The Patriots came away with yet another relatively easy victory Sunday, this time dispatching the Bills thanks to another stellar performance by Tom Brady and the offense. The defense held its own after a discouraging opening drive, but issues remained throughout the game that have been evident throughout the season. While Malcolm Butler is playing at an Pro-Bowl level, the player across from him, which has rotated between Logan Ryan and Eric Rowe, has been subpar at best. Looking at the Patriots roster, the second corner spot seems to be the teams biggest weakness, and it seems to be the one spot that has the potential to cripple the Patriots when the playoffs come around.
The most surprising thing about the struggles in the secondary is that the unit was ranked third coming into this season by Pro Football Focus, trailing only Denver and Arizona, and ranking ahead of units like the Legion of Boom in Seattle and the star-studded secondary in Minnesota. The Patriots secondary was ranked so high in large part due to the play of Logan Ryan last season, who actually ranked ahead of his teammate Butler in 2015. Ryan finished as PFF’s 11-best corner in the league, with Butler coming in as the 24th ranked corner. Remember, last season Ryan effectively shut down the likes of Deandre Hopkins and Demaryius Thomas, and seemed to be trending towards the elite status that Butler has reached this season (Butler is PFF’s 4th-best corner this season, with a 86.7 grade). Instead, he has gone in the opposite direction, getting beat time and time again, leading to a benching in Week 7 against the Steelers, and getting replaced by Eric Rowe in the starting lineup this past Sunday.
So far this season, Ryan has allowed a 63% completion percentage when targeted, giving up 33 catches for 403 yards on 52 targets, allowing 12 yards per catch. He has also given up two touchdowns. The past three weeks Ryan has been even worse, allowing a completion percentage of 70%, and averaging 16 yards per catch when in coverage. His performance this season is so far removed from his outstanding play in 2015 that has regressed from 11th-ranked corner last season to 59th in 2016.
Unfortunately, Rowe has been just as bad, if not worse, than Ryan has been thus far. Rowe ranks 70th in PFF’s cornerback rankings, and in his three games so far this season (Rowe was inactive in weeks 1-5 due to injury) Rowe has allowed 9 completions for 101 yards on 16 targets, a TD, and three flags (two defensive pass interferences and one illegal contact penalty, all coming against the Bills). Quarterbacks have a 56% completion percentage when targeting him, and he has allowed an average of 11 yards per catch.
Rowe replaced Ryan in the second half against Pittsburgh after Ryan was beaten badly several times, despite covering Cobi Hamilton, the Steelers fourth-string receiver. Rowe performed well enough in the second half in Pittsburgh to be given the starting spot this past Sunday, but relinquished that role in less than a half, allowing three catches for 54 yards on just six targets, and committing two key defensive pass interference penalties. He did not see the field again until the final drive of the game, with Justin Coleman taking over the third corner spot as Rowe looked on from the sidelines. Coleman is usually the Patriots nickel corner, but was on the field in the second half even when the Patriots were not in the nickel, showing that he had leap-frogged Rowe on the depth chart, if only for the half.
This seems to be the only major concern for a Patriot team that appears destined for another deep playoff run, and it will be very interesting to see who ends up starting across from Malcolm Butler when the Patriots return from their bye in Week 10. Hopefully, the benching was a wake-up call of sorts for Ryan, who actually did play pretty well coming off the bench Sunday (allowed just one catch for 13 yard on his three targets). Luckily, in their next five games, the Patriots play relatively anemic offenses (vs. Seattle, @ San Francisco, @ New York, vs. Los Angeles, vs. Baltimore), so hopefully the pair are able to right the ship, and shore up the sole worrisome position on the roster.
