Defense finding the way
Game plans starting to take a firm hold
FOXBORO — Defensively, the Patriots never changed their goals.
They stripped it down, sure, but during a string of improved performances, the Patriots reinstalled their preferred elements of disguise because the end game remained the same.
“You can’t change goals because then you’re just making it easy for yourself,” safety Duron Harmon said. “Obviously, the goals we want to attain were hard. You’ve just got to work harder to get to them.”
As the Patriots coughed up the most points (32 per game), total yards (456.8) and passing yards (324) in the NFL through four weeks, they griped over communication while running a defense that couldn’t have been any simpler.
The game-changing moment occurred in the aftermath of the 33-30 home loss to the Panthers when Dont’a Hightower and Devin McCourty were much harder on their teammates, as they loudly and explicitly demanded more accountability.
Since Week 5, the Patriots have allowed 12.8 points per game (third best in the NFL), 377.3 total yards (No. 20) and 267 passing yards (No. 22). They’re getting closer, and for the sake of comparison, the Pats’ top-ranked scoring defense in 2016 (15.6 points) ranked eighth in total defense (326.4) and 12th in passing defense (237.9).
So where will the Patriots go from here? They’ve already started complicating their defense and added more complex assignments in Week 7 in anticipation of their meeting with the Falcons and furthered that last week for the Chargers.
Simplifying the system was a necessary evil for Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia, but it was never going to stay that way for the long haul. Yeah, they can offer some basic looks against Jameis Winston and Josh McCown, but the Patriots knew they had to build toward much greater opponents in the playoffs.
“It started to move to that (two weeks ago),” Harmon said. “The idea of disguising against a really good quarterback was going to be really important. I think we were able to work some of that, and it really helped. With great quarterbacks, you can’t always give them the coverage. You can’t let them know what coverage you’re in. You have to make it hard for them. When you’re playing great quarterbacks like Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers, you’ve got to make it as hard as you can.
“The good thing is we’ve been able to communicate and play fast. As long as we keep doing that, we’ll be fine.”
The Patriots’ early-season issues were maddening but understandable. In the offseason, they added cornerback Stephon Gilmore and defensive linemen Lawrence Guy, Deatrich Wise, Adam Butler and Cassius Marsh, all of whom played prominent roles in place of well-respected departed veterans like Logan Ryan and Rob Ninkovich.
It doesn’t always click as quickly, regardless of the talent of the incoming player. For instance, Gilmore was lights out in training camp and the preseason when the Patriots weren’t game planning, save for the Lions exhibition, but the struggles surfaced when they shifted to that regular-season, gameplan mode.
Miscommunication and a lack of cohesiveness were rampant issues as plays broke down in uncharacteristically poor fashion. Rather than running one, steady defensive system, it was a struggle for the new guys to run a different scheme each week. Then everyone began to adapt as the tide turned in Tampa, and the defensive players all basically figured each other out.
“I think the good thing is we’re starting to have roles and consistency with who is here,” McCourty said. “So I think that makes understanding the game plan a little easier because guys know where they’re at, know what we’ve been doing. Now they’re picking it up like, ‘Well this is like last week. This is not like last week.’ It changes a little bit where as before everything was new. We had some new guys and it was different. The preseason, we only game planned for one game. Every other game was base stuff.
“I think everyone was getting used to how we game plan here defensively compared to where you’ve been somewhere else. Or maybe you’re coming from college where a lot of stuff you call is what you’re in no matter what the offense does. I think guys are getting used to coming in here Wednesday, and ‘This is what we expect. This is what (the opponent) does well, and we’ve got to stop it.’
“For some of us, it’s second nature. We’re used to it. So it’s a mesh of the older guys understanding it, the new guys trying to understand it and meshing it so it all works well together.”
The evolution started two weeks ago, and the Pats are back to employing the system that Belichick has always preferred.
“Now we’re at the point where we’re going into each week trying to see how much better we can be than last week,” Harmon said. “We didn’t start off that good this year, made some progress over the last few weeks. You set your goals at the beginning of the year. Just because it’s not going your way, you don’t change your goals. The goals were set for a reason, because we thought we could achieve those goals.
“The goals are still attainable. We’ve just got to be a better defense. We’ve got to be more consistent, which is finally starting to come along. We’ve got to communicate. We’ve got to tackle, protect the deep part of the field, and those goals will still be there.”