Prediction: The Pats' Pass Defense is About to Go From Terrible to Very Good

[PatsDeb]

It appears this prediction has been delayed for at least a week...

 

[BrickPat]

It appears this prediction has been delayed for at least a week...

I'd be happy if they improved to "slightly below average" at this point.

 

[VJCPatriot]

Well that Pats secondary just made Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Peyton Manning. So ummm, save us Talib? LOL

 

[fnordcircle]

I do think this team needs to seriously evaluate defensive philosophy. Their front seven is easily in the top half of the league in terms of talent - I'd argue somewhere in the top 10.

So to see so little pressure resulting in QBs having all the time in the world to make throws against a subpar defensive backfield kills me.

Honestly I think Bill is insistent on stopping the run first. And yeah 'stop the run' works when you're also preventing the big play through the air and forcing the defense to complete a lot of short passes and hoping for the eventual **** up.

I'm just not sure that's a successful defensive gameplan in today's NFL.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

Well that Pats secondary just made Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Peyton Manning. So ummm, save us Talib? LOL

might need a few more talibs out there

 

[dizi24]

You don't think reputation and history is the only think keeping bill his job? That's exactly made mike keep his job for so long.

That's the comparison i was trying to make, but it came out wrong.

This is almost so dumb it makes me angry. If you really think that what Bill has done in the last few years, and the beginning of this year, is worthy of being fired, you have zero sense of reality.

God forbid a coach only gets us to a Superbowl and puts us at the top of a division this year.

 

[coolguy]

Firing bill may have been too strong.

I think kraft should strip some duties from bill and bring in a new staff.

The main reason i wanted him fired is because i know bill will never allow kraft to hire a new staff.

Only bill guys from here on out.

 

[JR4]

.... Their front seven is easily in the top half of the league in terms of talent -...
.

Or maybe they aren't

Don't forget there are 3 of the 7 that are inexperienced.
How many times do we see QBs with 4, 5, 6 seconds ?
Maybe it is scheme or maybe some of them just aren't strong enough
to win their one on one battles. Jones one on one taken out and
LBs not getting off blocks is not scheme. Sometimes they are
good and sometimes they are awful. No consistency.

 

[jnug]

I think they need to draft differently especially on defense and that will require a slight modification to the way BB has made his choices for defense. I would prefer that BB make the modification than it be forced on him via personnel moves.

BB is overplaying the run because if he does not, they will be overrun. Wilford will hold up his end but all to often Vince looks like a big blue island in the middle of the Pats defense. They just are not that good defensively. LB's do not have to be big, slow, lumbering elephants to be good run stoppers but ours tend to be. Then when the Pats try to go to a different sort of set and scheme on defense, they often just get overwhelmed. So the lumbering elephants tend to be out there in pass coverage and boy that can be UGLY.

For those who think the schemes are limiting the abilities of the players to be honest I think that is just wishful thinking. The Pats are not stupid enough to hamper their defenders ability to make plays. The schemes are what they are because the players with few exceptions are just not that talented.

As I said in an earlier post wouldn't it be great if just one of these times we had gotten a true animal for the defensive front. Do you really want me to believe that draft after draft, we simply have not gone that way cause we could not get to one of those kinds of D-line guys? We don't get them cause BB does not think it an important element to his defense. It is not more complicated than that.

The surest sign that BB has been somewhat stubborn on this topic of athletic talent vs the ability to learn his complicated defensive schemes is the fact that on occasion we have had offensive receivers like Edlemen and Brown dropped right into the defensive secondary. How much of a rejection of physical talent in a defender is it when you are audacious enough to take a WR or slot receiver and drop him right into your secondary? Edlemen and Brown were not and never ever were even the best athletes the Pats had in the offense!

You could even make the case that while the league has made sweeping rules changes favoring opening up the game and passing offense, there are simply not that many QB's truly capable of taking full advantage of that. So stopping the run and forcing the opposing QB to beat you is not a bad move. There are often Patriots in position to make picks which is what you want to happen but all to often, they simply can't make the pick when it is right there to be made. They don't have sufficient ball skills and they are not athletically talented enough for the most part.

In truth when you consider how many holes there really are in this defense, BB has done a pretty good job of making lemonade from lemons. The problem for BB is that he is also the guy bringing in the lemons and that is where he has legitimately left himself open for some criticism.

This defense will not be exposed to the extent that it could be unless it either meets up with a team with a really good running attack, a team that keeps TB stewing on the sidelines and forces the Pats to bring another guy down in the box for long periods of the game or a team with one of the really top QB's, somebody that will really tear into that pass defense. God help them if they run into a truly balanced offense.

 

[JMarr]

Or maybe they aren't

Don't forget there are 3 of the 7 that are inexperienced.
How many times do we see QBs with 4, 5, 6 seconds ?
Maybe it is scheme or maybe some of them just aren't strong enough
to win their one on one battles. Jones one on one taken out and
LBs not getting off blocks is not scheme. Sometimes they are
good and sometimes they are awful. No consistency.

