How bad is our defense?

[FirstAndGoal]

A lot's been made about our defense but here's something for people to ponder.

The defensive play has been way overblown because people have been expecting 40 - 10 victories but our defense is ranked higher than it's ever been under BB.

This is the highest ranked regular season defense that BB has ever coached. That includes any Super Bowl years.

Also, we are only averaging giving up 5 more rushing yards than last year and that drops our rushing defense from 5th to 10th. That really isn't a lot when you consider that we've been in a lot of nickel and dime defenses this year.

We certainly have missed some tackles and have looked bad at times but when you really put the numbers out there, our defense would be considered our strength in a normal year. It's just that our offense has been record breaking

Defense overall ranking during BB years (from NFL.COM)
2000 20th
2001 24th
2002 23rd
2003 7th
2004 9th
2005 26th
2006 6th
2007 4th

Defense rushing ranking during BB years
2000 21st
2001 19th
2002 31st
2003 4th
2004 6th
2005 8th
2006 5th
2007 10th

 

[BelichickFan]

All I know is they've locked down the opponent, including the Colts, when needed.

Numbers, whether yards or points, are almost impossible to take seriously this year. With the huge leads we've had backups at times, prevent defenses. We've also had teams pass up points on FG to go for it on 4th downs. There's good arguements that the offensive outburst has skewed our defensive stats either positively or negatively.

But, again, when needed we have made the stop. So for now our defense is pretty damn good.

 

[frankiesfly]

A lot's been made about our defense but here's something for people to ponder.

The defensive play has been way overblown because people have been expecting 40 - 10 victories but our defense is ranked higher than it's ever been under BB.

This is the highest ranked regular season defense that BB has ever coached. That includes any Super Bowl years.

Also, we are only averaging giving up 5 more rushing yards than last year and that drops our rushing defense from 5th to 10th. That really isn't a lot when you consider that we've been in a lot of nickel and dime defenses this year.

We certainly have missed some tackles and have looked bad at times but when you really put the numbers out there, our defense would be considered our strength in a normal year. It's just that our offense has been record breaking

Defense overal ranking during BB years (from NFL.COM)
2000 20th
2001 24th
2002 23rd
2003 7th
2004 9th
2005 26th
2006 6th
2007 4th

Defense rushing ranking during BB years
2000 21st
2001 19th
2002 31st
2003 4th
2004 6th
2005 8th
2006 5th
2007 10th

Thanks for that info. You're right the offense this year is over shadowing the way our defense has performed. Not looking at any stats I would of never thought the Pats D is the best it has ever been under BB. The ranking is the over all ranking. Most of us here think their D isn't that good because we focus on the run D specifically. The run D is ranked 10th which really isn't that bad, but I think most of us are still getting flashbacks of Addai, and Mcgahee running all over us.

 

[BelichickFan]

The run D is ranked 10th which really isn't that bad, but I think most of us are still getting flashbacks of Addai, and Mcgahee running all over us.

Addai had a good game but in the second half he was 11-32. Our run defense has been bad more in parts of games than whole games. McGahee is probably the lone exception to this.

 

[Mark_Brunell1]

We Jags fans have talked about your D, this article contains many things we said about your run D...
Time for Patriots’ ‘D’ to match amazing offense
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22563596/
and Celizic is a Pats fan

 

[mosi]

In the games that counted, the defense has stepped up when they had to. People forget that Bill does not like to give up anything that could potentially be used against him. Why give the opposing team 6 more weeks of film study? This team was on auto-pilot for most of the second half of the season. I think we will see a much more aggressive and complicated defense in the playoffs.

 

[Amnorix]

Overall ranking is a stupid stat in the NFL, because they just do a raw yards per game analysis. Much more relevant is yards per carry, long runs allowed, fumbles caused, etc.

OUr run defense is allowing 4.4 yards per carry. That's lousy. In the bottom 1/3rd of the NFL. Now this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that our defense in the 2nd half of a number of games would have been much more pass-oriented. They allowed only 7 runs of over 20 yards, which is quite good, and only 1 of over 40 yards, which is also very good (though nearly 1/3rd fo the NFL allowed none at all.

Meanwhile, we caused only 3 fumbles all year, which is fairly lousy. We also allowed 25.3% of opponent's run attempts to go for first downs, which is 3rd worst in the NFL. On the plus side, we only allowed 7 rushing TDs this year.

So in usm, it's pretty clear that our run defense isn't even average for the NFL, even allowing for the fact that our defnese may have been in more of pass-focused situation in a number of games.

This doesn't, of course, mean we're goign to get blown off the ball and suck on run defense on Saturday, but it hardly inspires confidence.

 

[RayClay]

People have been dissing our run D based on games we won by 3 or 4 touchdowns.

We may have a challenge containing the run against the Jags, but it won't be against 5 or 6 defensive back packages.

There's a guy named Wilfork who doesn't play in those packages and he will likely be a factor.

 

[Grogan's neck roll]

In the games that counted, the defense has stepped up when they had to. People forget that Bill does not like to give up anything that could potentially be used against him. Why give the opposing team 6 more weeks of film study? This team was on auto-pilot for most of the second half of the season. I think we will see a much more aggressive and complicated defense in the playoffs.

I agree, although I would say they simplified their approach down the stretch, rather than put it on auto-pilot. I watched the Giant game again and couldn't believe how many 3 man rushes they showed Eli. My suspicion is that Garrard will be seeing a bit more complexity from our D.