How about a position by position breakdown of why the defense is struggling?

[jimnance]

Yes, the pats are #1 afc and #3 nfl in the most importatnt measure of a defense-pts allowed. Yes, they have not faced a lot of high-scoring offenses. But you can only play who you play. You cant necessarily make the jump that if they had faced tougher offenses thus far, their results would have been much worse. Sometimes teams get motivated for better opponents and play harder and we just dont know. Its pure speculation.
All that being said, I have concerns about the D moving forward. To me the biggest issue is not the starters but an alarming lack of depth at de,ilb,olb and dt. At de, there are 2 main issues: 1. nink's suspension and injuries and 2. sheards poor play. Nink will improve as he shakes off the rust and gets healthier. How much better i dont know-but hes a cat i would never count out. With sheard its tougher. Sheard was w/o question the best Pats de last year, albeit in a reserve role. He was better than jones at passrushing, setting the edge, runstopping and also sometimes interior passrushing.He was a beast. The only question i had about him after the jones trade was-would he still be able to maintain the same ferocity with significantly increased snaps? The answer seems to be no. I have not looked up his snaps this year-i know theyre way up from 2015-is he already worn out from increased playing time plus not having jones and nink for a good portion of the year? To me,he is currently the biggest key to the D going forward-if he can step it up-along with flowers looking good and nink getting healthier-then that would radically improve this D. Remains to be seen.
HT is obviously one of the best in the nfl at his position and hes a gamechanger. Roberts is excellent vs. the run, can even rush some but is lacking in coverage. No depth beyond that. If HT says healthy-no prob-if hes hurt-yikes!
The secondary is overall solid-the #2 & #3 cb has been a prob-but i agree with others -keep rowe and ryan there-no more revolving cbs-and hope they improve. they both had some good moments last week.
As for DT, Brown has been decent this year-didnt make that huge 2nd yr leap we hoped for-but hes been solid. Valentine has shown promise. branch has been the best dt and im a little nervous about his suspension. will he balloon to 400 lbs if hes away from the team for 4 weeks? he has a history of that. He can still work out at gillette, is my understanding-so i hope he does. I dont under stand why he can and brady couldnt tho.
Overall, I believe the D will improve-but the depth is so thin-a couple key injuries to the wrong guys-would cause problems. But i think where the offense is likely to be 5-6 weeks from now-can overcome any issues with the D.

 

[The NZ Patriots]

I'm really intrigued by what will happen with our LB/DE group going forward. I watched some of the Coaches Tape while focusing mainly on Roberts, McClellin, Van Noy and to some extent Nink/Long/Flowers.

My football knowledge is really sub-par compared to most on this forum, but I had a few observations:

1. I thought Shea did a pretty decent job of setting the edge. He actually got in the position to make some nice plays, but he ended up either tripping them or putting on an arm tackle and the runner would fall eventually as a result of his contact, but would be able to stumble an extra 2-3 yards. He also appeared OK in coverage. Despite this, he had one really bad miss that stood out on a Hyde run right at him.
2. I thought Van Noy showed really good signs. As was noted above, he had a lot of pressures and seemed to do a good job when asked to cover.
   
3. The defense was without HT for a series and a good portion of another series and it really, really showed. Roberts bit on a lot of fakes and was left for dust in coverage.
   
4. Nink struggled on one drive in the first quarter, Hyde bounced out to his side twice for big gains. In his typical fashion, he seemed to rebound.
   
5. I really wanted Mingo to shine at the end of Q4 but it looked like he was overpowered in his limited action.

I think more consistency out of this group will result in improved performance of the overall defense. I'm interested to see who will emerge out of Shea, Roberts & Van Noy. BB did say that they played a lot of players on defense, and deliberately gave HT rest due to the pace of SF's offense so I suspect one of those 3 will see less time against a slower paced offense. I'm reasonably optimistic on the defense overall and will make a hesitant prediction that we'll see a similar percentage (if not more) of snaps from Van Noy going forward.

 

[Ochmed Jones]

Sure.

DE - There simply is no difference maker at this spot. The closest thing we have right now is Flowers. Sheard at times has been okay but he needs to get back into it. Nink is just okay and his age is showing some but he can still set the edge which Sheard generally does okay too. We simply lack pass rushing ability. Long occasionally makes a good play but barely above a JAG. Basically we have 4 rotational guys as of now which on the whole keeps it being better then it would be if we had no rotation but we lack that clear #1 guy.