I have to agree. Jones is a rookie who, let's not kid ourselves, isn't JPP (yet). Nink, Love and Cunningham are all below-average NFL players IMO. Hightower isn't there yet. He and Spikes are well below average in dropping into coverage. But you have to live or die with these guys for the rest of the year, so that's why I liked the Talib move so much. Yes, these guys are good at stopping the run, but that doesn't help the secondary much. Even having RB studs like Spiller and Jackson, the Bills choose to basically bypass our strength and get them out in the flats on screens and pass plays as opposed to a straight up running attack. Good game plan.
I think BB and Patricia have done an okay job with the personnel they work withing with given that the secondary is below average as well.

 

[DocHoliday]

Ninko is definitely an above average LB/End

 

[mayoclinic]

I have to agree. Jones is a rookie who, let's not kid ourselves, isn't JPP (yet). Nink, Love and Cunningham are all below-average NFL players IMO. Hightower isn't there yet. He and Spikes are well below average in dropping into coverage. But you have to live or die with these guys for the rest of the year, so that's why I liked the Talib move so much. Yes, these guys are good at stopping the run, but that doesn't help the secondary much. Even having RB studs like Spiller and Jackson, the Bills choose to basically bypass our strength and get them out in the flats on screens and pass plays as opposed to a straight up running attack. Good game plan.
I think BB and Patricia have done an okay job with the personnel they work withing with given that the secondary is below average as well.

Baloney. Love and Ninko are above-average, Cunninhamnis improving.

It's the NFL. Teams have bad days. The Bills have always given us problems. And if you think our defense looked bad, JPP and the Giants' fearsome deafened got shredded yesterday. It happens.

Obviously this defense hasn't been bad for only one game. I'm not trying to sugar-coat it. But the front 7 HAS been good, so I throw this game out as a bad game for them. And I'm not willing o judge the secondary until Talib gets worked in to the mix.

 

[DarrylS]

Baloney. Love and Ninko are above-average, Cunninhamnis improving.

It's the NFL. Teams have bad days. The Bills have always given us problems. And if you think our defense looked bad, JPP and the Giants' fearsome deafened got shredded yesterday. It happens.

Obviously this defense hasn't been bad for only one game. I'm not trying to sugar-coat it. But the front 7 HAS been good, so I throw this game out as a bad game for them. And I'm not willing o judge the secondary until Talib gets worked in to the mix.

I agree yesterday there was plenty of blame to go around.. we did not take away the run, stupid penalties. The Bills had 35 first downs..

Jackson, Spiller and Chandler had 13 catches for 151 yards.. that is on the LB's.. Hightower was invisible and for the most part the front seven was manhandled by the Bills.

We lost the time of possession.. 33 to 26 minutes.

 

[mayoclinic]

I agree yesterday there was plenty of blame to go around.. we did not take away the run, stupid penalties. The Bills had 35 first downs..

Jackson, Spiller and Chandler had 13 catches for 151 yards.. that is on the LB's.. Hightower was invisible and for the most part the front seven was manhandled by the Bills.

We lost the time of possession.. 33 to 26 minutes.

As I said in the OP, the DEFENSE hasn't been bad this season. It's been average. The front 7 and the run defense have been good to great. The secondary and pass defense have been poor to terrible.

Yesterday the entire defense was poor. No 2 ways about it. Worst overall defensive performance of the year. So from that perspective, I'm treating it as an outlier. The Bills know our team and our tendencies, they have backs that create problems for us and an unorthodox offensive approach that tends to give us fits. 7 of the past 8 games against the Bills have not been straightforward (only a 34-3 blowout in late 2010 was easy).

 

[UK_Pat37]

Well that Pats secondary just made Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Peyton Manning. So ummm, save us Talib? LOL

We need to cut this secondary talk out. There were two issues last night and one was uncharcateristic and the other is a trend which, over the last decade, has worn thin. Neither was the secondary.

We couldn't stop the run from the first snap yesterday. That was a huge issue. A lot of their success came from play action and freezing the D Line and the D Line held up because they had been getting abused all game. They were taking a leaf out of our own book and running at our lighter sub packages all game too.

FYI if you can't stop the run, kiss goodbye to you being able to shut the pass down. It just isn't going to happen.

On top of that, in obvious passing situations, our D Line once again can't get it done consistently. The first couple of weeks it was Jones on his own...then Ninkovich woke up and has gotten his act together since...sadly Wilfork and Love haven't been getting it done against the pass at all. A lot of QBs have had high completion percentages against us and I'd hazard a guess its the amount of time QBs can buy themselves just by stepping up in to the pocket and then their ability to step cleanly in to their throws.

The second issue to me is Belichick's stubbornness to stick with what has worked for him previously combined with poor personnel decisions...and no I'm not talking about drafting and the secondary.

We used to pride ourselves on being able to drop seven and rush four on a consistent basis back in our dynasty days but back then we were running a whole different scheme. We have a zero technique nose tackle playing three technique defensive tackle in Vince Wilfork now which doesn't help. We just aren't generating the pressure and we can't abuse WRs like we used to at the LoS and down field because of the way league rules work.

Rushing just four doesn't work any more...especially when your players can't get there. Our zones are getting picked apart not because our secondary is rubbish but because QBs aren't getting confused by them any more and aren't getting pressured.

