PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

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It’s hard to determine how to divy up the blame pie for Tom Brady’s massive decline this year. Is his lack of accuracy related to the fact that he doesn’t trust his new receivers? Is it related to age? An injury to his hand? How much do we blame the new receivers and how much do we blame Brady himself? What we do know is that Brady’s year-to-year decline is one of the biggest for any quarterback in history.
For now, let’s just look at quarterbacks since 1989 using DVOA ratings. After Week 8, Brady’s DVOA rating stands at -16.6%. That’s actually lower than replacement level, which is astonishing for a player who has led the league in passing DVOA three times and passing DYAR four times. As of right now, Brady’s drop of over 50 percentage points in DVOA trails only Brett Favre’s final season in Minnesota as the biggest year-to-year drop in DVOA for a quarterback with at least 300 passes in two straight seasons.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Week 8 DVOA Ratings

Sorry if this made you throw up in your mouth a little. Here’s the thing, I’m still not really that worried about Brady. Look at what he’s had to work with in the first half. His protection has been spotty at bad times. His best receiving back played one game (and dominated). He essentially had NO tight end. The best free agent has missed five games.

Essentially Brady has had to get by without much help from anyone. But things have already started to change. Gronk and Amendola are back and getting up to speed. The protection will be better as it always is. Vereen should be back after the bye.

Let’s just say it wouldn’t be crazy to see a huge turnaround in Brady’s stats this year and a lot of these “Has Brady Lost It” articles will look pretty silly.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/its-hard-to-determine-how-to-divy-up-the-blame/

What is Belichick’s influence on the offense given how he is a situational coach and a defensive guy and then brady and mcdaniels are already taking care of the offense

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I think it’s pretty clear that BB gives a little more attention to the defense and that he trusts TB and JM with the offense. That said, he oversees it all and all the major game-planning certainly has BB’s blessing and handprints all over it.

I usually refrain from specifically criticizing offensive coordinators. There’s just too much that we as fans don’t know. But at the same time I think there needs to be some serious evaluation of some of the Pats’ method of attack this season. 

I think they’re getting caught thinking they’re still the 2010-2012 Pats and trying stuff like the quick snap runs, which, haven’t been too successful.

I think the Pats are still looking for their identity on both sides of the ball. What can they hang their hat on? What are their best personnel packages? Now that they’re getting healthy, it’s time to figure it out.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Week 8 DVOA Ratings

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FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Week 8 DVOA Ratings

Lots of Pats stuff in here, we’ll get into the ratings in another post. Interesting breakdown of Tom Brady’s down season as well.

The idea of the Patriots as the most consistent team in the league seems ridiculous, because they seem so inconsistent from drive to drive. Nonetheless, the Patriots may not be the enigma that everyone thinks they are. The Patriots are not suddenly a bad team. They seem to be a slightly above-average team that plays most games slightly above-average. Maybe the reason the Patriots are so hard for people to judge is that their performance this year is so different from what we’ve come to expect from the Patriots in recent years. Their defense ranks sixth in DVOA and has been the most consistent in the league (variance of only 2.0%) despite all the injuries in recent weeks. The offense, on the other hand is just 20th in offensive DVOA (12th in variance). Even stranger, the offense is being carried in part by the running game. The Patriots rank 12th in rushing DVOA but 24th in passing DVOA.

Do you think it is possible to have an aggressive defense while still being a situational defense

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Not really. There are times to be aggressive like we saw this weekend and that was really because the situation (wind, shitty o-line) called for it. But I don’t think you can have an all-the-time attacking defense and still be situational because there are more times when just playing sound coverage can get the job done.

It relates back to the talent level. Ideally any football team wants to generate pressure with their front four, but you need talent to do that. When you don’t have talent you have to get creative to generate pressure.

Then it just comes down to simple math. The more guys you send to attack, the more holes you open up in your defense. If your blitz doesn’t get to the quarterback in time, you’re going to give up a big play.

