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Archives for September 13, 2016

Patriots vs. Cardinals Film Review: Defense Edition

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It’s always exciting when the Patriots unveil their fully operational defense in the first game of the season, but there wasn’t much surprise this year. The Pats continued to stick to their Cover-1 Man coverage that they’ve played extensively the last two seasons. There were occasional zone coverages and blitzes mixed in, but otherwise it was about lining up and forcing their receivers to beat our cornerbacks.

The real fun of the defense is in the front seven, where you have a collection of athletic pieces who can all rush the passer or drop into pass coverage on any given down. They’ll show a front like the one below, and then let the offense figure out who’s going where. On this particular play, Flowers, Collins and Hightower all drop, leaving a three man rush. Chris Long got the one-on-one and not only got the sack but drew a facemask.

Cardinals Wk 1 Defensive Front

So there you have it. Five guys on the LOS and the offense has to figure out how to block who’s coming after the snap. This is where the magic of this Patriots defense lies and when Rob Ninkovich returns and if Barkevious Mingo finds a defensive role, they’ll have another two pieces to play with like this.

The other fun things they can do are fake a coverage drop, then come on a delayed blitz, or just the opposite, start to come, then stop and drop. This allows the defense to stick to their conservative roots of mostly four- and three-man rushes, but makes the front so fluid it creates more opportunities for free rushers.

Here are some more observations about the defense after reviewing the All-22 film…

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Patriots Terrible Takes Roundup – Week 1

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Debunking the hot takes from this weekend’s “surprising” win. So many takes, so little time.

  1. The Patriots are playing mind games with Jimmy Garoppolo:

Teammates praised the young QB’s ability to execute within the gameplan and the offense, which sounds fine. But many in the media following the game, thought that this was a sign of the team downplaying what they saw as a herculean effort. It was a sign that Belichick had gotten to them and wanted to keep the little guy down.

A small relevant side note: according to Mike Shanahan, Robert Griffin III, a young emerging QB, didn’t want to watch his negative plays after wins or losses. He didn’t want to see the flaws in his game; he only wanted to focus on things he did right. This is one educational point of view, called “positive behavioral assessment”, but it’s not the one Bill Belichick subscribes to.

Belichick is not playing mind games, he’s preparing his player for success (and failure) in the NFL. Belichick likes his players to understand that they wouldn’t win without the guy next to him and the guy next to him and the guy on the Practice Squad replicating a defensive tendency of their opponent. Then when the game is over, he wants them to try to learn from their mistakes and move on. It’s very easy to ride the roller coaster, but good teams don’t do that. They never get too low, never get too high. Yes, good win. We’re onto — Miami. Just a reminder, RGIII is a disaster of a QB and his teammates after the game this week praised his rookie opponent as if he were the next coming.

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Patriots Special Teams Report: Week 1 at Arizona Cardinals

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The NFL’s continuing its attempt to make kickoffs safer by moving the spot of the ball following a touchback to the 25 yard line is supposed to give teams further incentive to not make any attempt to return kicks and simply take a knee in the end zone. Unfortunately for the league, at least in the case of the New England Patriots, that rule might backfire.

While the sample size is admittedly very small, it seems as though the Patriots would far prefer Stephen Gostkowski to loft a high kick that ends up between the five yard line and the goal line, luring their opponents into returning kicks, instead of driving the ball through the back of the endzone and giving the opposing offense the ball at the 25 yard line. Of Gostkowski’s six kicks in Sunday’s game, four were placed between the five yard line and a yard into the end zone, resulting in returns off four of his six kicks (the opening kickoff and Gostkowski’s first kick of the second half were touchbacks). Arizona never made it past their own 21 on those returns, and had an average starting field position off kickoffs of the 18 yard line, the worst starting field position off kickoffs in the entire NFL this week, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

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