I can’t really argue with what Brian Baldinger writes in this article where he basically says the Patriots just aren’t good enough defensively to win the AFC East this year. The struggles of the young defense have been well chronicled here.
But the fact is that despite all the rankings that say the Pats D sucks, they are just one home win away from the inside track of not only the AFC East but a first round playoff bye.
So basically Baldy’s saying the Patriots will not win this game, because if they do pretty much everything he says in this article will be out the window. Of course, the ‘how deep can the Pats go in the playoffs’ part of it will remain to be seen.
The thing is that we have seen glimpses here and there throughout the season. The big interceptions against the Chargers, Colts and Lions are easy to recount. But this Patriots did force the vaunted Ravens offense to punt THREE times in overtime.
There is potential for this team, but still the pundits harp on how much the Patriots require a dominant edge rusher. While this indeed could be the final piece that gets put into place in the 2011 draft, we still don’t know for sure what Jermaine Cunningham’s ceiling is. He may not have sacked Peyton Manning but he got just enough pressure in a key moment to force an inaccurate throw that James Sanders picked off and sealed the game.
It’s hard to always quantify a defense by the statistics. Much of the Patriots defensive stats are skewed due to them having to defend sizable leads. I know everyone hates the “prevent” defense (which is really more of a soft zone that funnels plays to the middle of the field to keep the clock running), and while it has certainly been a little hairy at times this year, the strategy has worked to the tune of 9-2.
I don’t argue that Baldinger is wrong in his assessment of the Patriots defense, I only say it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they put it together in the next five games. As Michael Lombardi says, young teams can practice hard and improve over the course of the year. If that’s true then we definitely haven’t seen the best of the Patriots defense yet.
