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defense

Patriots vs. Cowboys All-22 Review: Defense Edition

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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. 

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Bill Belichick’s “Bend-Don’t-Break” Defense in One Simple Chart (2001-2015)

Much has been made over the years of Bill Belichick’s “Bend-Don’t-Break” philosophy on defense. Now it is an easy excuse when the defense gives up a ton of yards but still win the game because Tom Brady scored more points. 

But as we can see this has always been Belichick’s philosophy, even going back to 2003 and 2004, years everyone remembers as the prime of defense in New England. 

The chart above breaks down the Bend side, including yards-per-drive and plays-per-drive, and the Break side, including points-per-drive and turnovers-per-drive.

As you can see the Patriots are rarely in the top-10 for the yards (twice) and plays (three times) they give up every drive. But when it comes to the points and turnovers, they’re almost always in the top half of the league, and usually top five or ten.

Even last year’s over-romanticized defense gave up sustained drives but when it came to the red zone they closed the door.

This speaks to Belichick’s philosophy of playing disciplined but not over-aggressive defense. They might not get off the field as quickly as we all might like, but by forcing the offense to earn every yard, more often than not they get a stop or a turnover.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/bill-belichicks-bend-dont-break-defense-in-one/

Patriots All-22 Defensive Review: Jacksonville Jaguars

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In some ways the Patriots’ moves on defense this season have made my life a lot easier because of how mix-and-match they’ve gone. Yes we could keep track of every defensive front combination they’re using but that loses the forest for the trees.

The big picture view is that the Patriots defense is finally about generating pass rush with athleticism. For all the talk of how much of step backward the Pats would be taking without Revis and Browner, I think they “additions/progression” of Easley, Sheard and Malcolm Butler will actually make this a better overall defense by the end of the year.

The top photo is a third down that came against the Jaguars, but very well sums up the personnel and disguise the Patriots are using now in passing situations. Chandler Jones
 is the one with his hand down shaded over the center. Some combination of Sheard, Collins, Hightower, Ninkovich and maybe Chung are blitzing, but through three games we’ve seen just about all of the drop into coverage as well.

As I wrote in yesterday’s Posits, Easley is almost too fast off the ball sometimes. This isn’t entirely different than Jamie Collins
’ rookie year where he needed to learn to be patient because his world class athleticism would allow him to make plays that he let come to him. 

I’m not sure what the answer is with Easley other than experience and knowing when he needs to be in the backfield asap without opening up a crease in the running game.

Maybe this is too bold of a statement but I don’t see any universe where I’d rather have Darrelle Revis over Malcolm Butler
. Butler isn’t as good as Revis yet, but don’t tell him that. The sky is the limit for Butler who is constantly around the ball. He still overplays some throws at times, but how many potential interceptions could he have this season already? Six? Seven?

Jabaal Sheard has been everything we thought he could be for this defense. He allows them to pull back on Ninkovich and Chandler Jones a bit, but through three games he’s been better than both of them and played more snaps than both of them against the Jags. He’s got two sacks but has drawn four penalties.

Coverage-wise the Pats are slowly getting a bit more complex, but remain a base man defense team. Against the Jags we saw some significant steps in disguising coverages, one that almost led to a Butler interception.

Overall, it all goes back to great coverage can only help a pass rush so much, but if you had to choose between the two, you have to pick pass rush every time and it’s clear that that’s what the Patriots have done this season.

Yes, we’ve seen some all LB packages at times over the years, but it’s never been as dedicated as this. And it’s not like you can just run on them when they go light because they’re all big and tough and able to hold up against offensive linemen.

What we’re seeing right now is a defense starting to hit its prime, just as we saw in 2003, where there was the perfect mix of experience and youth with talent at all levels.

Compare the personnel now to 2010 and there is no comparison. It’s an easy talking point to say things like Tom Brady has to carry this team, but that’s really not the case anymore. Brady has overcome a full turnover on defense in 2008-2009 and now they have a number of high-round picks who are incredibly talented.

It’s time for this defense to enter the conversation as one of the most talented groups in the NFL.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: 2014 Pressure Plays: Defenses

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FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: 2014 Pressure Plays: Defenses

Very interesting rankings here, with the Patriots having a huge difference in their defense between when they got pressure and when they didn’t.

The Pats got pressure on the quarterback just 22.5% of their snaps, ranking them 25th in the league. However, when they did get pressure in those limited snaps, they were the best defense in the league. But when they didn’t get pressure they fell all the way to 27th in the NFL.

This goes back to something I find myself typing a lot – pressure can protect coverage deficiencies, but great coverage doesn’t matter without pressure. No secondary can cover forever.

In this context it seems more obvious why the Patriots have been loading up on the defensive front seven the last couple years without making any major long-term investments at cornerback (but with a sizable commitment to Devin McCourty at safety).

Getting pressure without blitzing is the key for the defense and now with guys like Easley, Hightower, Collins and others, they should have some versatile pieces to disguise where the four rushers are coming from, giving them the extra jump on the quarterback.