Could it be this simple: inexperience and lack of practice.

[DarrylS]

Yet, the New England Patriots rush defense has vastly improved from last year.

Yes it has improved, and there is a rosy future.. but the opportunity to develop your craft now takes place during a game, instead of practice..

Jones sometimes looks out of place... but his mistakes pale in comparison to any alternative... the front 7 is for the most part impressive.

 

[Mack Herron]

At the current rate, the Patriots will allow 87 passes of 20 yards-plus this season, even more than their league-worst 79 last year.

Since 2007, the Patriots have gotten steadily worse: they allowed 32 in ’07, when they dominated nearly every game and teams were forced to pass to try to catch up; 38 in 2008, 42 in 2009, and 55 in 2010. They slipped farther and farther down the league ranking in the category each year.

It’s their biggest concern - Patriots - Boston.com

Does not bode well for a fix anytime soon.

 

[BrickPat]

No.

The young players on this team are on this team because they outplayed the older players on this team.

The players on this secondary are young and inexperienced.
But in the expert opinion of the coaching staff, these young inexperienced players outperformed Will Allen, Antwaun Molden, James Ihedigbo, Sergio Brown, Brett Lockett, and from last year James Sanders, Brandon Meriweather, Darius Butler, Jonathan Wilhite, and Brandon McGowan.

You want 20 years of experience? The Patriots could have had that if they kept Will Allen, Antwaun Molden, James Sanders, and Brandon McGowan. This secondary would not have been any better.

This team has worked with higher-drafted players and more seasoned veterans than the teams it has played in many cases. For example, Seattle started Richar Sherman (5th round) and Brandon Browner (undrafted).

There has been lots of chickening and egging here about the performance in the secondary. I have a hard time simply blaming it on youthful inexperience, and assume it will get better with this coaching staff in this scheme.

Young players? Not an excuse when there were more experienced players the team released.

The scheme? Law, Harrison, Samuels, and others performed in it. Even Troy Brown picked it up well enough to play in the post season (not that he's not bright, but that he is far less experienced in the secondary than any rookie).

Either the player personnel staff is consistently selecting underachieving rookies and free agents, or the coaching staff is no longer able to develop players.

Great analysis, very logical.

 

[IllegalContact]

yes....its practice, but the required terms of practice is the same for every team......the problem is with the coaches who are attending practice.....they suck

 

[Ring 6]

Bill Belichick could have signed Landry and Bell. He chose not to.

You say that as if it was a mistake.

 

[Ring 6]

Yet, the New England Patriots rush defense has vastly improved from last year.

?????????????????????

 

[DarrylS]

yes....its practice, but the required terms of practice is the same for every team......the problem is with the coaches who are attending practice.....they suck

You know that how?? young, inexperienced d backs, with no practice sounds more logical... last week our d backfield totalled a little less than 7.5 years experience..

If poor coaching was the issue, don't you think that BB would notice????

 

[Kontradiction]

Belichick has whiffed on a good amount of defensive backs over the years, causing the team to have to spend high pick after high pick in order to fix it. I have hope for Dennard and Dowling (even though he's apparently injured again). Both of them seem to actually turn and look for the ball. McCourty has still been hit or miss and Arrington is awful. As has been mentioned around here previously, this is also a good draft for safeties and there appears to be a couple of options in FA (notably Ed Reed), so that position can be fixed for the long term as soon as next season assuming another Patrick Chung, strong against the run while bad against the pass, is not drafted.

 

[IllegalContact]

You know that how?? young, inexperienced d backs, with no practice sounds more logical... last week our d backfield totalled a little less than 7.5 years experience..

If poor coaching was the issue, don't you think that BB would notice????

I generated my opinion the same way you generate yours....based on what I see

you are choosing to use last weeks DB lineup as an excuse....what was the lineup the week before? how about the week before that? they have the same level of experience as many other secondaries in the league

so given your great football acumen, tell me how this year's defense is better.........

 

[Kontradiction]

I generated my opinion the same way you generate yours....based on what I see

you are choosing to use last weeks DB lineup as an excuse....what was the lineup the week before? how about the week before that? they have the same level of experience as many other secondaries in the league

so given your great football acumen, tell me how this year's defense is better.........

This year's pass defense is not good... at all. But it's definitely better than last year's version, which was the second worst pass defense of all time.

 

[BrickPat]

You say that as if it was a mistake.

In hindsight, it probably was. It's reasonably likely that the secondary would be better to some degree with Landry. It's hard to envision Landry making it any worse.

 

[DarrylS]

I generated my opinion the same way you generate yours....based on what I see

you are choosing to use last weeks DB lineup as an excuse....what was the lineup the week before? how about the week before that? they have the same level of experience as many other secondaries in the league

so given your great football acumen, tell me how this year's defense is better.........

If you can't see the improvement you have to have a visual impairment...

You see what goes on in practice and in team meetings?? You hear every conversation on the sideline?? It is difficult to assess the individual coaching abilities of a specific coach in a team sport...

There are no excuses offered, just an explanation.. the reality is that this team has whiffed on many draft picks in the secondary, and the current crew is very inexperienced and are not able to hone their craft because of the limitation of padded practices..

What teams have less experience than the Patriots in the D backfield?? Not many if any..

 

[IllegalContact]

This year's pass defense is not good... at all. But it's definitely better than last year's version, which was the second worst pass defense of all time.

right now, the numbers are skewed because of weeks 1 and 2....since then, it is every bit as bad, if not worse

on pace for:
- giving up more points
- worse on 3rd down
- fewer sacks
- fewer ints

 

[The Boston Patriot]

Whatever you think, remember this: A pig is still a pig no matter how much rouge and lipstick you put on it.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

Whatever you think, remember this: A pig is still a pig no matter how much rouge and lipstick you put on it.

Lets leave my ex-wife out of this topic

 

[Observer]

Yeah, should have kept butler, meriweather, Wheatley and wilhite. By this time they would have been experienced.

 

[VJCPatriot]

I would say that inexperience and lack of continuity may indeed have a large part of the less than stellar execution by this team thus far. It also leads me to be cautiously optimistic that the team will improve week to week and be much better at the end of the season rather than being doomed to failure as many others have predicted.


In regards to the lack of padded practices per the new CBA I would think that would result in more sloppy play in the NFL as a whole; it should not affect the Pats more than others since all teams are in the same boat in that regard.

Maybe if the Pats had a more veteran mix, the lack of padded practices wouldn't hurt as much. But they have a bunch of rookie and 2nd year players in starting or contributing roles. Jones and Hightower are rookies in the front 7. Dennard and Wilson are rookies. Dowling is a redshirt sophmore. The entire interior of the Pats OL basically never had starting jobs before. You get the picture.

This is certainly not an 'excuse', but it gives credence to the theory that the Pats just need more time to gel as a unit and the lack of actual physical padded practices is hampering that on a very young team. In other words there is reason to think that more practice will yield in better results and play as the weeks progress. It helps explain the lack of polish seen thus far.

 

[BradyBranch39]

The lack of practice is definitely a big deal. You can see it in every NFL game this year-- not just ours. Players make a ton of mistakes that you used to see less frequently.