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An Independent Patriots Blog

Is Patriots’ Run Defense a Fatal Flaw? — Season Film Review

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While the Patriots defense has been trending up the last few games, I was surprised to see they had fallen from a mid-season 23rd-ranked run defense to 30th in Football Outsider’s DVOA, an analytic that weighs situation and opponent. This is of course about when Dont’a Hightower went on IR, so some drop-off should be expected but it hadn’t been all that glaring to me recently.

If they do have a bad run defense it hasn’t hurt them in the win column. Last week against the Bills they gave up their second-highest yardage total this season (183) and held them to three points. Opening night against the Chiefs (185) remains the highest and only time a team actually ran to victory over New England.

Yardage wise they’re 26th, yards-per-carry they’re 32nd.

So is this a real flaw for the Pats’ defense? Will LeVeon Bell be able to exploit it? Could the Steelers ride that to victory? Miami got a season-low 67 yards on the ground vs. New England and doesn’t look like they’ll do much more this Monday night.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the bigger running plays against and how much impact they had on the game.

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PATSHOW Ep. 116 Pats/Bills Review and Pats/Dolphins Preview

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Here’s today’s episode of Patshow breaking down the Gronk suspension and the Bills win, along with a very special film analyst. Please like us and share!

If you enjoy Patshow and would like to see more of it please give our sponsor links below a click. That’s all it takes and every one helps, and it will help us expand and bring you even more fun content. Thank you!

Today’s Insert of the Week is brought to you by Dr. Scholl’s Athletic Series Running Insoles. My pick was Eric Lee for the second-straight week, showing up big against his former team.

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Electro Breakdown Zone brought to you by Energizer Ultimate Lithium. We were joined by 5-year old Campbell to break down what play sparked the Brady-McDaniels screamfest. http://bit.ly/2zVo6FW
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Pats Posits: Grind It Out Like We Always Do

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The Patriots systematically strangled the Bills on Sunday, once again leaning on Dion Lewis and Rex Burkhead on the ground to take the heat off of Tom Brady. It wasn’t a great 60 minutes, the penalties and sloppiness marred any positive vibes we might’ve had coming off a divisional win.

Now we get to weigh and debate Gronk’s punishment instead of the 10-2 Patriots team that will now play for the division title in Miami on Monday Night Football. Or maybe, if the Bills lose, they’ll already have it. Regardless, the Patriots’ juggernaut roars on and if Gronk has to sit a game (that keeps him away from a certain coach who won’t take his starters out of blowouts ;)) so be it.

As the Patriots’ regular season becomes less consequential with each passing week I’m always amazed how the conversation turns to a pile of bullshit. It becomes less about breaking down the game and more about things like when to take starters out and strength of schedule. Those are the kind of things the pundits will discuss and debate, meanwhile the fact that the Patriots are rolling again despite a bunch of injuries and turnover is just brushed under the rug. Everyone just expects it now, just like I expect to hear talk focusing on questionable minutiae like how good is Bill Belichick really at drafting in the second round. Sigh…

More on all that and the Pats’ 10th win of the season in the Posits.

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 13 at Buffalo Bills

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The Patriots are back on the road this weekend, in the middle of playing five-of-six away from the friendly confines of Gillette Stadium. Of course when you’re undefeated on the road and haven’t lost there since late in the 2015 season maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.

The Patriots odds for Sundays game are once again unnervingly high.

This is arguably the toughest divisional game remaining this season. Though the Bills stumbled mightily two weeks ago with a sudden decision to yank Tyrod Taylor, Buffalo got back on track with a solid win over the Patriot-defeating Chiefs in Kansas City. That’s never an easy task. A win over the Patriots would put the Bills back in the playoff contender category and we’ve seen plenty of tight ones in Buffalo to expect a good game.

The Patriots’ biggest opponent in recent weeks has been their own injuries. That’s just where we’re at with this dynasty now. Staying healthy is all that really stands between them and how high their Super Bowl expectations are, and last week they were hit hard again, losing Nate Ebner and Martellus Bennett for the season. Luckily injuries to key cogs Trey Flowers and Kyle Van Noy do not appear to be serious.

Can the Pats keep their 13-game road win streak and seven-game overall win streak intact while putting an iron grip on the AFC East title? Here’s the gameplan to make it happen.

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Brady’s Favorite Receiver (The Open One) Is Back!

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When Julian Edelman was lost for the season the first question on my mind was who was going to make the tough catches on third down. Brady had grown to depend on Edelman in the toughest spots. From 2013-2016, Edelman had 135 targets on third down, 40 more than second-place Rob Gronkowski.

If there was a player for defenses to key off of on third down, it was clearly Edelman. But now, without Edelman, the Patriots are spreading the ball around, with Brady becoming reacquainted with the days when his favorite receiver wasn’t Edelman or even Wes Welker, it was the open one.

Now the Patriots have a balanced third-down attack that has seen little regression from where things left off in 2016 with Edelman still tearing up the field.

Here’s how the 2016 season looked for third down targets.

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Bend Don’t Break Report: How 2017 Pats D Stacks Up

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Bend Don’t Break is what frustrated fans know as the Patriots’ favored style of defensive strategy. They don’t sell out by sending a ton of pressure, instead they preach not getting beat deep and good tackling. That forces opposing offenses to continually execute, something most of them can’t do for any sustained period without mistakes, whether it’s third-down red-zone stops, takeaways or missed field goals.

Sometimes, often on the first drive of the game, opponents seem to move the ball right down the field, only to stall out and have to settle for a field goal or worse. From there the Patriots’ constriction begins, often aided by turnovers, and that simply gives Tom Brady and the Patriots’ offense enough margin to win the game.

But the BDB leaves a bad taste in many dismissive minds. That’s because the Pats always tend to give up yards. In nine of the last 16 seasons they were in the bottom half of the league in yards-per-drive. The last two seasons saw dramatic improvement, with them finishing 7th in 2015 and 8th in 2016, their best back-to-back seasons under Belichick. Only once (2003) were they inside the top five at 4th.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. Teams consistently move the ball on New England’s defense. They just don’t score, and that’s the Bend Don’t Break.

So how does the 2017 team stack up so far? It’s developed from a total Bend AND Break edition early in the season to one far more typical of the last 16 years of Patriots defenses. Let’s take a look:

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Film Review: Pats vs. Dolphins Defense Edition

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The Patriots defense continued their streak of solid play against the Dolphins, only allowing 10 points and showing more of their renowned Bend-Don’t-Break style. There isn’t a lot of flash or sizzle with this defense, instead it’s mostly role players doing their jobs, tackling well and getting off the field in critical situations.

The team is on a seven-game win streak and they haven’t given up more than 20 points in a game since losing to the Panthers back in Week 4. As we’re well aware, points are what matters most but how good is this Patriots defense really? It’s been fairly smooth sailing as the offense has broken 30 points the last three weeks and has been generally in control for most of the seven games they’ve won in a row.

I still have my questions, not that I’m skeptical, but because I like to see the true character of a defense revealed and that only comes in pressure-packed situations, which they’ve mostly been able to avoid of late. That’s helped them get their feet under them, and the next few weeks should provide some more interesting challenges, especially facing the mobile Tyrod Taylor on the road this weekend and then the vaunted Steeler offense in two weeks after a rematch with the Dolphins in Miami (which I am very much not looking forward to).

Here’s 10 hits on 10 players who stood out to me against the Dolphins, players that will be critical to the defense for a Super Bowl run.

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