:45Justin Herbert has also fumbled the football five times sits his injury and according to next gen stats, Christian Barmore and Milton Williams, when you look at the highest pressure rate among defensive tackles this season, Christian Barmore was number two. Milton Williams was number three. So Harold Landry, Caleb on chase on, if they've got some juice on the edge against those backup tackles, Milton Williams, Christian Barmore on the inside creating pressure. If you can get pressure from those four guys consistently on Sunday night, it is going to be a very long night for Justin Herbert and a very long night for this charger's offense. One more thing, the charger's struggle big time against disguised blitzes and stunts. So look for that core, look for this Patriots defense to throw a lot of stunts and a lot of, you know, disguised blitzes, some creepers, some simulated pressure offensive line for L.A. It's had a tough time with that Los Angeles is wide receivers.

18:48The chargers, you got Quentin Johnson, Lad McConkey, Keenan Allen, Trey Harris. I wonder if the Patriots are going to play man coverage. I'm sure they'll play some of it, but how much will they play man coverage? They played 23% man coverage against Miami last weekend. They have the ability to do it even more. We've talked about it all season with Christian and Zalas, Carlton Davis and Marcus Jones. You have the capability of a defense to play man coverage. You could play Marcus Jones against Lad McConkey. You could play Carlton Davis against Keenan Allen. You could play Christian and Zalas against Quentin Johnson or Trey Harris, whether whoever is in the game at the time. Now NFL ref stats on Twitter, a great follow mentioned on Twitter that Ron Torbert, who's going to be the head of fish or the head referee on Sunday night is a let him play referee. His crew is last in the NFL and calling defensive pass interference. So Carlton Davis, who's handsy and aggressive and physical, this might be the perfect

19:49officiating crew for him to do some great work on the outside. From weeks 14 to 17, according to Greg Bedard, the Chargers wide receivers were 28th in the NFL and target separation. They don't get guys that separate consistently. You have corners that can cover them man to man. You want to make sure you can get home with a four man pass rush. You can do different things on the second level. If you do that, I just feel like the Patriots, if they play more man coverage on Sunday night, they might be, they might be the perfect type of secondary to limit those receivers of the Chargers and slow down Justin Herbert could be finally, can the Chargers run the football? They're 20th and rush DVOA and that's with Justin Herbert and his ability to run again, the offensive lines. They're 31st in the league and run block win rate. The Patriots, of course, they're getting Robert Spalane back this week.

20:50Milton Williams is already back. Kyrie's Tonga did not practice two days in a row. He's probably going to be out. But that's what you're looking for. This Patriots defense against the Chargers offense. Can you get four pass rushers home consistently? How much man coverage are you going to play? And can you limit LA's run game? It hasn't necessarily been great this year. If you can accomplish those three things, the Chargers will have a difficult time moving the football and finishing drives. Important notes in a score prediction next. This is Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. The wild card round is here and Fandall is officially in playoff mode. Every game day during the NFL playoffs, Fandall is giving customers even more ways to get in on the action because right now, every NFL playoff game day, Fandall users get a profit boost pack waiting for them inside the app.

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23:55weather 26 degrees with some wind gusts now the Chargers actually played a very, very cold weather game against Kansas City in week 15. It was sub sub zero temps and when you look at what the Chargers offense did against the chiefs in week 15 again, Casey's defense better than the Patriots defense, but the Chargers won the game 16 13 so far from a shootout. There's had 295 total yards 201 passing 94 rushing Justin Herbert was 19 for 29 210 yards a touchdown and a pick. He actually fractured his hand two weeks earlier week 13 as I mentioned earlier in this podcast. Amari and Hampton was the leading Russia for the Chargers in that game 15 carry 61 yards so just over four yards of carry. We don't know if Amari and Hampton is going to play in this game on Sunday night. We get out there and practice a little bit on Thursday. Sounds like he is limited. It's going to ankle issue. So will he play if he plays how healthy is he?

24:57How much will he play? We'll see in that game against the chiefs sub zero temps, Aronde Gatsden was the Chargers leading receiver. He had four catches for 61 yards. I will note in fairness to the Chargers, Quentin Johnston did not play in that game against the chiefs in week 13. So they have won a game and very, very cold whether they're capable of it. I don't know if they're capable of having an offensive explosion in a cold weather game. Let's look at the coaching matchup. I think this is intriguing because I think it's so, so tight offensively I would go with Josh McDaniel's over Greg Roman. I think Josh McDaniel's is the better offensive coordinator defensively I would go with Jesse Mentor over Zach core. Zach core obviously was not supposed to be the play call it defensively, but it is what it is. That's what he's doing. And I would certainly take Jesse Mentor over Zach core head coach and actually call it a wash.

