Re: CHFF: Jets find Belichick defense the cure for what ails you
Lets look at...The Colts. Good, OK D. Nothing more
I don't see them getting lit up by good offenses left and right. Yeah when they're bad they're bad. Hell at least they made Brees work in the super bowl, the Patriots couldn't touch the man last season.
The Colts gave up 27 or more points six times last year; the Pats gave up more than 24 points four times last season. Could it be that you don't see the bad in other teams because you don't follow them as closely, and are not cheering for them to win?
Anyway you want to slice it, this defense is average at best. They handle their business aginst the mediocre/losing teams, which is mostly what the schedule is full of, thus their decent rankings.
Is that not true for every other team also? Do no other good teams have games on their schedule against mediocre or losing teams? How is that any different for the Pats?
But go to all the game those seasons in which they faced the Colts or any other elite offense, I assure you every game is a 300+ yard nightmare. Then you'll see them play teams like the Bills, which is where the good defensive rankings come from But again, you too, show me 5games in the last 5 years where the Patriots defense shut down a top 5 NFL scoring offense.
How has any other NFL team when facing an elite, top five offense? Or to put it in reverse, how many times do top five offenses get held to less than two scores - your benchmark,see below - the standard you insist the team should achieve?
2 Scores or fewer. You wont find a game like that against the Colts and Chargers. Except for 2007 on which they had 2 very solid performances against them, but that season was peerfect. One bright spot since 2005 does little to encourage me.
Let's take a look:
In 2009 the top five teams for points scored were the Saints, Vikings, Packers, Chargers and Eagles. The only team the Pats faced from that group was the Saints. Nobody held them to fewer than two scores all year. In fact nobody held them to fewer than four scores all year with the exception of games at the end of the regular season after they had clinched the division and a bye. The Saints were 19-0 in not allowing teams to hold them to fewer than two scores.
As for the teams the Pats did not face, they were 'shut down' (i.e., two scores or fewer) a collective four times between them in all of 2009: the Eagles against the Cowboys in the final regular season game and then again in the playoffs the following week, and the Vikings against Carolina in week 15; the Panthers also held the Saints to two scores in week 17. And the Chargers scored 14 against the Jets in the playoffs.
So all in all those five 'elite' teams were 'shut down' five times in 2009. Opponents failed to hold them to two or fewer scores 83 times, in comparison. In 2009, top five offenses were held to two or few scores in 5.7% of their games. Remove meaningless games at the end of the regular season and that percentage drops dramatically.
I was going to do this for the other season too, but I can already see it would be a waste of time. If top five offenses are scoring two or more times 94% of the time, I wouldn't expect the Pats - or any other team, for that matter - to hold teams to two or fewer scores very often. The standard for your expectations is unreasonably high. On top of that the number of times the Pats meet one of the teams that meet this criteria (once a year) is so small that the sample size is so minute; it is a probably a meaningless number - regardless of the result - especially true if you are going to insist on removing the portion of the statistics (2007) that would not support your theory.
Don't get me wrong, the defense has issues that need to be worked on - problems that are exacerbated with the losses of Ty Warren and Leigh Bodden. But this type of 'proof' not only proves nothing; it neither pinpoints the problem nor suggests a remedy, which is really what I would like to see.
.... Time to eat crow game thread troll ...
