What's going on with the defense: injuries or coaching?

[TommyD4207]

It's coaching, but it's from an unfamiliar spot for many of us, in terms of what aspect of coaching.

It's gameday playcalling. He has a man defense, 4-safety team playing a zone defense, with Dugger and Mapu as deep safeties on way too many occasions.

You play this much Cover 2 (with players who can't really play zone all that well) against Miami, and you're very fortunate they only scored 34.

 

[lancerman]

I like the selective amnesia people have had. The last 5 years this has been the story of the Patriots defense.

1. Beat up and looking like all stars against mid offenses.
2. Play offenses with talented skill players and look like complete scrubs.

We saw this when the 2019 Ravens kicked the **** out of us. We saw this when the 2021 Bills never had to punt. Last year the Cowboys with Lamb put up 38, these same Dolphins put up 31, even the Saints put up 34. We've only really kinda had success vs the Chiefs defensively because somehow Bill knew how to keep them in check, but even last year we just kept them to 27, which isn't anything special.

But this has been a trend.

 

[Tunescribe]

I like the selective amnesia people have had. The last 5 years this has been the story of the Patriots defense.

1. Beat up and looking like all stars against mid offenses.
2. Play offenses with talented skill players and look like complete scrubs.

We saw this when the 2019 Ravens kicked the **** out of us. We saw this when the 2021 Bills never had to punt. Last year the Cowboys with Lamb put up 38, these same Dolphins put up 31, even the Saints put up 34. We've only really kinda had success vs the Chiefs defensively because somehow Bill knew how to keep them in check, but even last year we just kept them to 27, which isn't anything special.

But this has been a trend.

I'd take any of those defenses from the last five years vs. this horrid 2024 unit. IIRC, most of those were top-10 regular-season defenses. This year they are bottom-10 and sinking fast.

It's coaching, but it's from an unfamiliar spot for many of us, in terms of what aspect of coaching.

It's gameday playcalling. He has a man defense, 4-safety team playing a zone defense, with Dugger and Mapu as deep safeties on way too many occasions.

You play this much Cover 2 (with players who can't really play zone all that well) against Miami, and you're very fortunate they only scored 34.

This defense -- mostly in the passing game but not limited to that -- is routinely out of position. Guys are always on their heels, getting caught with their pants down and scrambling to compensate. When not otherwise getting embarrassed on chunk plays, they're out-leveraged/out-techniqued or just out-muscled. The Rams and Dolphins just toyed with them. It's embarrassing.

 

[TheRainMaker]

I like the selective amnesia people have had. The last 5 years this has been the story of the Patriots defense.

1. Beat up and looking like all stars against mid offenses.
2. Play offenses with talented skill players and look like complete scrubs.

We saw this when the 2019 Ravens kicked the **** out of us. We saw this when the 2021 Bills never had to punt. Last year the Cowboys with Lamb put up 38, these same Dolphins put up 31, even the Saints put up 34. We've only really kinda had success vs the Chiefs defensively because somehow Bill knew how to keep them in check, but even last year we just kept them to 27, which isn't anything special.

But this has been a trend.

The 2019 Ravens took many by surprise and defenses didn’t have answers until Vrabel’s Titans had an awesome game plan and made Jackson strictly a passer.

Other competent offenses from 2020-present had their way with the defense. The theme was they always looked a step slow.

The Chiefs mediocre offense averaged 21 points per game last season, but the Pats gave up 27.

 

[captain stone]

Coaching, coaching and coaching. Injuries are a poor excuse. We have had injuries in the past and Bill never used that as an excuse. All teams have injuries, the back ups should be able to play also, they are supposed to be NFL players also !!

But that's part of the problem: Not only are our backups not backup-quality NFL players; they're not NFL players, period. And that's a Grocery-Shopping issue.


Talent

Coaching

Injuries/trade


In That Order.

 

[Ring 6]

I like the selective amnesia people have had. The last 5 years this has been the story of the Patriots defense.

