and ure wrong now as u were then...
the falcons AND ravens AND donkies have good running games...
as for the falcons specifically, sure its not as amazing as it was last year, but its not non existant either....
I didn't say that the Pats were *bad* against the run by a long shot. IMO, they're above average, so the 11th ranking that football outsiders gives them seems about fine. But people claiming that 11th seems low must still be of the impression that they're exceptional, which they're pretty clearly not.
Everyone's still riding the perception of Michael Turner from last year, ignoring the fact that he piled up huge quantity statistics because he was running the ball an absolute ton. The Falcons were carrying the ball 35 times per game (2nd in the NFL), with a per-carry average (4.4- 7th) which was very good but not elite- it was tied with the Pats, actually. Even that was skewed high due to an extremely easy schedule that allowed them to pile up rushing yards against crappy run defense teams. On a per-carry basis, their rushing attack wasn't great then and he certainly isn't now.
Reminds me a lot of of the Pats' passing offense last year, honestly- tons of throws against terrible teams, and pretty good players start looking so good on bulk stats that people can claim that something as dumb as trading Brady to keep Cassel is a good idea. Where are those people now, btw?
I also have no idea what makes you think that Denver has a great ground game- they're pretty much average/above average in 2009. They're 11th in rushing Y/G and 15th in Y/A, just ahead of the same Patriots rushing attack that everyone here seems to think is terrible. For reference, they ran for 103 yards and 4.1 YPC against us, both of which are very close to their averages for the season, so it's not like we acquitted ourselves excellently against them. If anything, the Broncos game suggests that, compared to the other teams that they've faced, our run defense was about average.
I agree with you that the Ravens have an elite ground game... which is why they ran for 6.8 yards/carry against us. If they hadn't tried to get cute on us and had just run the ball down our throat like they should have, they almost certainly would have beaten the Pats. That 6.8 is obviously artificially high, since Rice's long run, combined with the few attempts, pushes it upwards. In fact, I wouldn't even necessarily call it a bad performance, but it was far from a good one. About what you'd expect from an above average ground defense.
Other than the Ravens, the Pats actually have played one other excellent rushing team, which you neglected to mention: the Jets. IMO, the Jets game might have been the run defense's best performance- they carried the ball 30 times on us, and got almost 120 yards, but we held them under 4 yards per, put Sanchez in uncomfortable situations, and more often than not, he couldn't convert. Had the offense managed to score a TD at any point in that game, we'd probably be looking at it differently.
Either way, everyone that says that we have an excellent rush defense keeps pointing to these 'excellent' running teams that aren't actually that great, or claiming that we shut down teams that we just didn't shut down. We've shut down a team that was overrated, and had a bunch of properly rated teams perform to about their average against us. That's a textbook average/above-average run defense, not a great one. You and all the others who claim that I'm wrong still haven't offered up any kind of an argument showing why you think that. You just throw out team names and claim a) that they're good and b) that we performed well against them, without offering any evidence to support a or b.
