After watching yesterday's game, I'm forced to reluctantly consider the fact that they might well BE the worst pass defense in the league, and that perhaps the numbers are in truth a reflection of just how soft they are. To wit: Ben Roethlissberger will never be confused with Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers... he's a very good QB but that's simply not his normal M.O. However yesterday he looked every bit the part of Tom Brady, carving up the Pats defense with 10 - 15 yard passes to receivers who were so wide open only Tim Tebow could miss them (by the way, dear Tebow supporters, please shut the hell up now. Thanks). The Steelers' offense looked eerily identical to the one the Patriots have employed over the past two two seasons. The routes looked similar, the yards after the catch was a huge component. The running game ticked off just enough chunks to keep the defense honest... they were a precision machine that, with any ability to get in the endzone consistently, would have had this game wrapped up in about the middle of the third quarter.
As a sidebar, If I'm a Steeler fan today, I'm half ecstatic about the way our offense performed and half panicked about the fact that in truth if the refs hadn't totally botched things in the last 4 minutes (we'll get back to that) the Steelers would have been in very real danger of losing a game they dominated in every phase and held the ball for nearly 40 minutes. I don't care how much you dominate an opponent in a game... if you can't score touchdowns in the red zone eventually you will lose games you have no business losing... especially to a team like the Patriots who can score so quickly and have so many weapons. The Steelers damn near had that happen to them yesterday, and fans should be at least a bit concerned about it.
OK... back to the Patriots defense. Earlier in the week the Patriots made what might be the most dizzyingly confusing move in a season of absolutely odd moves. Look... far be it for me to question Coach Hoodie... the man has forgotten more about football than I will ever know. He's made very few decisions that are flat out wrong, and his guidance is the main reason this team has been a top 5 team in the league for the better part of a decade. But if there was one clear weak spot on this team going back to last year, it was the pass defense. Whether a result of scheme or personnel (I happen to think it's more of the former... I'll discuss more in a later article), it was clear the Patriots had issues on the back end of the defense. Outside of the drafting of the talented but injury-prone Ras-I Dowling, little was done to shore up this group. However it seemed what it lacked in pure top-end talent it made up for in quality of depth. Coming into the season the Patriots had rookie-of the year candidate Devin McCourty, a healthy Leigh Bodden, the underachieving but serviceable Darius Butler, the solid Patrick Chung, the mercurial Brandon Merriweather, who has talent but lacks good football sense, Brandon McGowan: a decent backup who showed flashes of being a good nickle option at safety, Antwaun Molden: an unknown discarded commodity but former 3rd round draft pick, former 4th round draft pick Jonathan Wilhite, who isn't good enough to play CB in this league frankly, Kyle Arrington, who lacks speed and natural skill but makes up for it with hustle and great instincts, the "Token Ventrone" (Ross this time instead of brother Ray), Jets cast-off and mainly special-teamer James Ihedigbo, and last year's starter James Sanders. So while there were only a couple of players with real top-end talent (McCourty and Chung... Merriweather is just not smart enough to consider his talent top-end), there was real depth, and fairly quality depth. However since the start of training camp Belichick has cut ties with DBs faster than Kim Kardashian goes through professional athletes (her sudden filing for divorce just 72 days into marriage is the top trending story on the internet right now... don't you wish you didn't know that now?). Sanders, Merriweather, and Butler, three players who logged significant time the past couple of years, were cut. McGowan was let go, as was Wilhite. So right off the bat you've cut 3 safeties and 2 CBs with real NFL experience and knowledge of the Patriots scheme. That's before a down of regular season football is played. As the season moves on we see that the pass defense is a serious problem. With a lack of quality depth the Patriots are left exposed playing practice squad players in nickle and dime defenses. McCourty and Bodden struggle to maintain their high level of play as they are basically being asked to anchor the entire defensive backfield... a tall order for a 2nd year pro and 12 year vet just coming off of major surgery. Fast forward to this week: the Pats pass defense is getting gashed regularly. Chung is still solid in the middle, but hampered playing with a surgically repaired hand in a cast. He's being paired with players who should be relegated to special teams or the practice squad. The Patriots have NOTHING at safety beyond Chung. Nothing. So now you've got to rely on what depth you have at CB to fill the field with DBs on passing downs. Unfortunately Ras-I Dowling, who's shown flashes of being pretty good, is put on IR... so obviously the Patriots need to pick up another CB from somewhere for depth, at least... right? RIGHT? No... instead they go ahead and CUT Leigh Bodden. The ONLY veteran presence in the defensive backfield and the LAST hope of being able to match up with a 5 WR spread. I simply do not understand this move at ALL. Not at this point in the season. Unless there is an injury we don't know about or a very serious locker-room issue. Are you telling me that Antwaun Molden is a better freaking option than Leigh Bodden? I don't care how much of a genius Belichick is, not even Rich Kotite would try and make that case. For a team wracked with depth issues surrounding the worst position on the team, cutting Leigh Bodden made no sense.
Oh, of course the Patriots did add some depth by adding CBs Malcolm Williams and Josh Victorian to the practice squad. What, you've never heard of them? Me neither. And trust me, with a name like Josh Victorian, if he'd ever done anything of note we'd remember it.
So here we are going into week 9 having submitted maybe the worst pass-defense performance I've ever witnessed in my 35+ years as a Patriots fan (ok, clearly an exaggeration, but work with me here), and our league-worst pass defense is made up of the confidence-shaken Devin McCourty, undrafted Kyle Arrington (I don't care that he's leading the league in interceptions... he looks lost out there most of the time), One-handed Patrick Chung, and whoever the hell they decide to stick next to him from special teams. How can Belichick possibly see this as a recipe for success? Are they really trying to convince us that holding on to Bodden, even as a safety net in case of injury, was just not a viable option? And if production is simply the bottom line, how the HELL does Ochocinco still have a role on this team? Here's a position with actual depth and youth if you count Hernandez as a WR (and you should, that's what he is), yet Ochocinco, who basically punctuated his entire season with that slow-footed half-effort to catch up to a Brady throw (you could see the look on Brady's face after the play.. it said "ok, son... clearly you have no idea how we do things here... that's the last ball you get... ever") in the third quarter, still has a role on this team and Leigh Bodden, who never made the slightest wave off the filed and was by all accounts a very good player on it, can't crack the lineup on the worst pass defense in the NFL? I know Belichick plays things close to the vest but this is one time I think fans are entitled to SOME sort of an explanation. I've yet to hear one. Throw us a bone... tell us you heard Champ Bailey was about to be put on waivers and you needed the cap space and the roster spot... give us something... just don't let us sit here thinking you're just too arrogant to think you actually need more than one viable option at cornerback.
So what does this mean for the Patriots, ultimately? I wrote a column last week about the Patriots ability to win a championship with the defense as currently construed. I stated that it was absurd to say otherwise... but that was before they released Bodden, put Dowling on IR and decided to play with 2 viable starting DBs total. No, no... in all seriousness I still believe what I said. I think if the Pats and Steelers played again tomorrow the outcome would be much different. No team adjusts week to week better than the Patriots under Belichick, he almost never loses twice in a row to the same opponent (regardless of personnel), and I'm guessing the Patriots will come out with a completely different plan the next time they face each other, especially if it happens to be in the playoffs. The Steelers yesterday were ready... they were pumped, they saw this as much more of a measuring stick than the Patriots, I think... and they came out the hungrier team. The Patriots played like a team that had just come off vacation... and with the stupidly negotiated rules the players put in the new CBA for themselves (I'll bet money the players themselves ask to have that changed next season after the obvious effect it's had on teams coming off a bye), that's more or less what it was. It was a really bad day at the office for the Patriots and the Steelers played their best game all season. And here's the really encouraging thing, the red-zone defense was still pretty damn good, holding the Steelers to only field goals in the second half (and a safety that should never have counted, but that's not on the defense either way), which gave the Pats a chance to make a run at winning the game late... speaking of which...
