Patriot defense didn’t look revamped in first test – Patriots – Boston.com

We can’t really turn the page to the next game until Greg Bedard weighs in with his weekly wrap up and most of what he writes here reinforces what the PFF breakdown saw, though I tend to trust Bedard’s analysis more than the anonymous PFF guy.

Biggest takeaway? The defensive performance is concerning, and though Bedard didn’t include it here, he was wondering on twitter last night whether off-man coverage can even work any more in today’s NFL. I hope he writes more on that because it’s been a main ingredient of the bend-don’t-break, but it’s like pretty much giving up free completions against teams with any offensive presence. This quote sums it up:

The question the Patriots have to be asking themselves is: Is it time to change how we do things — at least against good teams? Because an increased talent level alone doesn’t look like it will be good enough against elite teams.