I know the end results were good (4 sacks, 3 picks, 10 pts allowed), but I'm not ready to anoint this defense as the 2nd coming of 2004 quite yet.
Most alarming was that they seemed to be giving up 5+ yards a carry anytime the Jets ran inside. Wilfork was getting pushed around all night - he didn't seem 100% to me. Spikes seemed invisible for the most part.
Most of the sacks were 'coverage' sacks - Geno had some time to throw, but he's a Sanchez clone when his first option is covered and holds the ball forever. He also threw some bad balls to open receivers, and his receivers dropped balls that should have been caught. The Pats did a pretty good job containing him in the pocket and pressuring him from the edges, at least.
Maybe I'm nitpicking. The defense definitely won the game for them last night. They made plays, and that's a far cry from the last few seasons. There's still a lot of room for improvement though.
In the second half, the gameplan on both sides of the ball became much more conservative. They were willing to let the Jets get into 3rd and 3-6 yards by running it and dared Geno to make a play with his arm, which he clearly was unable to do, thanks to inexperience, conditions and his crummy receiving corps. They made no attempt to put an 8th (or 9th man like the Jets D) in the box, because with the lead they did not have to sell out against the run. They knew they could sit back and dare the Jets to put together a double-digit-play drive, which they only did once all game.
The Jets defense, however, went super-aggressive, playing tight man outside and jamming the box to prevent the run and short passes. They dared Brady to beat them deep and the Pats knew there was no point in having Tom sit back and either throw a pick or get sacked trying to wait for a deep pass to open up. They took a couple calculated risks, usually on 3rd down, and generally were happy with punting and making NY drive it 60+ yards to score.
Basically, Belichick trusted his defense in the second half a lot more than his offense, which I can completely understand given the performance of the O through the first six quarters of the season plus the absolutely torrential rain that came down for the entire second half.
Call them coverage sacks or whatever, but the fact is they hit Geno 9 times in 35 attempts, sacked him 4 times and picked him off 3 times. In today's NFL, a defense holding opponents to just four scoring drives in eight quarters is a damn fine showing. Tampa will be a better test, but so far so good.
