Really hard to compare Romeo Crennel, Dean Pees and Matt Patricia, because defenses are so much more tied to what offenses are doing.
The biggest thing is just the overall talent level on the defense. Crennel had a veteran group in their prime. Pees got that group for end of their run, and squeezed every last bit of play out of them.
Now Patricia has basically had to re-build the defense, obviously with the help of Belichick. But I think that Crennel and Pees had it a little easier given the talent levels they had to work with.
While there has been plenty of evolutions schematically, as discussed yesterday, with the nickel defense essentially becoming the new base. Crennel could roll out his 34 for most of the game, rotating the linebackers a bit between Roman Phifer and Ted Johnson depending on what needed to be stopped. Otherwise, it was a veteran crew who could not only disguise their intentions, but execute with physicality and win one-on-one matchups.
Now Patricia has to stop modern NFL passing games and his secondary can’t put a hand on the receivers more than five yards past the line of scrimmage.
But the defensive rebuild is a huge area of focus on this blog, and when you look at the key additions over the last few years, you can see how things are taking shape.
Major moments of the defensive rebuild
2008 – Jerod Mayo drafted.
2009 – Rob Ninkovich, Kyle Arrington added via FA.
2010 – Brandon Spikes, Devin McCourty drafted.
2011 – Ras-I Dow.. nevermind…
2012 – Chandler Jones, Dont’a Hightower, Alfonzo Dennard drafted, Steve Gregory signed as FA, Aqib Talib traded for.
As you can see the core they’ve put together over the last few years should really be coming together this season. I have high expectations, it’s a similar time frame now as it was in 2001 for Bruschi, McGinest, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, etc.
