Well, I see what most see. Poor safety play, down seasons from McCourty, Wilfork & Mayo, No Ras-I so who knows what's he is about (BB obviously was very high on him in the game and a quarter he played). BB needs better one on one CBs to do much of what he's trying to do.
It's also tough for me to say as I don't see much NFL football during the year. I wonder just how much the injury situation has contributed to the poor defense. Earlier in the year, Chung was taking away TEs with help from Niko but now BB has to use two players to do it and there's no one on the active roster capable of taking away great slot receivers alone so the CBs are finding themselves one on one too often for their talents.
BB is doing an awful lot of game planning and moving of bodies to get a mix that just barely works.
The defense is made up of a bunch of "solid" guys but no superstars. Wilfork and Mayo should be but haven't played that way this year.
If I had a wish list I could fullfill, I'd like to see a dominant Defensive lineman who controls at least one side of the LOS, a fast cover backer who can really play (unlike Guyton) and a top free safety who can move around and make plays sideline to sideline. If I want to be greedy, an OLB upgrade over Niko wouldn't be bad either although he pretty decent. A great pass rusher sounds nice but those guys are rare and typically one dimensional.
You can't have all-stars at every position so a DL/S/Cover backer would be about as much as I could ask for for new personnel. A return to form for Mayo/Wilfork/McCourty, a healthy year for Ras-I and health and improvement from Fletcher/Spikes would go a long way to squaring this defense away.
It's never going to be the dominant unit it once was because BB's philosophy has changed. He once put the majority of the team's cap $$$ into the defense believing that you could win with great defense, special teams and adequate offense. His offense used to look like his defense does now, littered with cast-offs, cheap veteran FAs and UDFA working around a couple high profile people.
Remember the days of Mike Compton, Joe Andruzzi, Charles Johnson, Fred Coleman, Brandon Gorwin and many others? BB has completely shifted his thinking to offense. He wants to pay a few key guys on defense and fill in with cheaper solid players who will operate at a level that will allow his offense to win games. The endless series of injuries has made it tough on this defense so we don't really know if it would have been adequate or not. If there is only a small amount of money to spend, I'd spend it on a real safety to pair up with Chung and hope to stay healthy.
There were roster decisions regarding the defensive backfield which are being criticized now but people forget that an NFL roster is limited. You can only carry so many people. Saying that Butler and Wilhite would be better than Jones and Eldelman is true but BB started the year with Dowling and Bodden. He cut those other guys in favor of them and they were both injured. Cutting Sanders and letting Merriweather go are a different story, one that can be rightly criticized.
Offensively, I'd do what had to be done to re-sign Welker. After that there are few weaknesses other than at WR and Center. Light, Solder, Vollmer & Cannon are a formidable tackle unit when healthy. The TE spot is off the charts (a true third guy would be nice though) and the RB corps looks set for a few years. It's young and cheap and after Faulk goes a roster spot will open up.
This team needs an outside threat at WR. Someone who can win one on one match-ups. He doesn't have to be Moss, he can be Gaffney and he'll get the job done. Price and Tate had the potential but couldn't break in so BB put big $$$ into Ocho and we've all seen the result. He might get another chance with a full off-season but I wouldn't be surprised to see the team go in another direction.
I would have liked to see the Pats go after the Packers' Jones or the Chargers' Floyd last year as FAs but they stayed away preferring Ocho who is cheaper and should have been the answer. I'm not sure which WRs are available in FA beyond Welk but the pie is pretty small. I don't see a lot of $$ available for free agents. Maybe German patriot can give us some idea of the $$$ situation as he sees it for next year.
