Mike Dussault

Nice breakdown here of all the breakdowns. Look I know that was a travesty of defense on Sunday, but let’s also chalk it up to just a game where an already suspect defense was off, making it look even worse than it already is. You need to look no further than tackling, something that the Patriots are good at. This defense is what it is and that was a painful game to watch, but they’re really not that bad.

Run game struggles? No easy answers there, as a number of components played a part, from not “setting the edge” on a month’s worth of lost force plays, to poor tackling pursuit angles, to the actual tackling itself, to the quality of the pursuit, to the inability to get off blocks at different times on all three levels. The secondary is its own briar patch, and coverage matchup problems within the linebacker group were every bit as prevalent as guys getting beat at the corner or safety position. Are linebackers not a part of the coverage? Both groups had problems. Multiple corners seemed to develop a newfound love for “peeking,” or taking their eyes off their coverage for just enough time to lose their receiver — something that through all the growing pains thus far with this young group, I hadn’t seen as a persistent issue.