Sunday night saw the Patriots defense completely and totally dominated by Russell Wilson and the Seattle offense, with the Seahawks much-maligned offensive line controlling the line of scrimmage for the majority of the game. While the Patriots defense has underperformed for the majority of the season thus far, this was a new low for the unit, who were gashed time and time again by Wilson and running back CJ Prosise.
While Seattle is not without a lack of talent on the offensive side of the ball, their offense thus far in 2016 has been a mediocre unit with one glaring weakness that nearly every team they played had been able to exploit: the aforementioned offensive line. Because of this, I pin the majority of the blame for the defenses struggles on the defensive line, who were unable to generate any kind of pressure on Wilson to affect his throws, and failed to contain Prosise, who had just 30 career rushing yards to his name prior to the contest.
To illustrate just how poorly Seattle’s offense has performed this year, it is important to see how they stack up with the rest of the league. The Seahawks ranked 23rd in total yards of offense heading into the Week 10 matchup against the Patriots, trailing perennial cellar dwellers like Cleveland and Jacksonville, and their rushing attack ranked 30th in the NFL in rush yards per game.
Despite this, Seattle had only surrendered 16 sacks in their first eight games, good for 10th-fewest in the NFL, but that statistic does not tell the real story. In Pro Football Focus’s rankings of all NFL tackles, Seattle’s starting tackles Gary Gilliam and George Fant rank 74th and 76th, respectively, out of 77 eligible players, meaning Seattle starts two tackles each ranked in the bottom four of the NFL. Their starting guards, Mark Glowinski and Germain Ifedi, rank 61st and 80th, respectively, out of 80 eligible players. While Glowinski ranks only 19th worst, Ifedi is Pro Football Focus’s worst guard in the NFL.
Despite their short-comings, this rag-tag group was still able to command the line of scrimmage with ease against the Patriots, save for a handful of plays. While the Patriots did rack up three sacks, they registered only two QB hits, and just five pressures on Wilson. However, the Patriots defense against the run was arguable worse than their performance rushing the passer, as they surrendered 96 rushing yards to the third-worst rushing attack in the NFL. Belichick and Matt Patricia shook up the defensive end rotation, benching Jabaal Sheard for Trey Flowers, the second-year pass rusher out of Arkansas.
While the units as a whole struggled, Flowers had himself a tremendous game, sacking Wilson twice to go along with a pressure and a run stuff. Unfortunately, that effort will probably be forgotten due to the play of the rest of the unit. Sheard, the man Flowers replaced in the starting lineup, was one of the main culprits.
Entering the season, Sheard was seen as the natural replacement for the production lost when the Patriots traded Chandler Jones to Arizona. He registered nine sacks in his first season in New England, and was poised for a breakout campaign in a contract year. However, he has not lived up to these expectations, and his poor play thus far caused him to be sent to the bench in favor of Flowers. Sheard played only 16 snaps Sunday night, and even in this limited time stood out as a weakness in the Patriots front four. He didn’t even come close to pressuring Wilson when he rushed, and was exposed in the run game multiples times.
Plays like the one below show some of Sheard’s mistakes Sunday night. 
He lines up on the left edge, and instead of trying to set that edge to prevent Christian Micheal from bouncing outside, he cuts to the inside, allowing Micheal to pick up eight easy yards around the right end when Sheard gets walled off by Fant. Hightower does seem to indicate something to Sheard right before the snap, but because it is difficult to tell if Hightower tells Sheard to go inside pre snap or something else, I still pin the blame on Sheard because the way Hightower played it made it seem as though he believed Sheard would be there setting the edge. In stopping the run, it is paramount to set the edge in order to force running backs seeking to get outside back towards the middle, which allows your linebackers to move downhill and find their way through the line to the ball carrier. Sheard appears to blow off this duty, allowing Micheal to breeze by him and pick up an easy first down.
On the very next play, Sheard does nearly the same exact thing, with an identical result. Again lined up on the left edge, he bursts to the inside, despite the fact that Wilson pitches the ball to the left to Micheal. The play is designed to go around the left end, and for a defense to be successful against this kind of play, the defensive end on that side needs to seal the edge and not allow the ball carrier to get outside him. Sheard fails to do this again, and Micheal takes the pitch for nine yards right through the hole Sheard created. 
However, Sheard was not the only one guilty of this. On a CJ Prosise three yard run early on in the fourth quarter, Shea McClellin basically does a mirror image of what Sheard did in the plays above. He is standing up on the left edge, and despite the fact Wilson pitches to Prosise running left, McClellin moves to the inside, allowing Prosise to slide around the end and pick up three yards. Solid plays by Logan Ryan, Donte Hightower and Pat Chung, who all fly to the ball to force Prosise out of bounds, keep the gain to only three, but the Seahawks could have gained 10 or more yards easily had the rest of the Patriots defense not played this so well. If McClellin simply does his job, Prosise is probably stuffed at the line of scrimmage for no gain setting a 3rd and long, but his lack of discipline results in the Seahawks gaining solid yardage to put themselves in a manageable 3rd down. 
I hate to call these plays selfish, but both Sheard and McClellin are certainly not doing what is best for the team in these examples, and seemed to operate more for their own gain (a chance to make a highlight-reel tackle for loss in the backfield) than making the “simple” play, staying home and setting the edge, as the rest of the defense counts on them to do. These types of undisciplined plays are some of the reasons why the Patriots had such a difficult time with the abysmal Seahawk offensive line, but it does suggest that the corrections needed in order to shore up the front four could be simpler than expected. The Patriots defensive line needs to revert back to the basics of their technique and just do their jobs, as Belichick loves to stress, and some of the problems on the line can be solved. 
Whereas the secondary certainly has issues that might not be easily fixable, the problems up front appear to have solutions that are definitely less complicated. Bottom line, the Patriots defensive line does have significant issues, but it is not time to give up on the unit, because after rewatching the game, most of what plagues them seems to be centered around returning to the basics of playing along the front four.
Nice analysis. That’s really poorly played on the edge. How were the DT’s doing?
Branch has had his moments but generally both him and Brown have been too quiet for the amount they’re playing. Brown looked better vs. Seattle, making a couple plays. Valentine’s come a long way. Still has a ways to go.