Pressuring Brady key to defeating the Patriots
Pressuring Brady and minimizing touches keys to stopping Patriots’ passing offence
They’re not going to tire out. Those guys haven’t tired out all season. They’ve got enough depth at that position to rush hard on every play.
Rough up Tom Brady, often and throughout, and you give yourself the best chance to knock off the Patriots.
That’s the standard NFL belief, anyway.
And it’s at the core of the biggest schematic question ahead of Super Bowl LII: How often, and to what degree, can the Philadelphia Eagles’ deep, talented pass rush mess up the rhythm of the 40-year-old quarterback and the New England Patriots’ passing attack?
The Jacksonville Jaguars were sure they could do it in the AFC championship game. They brought the NFL’s second most prolific pass rush two weeks ago, but it tired late in the fourth quarter — as so often happens — and Brady thereafter threw with little bother or disruption.
Result? New England scored two touchdowns in the final 8:44 to earn its eighth Super Bowl appearance this century.
Same deal in last year’s Super Bowl, when the Patriots overcame that 28-3 deficit late in the third quarter to beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime. The Falcons’ pass rush became utterly spent in the fourth quarter of that game.
The Eagles go into this matchup with the most talented twodeep front-four in the NFL, as unleashed in defensive co-ordinator Jim Schwartz’s relentlessly attacking 4-3 scheme.
The two backup ends have almost as many sacks as the starters. Starter Brandon Graham leads the team with 9.5 sacks, while Vinny Curry has three. Lead backups Chris Long and rookie Derek Barnett have five apiece, while third-stringer Steven Means had one.
Inside, Fletcher Cox (5.5 sacks) ranks among the NFL’s most dangerous big-man penetrators. Tim Jernigan is the other starting tackle (2.5 sacks), who battled a temporary illness this week before practising fully on Friday. That twosome is backed up by Beau Allen (one sack), Destiny Vaeao and Elijah Qualls.
Having such talented starters and rich depth ought to allow the Eagles to effectively pressure Brady throughout.
“Well, that’s the plan,” Schwartz said. “It’s going to be tough to substitute players, because the Patriots are going to make it tough to substitute, with tempo and things like that.
“If we can stay fresh for four quarters, and we can keep bringing wave after wave of pass rushers at Brady — a little bit like bringing fastball pitchers out of the bullpen — we’ll be able to be fresh and still rush well into the fourth quarter.”
It’s not that the Eagles don’t blitz with a fifth or even sixth pass rusher occasionally. They do. It’s only that they do so about as infrequently as any team in the league.
To make it work, it’s important these linemen are in outstanding shape, Cox said.
“As far as our conditioning, each guy in that room knows what kind of shape we’ve got to be in,” he said. “When we went against offences that did no-huddle, it came down to just being calm. Not panicking. Just getting the call, and playing the next play.”
Eagles GM Howie Roseman added two key players last spring to make this scheme work so effectively. First with Long, a free agent signee last March. Second with Barnett, the 14th-overall draft pick last April.
“Having that wave (of backups to keep) guys fresh throughout the game is huge for us,” Roseman said. “It’s because of how hard they rush and how hard they play. They’re going upfield all the time. We really have had this eight-man rotation throughout the year. That’s coach Schwartz, that’s what he believes in. We were fortunate to get some players who fit that.”
As for the Patriots’ views, Brady told reporters Thursday there won’t “be an easy yard to gain” all day against this Eagles front.
“Their D -line is the best we’ve faced all year. They are about eight guys deep. They all play. They play hard, they rush, they play the run. They’re first in the league in rush defence.
“They’re not going to tire out. Those guys haven’t tired out all season. They’ve got enough depth at that position to rush hard on every play.”
The fact that Philadelphia finished second in the NFL in scoring offence, and won 13 of 16 regular-season games, compelled opponents to pass a lot in the second half to try to catch up.
“That’s when they tee off,” Brady said, “because they’ve got dynamic rushers inside and outside. They’ve got speed, they’ve got power, they’ve got awareness. They challenge you in every way.
“That’s tough for any offence when they have dynamic pass rushers, but that’s what we’re dealing with, and we’re going to have to do the best we can.”
What New England’s offence — or any team’s offence against any dangerous, deep pass rush — must do is stay on the field. The more snaps Eagles defenders play, the more likely they are to tire out — even if it takes a while.
This season, New England led the league in averaging 67.3 offensive plays per game. And the Eagles? “They lead the league in fewest number of snaps allowed, in getting offences off the field the fastest. They’re good,” Patriots offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia said. There’s your stark contrast. Part of the reason the Patriots typically rank at or near the top of the league in offensive plays per game is, going back three or four offensive co-ordinators, they love to go hurry-up occasionally. One of the benefits? More snaps run by the defence.
Is that a reason the Patriots go hurry-up? Scarnecchia has a theory. “If you’re able to keep the defence out there for 60, 70, 80 plays, it can only help you,” he said.
“(Maximizing that number) is the theory behind going nohuddle, or hurry-up offence. It’s to get defenders tired, wear them down and make them chase you all over the place.
“It all sounds good, but if you’re in a hurry-up offence and go three-and-out, all you’ve done is take 40 seconds off the clock.”
Patriots offensive co-ordinator Josh McDaniels emphasized that point, too.
“We believe in using tempo,” he said. “We’ve done that all year intermittently. I always tell our guys that just because we play with tempo doesn’t mean we’re going to play well. We have to play well and use tempo at the same time.”
The challenge the Eagles pose in this regard is they led the league in 2017 in most threeand-outs forced, McDaniels said.
“Like, 40-something percentage of their opposing possessions have been three-and-outs,” he said. “You can see on film how they can be fresh, late.”
In this game, the only chance to countermand that is “for the play count to go up,” McDaniels said.