DT - Brown has under performed this year. He isn't bad but just isn't good. Branch has been the best DT on the field on the whole but he isn't always consistent. Valentine provides a few nice players here and there but doesn't do much and needs more experience. No 4th guy worth mentioning. This unit again has no single stand up player to rely upon though Branch is the closest.

Overall the DL needs a talent injection and it is not like we have not spent picks here. Something to draft and get in FA.

LB - The Hightower show. He is very good but when he is off his game this unit has no one. Van Noy showed okay last game but Roberts has cooled off and McCellin/Mingo have not done much with their chances. Basically again need something here or one of Van Noy/Roberts to step up. At this point I would not expect it from McCellin/Mingo and certainly not Freeney.

CB - This unit gets a lot of crap but not justified always. Butler is of course the guy and he been playing at a probowl level the past few weeks again. It comes down to Rowe/Ryan. They have good and bad stretches but in the end Coleman/Jones won't help this year or at all. We just need to keep Rowe/Ryan in and hope for the best. At times they can both be good.

S - Usually a very good unit but just not a play making unit. Chung is on a bad streak right now but i think he will right it. This unit of McCourty/Harmon/Chung however can only slow down the losing usually and not make a play to help us win.

Basically it comes down to the CBs playing up to what they can and hoping the talent on the DL (Sheard, Brown, Valentine, Flowers) matures or plays up.

This is a really good analysis. I think the one thing I would add is that when we play press man, our defense is very good, provided we are not playing against a mobile qb.

When we play cover 2 or cover 3, our defense is very average at best.

 

[Ochmed Jones]

This is exactly what my thought was. The lbs are not covering well. They are getting killed right now by rbs out of the backfield. This used to be a fairly solid group for that, not lately.

The corners are close, besides some zone coverage responsibilities...but the lbs are getting killed.

Probably need to see more big nickel groups.

this may be more of a system problem than any thing else.

 

[libra957]

I'd pick on Logan Ryan but he actually wasn't that bad against the 49ers.

 

[Deus Irae]

OK, just to toss this out there, as a little bit of grist for the mill:

Hyde averaged better than 4.5 ypc this past game, when he's averaging comfortably under 4 ypc for the season, and he did that with his longest run (of 19) being just 13 yards, so it's not as if there was a major skew involved. Some of that is likely on the run support behind the line, but that's not all the problem. This line has got more than pass blocking problems, as being very middle of the pack against the stiffs this team's played this year would indicate.

Anyone care to develop this?

 

[Jangles]

It's clear that the defense is in trouble. Anyone denying that just needs to look at what BB's actions have been. So, with that in mind, I thought a thread breaking down the issues by position might be in order.

DT/DE
OLB/ILB
CB
S
Specialty spots (nickel, pass rush specialist, etc...)

So let's have at it...

are you daft?

The Patriots are second in the AFC in points allowed. This might be Bill's best work of all time.

 

[Deus Irae]

are you daft?

The Patriots are second in the AFC in points allowed. This might be Bill's best work of all time.

Points allowed, in the way which you are referring, is irrelevant to this discussion. We're discussing the actual defense, not the scoreboard. If you don't think this defense has some serious issues, you're blind.

 

[Jangles]

Points allowed, in the way which you are referring, is irrelevant to this discussion. We're discussing the actual defense, not the scoreboard. If you don't think this defense has some serious issues, you're blind.

dude

Pats D still Number 2 in AFC points against

 

[PatriotsPimp136]

I still wanna see eric rowe out there instead of coleman. I don't know how Malcom Brown keep's getting a pass from some people here. I thought he would be another wilfork type for us. He has been dissapointing.

 

[Deus Irae]

dude

Pats D still Number 2 in AFC points against

Dude, If you don't see how that's irrelevant to this particular thread, and you actually think this defense doesn't have significant issues even with all the personnel moves BB's made, go get your eyes checked, and this thread's not for you.

 

[Jangles]

Dude, If you don't see how that's irrelevant to this particular thread, and you actually think this defense doesn't have significant issues even with all the personnel moves BB's made, go get your eyes checked, and this thread's not for you.

Did you even open the thread?

This forum has been in a non-stop debate about whether or not the defense is actually any good for over a week. I don't know where you've been all week, but clearly not here since you still don't get the joke.

 

[Deus Irae]

Did you even open the thread?

No. For some reason, when it initially showed on my screen, it didn't work as a link. I assumed it was just you underlining. My apologies for any resulting confusion, as it was not intended.

 

[AvocadoIceCream]

#1 Defense in AFC. # 3 in NFL behind Seattle and Vikings, just barely. And by the way, points against is how they rank great defenses.

Wow. I guess you don't watch the games. Just wow.

