Potential Defensive Adjustments vs. Saints

I try not to look at any kind of stats until Week 4. It’s just too small a sample size and too easy to overreact, and that’s certainly the case this morning as I took a peak at my stats site of choice FootballOutsiders.com.

The Patriots defense? Ranked 32nd in overall defense, 30th against the pass and 32nd against the run. Nowhere to go but up, right!? I like Football Outsiders because it’s not based on one random analysts grades but by efficiency in the context of the situation. It gives us a good sense of how the team executed. And clearly the Patriots didn’t execute well at all.

By historical comparison, and again, this is just for shits and giggles at this point, here’s how those numbers stack up.

Of course things will get better, but it won’t exactly be handed to the Patriots, especially with a tough matchup against a great quarterback at his homefield this weekend. Here’s a few thoughts on some personnel switches that might help improve things and be better suited to handling Drew Brees and the Saints diverse attack.

The biggest disclaimer before this is that just simply improving communication will help the defense out by leaps and bounds. That’s not a personnel thing, that’s just a “do better” thing, and that’s always the jumping off point before suggesting personnel changes. There might not be another defense in the league that is more dependent on everyone playing within the system and “doing their job” than the Patriots, so that’s where this will all start.

As for personnel, there are two big spots to consider out of the gate — whether or not Dont’a Hightower‘s going to play and how to replace Jordan Richards at outside linebacker.

Let’s start with Hightower who I’m betting will not dress against the Saints. He’s just too important to the long game and the Patriots have shown in past seasons they’ll be careful with him. It’s stupid to force it. A slightly sprained MCL can easily be further damaged and then we’re looking at a month-plus without Hightower. Preserving him is critical to the Super Bowl hopes.

While Cassius Marsh replaced Hightower at strong side linebacker against the Chiefs, Harvey Langi was taken off the injury list this week and would appear to be a full go. Langi is a highly-regarded undrafted rookie who played a ton this preseason. He’s an active player with long arms who seemed to always get into the thick of the play despite being a but undersized. Sliding Langi into Hightower’s role, or at least on some kind of rotational basis with Marsh, could make sense.

Who knows exactly why the team thought putting Jordan Richards out there at outside linebacker was a good idea. It should’ve been Shea McClellin in that spot, illustrating the troubling lack of depth at linebacker. Because of that there are no easy fixes for Richards, especially if Hightower is out, so my suggestion would be a shift to more of a four-man down line with two linebackers for their “nickel base” defense.

I’d consider this front — Wise-Branch-Brown-Flowers, with some combination of Kyle Van Noy (critical player now) and perhaps David Harris, who I’m still not sure whether he’s lost it or they’re just trying to bring him along slowly to either preserve him or allow him to grasp the system. At least on paper, that front looks a little more versatile and a little more proven.

Down the road, when Hightower’s back, the Pats can still use a 3-3-5 nickel base as they did against the Chiefs, but my suggestion there would be to swap Van Noy into Richards’ weakside linebacker spot, and utilize Harris or Elandon Roberts in the middle. I’ll trade some lack of pass defense from the MLB for two good run stoppers and a more effective player (Van Noy) on the edge. Van Noy can also play more to his skillset on the weakside where he’ll have a bit more space to operate but can still go back and forth between rushing the passer and covering.

September is still an extension of the preseason and the team is still figuring out who can do what. Richards was back with the safeties in practice this week (though Geneo Grissom was with the safeties too), so it would appear that hopefully that little experiment is over. But new players in new spots must rise up and perhaps this week will be Harvey Langi and Dietrich Wise’s chance to prove what they can do.