An Independent Patriots Blog
My favorite kind of film to review is when the defense plays awesome and there are few plays, most of which are really good. Obviously, the performance by the Patriots defense in Super Bowl 53 certainly fits the bill.
Just look at this:
Let’s dive in as we take a look at the performance in an emotionless vacuum.
[Read more…] about Patriots Super Bowl Film Review: Defense EditionThe Patriots defense was gashed on the ground against the Dolphins, long before the final miracle play. It was another road game where the front seven was pushed around and the secondary was out of sync for some key plays.
I hoped to make this as quick and painless as possible because I knew which play was waiting for me at the end. It went how I thought. It’s just amazing how inconsistent the defense is, from game to game and especially here, from drive to drive.
[Read more…] about Patriots Film Review: Defense Edition
I was a little surprised to find this week that Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady and Julian Edelman were catching a bunch of criticism after Sunday’s win over the Vikings. Admittedly I’m a bit more of a defense guy. When the offense is on the field, it’s my time to relax and not get overly caught up in minutiae, at least on the initial live watch.
So when I saw Gronk’s game being labeled as one of the worst of his career I was scratching my head a bit. I remember him getting stopped short on third down which seemed weird and I remember the penalties, of which I wasn’t wasn’t entirely sure how good or bad they were. Edelman and Brady both had some similar moments but nothing that gave me much initial concern. The results overall were good and if anything, I felt like this looked like the Patriots offense we know and love — the scalpel — and this was the first time in a while it felt like they were playing to their strengths.
Maybe part of that was getting Rex Burkhead back and having three running backs for the first time all season. Or maybe it was just everything gelling like it usually does around this time of year.
This made an offensive film dive critical. Yesterday I banged through the defense’s film, which I loved, and today, I jumped into the other side of the ball.
[Read more…] about Film Review: Deep Dive on Gronk, Brady, Edelman vs Vikings
The Patriots defense didn’t quite turn in the near-perfect performance that I saw against Miami earlier in the year, but they were pretty close against the Vikings. Despite their road inconsistencies, no one can argue this isn’t a top-10 defense at home.
The addition of some murkiness to the third-and-longs was fun to see, as was some aggressive strategy (Cover 0 blitz!?), but those twists aren’t really what defines why these Patriots are good. They’re good because they’re once again fundamentally sound and all playing in sync. A defense that doesn’t give up big plays and doesn’t beat itself is hard to score more than 20 points. On this day they held Minnesota to just 10.
Now that we’re into December it’s not too much to expect the Pats to put their days of playing down to the competition on the road behind them. That starts with the defense, who showed perfect symmetry between coverage and pass rush to negate a talented Viking offense.
Here’s a bunch of rapid-fire thoughts on what I saw on the All-22.
[Read more…] about Film Review: Pats Defense All In Sync vs. Vikings
It took me a couple days to finally dive into the film review of the Patriots against the Titans and I can’t say I was looking forward to it. But I’ve been with this defense for a decade and I can’t shy away even when things go as badly as they did in Tennessee.
Let’s take a look at the scoring drives and what went wrong.
1st Drive – Touchdown
The first play of the game pretty much summed up what kind of day it was going to be, as the pressure collapsed around Marcus Mariota but couldn’t bring him down and he found Corey Davis on a deep in cut. The re-appearance of Keionta Davis was a bit surprising and what wasn’t surprising was how the Titans went right after him on this drive. He had the same trouble getting off blocks and making plays. Really Trey Flowers was the only one who showed any pop in this first drive. The Titans finished it off on a third down as Patrick Chung failed to get a jam at the point of the bunch set and was outrun across the field by Jonnu Smith. The rollout by Mariota forced Devin McCourty into a no-win position (see below).
[Read more…] about Film Review: Patriots Defense vs. Titans Edition
Upon further review, the defense’s performance against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers’ offense was a classic kind of win. Did they give up a few long scoring drives? Yup, three to be exact. But they kept the ground game under control, didn’t allow any big scoring plays and withstood the storm until the second half when they grabbed a turnover, forced a timely three-and-out and set the stage for the Patriots’ offense to pull away.
This is always how it seems to go when the Pats face classic QBs like Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco and Ben Roethlisberger to name a few.
Despite the Jaguars and Lions hiccups, this has been a defense reborn and they getting better every week. It’s impressive and exciting to watch. Especially the Trey Flowers part of it.
No doubt there are still improvements to be made but this is a solid defense no matter how you slice it. Here’s how the Pats D strangled out the Pack.
[Read more…] about Patriots Film Review: Defense Strangles out Pack
As I wrote in my Posits, 28 of Kansas City’s second-half points came directly as a result of four bad Patriots plays. Overall, the Patriots did a pretty solid job for most of the night containing what is one of the best offenses in the NFL. An offense that on paper looked like it should have its way with a defense that has had second-level athleticism problems for a couple seasons now.
But overall the Patriots overcame those shortcomings with great downfield coverage and consistent disruption that muddied Patrick Mahomes‘ reads and threw his timing off. Having done these film reviews for going on five years now, I’ve had a close eye on the defense and this week’s film review only reinforced for me that I just like this defense a lot better than any of the recent editions.
I don’t want to put all the blame on Matt Patricia but things just simply look more coordinated between the front and bad. The pressure is better without heavy blitzing and the secondary seems almost always in sync. Maybe they’re just thinking less and executing faster? It looks that way to me, especially in these last three games despite some problem plays.
That said, and I hate to focus on the negative, but here’s a look at those four plays — two defensive, one offensive and one special teams that marred the Patriots victory and ultimately made it a last possession game when it didn’t even really have to be. Not to say the Pats were that much clearly better than the Chiefs, but these were the anomalies to near-perfect gameplan execution.