patrick chung

When I first started this blog back in 2010, Patrick Chung was one of my favorite players. He came to New England right at the start of the defensive rebuild and for a fan base longing for another Rodney Harrison-esque enforced in the secondary, Patchung! (as I called him then) fit the mold.

Today Bill Belichick touched a bit on what has made Chung’s second stint with the Patriots so much better for the team and the player and I thought his answers were telling.

“He’s great at that; finding the ball, getting through traffic, fitting in the running game, covering in traffic. He knows all of those kinds of things. He’s really good at that,” Belichick said of Chung’s abilities near the line of scrimmage. “When we had him before he left and then he came back and you know we just weren’t able to put him into some of the positions that he should’ve been put in. We had other things to deal with. We were trying to deal with other things on the defense and we’ve been able to I would say play him in a much better way in the last three years than we did when he was here the first time. I think our utilization of him has been better. He’s been pretty much the same player but I think we’ve been able to utilize him better the last three years and he’s done a great job embracing the different responsibilities that we’ve given him, which he has a lot of different things to do on the defense within the game or from game to game.”

One of the biggest problems with Chung was that he couldn’t stay healthy. He missed 14 games from 2010-2012, when he was hitting his prime and the Patriots desperately needed help in their secondary.

[Read more…] about Belichick on Patrick Chung’s Second Stint With Patriots

I’m not sure there’s been a more interesting player path than Patrick Chung’s with the Patriots. His latest extension, the second since he returned to the Pats after a one-year stint in 2013 with the Eagles, is just another marker that Chung has lived up to his second-round draft status in 2009.

Chung was an early favorite of the blog. You can scan through all the archived posts about him here. What excited me most about him was his fiery play that would hopefully bring back the enforcer presence Rodney Harrison left behind the year before Chung arrived. Nick Caserio famously said it only took an interview at the combine to sell the Pats on Chung:

One story of note came when he recapped the team’s 15-minute interview with second-round draft choice Patrick Chung at the combine. “That made an impression,” Caserio told the crowd of about 50. “After 15 minutes, we were ready to run through a wall. It was like ‘sign me up.’ … This is one of these guys, the more you’re around him, you like what you see.”

But his first three years were marred with injuries and forgettable plays. There was the fake punt he called without BB’s approval in the 2010 AFC Divisional round that backfired. Instead of going into the locker room down just 7-3, the Jets put up another touchdown to go up 14-3.

Then there was the millimeter Chung was late for Mario Manningham’s game-winning-drive-sparking catch in Super Bowl 46.

Chung was a special teams player as a rookie, but stepped into a starter’s role in 2010, aka the Patriots worst year of pass defense of the Belichick era. In 2011 he’d play just eight games, and in 2012 he began to fall down the depth chart:

Of Patrick Chung’s 16 snaps, 14 come on the final three drives when the outcome was well in hand. He has really fallen out of favor when all players are healthy, as rookie Tavon Wilson is playing over him in the dime. Chung is essentially a special teamer and depth option at this point, which is a hard fall for the 2009 second-round draft choice who opened the year as a starter.

The defense was playing more Cover-2 in those days and Chung was moved around between two spots he didn’t excel in — free safety and slot corner. Part of that was due to injuries and Chung did his best filling in, but his game was physicality, not coverage.

Now the Patriots keep Chung mostly in the box or covering tight ends, and last year he took his game to a new level. The game is slowing down for the veteran now and he’s playing more under control which is keeping him healthy. Chung is still just 28 years old and in his prime and it seems clear the Patriots feel he’s now a player to build around. The biggest key for him will be to stay on the field and not let the injuries that plagued his early career.