PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Archives for November 2011

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“That scheme doesn’t work for me. When you play a good offense, a team that spreads you out, there’s just too many openings in zone coverage. You have to mix in man-to-man coverage. You have to become more creative on defense. You have to disguise, bring more pressure.

“Then I look at that secondary, and they’re playing really soft coverage, that bend-but-don’t-break defense. I hate that. I think you have to challenge your players more. You have to start blitzing, force the quarterback into making mistakes. I know you can’t stop everything. I know they were afraid of their speed. But sometimes you just got to go challenge them. And I just don’t see them doing it.”

“We played a lot of man-to-man coverage, especially when we won in ’03,” said Harrison, who played six seasons (2003-08) with the Pats. “They challenged us. I was in the box blitzing. We dared teams to throw. You weren’t going to run on us. We dared teams to throw. We had good enough cornerbacks, we felt like teams couldn’t have success. We disguised, we mixed in cover-2, we mixed in cover-4, and different cover-3s. Here, I just see a basic, plain defense. So if the offense isn’t scoring 25-30 points, you’re in trouble.”

Rodney Harrison making his thoughts on the Patriots defense known.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/that-scheme-doesnt-work-for-me-when-you-play-a/

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https://www.patspropaganda.com/21901/

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https://www.patspropaganda.com/21904/

ESPN First Take: Is the Patriots defense good enough to win a Super Bowl

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ESPN First Take: Is the Patriots defense good enough to win a Super Bowl

It might shock a lot of people that I’m actually linking to an ESPN First Take segment but I found what Eric Mangini said in this clip to be very interesting. You can ignore Skip and Parker, unless you want to hear Skip actually argue for the Pats D, but we’ll sum up what Mangini had to say.

In a nutshell it’s that unlike most NFL teams the Patriots defense will continue to evolve over the course of the season. They will not keep doing things that are not working so it’s hard to really make a definitive judgement about them at this juncture. Wouldn’t be prudent (little Dana Carvey George HW Bush there for you). He also attributed the switch to the 4-3 as being part of the problem.

I can’t believe I’m about to type this but I LOVE HEARING MANGINI’S INSIGHT INTO THE PATRIOTS.

NESN/Howe: Film Breakdown Shows Tom Brady Was Thrown Off By Steelers’ Man Coverage, Disguised Blitz Schemes

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NESN/Howe: Film Breakdown Shows Tom Brady Was Thrown Off By Steelers’ Man Coverage, Disguised Blitz Schemes

Good stuff here from Howe, and it seems like Dick Lebeau did in fact do just what we talked about last week in terms of doing the Mangini-esque “everybody walking around” presnap thing. Here’s a nice little nuggett:

The Steelers also used another effective tactic to disguise their blitzes. At the time of the snap, there were 24 occasions when at least six defensive players were in the box within one yard from the line of scrimmage, almost making it look like a picket fence. The Steelers show that look on a regular basis, but it’s extremely tough to recognize where the pressure will be generated. They used another wrinkle by occasionally using just one or two down linemen in the middle of that formation.

They blitzed with at least five pass rushers about half the time out of that look. Some of the blitzes were very basic and could have been recognized before the snap based on the location of the tight end or running back, but the Patriots didn’t pick them up as well out of that look. With that type of formation, the offensive linemen have to be perfectly on point with their blocking assignments because there’s almost no time to adjust.