1) That sentence just looks way too much like a prison memoir
2) Hey now, that Nick Foles is a Super Bowl winning quarterback!
3) We always want other QBs to at least not sip tea in the pocket, however, here are the Patriots' reg. season sack totals since 2001:
Statistics
(Italics - lost SB; bold - won SB)
2017...42
2016...34
2015...49
2014...40
2013...48
2012...37
2011...40
2010...36
2009...31
2008...31
2007...47
2006...44
2005...33
2004...45
2003...41
2002...34
2001...41
Clearly, for ease of analysis, I'm using regular season sacks as a proxy for whether we can pressure the QB. I invite anybody to compile the numbers for hurries, pressures, playoff stats instead of regular season, etc. - whatever you believe to be a more "true" proxy for whether we can competently rush the QB. If you can't be bothered to gather an alternative data set and explain why you'd use it, don't bother saying "yeah but that's a misleading data set."
I especially invite the same simple analysis as used here, but using
opponent sacks as the key metric, to see whether protecting Brady is more or less important than generating pressure (once again, with the caveat that I
know you can pressure without sacking.)
For purposes of this post, we'll continue using the best-known stat (sacks) and the largest data set (regular season) as our proxy for pass rush.
A few things are immediately apparent:
1) Our ability to sack the QB is range-bound. Since 2001, our low is 31; our high is 49. We top out at "elite for a generally down sack year." We don't top out at "one for the ages."
For comparison, in 2017, Pittsburgh led the league with 56. We had 42. (Some years, the league leader gets 60+ sacks (e.g., 2013 Panthers); other years its in the 40s.)
2013 NFL Team Defense Stats - National Football League - ESPN
2) Within the Patriots range, 2017 was an up year. We've had 5 seasons with more sacks than in 2017 (42). We've had 11 with fewer sacks than in 2017.
3) Using sacks as a proxy, pressure does not win championships for NE. Those 11 seasons with fewer sacks than 2017 included 4 out of 5 SB-winning seasons. In fact, 40-41 sacks of the opposing QB in the regular season seems most predictive of a SB win. *(2017 resulted in 42 sacks). This is nearly but not completely devoid of meaning; it does support that some other stat is the "key," to the extent that statistical breakdowns have predictive power. In the 2004 off-season, we were losing Ted Washington, with no idea of how well we could replace him. Granted, he clogged the interior so somebody else could do the fancy stuff. But it was an impact that had to be addressed. In 2004 we responded by drafting VW (And Benjamin Watson) in the first round, and the late Marquise Hill (DE) in the second. We also immediately plugged in Keith Traylor until we knew VW was VW, if I remember correctly. (Hill was something of an understudy/bargaining tactic vis a vis Richard Seymour). That investment yielded an actual increase in the proxy stat in 2004, but this dropped to a near-low for the series in 2005 (That said, T. Bruschi had his stroke, Ted Johnson left, Ty Law was released, etc., prior to 2005.)
4) However, the Patriots are the winningest team in the NFL during this time span.
If we accept sacks as a proxy for the importance of QB pressure in NE's defensive scheme in the Brady/Belichick era, we find a group that generally is able to get pressure in the top quarter of the league, sometimes among the top couple of teams in the league. Not bad, but a beatable group, certainly at the highest level.
When we evaluate an aspect of the game by the final game of the season, the SB, we "eye test" for something, "analyze" a "weakness," and "demand that it be shored up."
Or we might say, "Sure we can pile up the stats against weaker teams but when it comes down to it..." etc. Well, when it comes down to it, unexpected stars shine. No David Tyree, no loss in the 2008 SB. When it comes right down to it, outliers have an outsized influence on a very small data-set. Your superstar receiver might be handled efficiently, and your scrub might win the game; your rookie corner might make the game-winning interception. Etcetera. (BTW this principle illustrate further, as if we needed further proof, the greatness of TFB.)
All this begs the question of what you would fix
before the present moment in time, and the related question of whether you'd be right to expend the resources in that way.
As regards injuries:
In any year, for any team, you can say "Yes, but ____ got injured in week ___." This explains fluctuations within a year, and drop-offs in the late season (in turn, something of a weak proxy for the post-season.)
However, these fluctuations cannot be predicted
in advance, which is the key to planning for
future results. For example, if you draft or otherwise acquire a whole passel of pass-rush talent in the off-season of 2018, there's no guarantee that they'll pan out, or that the best of them will be healthy by the post-season next year.
Aside: Getting guys back makes us think that we'll get back their pre-injury capabilities -- here, evaluation makes more knowledge available the closer you are to the team. I cannot evaluate whether we get 100% Hightower back, or 98% Hightower, or a guy named Hightower who used to be really good. I'm assuming we're getting back something like pre-injury Hightower, because I'm irrationally optimistic. (although for the sake of this proxy stat about pressure, Donta has never been personally responsible for more than the 6 sacks he tallied in 2014.)
Stats have only so much power. But I think in the case of pass-rushing, they paint a portrait of the highs/lows we can expect in the Pats' scheme combined with the personnel resources we commit to the pressure game. If McNabb had shown some urgency (and had some success while displaying urgency) in 2003, fans would have clamored to shore up the pass rush on the basis that it lost the SB. Instead, we clamored to shore up the pass rush in response to 2004 off-season departures and upcoming possible departures (Ted Washington, Richard Seymour.) As I recall, throughout the 3-out-of-4 run in the 2000ies, we clamored for mo' pass rush.
1-2 above characterizes the Pats' experience as a pass-rushing team over the seasons in the BB/Brady era. 3-4 above shows the effectiveness of the relative value the Pats place on the pass rush as evidenced in 1-2.
There's an argument to be made that a monstrous QB-pressure talent would be (/has been) muted in the Patriots' scheme, and that it is therefore a waste of upside to fixate on one outstanding pass-rusher; I'll leave that argument to more astute students of the game than myself. A total of less than 40 sacks "predicted" only 1 Super Bowl victory, in 2016. On the flip side, a group that compiles more than the pass-rush firepower of 2017 has proven unnecessary to win the SB, to the extent that our proxy stat has any predictive power.
Using only these broad strokes, the question appears to be not "will we be better than we were in 2017," but a combination of "will we be
as good as we were in 2017" and "will our level of pass-rush competence be representative of our SB experience in 2018, if we appear in the 2018 SB." (The "if" in the second question is statistically more likely than not.)
Um... put me down for grab a guy if the value looks good, but don't panic about the pass rush or get green with envy about the team with the reigning sack king. It's not our thing.
(The same generally applies to QB pressure, IMHO. Granted, an untouched QB in a shoot-out that the Pats lost militates for improved pass rush to "win the last war." This perception is sharpened by a single play, the strip sack at (if memory serves) 2:21 left in the 4th quarter, the only sack in the game. But think a minute: Win that SB, and it's not a crying need. What prevents the strip sack? Protecting Brady, not sacking Foles. Either way, we're talking about back-filling to win a game in the past.)
