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Brandon Spikes

Spikes’ Interception Was Patriots – Jets Turning Point

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I don’t think enough is being made of this interception by Brandon Spikes. If you’ve seen any highlights from Spikes career at Florida (grainy sex videos not withstanding) you know he made plays like this routinely. It speaks volumes to his growth as a player, especially since this play was specifically designed to get him to bite on play action, which had been a huge weakness for him earlier in the year.

The Jets were driving and a touchdown would’ve cut the score to a manageable 24-10. Instead all momentum was instantly killed as Spikes pulled this interception down. Then Brady and pals marched down the field and delivered the knockout punch making it 31-3. Game over.

Spikes & Deaderick Huge Factors in Dominant Patriots Run D

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Sometimes it’s really amazing how much you miss when you’re watching the game and you’re all caught up in the emotion of it. That’s why I always enjoy watching the DirecTV shortcut to really see where the game was won and lost.

The Defensive Packages page will be updated later today, but for now here are some things that I didn’t notice while watching the game live.

There are two players who really stood out to me the second time through. The first is Brandon Spikes. He’s still a little rough around the edges at times, but most of the time he is making a huge impact in the run game. 

Let’s not forget how badly our run defense was gashed against the the Ravens in the playoffs. Now we have a defense that no team has run for a hundred yards on. Spikes has been a huge part of that. He comes downhill hard and often blows offensive lineman backwards. He’s always right in the middle of the plays and that’s exactly what you want from a Mike linebacker in the 34. It has also allowed Jerod Mayo to become a tackling machine.

The second guy I want to point out is Brandon Deaderick. We’ve seen Deaderick’s play time slowly spike over the last few weeks and after having a chance to really focus on him against the Vikings I can see why.

Deaderick is explosive and can play both end positions. He’s used as a pass rusher at times, but he looks like he’s really growing as a two-gapper. Opposing lineman always have their hands full with him and most times he’s tossing them into the backfield.

At a position where the Patriots had major question marks even before Ty Warren was lost, the ascension of Deaderick has been a much-needed boost. It has allowed the Patriots to have a healthy rotation of solid defensive lineman. Gerard Warren barely saw the field until the second half against the Vikings, but when he did he was fresh and ready to keep Adrian Peterson shut down.

Ron Brace has also been showing up well as of late, with the biggest play of his young career coming on the 4th down goalline stand. Seeing a defensive front of Brace-Wilfork-Deaderick for a good chunk of the first half should give Patriots fans optimism heading into the future.

Well That Sucked… (Patriots Defense Edition)

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I consider myself a fan of offensive football, but a student of defensive football, so I wanted to take another look at the game before posting my thoughts on the defensive performance against the Jets.

First a reminder that this is a young defense and they certainly showed it yesterday. I’m sure Darius Butler is getting killed on the Boston airwaves today, but let’s remember this is his second game starting.

With that said, this defense was carved up by Mark Sanchez yesterday. Woah, read that last sentence again. Scary, right? Well, it’s week two so let’s all relax and remember that the Jets offense is largely a veteran group. I’m not going to say that this is an excuse. The Patriots were outplayed by the Jets in all facets of the game. But you cannot be discouraged because we should see improvement as the season progresses. 

Surely everyone out there is ripping the Patriots defense a new one today. But let’s just focus on the positives and most interesting points.

1. Devin McCourty, Brandon Spikes and Jermaine Cunningham all look like they will develop into solid players. Add in Chung, Brace, and yes even Butler and you have six defensive players in their first two years who are major contributors. This will pay off in the years to come. I know it’s hard to have this perspective now.

2. Welcome to bizarro world but Ron Brace was an excellent run stopper yesterday.  Brace seems to be improving each week now, his development allowed the Pats to slide Gerard Warren over to RDE and put Mike Wright in the situational role he seems most suited for. This is an encouraging development.

3. Undrafted rookie Kyle Love is getting playing time as a backup nose tackle.

4. Anyone else notice it’s not Jonathan Wilhite getting toasted every play now? Granted Butler is, but hey maybe Wilhite is improving? 

5. Cunningham got time at ROLB and DPR (designated pass rusher) and had a heads up play to not lose contain on a reverse. He improved from last week to this week and that’s a very good sign.

6. Brandon Spikes continues to make a big difference in the run game. The Jets ran all over the Pats sub packages but that was not when Spikes was in the game. He looks fast to the ball and by buttoning up the base run defense his impact has been huge. He’s also being used as a down lineman in the goalline package which is interesting. I expect his role to continue to increase.

7. Brandon Meriweather needs to get it together. This defense badly needs him to play well. He’s primarily being used in passing situations now, and you can’t discount his regression when talking about how the Patriots defense has lacked luster. When we see him starting we’ll know he’s turned it around. Let’s remember he led the Pats D in snaps played in 2009.

8. Rob Ninkovich is playing a much bigger part in the defense than any of us would’ve predicted. His missed tackle on Ladainian Tomlinson’s long 4th quarter run was a back breaker. But Ninkopoop had been fairly strong against the run to that point.

9. Didn’t see a lot out of Patrick Chung yesterday.

10. No big plays from the defense against the Jets. No interceptions or forced fumbles. This is not a hallmark of a great defense, and something that needs to change.

The Bills have been trying to run a spread offense much of the time so far this season. They haven’t put up many points but they’ve given up less than the Pats have. This will be an excellent test for the Patriots defense because we know they’re going to attack what the Pats don’t do well at… short passes and runs against their subpackages.