Ice_Ice_Brady

The New England Patriots' defense is underrated - NFL - ESPN

Decent read, although not much that we haven't heard about from Pats statheads all year. If you don't have ESPN insider, I'll summarize:

-Joyner points out the obvious fact that yards allowed are often not the most indicative stats. He also notes, though, though that the Pats are near the last in yards per play

-Pats ranked 15th in points allowed, but had they allowed just one less point per game, they would have been top 10.

-Joyner looks at some advanced stats and notices that although they get a lot of sacks and interceptions, the interceptions were not often the result of bad quarterback decisions. Rather, they were forced by an opportunistic defense. Joyner seems to speculate that Belichick has not opened up a lot of creative gameplanning to fool opposing QBs. Not sure if that means there is still more up Bill's sleeve, or if he just thinks it's not a good idea with this defense.

-Also notes that the Pats intercept the ball about 65% of the time when they have an opportunity to do so. 50% is considered very good, so he suggests that Belichick emphasize capitalizing on interceptions more than anything else.

-Although the Pats have allowed the most 20+ yard plays in the NFL, they have not allowed many 40+ yard plays. So, while they give up a lot of big plays, they don't give up many huge, gamebreaking plays. (I can't remember many besides the Eagles, Bills, and Giants game.)

-The part that's disappointing about this article is Joyner didn't really look at any individual players or packages. He just looked at the overall team unit in terms of results.

hughthehand

"Joyner seems to speculate that Belichick has not opened up a lot of creative gameplanning to fool opposing QBs. Not sure if that means there is still more up Bill's sleeve, or if he just thinks it's not a good idea with this defense."


This I agree with whole heartedly. The Pats defense has been very vanilla this year. IMO Belichick doesnt get creative until his defense can prove it can do the basics. With all the turnover in the secondary they spent all their effort just getting the basics down.

That is actually a positive for our playoff run, there isnt a lot of tape on the Patriots doing anything exotic.

Denver was completely unprepared for our DLine running stunts on what seemed like every other play, probably because we have not done much of it this year and they had no film of it.

With our defense as healthy as it has been all year, Belichick now has the ability to dial up some Coverages that have not been used all year.


Edit: Posting frequency 0.03 posts per day! haha

Fball

It's impossible to gauge the defense w/ the level of competition they have had, particularly in the 2nd half of the season & so far in the playoffs.

They have played a series of 2nd string QB's and lower tier QB's, and teams that had offenses who were struggling in general. They have not played quality competition.

Even Baltimore's offense isn't that good, but it will be the 1st real test the D has had in months.

Ron Sellers

I agree with Joyner's premise that the Patriots' defense is underrated. If I had a dollar for every time over the course of the season I have heard or read 'worst defense ever', 'worst defense in the league', or the current '31st defense' I could pay next month's mortgage with plenty left over.

The Patriots defense is not elite; it's somewhere around the middle of the pack. Kudos to him for being someone in the national media that finally mentions points rather than yardage.

letekro

A good point. I'm optimistic though for three reasons. 1. The speed on defense is undeniable, especially with McCourty at safety. 2. Kyle Love is locking down the nose, allowing Vince to be more disruptive 3. Belichick is clearly happy with this team and I get the feeling they have the ability to listen and learn on a week to week basis for gameplanning purposes.

patfanken

The reason why the defenses have been so vanilla isn't that BB has been holding back for AFCCG, its because he's been missing his most important pieces. Think about it. He's had to play a majority of the season without:

Chung,
Barrett
Dowling
Boddin
Pryor
Fletcher
Spikes
Wright

When you are playing with the likes of Sergio Brown and assorted WR and UDFA pick ups, don't you think you might want to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Its frustrating to think what this defense MIGHT have evolved into if most of the players listed had remained healthy. On the bright side, having Chung, Spikes, and Fletcher back for a couple of games now, might allow BB to get a little creative as least

FBall I would remind you that this defense just completely shut down (15 negative plays) an offense that put up close to 500 yds of offense against the #1 rated defense in the league, so I wouldn't undersell them because a month or two ago they gave up a bunch of garbage time points and yards to the likes of Orlovsky and Palko

upstater1

Tell you what, I'd rather face Baltimore's offense than say Buffalo or especially Philadelphia's

Fball

The D had one of the most dominant performances against Denver last weekend as I've seen any D have against any team all year.

But, it's still tough to gauge. Denver's O is what it is - Tebow played the absolute game of his life against Pittsburgh. It will likely be the pinnacle game of his career, barring major improvement in his skills. Add to the fact that he was playing from behind the entire Pats game. As one announcer pointed out, that O-line just wasn't practiced in pass blocking so much in a game.

I really can't read that much into last week. It was a great defensive performance, but against an O that simply isn't good.

Metaphors

I'll go one further. If the Pats were historically bad (as several mediots have indicated) then they should be getting ripped up in the 2nd half of games. That just isn't happening. In fact, after the 1st Jets game, the Pats have only had 2 games where they surrendered more than 7 points in the 2nd half...24 against the Giants and 21 against the Colts. The Giants game was infuriating with the PI calls and Goober Jr. throwing no-look downfield passes, while the Colts game was just a case of the defense losing focus in a blowout. BTW, the Pats defense gave up only 3 points combined in the 1st half of those games.

Been saying this all year. Belichick is responsible for 2 of the greatest gameplans of all time (Giants vs. Bills and Pats vs. Rams) and yet he continually threw out very basic gameplans this season. I figure it was a combination of focusing on the basics and not wanting to put anything on tape for his playoff opponents.

Now that the playoffs have started? Well the gameplan against the Broncos was pretty much perfect. Doesn't mean he will ace the gameplan against the Ravens or that the Pats have the horses to pull it off, but I'm optimistic.

D-Money

Lets not forget they played denver and Tebow last week.If Flacco has all day to throw then he will carve this secondary up.They have to make him uncomfortable.