You're right about that part. People still have no clue what makes a good or bad defense. There are two types in the NFL. The types that don't allow yards or points. And the types that allow yards but no points. Sometimes the one that allows yards and no points, can actually be an even better defense than the first one. It's far more demoralizing for opponents' offenses. What matters more than anything is efficiency, and in particular your offense's efficiency.
Take the Jaguars defense, take Pittsburg's defense, take the Raven's defense...any defense you want to use, and put them against a team with an efficient offense, versus a team with a less efficient offense, and while the scores may be lower ...the teams with those "great defenses" will STILL LOSE THE GAME 8 out of 10 times to the team with the looser defense but more efficient offense. And it doesn't matter if you're in the regular season, the playoffs or the Super Bowl, this doesn't change.
What needs to change is not NE's defense, it's the RATING SYSTEM of defenses. It's using old cliches and the media like ESPN continuously pointing to this one stat and saying the Patriots have the 32nd worse defense when they are currently:
#2 in points allowed
#2 in scoring defense efficiency
If you're going to use one stat to rank a part of your team, at least stop using the worst, and most meaningless, one: yards
Those two above, and in particular the second one, are far more important when it comes to the stat that actually really matters: winning or losing. Efficiency and points have a lot more to do with winning or losing than yards do.
Yards measures effort.
Points measures result.
Wins measures the result that matters.
So every time a defense forces a team to put in a whole lot of effort, and come out with few points as a result, most often you get the result that matters most: the win.
Don't change a thing about this defense. The only way to make this defense top 10 in the league in yards allowed is for Bill and the Patriots offense to start running the clock out, running the ball instead of passing, and start playing for field position. That's what those "top 10" defenses have in common the most. Inefficient offenses. Running offenses. Clock managing offenses. Clock chewing offenses. And why the heck would anyone want to turn the Patriots offense back a decade just to have a defense ranked top 10 in the most meaningless category there is?
What really needs to change, is people's understanding and false perceptions of football.
Here's the message I wanna give to anyone else that thinks NE has a bad defense:
Jim Mora You Will Never Know - YouTube