 

[brdmaverick]

It's clear that the defense is in trouble. Anyone denying that just needs to look at what BB's actions have been.

I think his actions say otherwise. He sent one of his most talented players to Cleveland so that tells me he thinks they were too good. I kid I kid. Ok, I'm done making this a Jamie Collins rant.

 

[BobDigital]

I have to disagree here. First Brown has been very good this season. There is a reason he gets the most DT snaps. Your observation that he "hasn't made the jump" just isn't fair.

The Easley pick was a very good one that didn't turn out well. Nothing Easley did on the field for his first 2 years were bad. He was every bit the impactful player we had hoped he'd be when healthy. He's not on the team because of issues that I'm sure go far beyond his on field play. (and I can speculate about them some time for you)

You can make a good pick at the time, that turns out not to work out, or not work out as well as you'd like, for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the pick itself.

The "inside push" DT is one of those newer hybrid kind of positions that have come into favor as the game evolves. They are very rare and when you have a shot at one you have to take that chance because the rewards if you hit on one are massive.

BB tried for YEARS to get his "Gronk" of a TE, and drafted some very good ones in Watson and Graham, etc, but never really hit on the 'one', until he got lucky with Gronk and you can see what a difference he makes in the offense. I have no doubt that BB will take every shot he can at finding the next Aaron Donald or Micheal Bennett, until he gets lucky and finds him.

Let me be clear. I don't mind them taking the shots they took. Investing heavily in DTs and going for that pass rushing DT in Easley was fine. I liked the risk. It didn't pan out but you need to take risk to get impact players when you pick #32. Also I don't think Brown has been bad BTW. Just not good. I think on the whole he has been average and more than not just a run stuffer who once in a while gets pressure. To me that makes him an okay starter but not anything special... yet. He has flashed and I hope he can turn it around. A guy like Valentine has more upside to me though.

I do wish they perhaps picked different DTs but that is not the way it worked out and I don't blame them for getting some wrong. On the whole i have been happy with how they have drafted the past 5 years.

 

[deroc5050]

Dude, If you don't see how that's irrelevant to this particular thread, and you actually think this defense doesn't have significant issues even with all the personnel moves BB's made, go get your eyes checked, and this thread's not for you.

In 2011 when the Pats lost to the Giants they had the 31st ranked defense in yards aloud and 15th in points aloud. And they were a Wes Welker catch away from winning the Super Bowl.

All we can do is hope and prey are Offense stays healthy and doesnt put up any stinkers in the playoffs. At this point we can't depend on this defense. We are suddenly weak at LB and now thinning out on the D line. Our secondary play has sucked and we have played for the most part bad offenses.

 

[brdmaverick]

I'm sticking too my guns on their biggest problem being strategy.

Until this past Sunday they played soft....playing not to give up the big play. In doing so they gave up a lot of short underneath stuff and allowed teams to sustain long drives. Sure, sometimes these drives stalled, but it killed me how we intentionally let teams 'kill the clock' on us. We should all know that the other team's gameplan should revolve around long drives to keep Brady on the bench and limit the overall number of possessions in the game.

So why do we play a style of defense that plays right into their hands? I don't know, but finally on Sunday we saw some aggressiveness from them. Will it yield some big plays? Sure, but I'd rather play aggressive, maybe force some turnovers, and even if we give up some big plays I like our chances in a shootout.

 

[Deus Irae]

In 2011 when the Pats lost to the Giants they had the 31st ranked defense in yards aloud and 15th in points aloud. And they were a Wes Welker catch away from winning the Super Bowl.

Sure. Brady + BB = Awesome

That's not really the point, though, is it?

Number of SBs the Patriots have actually won without a quality defense = 0

That's really the point of the concern about the defense.

That leaves us looking, and realizing:

Can this become a quality defense? Probably not this year. BB seems to have misread what he had pretty badly, for whatever reason.

Can this team win the SB anyway? Maybe. The AFC sucks, and the NFC doesn't have any team that's so good on defense that Brady has not shot to keep up a good scoring pace if needed. But, if they do it, it'll be the first time in the Brady/BB era that they've won without a quality defense.


edit: And after I posted the above, a second paragraph appeared in your post. I'll leave this as my response to the first paragraph, even understanding that your second paragraph makes my response mostly redundant.

 

[luuked]

I still wanna see eric rowe out there instead of coleman. I don't know how Malcom Brown keep's getting a pass from some people here. I thought he would be another wilfork type for us. He has been dissapointing.

Not sure what games you are watching but Brown is playing pretty well and developing at an encouraging pace. It's not his fault you are comparing him to the wrong player archetype.