After years of focusing heavily on the Patriots’ defense it’s easy to see after the first game how new defensive coordinator Brian Flores has simplified things. They still did plenty of rotation of players, but this was as polished a defensive game as we’ve seen from a Pats team that often gets off to slow starts.
The defense was flying to the ball and looked well in-sync between coverage and pass rush. Most impressive, an array of front seven players who all won one-on-one battles. It is that Flores is sending all kinds of new pressure that Matt Patricia wasn’t, it’s that players like Trey Flowers, Keionta Davis, Dietrich Wise, Adam Butler and Adrian Clayborn are executing a coordinated and suffocating attack on the pocket.
Up front the base moved more toward a six-man front that echoes a 4-3 under. Kyle Van Noy was consistently on the defensive left side, standing. Hightower would line up to the tight end side (taking the TE in coverage on pass plays) and Bentley would line up across the running back, who he’d have in coverage. This meant that Trey Flowers was able to move back to right side after playing the Ninkovich role on the left. That role appears to be going away.
That was the run stopping front, I’m not sure they played a single meaningful snap of a seven-man front, fka “base”.
The other nickel package against the pass was a 4-2 front and they rotated all four linebackers through, with Hightower and Bentley being the top pairing, but Van Noy and Roberts also got rotational time. The nickel back ends rotated between Jonathan Jones in the slot and Duron Harmon, who saw some time near the line of scrimmage, somewhat of a rarity for him.
The coordination between Chung, McCourty, Gilmore and Rowe was outstanding. They gave up a few plays, but overall they were really sharp, especially in contrast to last year’s opening debacle.
Here’s a bunch more notes on a really impressive first defensive outing…
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