Lots to like in this game even though the Cowboys were without Tony Romo, Dez Bryant and others.
The headline has to be the heavy dose of press man coverage. Everyone thought this would be a zone defense after Revis and Browner walked but that has not been the case and personally I’m thrilled. You just can’t play zone defense and expect to stop a good QB.
But especially nice was to see the defense being aggressive against a lesser quarterback, when they’d often just sit back in zone and wait for mistakes against these kind of guys in the past.
Here are some general observations on a small sample size:
Logan Ryan
was the regular CB with Butler, but in sub packages he came off for Brown in the slot and Coleman in the outside. I think this might be because Ryan is probably the best against the run of that group, but is more limited in coverage perhaps. Coleman continues to get chances and looks like he belongs. He’s feisty and was one of my favorite Patriots fits coming out in this draft.
Dominique Easley
continues to impress me more against the run than the pass, which isn’t really what we expected. He’s just so fast off the ball that he has an instant leverage advantage on an offensive lineman looking to pull. He’s just so disruptive in those situations (see below), but when he’s straight-up pass rushing he wasn’t really winning, at least not like Sheard did a couple times.
Malcom Brown
had his best game as a pro, holding strong at the point of attack but also being active on the move. It’s a good sign that he’s starting to show positive signs. He tied with Branch for leading defensive tackle snaps with 23.
Jamie Collins was everywhere in this one. Hard to pick out just one play illustrating how he dominates in every facet, but look at the screen shot below and know Collins makes that tackle for a 3-yard gain. Could’ve gone for 30 if he wasn’t so athletic in beating blockers.
McCourty was used on Witten and they doubled him with Jordan Richards quite a few times as well. Not really as outside the norm for McCourty as I might’ve thought. We saw him manning up tight ends last year, with Antonio Gates one example that comes to mind.
I don’t want to keep hammering a guy coming back from injury but didn’t see much out of Mayo in his 29 snaps. If Hightower is out for a while I have real concerns about who’s going to be next to Collins. Mayo still has okay speed, but is generally pretty easily blocked and doesn’t really make much of an impact. Maybe it’s just being next to Collins anyone would look average. But there’s just a lack of strong direct force from Mayo, if that makes sense. Not so much tentative, just a step behind where he was and unable to navigate the wash.
Jabaal Sheard is such a beast I’m not sure how much longer he’s playing less than Ninkovich. He’s the perfect weapon for this defense and if you want to talk about offsetting the loss of Revis, he’s your guy.
It was nice to see the defense go down to the end of the game playing man coverage and not sitting back in prevent zone like they often have in the past. They weren’t quite as aggressive and mixed in some Cover 2, but still had a majority of man coverage concepts.
I keep coming back to one thing – why haven’t the Patriots committed like this to pass rush about five years ago? Now we’re seeing more and more defensive personnel with one or even no defensive tackles. Just the LBs and LB/DE hybrids lining up all over the place and causing havoc getting to the QB. This is why the defense is better now, I don’t care who the corners are.