1. Beat up and looking like all stars against mid offenses.
2. Play offenses with talented skill players and look like complete scrubs.

We saw this when the 2019 Ravens kicked the **** out of us. We saw this when the 2021 Bills never had to punt. Last year the Cowboys with Lamb put up 38, these same Dolphins put up 31, even the Saints put up 34. We've only really kinda had success vs the Chiefs defensively because somehow Bill knew how to keep them in check, but even last year we just kept them to 27, which isn't anything special.

But this has been a trend.

Welcome to the NFL. It has this weird dynamic where defenses do better against bad offenses than they do against good offenses. Every team, every year, forever.

 

[lancerman]

Welcome to the NFL. It has this weird dynamic where defenses do better against bad offenses than they do against good offenses. Every team, every year, forever.

Not every “good” defense gets blown out by good offenses. The Patriots have been paper tiger bullies for a long time.

 

[Ring 6]

Not every “good” defense gets blown out by good offenses. The Patriots have been paper tiger bullies for a long time.

Every good defense does worse against good offenses than against bad offenses.

 

[lancerman]

Every good defense does worse against good offenses than against bad offenses.

That's not what I said. We've had defenses that were supposed to be near the top of the league get the ever loving **** kicked out of them over the last 5 years. The 2021 Patriots were #2 in PPG and then had a historic ass whupping where the opposing offense never punted and also had easily the worst defensive showing of that entire playoff run.

That's not doing worse against good defenses. That's "they look like one of the ****tiest defenses in the entire NFL when they go up against teams with real talent on offense".

They are bipolar paper tigers. They could schematically shut down and look like world beaters against mid level teams and then got beat as bad or worse than anybody once they went up against an offense with fast skill players. They shouldn't regress that hard.

 

[Ring 6]

That's not what I said. We've had defenses that were supposed to be near the top of the league get the ever loving **** kicked out of them over the last 5 years. The 2021 Patriots were #2 in PPG and then had a historic ass whupping where the opposing offense never punted and also had easily the worst defensive showing of that entire playoff run.

That's not doing worse against good defenses. That's "they look like one of the ****tiest defenses in the entire NFL when they go up against teams with real talent on offense".

They are bipolar paper tigers. They could schematically shut down and look like world beaters against mid level teams and then got beat as bad or worse than anybody once they went up against an offense with fast skill players. They shouldn't regress that hard.

No, the difference has never been out of line with what every defense does.
That same year the next week the #1 ranked Bills defense allowed 42.

 

[lancerman]

No, the difference has never been out of line with what every defense does.
That same year the next week the #1 ranked Bills defense allowed 42.

The Patriots have consistently done that. You can go back to the 2019 Ravens game. No not every team does that. The Patriots even that year had the worst game of the playoffs and the Bills had their best point total of the entire season against them. Also you are selectively leaving out how the Bills opponent needed OT to break 40. The regulation score was 36-36. And that was also the 13 second game as well.

So no, it's not remotely like the Patriots having a historically bad loss where their opponent never punted.

Also I'm not going back and forth with you.

 

[TheRainMaker]

That's not what I said. We've had defenses that were supposed to be near the top of the league get the ever loving **** kicked out of them over the last 5 years. The 2021 Patriots were #2 in PPG and then had a historic ass whupping where the opposing offense never punted and also had easily the worst defensive showing of that entire playoff run.

That's not doing worse against good defenses. That's "they look like one of the ****tiest defenses in the entire NFL when they go up against teams with real talent on offense".

They are bipolar paper tigers. They could schematically shut down and look like world beaters against mid level teams and then got beat as bad or worse than anybody once they went up against an offense with fast skill players. They shouldn't regress that hard.

Every defense is going to get lit up. It's impossible for them to stop every competent offense. If you look back at some of the Pats teams, their defense surprisingly had their fair share of getting lit up and allowing at least 20 points or more aside from 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2016.

