He might not be great, but he plays good and i for some reason believed the patriots are a team of players and not great stat guys maybe i am mistaken.
I have comcast and i rewatched the sd game and yes he blew a block[open space when LT jucked him] in the 50 yrd screen but on watching close he saved so many big runs by LT with his good tackling and clean finish by not LT get home runs every time on open field.He brought LT down 1 on 1 more than any player that day , but if you look at the bashing you would think he missed all his tackles in space and LT scored TD `s.Making a tackle on open space is very hard especialy on a player like LT.
He played really well in our system and inspite of what everyone thinks him and sanders did awesome job with hobbs and samuel in the backfield.Only when him and sanders left in the 2nd half in the afc title game that peyton scored all this TDs.Eric alendar played all the game too and with them in the bacj he did a good job.Just replacing them with backups the whole defence looked weak and winded yet they get no kudo`s.
When turner broke loose twice in the back field their is hawkins getting him in open space and stopping TD`s
Look at the viking they have the best defence against the run and their secondary got lit up , but the patriots gave the lowest franchise pt this year and yet the defencsive starters is getting mauled for doing a good job.Just having a good front 7 does not make good defenses.
Chad scott gets **** too but guess what he tackle Gates when he was in for hobbs and changed a first down to 4th.Clean tackling in open space is again very hard .On that day he was very effective.