I tried to remain confident in our defense, I tried to defend them whenever a lot of you pointed out their flaws, which were glaring. I always made the argument about yards not being as important as points. Well good defenses prevent yards and points because if you give up tons of yards, as we saw a good team will bury you in points. All of you who criticized the defense all year were absolutely right. Even most of the games we won we gave up a ton of yards and eventually the chickens came home to roost.
Who do you guys think will be released or not back next year? Any prominent names? We need the cap space to build this defense.
What about the draft and FA signings? Who should we and will we likely target?
The 2017 Pats front-7 included:
802 snaps (76%) - T. Flowers, 3rd Pats season ... 3rd NFL season
... including his rookie season when he was on IR
710 snaps (67%) -
Van Noy, 2nd* Pats season
... 4th NFL (*played only a half season for the Pats in 2016)
582 snaps (55%) -
Guy, 1st Pats season ... 8th NFL season
558 snaps (53%) -
Roberts, 2nd Pats season ... 2nd NFL
543 snaps (51%) -
Wise, ROOKIE
537 snaps (51%) - Brown, 3rd Pats season ... 3rd NFL season
473 snaps (45%) -
A. Butler, ROOKIE
283 snaps (27%) -
M. Flowers, 1st Pats season ... 3rd NFL season
... total of 72 defensive snaps played in his prior seasons
281 snaps (27%) -
Lee, 1st Pats season ... 3rd NFL season
...
no previous experience playing on defense anywhere
274 snaps (26%) - Branch, 4th Pats season ... 11th NFL
266 snaps (25%) -
Marsh, 1st Pats season ... 4th NFL season
237 snaps (22%) - Hightower, 6th Pats season ... 6th NFL
181 snaps (17%) -
Harris, 1st Pats season ... 11th NFL
88 snaps (8%) -
RJF, 1st Pats season ... 10th NFL
57 snaps (5%) -
Reilly, 1st Pats season (active roster)
... 4th NFL ...
139 defensive snaps in previous career
27 snaps (3%) -
Harrison, 1st Pats season ... 16th NFL
38 combined snaps from Freeny, Langi (
ROOKIE),
and Grigsby (
1st Pats season)
In the secondary:
816 snaps (77%) - Gilmore, 1st Pats season
439 snaps (41%) - J. Jones, 2nd Pats season, 2nd NFL season
259 snaps (25%) - Rowe, 2nd Pats season, 3rd NFL season
214 snaps (20%) - Bademosi, 1st Pats season
This group allowed the 5th fewest points in the 2017 regular season and helped win 11 regular season games and two playoff games. You could give at least
some of the 16 guys who've had limited (1-2 years) experience in the Pats system a little more time to learn it and develop, or you could just overreact to the Superbowl performance, ignore their collective season-long accomplishments, and turn majority of the defensive roster over
AGAIN to start from scratch with a whole bunch of new players that you can only hope will somehow magically be "better" right off the bat.