Despite all the yards and all the plays they gave up, they still had a damn good chance to pull out a win. In fact there was a point where I said aloud to no-one in particular "if they score here with about 4 minutes left on the clock, they're winning this game". I had seen it before... Brady had that look in his eyes... the offense was operating in "hyper" mode, and for once the Steelers looked totally powerless to stop it. I was absolutely convinced of it, and it would have happened, without a doubt in my mind... until... once again (for reference please see the pass interference call in the endzone vs. the Bills, turning a Patriots interception into a first and goal for the Bills. Horrible call, cost the Pats the game), the referees stepped in and literally took the game from them (they actually screwed up twice, however the last one was really not going to help the Patriots anyhow... but just for the record the Steelers should not have been awarded a safety on that last play, as Polamalu intentionally slapped the ball forward, which every pop-warner coach knows is illegal but apparently this bungling crew of refs isn't aware of). So, with just about 4 minutes to play and the Patriots in hurry-up, Brady hits Gronkowski with a pass in the end-zone that every person in the stands and watching on TV knew was a TD... even the crowd silenced for a moment till the hit put Gronk back out of the endzone and the completely inept official called down at the one, leaving the Pats with no choice but to continue the drive, and the crowd delirious that they had missed such an obvious call. I know a lot of people are blaming Belichick for not challenging, but for some unknown reason, CBS refused to show a replay of the play so the booth upstairs couldn't instruct Belichick as to what to do... you can't risk giving up a timeout there, so you need to run the play and score as quickly as possible. It was a no win situation for the Pats... and it never should have come to that. And here's my biggest problem with the call, and the reason I say that the refs are either corrupt or completely and totally inept to the point that they don't deserve to work the games: with the goofy new rule all SCORING plays are reviewed... but by some cosmically absurd and totally idiotic oversight, plays that are on the goalline but AREN'T ruled a score are not reviewed. How does this make sense in any way? This might be the dumbest rule change of the past 20 years, mainly because it is totally incomplete. At any rate, referees are aware of this rule. They know that scoring plays are reviewed. Every one of them. They also know the situation: down two scores, about 4 minutes left... a play at the goal line, perhaps mere inches deciding touchdown or not. Wouldn't the PRUDENT and FAIR thing to do, knowing that ONLY a score is reviewed, be to simply give the benefit of the doubt on a play you MUST know carries some doubt, call it a score, and let the replay flush out the truth of it? Isn't that the only thing fair to do in such a flawed system? Isn't this something officials would certainly have talked about? You know... I HAVE to believe at some point in these ref's travels over the course of the year someone must have brought up this exact scenario. And I would have to think that in any fair evaluation of the situation, the obvious suggestion would be to call any close play on which there is any hint of doubt the way that would allow for a video replay... right? RIGHT? In any case, this mickey-mouse crew blew the call (which replay clearly showed was a touchdown... would have taken about 15 seconds to overturn), didn't even huddle to have the discussion as I see regularly happen in other games, and stole about a minute and a half from the Patriots, now down one score with barely 2:30 to play. A minute and a half for Tom Brady is the amount of time it takes him to win a superbowl. So had they had that chance, yes... I have no doubt the Patriots would have walked away winners from a game they had no business being in a position to win in the first place. But in the NFL, you take every win you can get, no matter how it comes about. The Patriots were denied a chance at this win by nothing less than sheer, utter, and total incompetence and lack of any sense of the situation, the moment, or fair play by the officials. What a failure. What a joke.
That aside, let's take a look at how this plays out going forward... once again there is a great deal of hand wringing in the Boston sports media circle. It's a bit more justified this time... although the "I told you so" crowing by some (not mentioning names) is still a bit on the premature side 7 games into a 16 game season. Look at the schedule from here on out... It's pretty favorable for the Pats, from a passing effluence standpoint. Of the remaining 9 games, only three are against teams with any real threat of a passing game (Next week against Chucker Manning and the Giants, week 12 against the "new and improved Dream Team Eagles" who for reasons that escape me, are suddenly the darlings of the league again after throttling Dallas at home, and the Bills in the final week of the season, on New Year's day in Foxborough). The other six are against the Jets, Chiefs, Colts, Redskins, Broncos and Dolphins. Talk about a favorable schedule. There isn't a top-flight NFL QB in that group. Not even close (shut up Jets fans and accept it). The Pats should go 7-2 in that stretch (I don't see the Bills beating them in Foxborough). So in the end I still like their chances at a division title, first round bye and decent playoff run, but at some point this team is going to have to figure out how to stop someone on third and long, or I'm not going to be able to watch them anymore, having spider-cracked my flat-panel TV with the remote.
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