Had a chance to look at the non-22 replay of the Texans game today and I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me before, but their zone blocking scheme in the run game certainly gave the Pats problems.
It’s possible to misinterpret this as just more of the Pats’ defense being unable to stop the run without Wilfork/Kelly/Mayo, but I think, like last week against the Broncos, this is somewhat of a special case.
As I quoted Bruschi on earlier, it’s not easy to prepare for the zone blocking scheme, much less so when you’re defensive line is undersized and underexperienced.
Yet again, we’re reminded the Pats do have holes in their run defense, but the bigger question is will it be exposed in the playoffs? If the Pats stay at the second seed they’ll likely see Colts, Bengals or Chiefs first in Foxboro.
Of those it seems like the Chiefs might matchup best, depending on how their recent injuries play out.
Overall, the Pats were clearly flat and playing a lot of zone defense only seemed to magnify that. But it looks like there were no defensive injuries, so maybe playing zone helped keep the secondary especially out of harm’s way.
Excited to see Dobson get back in the lineup. With the way Gronk and Edelman are playing it should open up some shots to Dobson that were falling incomplete earlier in the year. He should be making those catches now.
For how maligned the defense was against the Texans, Chris Jones’ performance in the last series really stood out to me. He stuffed a run on second down and on fourth down split the center and guard and got good pressure up the middle.
Next year, in a sub-rusher/rotational role, he should really be useful. He has talent, but asking him to play almost every snap is a little much.
Through three quarters of the season, we kind of know who the Pats are now. It’s also hard to believe there’s only four games left in the regular season.
Offensively, they’ll need to put together a full game. They’re still streaky and they can’t afford to turn in a flat half in January.
Defensively, this might be the best team against the pass since 2004. Will it be good enough to shut down Peyton Manning a second time this season, and in Denver? Might just depend on the weather.