I’ve followed the Patriots defense as closely as anyone since 2007 and honestly I don’t have an easy answer. However, I can go back to what I think Belichick’s core defensive philosophies are and try to make some sense of it that way.
First, is that Belichick is a conservative defensive coach. Even with Revis/Browner/Arrington playing press man last year, they were still largely a bend-don’t break defense. They were 23rd and 21st respectively in yards-per-drive and plays-per-drive. So I do think we’ll see some schematic shift back to more zone and pattern reading. I’ll also note that I am not a fan of this however there’s one big difference between now and what we saw in 2010/2011 and that is…
The front seven. I continue to believe that if your front seven is good enough and brings enough consistent pressure, you can make just about any secondary work. So I think this year’s defense rests a lot on the key players in their prime – Hightower, Collins, Mayo, Chandler, Ninkovich, Sheard and emerging guys like Easley, Siliga, Chris Jones and rookie Malcom Brown winning up front.
I also feel a lot better about having McCourty on the back end keeping everyone on the same page.
There’s no easy answer at this point, we don’t know who will even be starting at corner. What if Malcolm Butler continues to develop from what we saw in the Super Bowl? A big if, but he could be have a huge role if he takes those next steps.
At the end of the day this defense might give up a lot of yards but if they can bring the heat on third down they’ll be fine. They’re far more talented top-to-bottom than 2010/2011 and we saw how many games those teams won. We just have to let training camp play out and hope they peak at the end of the year and make that one final play in February once again.