If you have time, maybe you could point out those players who you believe have improved significantly over the course of the year.
- McCourty
- Cunningham (and much more than a little)
- Warren (not just the young guys)
- Brace (much)
- Deaderick (much)
- Crable (from zero, sure, but much improved)
- Chung (from weeks 1&2? Leaps and bounds as he emerged as a leader on this defense)
- Arrington
- Wilhite (eh...maybe)
- Fletcher
- Page
...and I'd probably toss Meriweather in there as well.
On the other hand, I've seen declines with Ninko, Butler, Guyton, Spikes, Tully, and maybe Wright (but he's far enough up on the performance scale to still be solid.)
Of all the "troublesome" defensive stats, only 1 really bothers me, and that's red zone defense. The rest of it is scheme based - that is, by design.
The bend but don't break philosophy creates the rest of that stuff. If your focus is to stop the big plays, you're giving up the underneath stuff by design, and then when the offense gets down to the red zone, they no longer have to take away the big play and can clamp down. Anywhere else on the field, Belichick would rather make sure the QB checks down to his shorter reads, and after that the DBs play to have a 15% chance of knocking it down, a 3% chance of picking it off, but a 90% chance of making an immediate tackle after the catch rather than a 25% chance of knocking it down, a 5% chance of intercepting it, but only a 70% chance of making an immediate tackle after a catch.
- Total Offense? Check
- Opposing QBR? Absolutely - that stat is biased towards the short precision passing game, which is what Belichick is willing to give up.
TOP? Obviously, but that's a huge part of the reason that Belichick places so much emphasis on depth and rotations, especially on defence. It all fits together.
3rd down %? Yeah, that too. On 3rd down the #1 priority is still to prevent the big play.
Sacks/pressure/time before the QB passes? Yeah. Well, total sacks are very good, but not sacks/passing play. Remember that the Patriots have a much higher than average # of defensive snaps per game. But if you are forcing a QB to check down and go through his reads, he's going to be back there longer. But they're also blitzing less, especially with so many young players.
Points allowed? Well obviously that's the crux of it. But fix the red zone defense and the points will follow, because almost all touchdown against the Patriots come from the red zone.
I would like to see better turnover numbers. But fix the red zone, and everything else is fine. :shrug:
