Remember Gary Guyton?
One of the major influences on why I started blogging about the Patriots was to see how Bill Belichick would execute a full defensive turnover with absolute power. How many times in football history has a coach had full control to rebuild a defense from scratch? Few have that kind of longevity, and while Tom Brady has been Belichick’s constant on the offensive side of the ball, the defense barely resembles what it looked like just five short years ago.
Despite the record-setting 2007 season, the Patriots defense was getting old and slow. A lot of their deficiencies were covered by their unstoppable offense. By 2008 the cracks were even more apparent, especially without Asante Samuel. That offseason things went into full turnover mode.
Mike Vrabel was traded. Rodney Harrison, Rosevelt Colvin, and Tedy Bruschi retired. Richard Seymour was traded. And just like that, the dynasty defense was no more.
Jerod Mayo and Vince Wilfork were the cogs to build around, but the holes around them from 2009-2012 were glaring. It was a revolving door in the secondary, where no cornerback or safety seemed to stick outside of Devin McCourty. Gary Guyton and Tully Banta-Cain played prominent roles. Street free agents were regularly making starting appearances. It was ugly.
By the grace of Tom Brady, the Patriots offense was just so good, the team glided through this down period of having a terrible defense. They gave up a ton of yards and more big plays than anyone else from 2009-2012, and were near the bottom of the league on third down. They still won 49 games because they forced turnovers and had Brady.
In retrospect, those defenses were untalented and terrible. That’s what happens when all your talented veterans retire. You try to replace them through the draft and with surgical free agent signings, but it takes time to build a championship defense, just as the mortar for the dynasty defense was first being laid in 1996.
Through 2011, 2012, 2013 the Patriots continued to find the pieces they needed. Rob Ninkovich developed into a stalwart edge player. McCourty settled into the free safety spot, settling the back end of the defense for the first time since Rodney Harrison retired. Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower arrived in 2012, followed by Jamie Collins in 2013. Patrick Chung spent a year with the Eagles only to return and develop into one of the best strong safeties in the game.
Cornerback was always a position the Pats undervalued and they’ve had more turnover there than anywhere else on the defense. In 2012 it seemed to click for them that they needed to play more physical press man defense. Look back in 2010 and 2011 and you’ll see zone-heavy coverage schemes that were lit up by just about every quarterback they faced.
First the Pats traded for Aqib Talib, then brought in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, until Malcolm Butler emerged, giving the Pats a young corner they could pay next to nothing while handling matching up with the oppositions quickest receiver. The corner depth behind Butler has grown exponentially compared to where it used to be.
Now it’s a collection of scrappy man corners who make up for any lack of size with incredible fight. There wasn’t a single cornerback on the roster like that just five years ago. Now the Pats will have to cut guys who might’ve started for them back then.
Belichick’s 2.0 defense is now hitting their prime. They have a ton of questions for next offseason, including major free agents at a number of defensive positions, but for this season, they’re ready to lead the Patriots to a Super Bowl. They have experience and depth at all the right spots. There are playmakers at every level, and the talent level compared to 2010 or 2011 is staggering.
Put this defense side-by-side with the 2003/2004 defenses and 2016’s isn’t giving up much in any spot.
Now is the time to cash in on multiple Super Bowls, because it won’t be long before this great defense will have to weather the storm for a new Patriots quarterback much longer than four games.
You could parse it out further with this as defense 4.0. The 2001 team was pieced together with a lot of free agents and the addition of Big Sea. That defense was average at best even though history lumps them in with the next group. The 2003-2007 D was really Belichicks first vision realized by adding to the great core from the Tuna days with Wilfork, Warren, Harrison, Colvin, Wilson et al. 2008- 2012 was the tear down with the Adalias Thomas miss and the mass exodus of the championship team. With Brady keeping the team at double digit won totals Belichick pulled the trigger to cash in on all the accumulated assets from years of fleecing fellow GMs and bringing in the new core of Hightower, Collins, McCourty, Chung, Butler and Jones. If Brady indeed gives 3 more upper echelon years then Belichick’s gamble and patience will have paid off. Mayo was the causality in all this. He deserved a better team around him.
Great comment! Yeah I view 2001 a little more as an anomaly of having those core pieces in place like McGinest, Law, Milloy, Hamilton, Bruschi and then hitting the jackpot in free agency with Vrabel, Phifer and the draft with Seymour (and Light on offense). All just kind of gelled at the right moment with that team. I think there’s even a quote that Belichick couldn’t believe they won the Super Bowl with that team. But in 2003 on you really saw what they were capable of once BB got all his pieces into position.
It was such a great ride in 2001 but they had no business winning in 2001. Punt return and blocked FG TD against Pitt, the snow slowing down the Raiders, and just playing a tough, mistake free superbowl against an “unstoppable” offense. Basically, what the Giants did to us in 2007. So unexpected one of my favorite sports experiences.
Broke th real curse -Len Bias and thin 15 years of pain than followed in Boston, love the page and the annual review. Keep up the great work.