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Patriots Gameplan: Week 7 vs Chicago Bears

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The 4-2 Patriots are back on the road this weekend, traveling to Chicago to take on the 3-2 Bears. Bears head coach Matt Nagy is an Andy Reid disciple which could give Patriots fans a bit of a reason to worry. Nagy was the offensive coordinator for last year’s Chiefs team that tore the Pats a new one in the season opener.

Second-year quarterback Mitch Trubisky has made solid strides with 11 touchdowns and just four interceptions in leading the Bears to wins over Seahawks, Cardinals and Buccaneers before an overtime loss to the Dolphins last week. The offense is 10th in points and 4th on third down. But it’s the defense that is the more impressive side of the ball where the Bears are 4th in points against and 12th on third down.

They’re led by Khalil Mack, who will be trying to overcome an ankle injury that will limit him in this one (hopefully). The Bears defense is fast, featuring a similar package to what the Patriots’ defense often runs with two down linemen and four standing linebackers who can all run. The Bears have the number one defense in Football Outsiders.

The Pats are winless on the road this season and will be looking to get on track after having lost just once on the road in the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The Bears should provide a good challenge and have the right kind of schemes to attack the Patriots’ weaknesses.

What do the Pats have to do to move to 5-2? Here’s the gameplan.

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Patriots Film Review: Four Bad Plays

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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.

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Pats Posits: Balanced Pats Show They Can Play with Anyone

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The Patriots outlasted the Chiefs on Sunday, delivering the shootout everyone thought they saw coming with a 43-40 win. Not to toot my own horn but I feel like my gameplan was especially accurate this week, right down to the final prediction. I’ve got a good bead on the team this year and while you never want to give up 40 points, I still believe this is one of the most solid Patriots teams in recent seasons.

This is a new NFL, and all that really matters is surviving against an offense as good as the Chiefs, just as the Chiefs must’ve felt the same way about the Patriots. Defenses can’t dominate anymore. It just comes down to getting red zone stops and making the plays that matter at the end. That’s what the Patriots did last night and they continue to show great mental toughness as all Belichick teams tend to do.

The offense continues to make strides behind Sony Michel‘s running and the development of Josh Gordon. The defense had three bad plays but otherwise did everything you can ask from a defense facing such a diverse and explosive offense. The special teams were great as far as field goals go and terrible at kickoffs.

So yeah, it wasn’t all rainbows but the corrections are extremely specific and fixable. This Patriots team executed the gameplan nearly perfectly for 90 percent of the game, but even just those few plays where they messed up were enough to take the contest down to the final possession. If this team stays intact for the next few months they’re going to be right there in the hunt at the end per usual.

More on everything from the first epic regular season win of 2018 in the Posits…

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Patriots Gamplan: Week 6 vs. Kansas City Chiefs

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These are the kinds of regular season games that you live for. The 5-0 Kansas City Chiefs come to Foxboro having beaten the Patriots convincingly last season, giving the Pats an uncommon beatdown for the second time in four seasons.

Now the Chiefs might be even better, with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, the Chiefs offense has been near-unstoppable this season. Simply put, no one has stopped this offense yet. It’s been a while, but we’ve seen a similar narrative before, mostly around the 2003-2009 Colts with Peyton Manning. Many times the Colts came into Foxboro with the football world wondering how an often undermanned Patriots defense could ever stop what looked like an unstoppable offense.

Time and again, Belichick’s Patriots executed the perfect gameplans and stopped the unstoppable. But that was a generation ago, when defenses had more of a chance. Can the Patriots pull another magical defensive victory for their legend?

Here’s the gameplan…

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It’s Finally Time for Some Pats Stats

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As a rule, I try to hold off jumping into any kind of season stats as long as I possibly can. It’s too easy to overreact to a small sample size. Sometimes those early season blips become trends, both good and bad. Other times they don’t. So you just sit back for September and then in October check in to see if the numbers back up what you think you’re seeing.

Now, with a five-game sample size, it’s finally time to dip my toe into the waters of statistics regarding the 2018 Patriots. Would the results back up what I think about this offense and defense? How do the weaknesses and strengths stack up historically? It’s always fun when it comes down to finally start tallying.

There are a collection of stats that I rely on — POINTS, TURNOVERS, THIRD DOWN and RED ZONE. I also have my own Bend Don’t Break index that measures yardage- and plays-per-drive against points- and turnovers-per-drive. Altogether I feel like these stats give me the best sense of how good a team is and I’ve got them all going back to 2001, so they also provide a historical perspective.

Let’s dive in!

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Can the Pats Defense Stop KC?

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If there’s one thing that was clear from the 2017 Patriots’ bookend losses to start and end the season, it’s that they lacked athleticism at the second level to counter the explosion of versatile offensive attacks. Plays like the read option, a nightmare for a slow linebacking corps, got the Patriots off balance early and opened up the playbook to a variety of other things like the Philly Special.

This offseason my biggest goal for the team was to get more athletic at linebacker. It looked unaddressed until Ja’whaun Bentley burst onto the scene, bringing some hope that the Pats finally had a second-level player who could make plays sideline-to-sideline. But alas, Bentley was lost for the season with a torn biceps, Dont’a Hightower has seemingly lost a step, and the Pats are dead in the crosshairs of an offense that has opened the season on fire, with the same defensive weaknesses they had last year.

The Chiefs have torched the Pats before, in 2014 and the 2017 opener, but with Patrick Mahomes under center they are playing at an even better level than either of those Alex Smith-led squads. They have speed, they have quickness, they have power and they have a quarterback that can not only throw the ball to any spot on the field, but one who excels making plays outside the pocket on the move.

The Chiefs pose a myriad of problems for every defense in the league and on paper, it would appear the Pats are really lacking what they need most to slow them down. But the Pats do have the pieces in front and on the back end to win this game, even if they do give up their share of plays. Spoiler alert — they will.

Here’s a pre-gameplan feel for what the Pats need to focus on to beat Kansas City.

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