There's enough talent in this secondary but they've been left hng out to dry. We're going to need a DT immensely in the 2013 draft. Cunningham is coming along nicely but we do need someone else.

Moving past all that....yesterday was a glitch. You're not going to see the Run D suck like that on a consistent basis. We haven't had a diabolical team performance up until yesterday and we're usually good for one around about now. The Bills have given us tough games the last few years and they have obviously keyed in on something...it's not abnormal to see them test us any more. I wouldn't overreact to this performance. We got smashed by the Browns of all teams in 2010!

 

[Off The Grid]

What're we...2-7???

The flat out SQUEALING that I'm reading here is hysterical.

Anybody reading the whining, whimpering, and bleating, hereabouts, would think we're riding a 6 Game losing streak and haven't seen the PlayOffs since 1427!!

What a bunch of Pansies!!

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Well that Pats secondary just made Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Peyton Manning. So ummm, save us Talib? LOL

The defense is getting a lot of heat for yesterday and rightfully so, but it's not fair to mock this thread before Talib 1) plays and 2) the defense has a few games with him under the belt.

One player can make a world of a difference, and it could be possible that most of the guys that played awful yesterday are not as bad as they were yesterday. Heck maybe even Chung comes back and makes a difference or Gregory just wasn't ready either to contribute. Likely or not it's just way too early to declare defeat, or victory for that matter if they were to come out and dominate next week.

 

[JMarr]

The defense is getting a lot of heat for yesterday and rightfully so, but it's not fair to mock this thread before Talib 1) plays and 2) the defense has a few games with him under the belt.

One player can make a world of a difference, and it could be possible that most of the guys that played awful yesterday are not as bad as they were yesterday. Heck maybe even Chung comes back and makes a difference or Gregory just wasn't ready either to contribute. Likely or not it's just way too early to declare defeat, or victory for that matter if they were to come out and dominate next week.

I'm not a big fan of Chung but the Pats' D is better when he's available. It's not surprising at all to have problems when you basically have had to rely on guys like Wilson and Gregory as starting safeties (not to mention Arrington and a rookie at CB). McCourtey is the most talented guy they have back there and it will definitely help when he's able to settle into a permanent position.

Bottom line, the secondary is definitely a work in progress that hopefully will be drastically improved by the end of the season. Chung's return hopefully is one small piece of the puzzle, and I'm almost literally praying that Talib can keep his nose clean.

 

[UK_Pat37]

What're we...2-7???

The flat out SQUEALING that I'm reading here is hysterical.

Anybody reading the whining, whimpering, and bleating, hereabouts, would think we're riding a 6 Game losing streak and haven't seen the PlayOffs since 1427!!

What a bunch of Pansies!!

Winning doesn't stop you discussing issues within the team. You think Bellichick goes 'well we won so thats one more week I just turn a blind eye to any problems'? Of course not. Fans have a reason to be worried.

I've been one of those who, over the last to to three years, has been hopefully optimistic it was a 'transition' period. Well it's one long transition period.

There are issues on this team that will need fixing. Hopefully, with TFB, he will buy as some more time to do that fixing. I can live with it whilst we're winning but I won't be living with it if this continues and effects us long term.

I'm getting to the stage where I can see the talent on this team but can't see it being utilised. That's a concern.

 

[ThatllMoveTheChains!!!]

Winning doesn't stop you discussing issues within the team. You think Bellichick goes 'well we won so thats one more week I just turn a blind eye to any problems'? Of course not. Fans have a reason to be worried.

I've been one of those who, over the last to to three years, has been hopefully optimistic it was a 'transition' period. Well it's one long transition period.

There are issues on this team that will need fixing. Hopefully, with TFB, he will buy as some more time to do that fixing. I can live with it whilst we're winning but I won't be living with it if this continues and effects us long term.

I'm getting to the stage where I can see the talent on this team but can't see it being utilised. That's a concern.

Portraying a majority of the negative posts that are inundating the board as discussion is a stretch. Crap like this:

"I feel bad for Brady and the offense having to play perfect ball and score on every possession because this sieve of a defense can't get off the field."
"Coming down to a last play so often when we have the number one scoring offense in the league is crazy. Can you imagine the pressure of thinking you need to score a touchdown every time you have the ball? Brady must be going nuts!"
"This team is one Brady,Gronkowski,Welker,Ridley and Hernandez away from being a last place team"
"If Sanchez is the QB for the Pats, the Pats D gives up 28-30ppg."

doesn't do anything for the conversation. I definitely couldn't see BB turning a blind eye to the problems, but I couldn't see him on his worst day saying anything like that.

Three years of making the POs and making it to a SB while completely retooling the D is as close to a seamless transition as there is in sports. People have completely insane expectations. We're still in the best of times and seeing people constantly complain is bothersome.

I agree on the talent part. They're still thin in the secondary, but hopefully Talib will help this season and some of the kids will in the future. I however am pleased that there seems to be fewer wholes to fill, and I remain hopeful that this will allow the Pats to have an improved defense by the time the POs roll around.