Patriots Roster – Safety Competition Will Be Intense

[PatsFans.com Article]

Patriots Roster – Safety Competition Will Be Intense

Steve Balestrieri

With the shift in philosophy to playing more zone coverage in 2015, look for the competition among the strong safeties to be intense in training camp.

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[patsfaninpa]

Yeah, football talk. Agree with the thought that if we're playing more zone, better ball skills is more important. I'm curious how good Richards is. Many have written him off already.

 

[JJC]

I think the keywords for this season will be speed and opportunity. We've seen over the past few seasons that Tom Brady has compressed his time from snap to release. That requires a combination of smarts, study, and skill. I think Belichick is betting that few other QBs in the league can compare and he is going to force the issue this season by maximizing the front seven on defense with the goal of getting to the QB and putting four guys back on defense who are smart, quick, and instinctive to capitalize on the mistakes forced by the pressure of the front seven. If this scheme works, my expectation is that this defense will have more picks than we've ever seen from a defense. And probably more points. We've seen the offensive blitzkrieg from the Patriots, now we will get the defensive version of that layered on top. Could be a very high scoring season - or at least a record setting score differential season.