One of the driving forces behind this blog was my realization in 2008 that Bill Belichick was going to have a chance to construct another whole defense from scratch. Few Coach/GMs have the kind of longevity to attempt this kind of thing, and as old stalwarts like Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel faded from New England, it was up to Belichick to build another defense that could help win Tom Brady another Super Bowl or three in the second half of his career.
2007 was the Dynasty Defense’s last hurrah. In 2008, they were old and slow and by the 2009 offseason Belichick went into full “blow it up” mode. Richard Seymour was traded, Bruschi and Harrison retired, Vrabel was shipped to Kansas City. Surprisingly the 2009 defense was actually still pretty good statistically — 12th on third down, 6th in PPG, 14th overall in DVOA. But with Ray Rice‘s first-play 83-yard touchdown run in the 2009 AFCWC which kickstarted a thorough Raven domination, it was clear the Pats still had a ways to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_-Ti84l4Ek
2010 and 2011 were the low points, and the Pats still went 14-2 in ’10 and almost won the Super Bowl in ’11, despite ranking 32nd and 28th respectively on third down, and 21st and 30th in defensive DVOA. The arrival of Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower, along with the acquisition of Aqib Talib which signaled a move to more man coverage concepts in 2012, were the first signs of real progress.
2016 was supposed to be a culmination of the years of rebuilding the defense. But when Dominique Easley, Chandler Jones and Jamie Collins were all shipped out of town it lowered expectations of this being the year the Patriots’ defense cemented their place in the top-10 of NFL defenses.
Early in the season, with Collins still in the mix, the defense seemed to regress. They failed to force a turnover in six of their first 10 games, hovering near the bottom of every important defensive category, save one, the most important — points. They bottomed out against the Seahawks, allowing sustained scoring drives on seven of nine Seattle possessions.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs. The Patriots defense just kept getting better every week. Yes, some shitty opponents certainly had something to do with it, but after 2010 and 2011, when plenty of shitty opponents still moved the ball with ease, it’s hard to complain about the Pats shutdown second half to the season.
The Patriots would finish 1st in PPG (15.6), 7th on 3rd down, 9th in Red Zone, Belichick’s holy triumvirate of defensive stats . From Football Outsiders DVOA, which measures efficiency adjusted for opponents, they had their best run defense under Belichick (4th). Those are the good stats.
The bad ones? 23rd in pass DVOA, 16th overall in defensive DVOA, and 28th in takeaways.
It’s a strange dichotomy. By some measurements this is the best Patriots defense we’ve seen since the Dynasty days. By others, it’s one of the bottom five defenses under Belichick. So there’s little question why the Patriots defense is being so hotly debated right now.
As someone who has followed this ups and downs of the defensive rebuild and wrote extensively about them over the last decade, here’s what I can tell you — despite their slow start, this is a solid and extremely well-coached defense more than capable of stopping any opponent en route to the Super Bowl. They’ve gotten better every week, and while that can be a cliche, with this defense it’s absolutely true.
Perhaps the biggest key is how fundamentally sound they are. They tackle well and ever since the Seattle game have all played within the system, aka Doing their jobs. Those traits translate to solid defense regardless of who the opponent is.
Who knows how the playoff games will unfold. That’s what’s so hard about trying to judge the quality of a defense from their stats and who they’ve played. I always say it takes a perfect game to beat the Patriots, especially in Foxborough, but it’s not impossible to imagine a turnover-free offensive performance against them where they’re picked apart underneath on long scoring drives that limit Tom Brady’s time of possession.
But even if the games do unfold that way, this Patriots defense has demonstrated all season that they’ll play a full 60 minutes, put the bad drives behind them and often have a knack for the big play when they need it most. Add in a world-class gameplan from Belichick and we just might see the defense finally live up to the preseason hype we believed. They’ve been building to it the entire season.
