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Notes on PFF’s Patriots grades: Week 8 Rams

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We’ll be back later this week with a look at PFF’s cumulative grades for the season, but for now here are our observations from their grades for the Pats against the Rams.

Best Offensive Grade: Gronk 6.7

Worst Offensive Grade: Branch -1.2

Best Defensive Grade: Brandon Spikes 2.6

Worst Defensive Grade: Justin Francis -1.5

Spikes tied for his best coverage game of the season with a 1.5 (also got a 1.5 vs. Titans) and a pass defended. Though he didn’t get credit for a single stop in the run game. That’s a first.

Alfonzo Dennard had the best defensive back score with a 1.2 in coverage. He only allowed one catch on three targets.

No Patriots defender was in the red for coverage. Wow, let’s all take a breath and enjoy that one for a moment.

Off the edges and behind the right guard were the two most deadly running holes for the Pats running backs.

The Pats were credited here with 9 blitzes on 33 plays, good for 27%. This doesn’t seem as high as I expected to be, perhaps it was just the complexity of the blitzes that drew the attention. Double A gap and double edge blitzes were run a couple times.

Dan Connolly was a dominant 3.1 in run blocking and looks like he’s starting to find his groove at RG. His pass blocking was a -1.8 though.

Ryan Wendell had his best pass blocking game of the season with a 1.1.

Spikes was a surprise as the third ranked pass rusher on the day with a 1.2.

Vince Wilfork had his second best score of the season, and it was just a -0.1. More on this coming later in the week, because through half of the season Wilfork is the worst graded Patriots defender and I don’t agree with it.

Solid game for Kyle Love with a 1.3, his best score since week two. He was especially good in the run game. Positive sign for Love, we need him to start elevating his play.

Chandler Jones got his best pass rush grade of the season with a 2.8, but his 4 stops are almost more impressive.

Marquice Cole had an impressive 1.2 on the day. Hope he’s not hurt and gets more of a shot at slot corner, he really flashed some promise there.

Rams blitzed on 11 of 35 snaps and Brady ate them up when they did for 107 yards and two touchdowns.

See our full season of PFF notes here.

Notes on Football Outsiders Patriots DVOA Rankings: Week 7

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I always enjoy Football Outsider’s efficiency-based DVOA rankings and think they paint a far more telling story about how teams have performed thus far. Here are my Patriots-related notes.

Patriots Rankings:

Overall: 5th

Total Offense: 1st (Pass 2nd, Run 3rd)

Total Defense: 20th (Pass 29th, Run 4th)

Let’s just take a moment to ponder the fact that they Patriots are top five in three of the four categories, and just fourth from the bottom on pass defense.

Pass Defense Rankings (vs. specific targets):

  • vs. #1 WR = 7th
  • vs. #2 WR = 8th
  • vs. other WR = 32nd
  • vs. TE = 27th
  • vs. RB = 28th

Last year, when Devin McCourty was awful, the Pats were the worst in the NFL against #1 WRs. Now? It’s 3rd and 4th receivers that are killing them. Who does this point to? Well in sub-packages it would have to be Kyle Arrington. The coverage on TEs and RBs isn’t much better and I’d say that’s a function of not having any good coverage linebackers, though the safeties have to take some heat for that too.

This also points to the Pats getting eaten alive in the middle of the field. Is this ironic to anyone else? The Pats offense lives off of passes to the short middle and the defense has the most trouble there? Maybe even more interesting is that the Pats have very little deep ball threats on offense, and on defense they can’t stop the deep ball.

Based on the current rankings the Patriots will face every top ten defense in DVOA except #1 (Bears), #8 (Eagles), and #10 (Packers). That’s a tough slate, though the offenses “Schedule” ranking is just 15th.

Pats D is ranked 27th in “Schedule”, meaning the DVOA of the offenses they’ve faced is near the bottom of the league. Not encouraging.

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[S]ince Brady returned from his lost 2008 season, the Patriots are 12-12 in games decided by seven points or fewer. That includes 1-5 in games decided by less than a field goal, tied with the Browns for the most such losses. In the past 3½ years, the Patriots have more losses by seven points or fewer (12) than they did in Brady’s first seven seasons combined (10).

New England Patriots Blog – ESPN Boston

Frightening! Apparently the clutch gene lives in ones ACL?

https://www.patspropaganda.com/patriots-blog-48/

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: 2012 DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY RATINGS WEEK 6

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FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: 2012 DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY RATINGS WEEK 6

Here’s a look at some stats on the Pats defense, and they certainly don’t look as bad as we’ve been used to in these parts.

  • Defense – 18th overall
  • vs. Pass – 20th overall
  • vs. Run – 7th overall
  • vs. #1 WR – 3rd overall
  • vs #2 WR – 16th overall
  • vs. other WR – 30th overall
  • vs. TE – 14th overall
  • vs. RB – 27th overall

Some surprising numbers up there, especially with the Other WRs and RBs killing us the most in the passing game. Last year the Pats were 32nd against #1 WRs for most of the year, and they struggled against RBs too.

CHFF: Patriots Stat Round Up

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Football Outsiders and Cold Hard Football Facts are my two most favorite sites for football analysis. Each have their own methodology that goes beyond simple stats.

Here’s a round up of where the Pats rank in each of CHFF’s categories…

Bendability: 13th

Scoreability: 2nd

Offensive Hogs: 3rd

Defensive Hogs: 27th

Yards Per Attempt: 9th

Defensive Passer Rating: 27th

Passer Rating Differential: 16th