Pats "Experienced" Youth

[jmt57]

patriots - As playoffs near, pressure on Patriots' youngsters intensifies - WEEI | Christopher Price

“I think [the young players] have to realize the season really starts now,” said wide receiver Wes Welker. “It’s been a long season and everything like that, but you have to stay on top of it and make sure you’re pushing through and understand what’s at stake. [You] don’t let up and don’t get comfortable and every play and every game is so crucial and important. You have to stay on top of that.”

Based on what they’ve shown in recent weeks, former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison believes the New England defense has a group of young players who are capable of raising their game in the playoffs. Harrison, currently an analyst for NBC Sports, said Tuesday it’s been a long journey for this New England defense, one that started with lots of simple looks out of the gate.

“Early on, [Patriots coach Bill] Belichick knew exactly what he was trying to do. He was really trying to get them familiar with the system: The Patriot Way,” he said. “And really trying to build confidence in those guys. Early on, they played a lot of zone coverage, they played a lot of Cover 2, which is a safe cover for the corners, Cover 3 and Cover 4.”

Harrison said that the switch was flipped sometime in late October or early November. With the players fully confident in the system and Belichick confident in his players, the coach started doing some different things, bringing more blitzes, according to Harrison, who added that they also started playing more man-to-man coverage.

“[That’s when] you saw the emergence of Patrick Chung. You saw [Devin] McCourty picking balls off,” Harrison said. “To me Patrick Chung has really been that ace in the secondary, because he’s been a guy who’s been very versatile. He’s played free safety, he’s played strong safety, he played nickel back in the package, the free safety package, where he becomes the primary nickel back.

 

[Kdo5]

Really cool to see Rodney's praise of Pat Chung.

 

[patsfan13]

Nice to see Rodney's comments, the improvement of the D over the season has been the story of the year.

Funny how the drafts have improved since Pioli and Demitroff (?) have left.

 

[Uncle Rico]

Get ready for a week of talk about the lack of playoff experience for a lot of these Patriots. Maybe one or two analysts will bother to look at who the Pats played (top teams in the AFC and a few in the NFC), the nature of the games (seemed like the Pats were in the featured/national game about 10-12 times this year) and how they did under pressure (they won!).

 

[convertedpatsfan]

Nice to read Rodney's comments on Chung. I think Chung takes a lot of flack for his cover skills because he has given up some TDs in the passing game. But people forget this is our SS being asked to single cover a WR. Very few safeties have that type of responsibility. That Chung is capable of performing it adequately speaks volumes about his ability.

Yes, he's been burned several times, but most of those times he hasn't even had safety help. And he's also been solid in coverage a lot of the time, but when he's doing well, you don't really see it since the ball doesn't go his way. And this is usually out of our sub packages, where he is also counted on for run support. I think he's a huge part of what we do defensively.

 

[naF staP]

Teams with a lot of youth scare me. Not so much as to have a team with lots of youth but more to play against a team with a lot of youth. The energy and love of the game, not caught up in the business side of things yet just really shows when there is a young group of guys out there playing. Finally we have that young group that I fear so much playing against. Sure there will be mistakes but I love they way the younger guys play.