The Pats' defense pressured Aaron Rodgers on 46.8 percent of his drop-backs, a season-high for the Pats. Rodgers on those 22 drop-backs under pressure: 6-18, 4.6 YPA, 1 TD, seven throw aways, 67.6 rating per PFF.
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The Patriots defense finally had its coming out party in Sunday night’s 31-17 victory over
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
Actually, let’s be a little more specific.
Brian Flores, the de facto defensive coordinator, had his coming out party as chief of the Patriots’ defense, thanks to his players’ largely flawless execution against the most dangerous quarterback in the league.
“To be honest, Coach Flo, he gets us prepared for the game,”
Elandon Roberts told
BostonSportsJournal.com. “Everybody’s got a job to do. His job is to get us prepared for the game. What you see out there, what you see out of us, it’s the spitting image of him. He’s going to put us the in the best position and we’re going to try to perform at the best of our ability because we know he knows what he’s doing. He did a great job this week, as always.”
Make no mistake, what the Patriots did against the Packers was almost a complete departure as far as
coverage from what they’ve shown to this point in the season — at least it appeared to be, which was the goal via disguise.
In the aftermath of the Chiefs game, we wrote why the
Patriots would be hard-pressed to have that type of suffocating, three-and-out defense most fans crave — especially against athletic quarterbacks. You can read the explanation, but most of it has to do with
Bill Belichick‘s desire to leave one or two safeties deep to prevent the big plays.
Well, they almost completely junked that against Rodgers. The safeties were much more involved in the every-down defense. Even it was just a disguise, that made a big difference.
The results spoke for themselves. Rodgers was held to a completion percentage of 55.8, 6.02 yards per attempt and a passer rating of 89.2. That’s a pretty good day at the office.
Obviously, Belichick has a great deal of influence on the gameplan. But the players were universal in their praise of the role that Flores played in the preparation this week.
“He has a big influence every week,” said
Dont’a Hightower. “He comes up with the gameplan, obviously Bill has a lot to do with that, but this week (Flores) handled a lot of things trying to give Aaron a few different looks that he hasn’t seen yet and he really harped on that all week. We worked on that all week and I think it partially gave Aaron (some trouble) but he might have caught on eventually — he’s a good quarterback. I think it gave him a few different looks he hasn’t seen before.”
Said
Kyle Van Noy of Flores: “Great coach, put a good gameplan together and we executed it. Kudos to him and Bill for getting us in the right spot and playing fast. .. Anytime you have a guy like Flo, he’s aggressive and that’s how he is as a person. It’s cool to see him have success because he deserves it. He works hard, has a great family, and I’m happy for him.”
Let’s be honest — and the Patriots players certainly were — Rodgers had his fair share of plays against the Patriots as well. New England tried to bait Rodgers into an interception — similar to the one McCourty had for a touchdown in the previous game against Buffalo — on the play where
Jimmy Graham scored to tie the game 17-17 early in the third quarter.
Duron Harmon was going to jump pass, but Rodgers sniffed it out, waited a beat, and then burned Harmon and
Patrick Chung for a touchdown.
The Patriots signaled that, if needed, they can scheme and disguise against the best the NFL has to offer.
That, is definitely a great sign.
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com...-party-patriots-defense-matched-rodgers-wits/