With that said, the current team's talent level is nowhere near the Pats team's from 2000-2019. They need a lot of players and coaching on that side of the ball. They also need an offense that can set the tone and get teams out of their own game plans. I've seen too many opposing offenses staying patient and not forcing anything knowing the Pats offense won't do anything.

 

[Ring 6]

Every defense is going to get lit up. It's impossible for them to stop every competent offense. If you look back at some of the Pats teams, their defense surprisingly had their fair share of getting lit up and allowing at least 20 points or more aside from 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2016.

With that said, the current teams talent level is nowhere near the Pats teams from 2000-2019. They need a lot of players and coaching on that side of the ball. They also need an offense that can set the tone and get teams out of their own game plans. I've seen too many patient opposing offenses knowing the Pats offense won't do anything.

No in fact they really didn’t. It’s a falsehood that people created and it just became accepted by some and is not true.
Every time it came up, I would point this out and ask for examples of defenses that allowed more points and were better ( of course adjusting for takeaways because that matters a lot) and no one ever responded. Because it’s a myth.

 

[lancerman]

Every defense is going to get lit up. It's impossible for them to stop every competent offense. If you look back at some of the Pats teams, their defense surprisingly had their fair share of getting lit up and allowing at least 20 points or more aside from 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2016.

With that said, the current team's talent level is nowhere near the Pats team's from 2000-2019. They need a lot of players and coaching on that side of the ball. They also need an offense that can set the tone and get teams out of their own game plans. I've seen too many opposing offenses staying patient and not forcing anything knowing the Pats offense won't do anything.

Not every defense gets historically awful despite being great the whole year. Yes they will perform worse against better offenses. They don't turn into the worst defense in the league.

The Patriots literally gave the Bills their best offensive game of the year despite being the #2 defense. The #2 defense literally had the worst game of any defense in that playoff.

The Patriots defense even in 2019 had this problem when they were historically great for most of the year, then went against the Ravens who had fast weapons and they got punched in the mouth and had no answer. The 5-10-1 Cardinals has a better game against the Ravens. There's a difference from better offenses giving you a tougher go and your entire vaunted defense getting massacred.

I'm not talking about 20 point games. I'm talking, you can't get off the field, you have a #1 or #2 defense and the opposing team is having one of their best offensive games of the year against you. Meanwhile we know that there are Patriots teams going back to 2001 that could go against the Rams and while they couldn't completely hold them off all night, they at least made it hard for them.

 

[doesntmatter1]

The players play a role but the coaching is clearly the main culprit. Stafford was destroying the blitz. Infographic came on the screen showing he had a damn near perfect rating against the blitz and right on cue they scored that long td pass as we brought the house. Weeks ago the Jags ran the ball 17x in a row before we adapted. We didn't run blitz, call a timeout, nor switch players. The defensive call player/coach is clearly slow and in over their head.

I'm lenient towards the offense but the defense didn't have too much turnover. Its like Bentley was our defense and the coaches are frauds.

 

[TheRainMaker]

No in fact they really didn’t. It’s a falsehood that people created and it just became accepted by some and is not true.
Every time it came up, I would point this out and ask for examples of defenses that allowed more points and were better ( of course adjusting for takeaways because that matters a lot) and no one ever responded. Because it’s a myth.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying the Pats rarely got lit up?

 

[Ring 6]

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying the Pats rarely got lit up?

Im saying they were like every other defense, they did better against bad offenses than good ones. Compared to all other yrams, yes they got lit up less that’s why they were ranked so highly.

 

[n1997y]

Good post if Tee Higgins have a choice between a Mayo Coached Team and a Real NFL Team...I wonder which he would choose...

I think he would choose to go against the Mayo Coached Team rather than face a Real NFL Team.

 

[mgteich]

They are learning? You must have not seen the Rams game.

For you the coaches are at the same level as for Game. 1. I disagree

 

[n1997y]

For you the coaches are at the same level as for Game. 1. I disagree

Do you have evidence to justify your disagreement? Care to share it?