Red Zone Defense...

[JoePats]

...is Belichick's talking point. Opponents have scored touchdowns in all 5 of their trips into the Pats red zone. Watch the end of his press conference today, he seemed pretty agitated about it in the Bill way.

I'm not overly concerned. This has usually been a strength of this team and allowing only 5 red zone trips in three games seems to be pretty good.

 

[Gwedd]

Joe,

I'm not that concerned yet either. I'll wait to see how the Bengals do against us.

However, if you look at a 5-trip in 12 quarters of play average, that's one opponent's trip to the red zone in just over 1/2 a game. That's not a bad average to have, ya know?

respects,

 

[BelichickFan]

Defintiely good news - bad news; the success rate is horrible but 5 trips into our red zone in 3 games is really, really good.

 

[njpatsfan]

I noticed this too. But when your D is giving up the fewest yards in the NFL, and the other team doesn't even get the ball out of their half of the field for 23 or 32 drives total, you can't complain too much:

Drives that ended on their own side of the field (23/32 - 72%):

Jets: 5/9
SD: 7/11
Bills: 11/12


In addition, we are getting a lot of 3 and outs (16/32 - 50%):

Drives of three plays or less:
Jets: 2/9
SD: 6/11
Bills: 8/12

R

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

Joe,

I'm not that concerned yet either. I'll wait to see how the Bengals do against us.

However, if you look at a 5-trip in 12 quarters of play average, that's one opponent's trip to the red zone in just over 1/2 a game. That's not a bad average to have, ya know?

respects,

This is totally right. I think red zone conversion is a silly stat. It doesn't get held against you that a team scores from your 21? Number of times in the red zone is what matters.

Actually, the real stat is how often your defense allowed the other team in the red zone, plus the number of times it allowed scores from outside the red zone. Our opponents' only points have come from within the red zone. They've only been there 5 times. This means no big plays.

Belichick needs to find something to gripe about. That's his job.

We've been in (or streaking through on the way to score) our opponents' red zone like 20 times this year. I predict that if we continue a 4-1 margin in that stat, we'll be ok.

 

[patsox23]

Quite frankly, I'm glad this team has something to work on, that BB has something to prod them with, and they have something to get fired up about. And we still get to be 3-0.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

This IS a legit concern, even with comments on total yardage considered.
A Red Zone D is a different beast and the Pats have not got it working yet. We're at a physical disadvantage in the zone with tall WRs vs 'normal' sized Samuel & The Hobbit. Gives the typical 'slow start' BB defense something to work on and improve on this season.

 

[Fencer]

Red zone defense reflects different schemes, different sub packages, etc. than regular defense.

Breaking it out as a separate subject makes perfect sense.

As for low total yards -- that kind of implies low total trips to the end zone, unless the other units are screwing up and yielding great field position.

So low yardage PLUS great red zone defense would imply a great scoring defense, which so far we don't really have (12 per game is very nice, but it's not "great").

 

[Oswlek]

This IS a legit concern, even with comments on total yardage considered.
A Red Zone D is a different beast and the Pats have not got it working yet. We're at a physical disadvantage in the zone with tall WRs vs 'normal' sized Samuel & The Hobbit. Gives the typical 'slow start' BB defense something to work on and improve on this season.

I agree with you that the RZ defense is a legitimate concern, but I disgree with the bolded part. NE has never had bigger CBs and RZ has rarely been an issue.