Since I responded to the Rams defense post I may as well respond to this one. First i'll say unlike the Rams you can really look at our defense throughout the context of the whole year pretty much. But if you want to talk since after the bye week that is fine. That best indicates how the Pats are likely to play right now. I will try to look at it the exact same way I looked at the Rams.
NJY - 20.8PPG 23rd overall. We held them to 13 points. Nothing about this game really sticks out. It was a solid performance vs a bad offensive team. Verdict: Pretty Good.
MIN - 22.5PPG 19th overall. We held them to 10 points. A middle of the pack offense which we held down well below their average. What I will note is we gave up on the run some but hurt their passing efficiency. Pretty much the same thing we did to the Jets. Only better. Verdict: Good
MIA - 19.9PPG 26th overall. Even taking out miracle play at the end we let this team score 28 points. Nothing else needs to be said. Really it comes down to a few big plays both runs and passes. A crap defensive game in which we allowed a total of 28 clearly earned points and 6 more on a bit of a weird play when Gronk shouldn't have been on the field. Still crappy. The question is does this mean something or not? Does it show a trend or some weakness or was it just one of those "Any Given Sunday" games? Verdict: Very Bad
PIT - 26.8PPG 6th-t overall. We held them to 17 points. Overall a good defensive game. We held one of the best offenses in the NFL to 17. We could have stopped the run better but I think the emphasis was on stopping the pass. Verdict: Good
BUF - 16.8PPG 30th overall. We held them to 12. This was a pretty good defensive day. Usually I don't pat teams on the back for holding a bad offense down but they did it very well here. The Bills only scored 6 points until getting 6 more garbage ones at the end. They did this while the offense was fairly unsafe with the ball and gave the Bills a free 3 points. So really the Bills only truly earned 3 points in 55 meaningful minutes. When your defense does that against any NFL offense you need to tip your hat. Verdict: Good
NYJ - (we have the numbers already) We held them to 3 points. Again. Nothing else needs to be sold. If you hold a team to 3 meaningful points no matter how bad the offense is that is good. Also, the Jets aren't that bad. They are bad but not train wreck bad on offense. Verdict: Good
Let's check the playoffs.
LAC - 26.8 PPG 6th-t overall - We let them score 28 points. Not good on the surface but a further examination shows something different. The Patriots jumped on them early and held them down to make a comeback impossible. They had only given up 7 points until nearly the last minute of the 3rd. The first TD drive was actually okay. They made them drive slightly over 5 minutes to get 7 late in the 3rd when up 31. It should be said though that they clearly should have done better on the few last drives in the 4th. It took them only 2 minutes to score 7 on each. I would have liked the D to show a bit more fight at the end and make them waste more time but it wasn't like the game was ever in danger. On the first TD drive in the 3rd for we made them march at least. Verdict: Very Good
KC - 35.3 PPG 1st overall - We held them to 31 points. It should be pointed out since Hunt went out they have not been as devastating on offense. Still the best but it became much closer. They averaged about 32PPG without Hunt. So holding them to 31 seems like par for the course. So was this good, bad or neither? It's hard to say. We shut down their offense for a half. They made a number of very good plays, were helped by a short field and a big non-call on a pick play for an easy goal line TD. Not to say we didn't have a few very bad defensive plays too. Overall I don't think I can give a good or bad grade. Verdict: Average/Wash
So we have 8 games in our sample. 1 Very Bad, 1 Wash/Average (against the best offense), 1 Pretty Good, 4 Good and 1 Very Good. So overall this defense has been Pretty Good to Good.
I don't see how anyone can say the Pats enter Sunday.