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Patriots vs. Broncos Film Review: Defense Edition

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It was one of the most dominant defensive performances of the last decade and one that I couldn’t wait to jump into. The Patriots defense had a slow start to 2016, but with each passing week they’ve gotten better and better. In the last three games they have the second-best third down defense in the NFL, and have risen all the way from 28th early in the season to 7th overall on third down.

The emergence of Trey Flowers as veterans Rob Ninkovich, Jabaal Sheard and Chris Long got their games going now has the entire defensive front clicking. And don’t just take my word for it, here’s what Belichick had to say on Tuesday:

“I think in our case what I’ve seen from this team, especially defensively but really in all three phases of the game, is a commitment to work hard and get better. You take small steps every day. Those pile up after days, weeks and months together. I think that’s really what’s happening with our team is they’ve worked hard. They’ve improved, improved a little bit each day. They maybe improve a little bit each week in certain areas. I think we do things better now than we did a few weeks ago. We did them better a few weeks ago than we did them a couple of months ago, which is the way it should be.”

Let’s take a closer look at the All-22.

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Patriots Tuesday 10 Pack

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Plenty to kick around this week as the hardest part of the Patriots’ schedule is over and we have a near-complete picture of who the 2016 team is. Once again they’re playing their best football in December and must survive two games before turning all their attention to the playoffs.

Do the Patriots have a fatal flaw? Only if the early season defense returns and they stop getting takeaways, red zone and third down stops. Offensively, it’s no longer all Gronk and Edelman. You have to stop the run, and while they will stay dedicated to pounding it up the middle, their stable of backs are just as capable in the passing game.

And as I mentioned in the Posits, all their receivers can play each receiver position. Then there’s Bennett, who might not be as dominant as Gronk, but is close to being as dangerous, especially when teams get caught up figuring out where the receivers and backs are lining up.

The fact that their special teams are playing dominant football is only the icing on the unstoppability cake.

Put them all together and there’s no question it’s Super Bowl or bust once again.

Here’s a 10 pack of thoughts…

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Pats Posits: Primed, Again

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2016 AFC East Champs!

The Patriots locked up the AFC East championship and a first round playoff bye with their 16-3 win over the Broncos, moving to 12-2 on the season, and putting to rest some of their Denver demons.

Yup, if you didn’t love the 2016 Patriots before impressive wins over Baltimore and Denver, you sure do now!

The victory was perhaps the most complete of the season, with the defense completely neutralizing Denver’s offense in the second half and becoming the top scoring defense in the NFL; the offense capitalizing in key spots while maintaining excellent balance; and the special teams generally dominating every hidden yard there was.

With just two games to go, the Patriots look as primed as ever to make a run at another Super Bowl. But they might need to win both to secure homefield.

More on the Pats’ playoff aspirations and a feel-great win over the Broncos…

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A Closer Look at Flea Flicking Off the Ravens

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We all know how much better the Patriots running game has been this year than last year. With three games to go, there have been more rushing touchdowns and more first downs than last seasons full year totals. Leading the way from a statistical standpoint has been Legarrette Blount. Actually leading the way has been the offensive line under the returning Dante Scarnecchia, and an infusion of young, hungry, and mean players on the inside of the line.

This season’s running game has been a welcome change from the abysmal ground game in 2015. Play actions feel more effective. Comparing what statistics are available, Tom Brady was 6th in Football Outsiders DVOA in 2015 on play action passes, though only 21st in yardage differential on passes without play action. and this year has the highest passer rating in the league on play action passes, with a 125.0 (2016 DVOA numbers for play action aren’t available yet). That’s a great effect of the running game.

Numbers start to look that good when opposing teams are heavily committed to stopping the run, as opposed to barely caring if you hand the ball off…and when your running game has well-coached teams committed to the point of overpursuit, you start getting away with beautifully ballsy plays like this:

This is the first half of the flea flicker that went to Chris Hogan for 28 yards. One of those sexy-not sexy plays that doesn’t make a highlight reel during the week, because it didn’t score, and wasn’t a turnover. Stay hypnotized by that play for a moment. Here is the All-22 of the same play, watch the action of Baltimore’s defense up front:

Eight Ravens in pursuit. Great read by CJ Mosley to follow when David Andrews peeled off his block to go back and protect Brady, and the coverage was actually pretty solid down field. Hogan beat his 1 on 1, and Malcolm Mitchell was bracketed by a corner and safety. The Ravens played this as well as possible, but were still hopelessly out of position up front. In 2015, this play probably has some devastating hit to Brady, or the pitch back to Brady is intercepted for a touchdown, or some other ugly result. Instead, we have probably the longest flea flicker pitch in history (Seriously! Look at that! Blount starts in the middle of the field and ends up a good 5-6 yards outside the hash before that pitch! Insane!), and one more thing for opposing defenses to have to worry about when overcommitting to the run.