25:57Jim Harboss terrific. He's gone to a Super Bowl won a national championship sketchy details aside. Jim Harboss, one of the better coaches in football. And I think Mike Raible is one of the better coaches in football. So when you look at it overall with these staffs, again offensively I go patriots defensively I go chargers head coach wash overall to me pretty much a wash. Third down battle. Keep an eye out third down the chargers have the third best third down offense in the league. Now they don't have these big huge explosive plays consistently, but they will chop you down. You know, they get five to six yards. And they'll be dealing with a second and medium and they'll figure it out to a third and short third best third down offense in football. Meanwhile, the patriots, if they want to extend drives, they've got to get their short yardage rushing going. Ebony Lazar noted this week, the patriots are 28th in the NFL in short yardage rushing.

26:59Now I wonder if Josh McDaniels has been waiting. I've been talking about this since really the by week. As Josh McDaniels been waiting, we saw a little bit of Drake May, the design runs against the Buffalo Bills, the week after the by and it worked. It worked. Drake May had two rushing touchdowns early in that game. Will we see Drake May and the designed quarterback runs more now that we're in the playoffs than we saw during the regular season? I would not be surprised and that would help the patriots in short yardage. Chargers, five and three on the road, two of those three losses were actually against East Coast teams. They lost to the giants and they got absolutely smoked by the Jaguars. So two of the three road losses for the chargers East Coast. Last time I checked, we're on the East Coast.

28:01Look at the red zone, we've been talking about it all year, third worst red zone defense and football. Now, that's better for this game going in that it's been over the past few weeks when the patriots were dead last in red zone defense, but their red zone defense has not been good enough. Here's a glimmer of hope though. The Chargers Red Zone offense has been atrocious all year. The Chargers Red Zone offense is 29th in the league. So you've got, you know, weakness versus weakness. Chargers red zone offense is bad. Patriots red zone defense has been bad, which one steps up? Which one steps up? That could be the difference in the game Hunter Henry. He could be an X factor and, you know, we usually say he's an X factor for this offense, but especially in this matchup. Now, Aronde Gatsden for the Chargers, he also could be an X factor. He's got some problem with drops, but I do think he could be a match. Matchup headache for the patriots. Do you put Craig Woodson on him?

29:02What do you do against Aronde Gatsden? You can't allow him to get going and give Justin Herbert an easy target to hurt you on Sunday night. So Aronde Gatsden for the Chargers, Hunter Henry for the patriots. You know, when you look at DVOA against tight ends, the Chargers 27th in the league over the final month or so. So they've had some struggles against tight ends, which means Hunter Henry on third down, Hunter Henry in the red zone, Hunter Henry down the seam. This might end up being a game where each side has a tight end, makes some big plays. All right. So here's my prediction. I broke it down offensively. I broke it down defensively. I just gave you other important aspects of this game. I think this is going to be a tight game. I do not think the patriots are going to run away with it. I don't think the Chargers will run away with it. This is going to be a tight game. I'm going with the patriots home field advantage. I think their offensive line is better.

30:04I think they'll be able to run the football at least a little bit better than the Chargers. So I'm going with the patriots a big time physical matchup. We talked about it on the crossover. The patriots have to be physical from the first second to the last second of this game on Sunday night. You've got to be physical against the Chargers because they are going to be physical. They're big. They're violent. They're physical. They're going to watch that level. But the patriots are at home and I think the crowd is going to be elevated and I think the Patriots win. I've got Pats 23 Chargers 17. That wraps up this edition of Lockdown Patriots. Thank you for making us your first listen and for being in every day. Reach out to me on Twitter at nixie radio and don't forget to throw a comment in on the YouTube channel. Hit that like button and subscribe. And if you're looking for a gift for someone, make it easy. Make out the every day or club. Add free episodes of this show exclusive discord server access and more subscriptions can be gifted through locked down. Patriots dot super cast dot com have a great day and don't forget we're going live on

31:07Sunday. We'll talk to you then will see if they can get it done say to your friend. We'll talk to you then. We'll see if they can get it done.