Since parity has been the trademark of the league, the margin between winning and losing in any NFL game is paper thin. There are benefits and detriments to the way BB has built this defense, just as there are benefits and detriments to what JM does on offense.
For example, when those lumbering elephants I talked about earlier that are the Patriots run stoppers do draw a bead on a wide out like Jackson after a catch, the ball has a tendency to spring out of the guy's hands like it had been in a jack-in-the-box.
However we measure things here in terms of championships. To me the notion that you get yourself into the post season where "anything can happen" is even more flawed in the NFL than it is in MLB. You plan your way to championships.
While all is surely not lost, I think that unless BB makes some subtle changes to bring himself in line with the league he has today, not the league he had ten years ago, he will find himself less and less likely to prosper in the post season and will find himself facing more disappointments when push comes to shove. He may get all the way to the SB to find that disappointment and he might not get that far, but somewhere along the way the deeper the Pats get into the post season the more likely the flaw in recent Pats teams will catch up to him.
The telltale sign to me is that when the more recent iterations of the Pats team gets to the post season and loses, the lose looks very similar to a regular season lose. The Pats offense, while being very potent, fails just often enough or fails at the most critical time and its defense simply does not get it done with the other team's offense on the field at the critical moment in the game. All by way of saying that you are facing a heck of a talented team if you get to the SB or even deep in the playoffs, and what you did to get to the point many not get you past that point.
Again I think the Pats Offense is certainly good enough and just needs JM to get out of its way with this this silly play calling. This is a team that needs every point it can get and is talented enough to get those points. This trick play bull is a waste of time, seems to do nothing but put the offense in a hole and waste drives needlessly.
The defense to me is a different story. It needs a few more talented athletes on the field than what it has now and at linebacker needs somebody that can hold his own against the run while not being totally lost in pass coverage. None of that means nor requires a complete change to how BB builds his defenses, but it does require that he be a bit less stubborn about this issue than he appears to have been in recent years.
Maybe an animal of a pass rusher would be a pleasant change from this never ending string of guys that graduated from Football U, summa cum laude but get totally swallowed up by a double team just as an example.
