PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

devin mccourty

Spikes’ Interception Was Patriots – Jets Turning Point

by

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.

by

Patriots Defensive Back Snap % Graph

Interesting trends to note…

Butler and Page get increased playtime against Jets, eats into Sanders and Chung’s snaps. Chung had been the nickelback replacement for Jonthan Wilhite but Butler was inserted against the Jets and did a pretty good job. We’ve noticed all along that straight up coverage is not Chung’s strength and he was picked on against the Colts and Lions.

Meriweather, Arrington and McCourty remain the ironmen of the defensive backs, playing almost every snap.

Chung and Page’s return to health has also taken every snap from Sergio Brown.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/patriots-defensive-back-snap-graph-interesting/

Some new twists for the New England Patriots defense

by

It’s hard to know where to start when breaking down the New England Patriots dismantling of the New York Jets, so to kick it off here are some observations from the Pats defensive side of the ball.

The first player I’d like to talk about is Darius Butler who suddenly emerged as the teams nickelback last night. Patrick Chung had been playing that spot in place of Jonathan Wilhite, but it was not his strength. Putting Butler in forced Chung back into a rotation at safety, meaning less playing time for him.

Jarrad Page also suddenly emerged, making it a four man rotation at safety. I will need to look more closely at how exactly all of them were used, the snap counts should give some insight into it. Page looked like he was playing fast and physical last night, we forget that he was steadily getting more and more play time before getting hurt.

Dane Fletcher saw time as a 3-4 OLB for the first time this season. It wasn’t his traditional pass rush/spy role. This sheds a little more light on the decision to let Shawn Crable go. I’ve always been curious to see if Fletcher could play OLB in the base defense, it seems like he has the length and smarts needed. Hopefully he will continue to improve, but chalk another undrafted rookie up on Bill Belichick’s success list.

Devin McCourty… what can you say. I don’t think it’s too early to say we’ve finally got an elite corner. Partner him with Leigh Bodden next year and I guarantee this unit won’t be ranked last in anything. But that’s next year, for now McCourty is really the difference maker in the secondary.

Brandon Spikes’ interception is a huge sign of progress. Had he bit on the play action it would’ve been a touchdown. Instead he stayed in his zone and Sancheesy threw it right to him.

To think that this defense held the Jets to 3 points without Ty Warren, Leigh Bodden, Mike Wright, Myron Pryor and Jonathan Wilhite… wow.

More to come later…

“Bent Pinky” Baldinger Rains On The Patriots Parade

by

I can’t really argue with what Brian Baldinger writes in this article where he basically says the Patriots just aren’t good enough defensively to win the AFC East this year. The struggles of the young defense have been well chronicled here.

But the fact is that despite all the rankings that say the Pats D sucks, they are just one home win away from the inside track of not only the AFC East but a first round playoff bye.

So basically Baldy’s saying the Patriots will not win this game, because if they do pretty much everything he says in this article will be out the window. Of course, the ‘how deep can the Pats go in the playoffs’ part of it will remain to be seen.

The thing is that we have seen glimpses here and there throughout the season. The big interceptions against the Chargers, Colts and Lions are easy to recount. But this Patriots did force the vaunted Ravens offense to punt THREE times in overtime.

There is potential for this team, but still the pundits harp on how much the Patriots require a dominant edge rusher. While this indeed could be the final piece that gets put into place in the 2011 draft, we still don’t know for sure what Jermaine Cunningham’s ceiling is. He may not have sacked Peyton Manning but he got just enough pressure in a key moment to force an inaccurate throw that James Sanders picked off and sealed the game.

It’s hard to always quantify a defense by the statistics. Much of the Patriots defensive stats are skewed due to them having to defend sizable leads. I know everyone hates the “prevent” defense (which is really more of a soft zone that funnels plays to the middle of the field to keep the clock running), and while it has certainly been a little hairy at times this year, the strategy has worked to the tune of 9-2.

I don’t argue that Baldinger is wrong in his assessment of the Patriots defense, I only say it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they put it together in the next five games. As Michael Lombardi says, young teams can practice hard and improve over the course of the year. If that’s true then we definitely haven’t seen the best of the Patriots defense yet.

by

Defensive Backs Snap Graph 11/17

What can we determine from what we see here?  Sergio Brown and Patrick Chung ate into James Sanders’ play time a bit this past weekend. Chung played a lot of nickel corner at the expense of Jonathan Wilhite. Brown came on the field before Wilhite did as well. Not sure what this is a reflection of, especially since Wilhite looked okay against the Browns. 

McCourty/Meriweather/Arrington don’t leave the field and I suspect Chung might be the same way if he wasn’t cramping/coming back from an injury.

Excel made a good choice in assigning Darius Butler’s line the color brown, we have no reason to suspect that he’ll get back into a heavy playtime rotation any time soon. That of course is unless the Pat decide to put 8 defensive backs on the field against Peyton Manning.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/defensive-backs-snap-graph-1117-what-can-we/