PatsPropaganda

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We constantly hear how belichick is a situational coach, how does that help prepare the team for the upcoming game and why has the defense been average or below average the past couple of years(excluding this year)

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Wow, that’s quite a question and I’ll try to keep my response under 10 pages.

Let’s start with situational coaching. If you’ve ever played football you know that the game is a lot more chaotic when you’re on the field than when you’re watching from the stands. You’re constantly in a state of motion, getting play calls, executing the play, then getting back to the huddle. Often times it’s easy to lose perspective on what the situation is -how much time is left, what the score is, are we playing safe or aggressive?

Belichick’s style really prepares his team for this by constantly throwing new and different situations at his players in practice. The net result is a team that almost always does the right thing, even when strange and unexpected things happen. Usually, the Patriots are calm among that chaos and that has won them their fair share of football games.

He also aids this by finding smart football players, who can think on a macro level, rather than just those who get the play call, run the play, move to the next play.

Now, because this is how they build and craft their defense, it’s tough judge them based on straight-up stats, so I prefer to look at Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings, which measure play-specific efficiency. Here are the Pats’ defensive rankings over the last four seasons:

  • 2009: 14th
  • 2010: 21st
  • 2011: 30th
  • 2012: 15th
  • 2013: 8th (thru 7 weeks)
It’s ironic that the Pats made the Super Bowl in 2011 playing such ugly defense, but I don’t think the “situational” coaching style really had much to do with it.
It’s more related to the defensive turnover from the dynasty defense. I see 2009 as Year Zero, but there were still some veteran pieces in place.
So in 2010 and 2011 it was more about the lack of talent than anything. There were a lot of young players and to Belichick’s credit, he stuck with them and now it looks like things are paying off. Plenty would’ve loved him to mortgage everything on free agency, but he built through the draft and has really had a great track record since 2010.
But what they lacked in those years started at the defensive end and safety positions as I see it. Ninkovich was still getting experience and they didn’t have Chandler Jones yet. McCourty was still at corner and there was no calm leading presence on the back end in those years. 
They lacked pass rush on the edges and protection on the back end. Thus they were lit up through the air. A lot.
Even with that lack of talent, the Pats still won plenty of games playing good situational football. They made the plays they had to make to win games, even if they gave up a lot of yards.
It just goes to show if you have smart players that make good decisions in critical moments, it can be worth nearly as much as pure physical talent. Now that they have more overall talent we’re seeing the perfect union of the two critical aspects of a great defense and thus, the future looks very bright for the Patriots defense.
I have often wondered if the rebuild could be completed fast enough to offset Brady’s eventual decline and right now it looks like it can and will.