So Belichick is really more of a conservative coach. Content to give up first downs in the middle of the field as long as they’re only at a 4-6 yard clip. By forcing continued execution it often leads to turnovers. 

The problems occur when the opposing offense doesn’t turn the ball over. Then the Pats lose.

But here’s the thing I could never resolve from all this. You have the Patriots bend-don’t-break, that would give up a lot of yards and usually stiffen in the red zone. On the flip side of the coin you had the 2010-2012 Patriots’ offense, that would pick up yards at a 4-6 yard clip consistently, but rarely attacked downfield.

So their defense’s job is to prevent explosive plays, but their offense lacked the ability to make explosive plays. Just an interesting dichotomy that makes me think Brady must’ve just shredded the Pats defense in practice from 2010-2012. Now it’s probably the other way around.

We constantly hear how belichick is a situational coach, how does that help prepare the team for the upcoming game and why has the defense been average or below average the past couple of years(excluding this year)

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Wow, that’s quite a question and I’ll try to keep my response under 10 pages.

Let’s start with situational coaching. If you’ve ever played football you know that the game is a lot more chaotic when you’re on the field than when you’re watching from the stands. You’re constantly in a state of motion, getting play calls, executing the play, then getting back to the huddle. Often times it’s easy to lose perspective on what the situation is -how much time is left, what the score is, are we playing safe or aggressive?

Belichick’s style really prepares his team for this by constantly throwing new and different situations at his players in practice. The net result is a team that almost always does the right thing, even when strange and unexpected things happen. Usually, the Patriots are calm among that chaos and that has won them their fair share of football games.

He also aids this by finding smart football players, who can think on a macro level, rather than just those who get the play call, run the play, move to the next play.

Now, because this is how they build and craft their defense, it’s tough judge them based on straight-up stats, so I prefer to look at Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings, which measure play-specific efficiency. Here are the Pats’ defensive rankings over the last four seasons:

  • 2009: 14th
  • 2010: 21st
  • 2011: 30th
  • 2012: 15th
  • 2013: 8th (thru 7 weeks)
It’s ironic that the Pats made the Super Bowl in 2011 playing such ugly defense, but I don’t think the “situational” coaching style really had much to do with it.
It’s more related to the defensive turnover from the dynasty defense. I see 2009 as Year Zero, but there were still some veteran pieces in place.
So in 2010 and 2011 it was more about the lack of talent than anything. There were a lot of young players and to Belichick’s credit, he stuck with them and now it looks like things are paying off. Plenty would’ve loved him to mortgage everything on free agency, but he built through the draft and has really had a great track record since 2010.
But what they lacked in those years started at the defensive end and safety positions as I see it. Ninkovich was still getting experience and they didn’t have Chandler Jones yet. McCourty was still at corner and there was no calm leading presence on the back end in those years. 
They lacked pass rush on the edges and protection on the back end. Thus they were lit up through the air. A lot.
Even with that lack of talent, the Pats still won plenty of games playing good situational football. They made the plays they had to make to win games, even if they gave up a lot of yards.
It just goes to show if you have smart players that make good decisions in critical moments, it can be worth nearly as much as pure physical talent. Now that they have more overall talent we’re seeing the perfect union of the two critical aspects of a great defense and thus, the future looks very bright for the Patriots defense.
I have often wondered if the rebuild could be completed fast enough to offset Brady’s eventual decline and right now it looks like it can and will.

Patriots Trade for Defensive Line Help

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The Patriots traded for Isaac Sopoaga today and it’s a move that makes a lot of sense with Vince Wilfork done for the season and Tommy Kelly still recovering from a knee injury. 

In recent seasons, the Pats have liked to have two big defensive tackles at the center of their defense, but without Kelly and Wilfork they had no space eaters left to do so. Sopoaga will give their run defense a boost, but count on Jones and Vellano to continue to play a vital part of the rotation.

Sopoaga is 32 and has two more years on his deal. Solid move that definitely improves the team.