The Quick Slant Week 3: Where’d All The Defense Go?

A quick footnote before we roll along with this weeks edition of ‘The Quick Slant’ on Views from the Couch: I’m pissed about the final 45 minutes of football yesterday and may rant about it later…I’m not sure yet. Anywho back to the news and a few notes from the Patriots week 3 matchup with NFL darling Buffalo. With 15:00 left in the 2^nd your New England Patriots were holding a 21-0 lead and appeared headed towards their 16 straight victory over the Buffalo Bills but not so fast folks the Bills got the last laugh and pulled out a 34-31 win in sunny Ralph Wilson Stadium. You read that right folks the Bills came back from 21 points down and stunned the Pats to gain sole possession of first place in the vaunted AFC East after the Jets lost to the Raiders, who might be better than anyone thought they’d be. Now that you’ve put up with my Leno style monologue to open ‘The Quick Slant’ lets get to what I saw in the Patriots debacle, I mean matchup, yesterday.

-Tom Brady statistical had another big day throwing for 387 yards and 4 TD’s on 30/45 passing but he also racked up 4 INT’s. Very un-Tom ‘Terrific’-like but hey everyone is prone to a few mistakes every once in a while and he still helped the team put 31 points up on the board. 2 of the 4 picks were fluky as well with one coming off a deflection off a Bills D-lineman’s helmet and the other coming off a poorly thrown ball behind Woodhead that he tipped in the air and it got snatched.  The other 2 were all Tom’s fault though and he admitted that after the game. No gripes here though with the way he played.

-The running game disappeared though Steven Ridley the 3^rd round pick out of LSU looked good on his 7 carries picking up 44 yards. Danny Woodhead managed 21 yards on 6 carries and BenJarvus Green-Ellis could only muster 16 measly yards on 9 carries. That’s not going to get it done later in the season when teams key in on the passing game and force the Patriots to run. For an example refer back to the divisional round of the 2011 playoffs against the Jets.

-Wes Welker was a (fantasy) beast hauling in a career high 16 receptions for a career high 216 yards and 2 scores. He was finding a way to get open against single and double coverage all day and Brady wasn’t afraid to throw him the rock. On the other side Chad Ochocinco, who I’ve been a staunch supporter of so far, watched a would be touchdown go right thru his arms. He finished the day with 2 receptions for 28 yards but you can see that Brady just doesn’t trust him to make the right reads and run crisp routes.

-Losing Aaron Hernandez hurt a whole bunch. In the first 2 weeks the Patriots ran out of a two tight end set 85% of the time. Yesterday? Only 4 plays were run out of the two tight end set and even that is misleading cause Rob Gronkowski (another huge game with 2 more show me your TD’s) was the only active TE listed on the roster. The Patriots offense is centered around the two tight end look now and as long as Hernandez is out the offense will have a different look to it.

-But enough about the offense that has shown and will continue to show that it’s one of the top 2 or 3 in football alongside the Green Bay Packers and N’Awlins Saints. Let’s talk about the defense. I’m going to focus on the bigger picture and long term aspirations of this unit in this section after watching the Patriots defense getting torched for the third straight week. First Chad Henne then Phillip Rivers and finally Ryan Fitzpatrick have all had their way with this defense. The defense. The defense. The defense. Allow me to rant here for a minute about how the Hoodie for years sold us on the simple premise that anyone is replaceable at any time and that it is his schemes not necessarily the players in them that produce wins.  The first couple years this strategy held strong to the fans naked eye but a deeper look reveals that those defenses of the championship years weren’t so good because of the scheme only but rather because of a wealth of talent on that side of the ball that is no longer present. Let me list some of the players from those stalwart defenses that helped backstop the Patriots to 3 rings in the past decade: Richard Seymour, Rodney Harrison, Ty Law, Willie McGinest Lawyer Milloy, Roman Phifer, Bryan Cox, Tedy Bruschi, Asante Samuel, Ty Warren Ted Johnson, and Mike Vrabel. All of those players either appeared in a Pro Bowl or three or had their names on the All Pro teams. Those defenses were built on talent in the form of veteran playmakers and budding stars all over the field. This defense has maybe, maybe 3 big time players in Jerod Mayo (stud), Vince Wilfork (brick shithouse), and Devin McCourty (he’s good but for my money its too early to deem him a top flight corner). Note: I’m not including the best talent on the entire defense, Albert Haynesworth, cause he hasn’t proven himself healthy enough to make a major impact though we all know he can be the best player in football on this side of the ball if he chooses to be. Championship teams have championship defenses that have stars and playmakers all over the field COMBINED with a strong scheme. It’s not just one or the other though if you were going to pick which one would lead your team to the promise land wouldn’t you choose superior talent with the ability to change a game at the drop of a hat over a well implemented game plan run by below average players? The way I look at it the Hoodie needs to beef up on superior talent thru the draft, trades, or free agency (I prefer big time first round talent but hey that’s just me). With superior talent and the Hoodie’s well-planned schemes then the Patriots’ defense can return to the caliber it was during the Super Bowl years. The first 3 weeks of the season have only reinforced my theory that I’ve been running with for a few years now on the Patriots defense needing an upgrade in talent not just different players with the same talent level ‘filling holes’ in the system.

Next matchup on the docket for the Patriots is a trip out to the Black Hole to play the Raiders. The same Raiders who appear to be semi-legit after running all over the Jets vaunted defense and taking home a 34-24 victory. Disagree with my theories from the past week and we’ll talk about it again after week 4.

Until we cross paths again,

Geoff Jablonski