Picked-up pieces after first-half review – New England Patriots Blog – ESPN Boston

The Patriots appeared to play a decent amount of man coverage with various forms of safety help over the top. Man coverage sometimes means a defense is daring an opposing quarterback to beat it by making throws into tight windows, which Jaguars quarterback Chad Henne did. Of note, Jacksonville worked the middle of the field with horizontal crossing patterns, which work well against man coverage to create natural picks and confusion in the secondary. On one such crossing route, Cecil Shorts III took in a pass for a first down, and linebacker Dont’a Hightower appeared to pull up before the play was over. That was an odd lapse in effort. One more component to man coverage defense: It often allows an offense to single up on its blocking schemes, which is exactly what happened on a couple of chunk runs. The Jaguars were able to put a hat-on-a-hat and create space for Montell Owens. Overall, the drive was about Jacksonville executing in a deliberate manner – there wasn’t a big play, coverage bust, or costly penalty. It was just good offensive football, which has been a rarity for the Jaguars this season, and not very good defense from the Patriots.