This was beautiful, and I sure am looking forward to the next development off of the success of the running game.

Best/Worst in Weekly Patriots Links-12/17

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First and foremost, my reaction to “Deflategate 2”:

If a picture says a thousand words, a video must say a million. I’m in one heck of a mood, so in order to sustain that you can take a local sports opinion on the matter (Tom Curran, CSN) and a national culture one (Alex Reimer, Forbes), mix them together, stir, and reach your own conclusion. Throw in a few (dozen) expletives and you’ve got mine. Moving on, let’s get to the important stuff: what happened on Monday night at Gillette.

Boss man Mike D provides his reaction here, with a rightfully so, additional focus on the defense. He opines:

The energy was just different from the Patriots defense in this game. They played hungry, with something to prove. They had just two sacks but the pressure was consistent and disruptive. They worked well in conjunction with each other.

I can honestly say I did not realize they had just two sacks and was quite frankly a bit surprised. It could just be me, but did it not feel like they were all over Flacco the whole game? He certainly didn’t look comfortable back there, never coming close to anything resembling a rhythm or flow. Brady threw for 406, and sans a bad interception, played a very close to perfect game. Blount punished defenders early and often, mostly having his way on the ground. As crazy as it sounds, I’m happier about what we saw on the other side of the football. The front seven were flying around, dropping into coverage, rushing, alternating assignments the next play. Forget the blocked field goal (which was absolutely brilliant), McLellin was cracking people throughout. Brown, Branch, and Valentine were excellent plugging up the middle, Butler and the secondary played with an edge and physicality that we hadn’t consistently seen to this point. Listen, I’m not crowning them the units of the early 2000s or anything, but Patricia’s bunch seem to be getting it together at the perfect time. I feel a lot more confident in this group than I did at this time a month ago, that’s for sure.

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 15 at Denver Broncos

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We’re going back. It’s no secret that Denver has been a house of horrors for Tom Brady and the Patriots. Three times has Brady’s playoff run ended in Denver (2005, 2013, 2015), more than any other away stadium or team. The annoying thing about Denver, and this was especially true in both losses there last year, is that they’re fluky weird games, with Gostkowski’s missed extra point still looming large over last year’s season ender.

Now the Broncos are not the same team that won the Super Bowl this year. Free agency departures, retirements and injuries have depleted a team that rode their impenetrable defense to a championship last season, despite an offense that was the least lethal to ever raise the Lombardi Trophy.

This is an important game for so many reasons. The tangible — that the Patriots can clinch a first round bye with a win and give themselves options to rest some key players down the stretch. The intangible — getting the Denver monkey off their back and potentially eliminating the Broncos from playoff contention in the process.

Yes, there would be a lot to feel good about after a Patriots win this Sunday, and it appears that the Broncos are primed to get throttled, IF, the Patriots can finally just play their game in the Mile High Stadium.

What the Pats need to do to put a nice big bow on the 2016 season before turning their sites to the playoffs in the gameplan…

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Patriots vs Ravens Film Review: Defense Edition

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This was the game by the defense that I’ve been waiting a long time for. Were there some mistakes? Of course. But overall, the Patriots defense played with their best intensity of the season and demonstrated why they can be as good as they want to be when they play within the system.

The big headline coverage-wise in this one was a shift to a lot more zone coverage, with a lot of special attention being paid to the middle of the field as I noted was a critical area in my gameplan article. Early in the game the Patriots played a lot of Cover 2 zone, which had safeties over the tops of the wide receivers and a flood of three zone players right in the flat.

They mixed in some man coverage, but this was primarily a zone game as they shifted to more Cover 3 in the second half. It was a good lesson for me from a football study perspective. I’ve always believe man coverage is the only way to go in today’s NFL but this game showed how effective zone can be when it’s executed well.

We’re finally seeing what we expected this season. An amoeba defense that can flood the line of scrimmage and have any number of guys drop or rush. Maybe they just needed some time but everyone is working together now and the results were obvious. Boil it down to the simple “Do Your Job” because that’s what everyone on the Patriots defense was doing.

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