The Patriots entered 2017 as the betting favorite to win Super Bowl 52 and defend their NFL championship. Through four weeks of the regular season, they’re 2-2 and currently field one of the league’s worst defenses.
It’s a stunning turnaround for a team that boasts All-Pro defenders like Malcolm Butler, Dont’a Hightower, and Devin McCourty. The Patriots have made slumping passers look like a prime Peyton Manning while giving up more passing yards than anyone in the league. New England’s inability to get late stops cost the team victories over the Kansas City Chiefs and Carolina Panthers. Without Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter magic, it would have sunk the Pats against Houston as well.
So what’s wrong with the Patriots’ defense? That’s a long story.
How did the Patriots get here?
The Patriots shipped off two of their top defenders in 2016. Chandler Jones, one season away from free agency, was traded to the Arizona Cardinals for former first-round pick (and abject bust) Jonathan Cooper and a second-round pick. Months later, Bill Belichick made the surprising move to trade All-Pro inside linebacker Jamie Collins to the Browns for a third-round pick.
The moves were done for financial reasons as much as football ones. Rather than allow each player to leave in free agency with no compensation in return, New England guaranteed a return for two of its most recognizable tacklers. It came at the cost of losing them for the last year of their rookie contracts and with extremely diminished opportunity to sign them in the offseason.
In return, the Patriots got Cooper (who played in zero games for the team), starting offensive guard Joe Thuney, second-year wideout Malcolm Mitchell (currently on injured reserve), and rookie tackle Antonio Garcia (currently on injured reserve). So not only did the team ship away two top defenders, but it also failed to draft any defensive help with the picks acquired in those trades.
But it looked like it wouldn’t matter — the immediate returns on those trades were good. The Patriots went 14-2 in the regular season and won the greatest Super Bowl of all time despite a limited pass rush. The team ranked 19th in the league in sack percentage, but a solid linebacking corps and the play of McCourty and Butler held opposing QBs to an 84.3 rating — eighth-best in the league.
The Patriots doubled down on that approach in 2017. Their offseason blueprint emphasized coverage over pressure. Stephon Gilmore was signed in an effort to give New England, on paper, the league’s most talented secondary. Players who added a supplemental pass-rushing punch, like Chris Long and Jabaal Sheard, departed. Complementary pieces like Lawrence Guy and eventually, Cassius Marsh were added to bolster depth up front.
But two major problems have ensured that strategy wouldn’t work. Unexpected losses sapped the team’s front seven, and a star-studded secondary has made too many mistakes to be effective.
What sunk the New England defense?
The Patriots have several problems on the defensive side of the ball. Issues began in the preseason. Rob Ninkovich, a veteran edge rusher, retired somewhat unexpectedly over the summer. Weeks later, third-round pick Derek Rivers, an FCS standout defensive end at Youngstown State, had his rookie season stolen by a torn ACL. Vincent Valentine, a second-year, space-clogging interior lineman, would join him on injured reserve before the season opener.
The Patriots have gotten better-than-expected contributions from young front seven defenders like Trey Flowers, Deatrich Wise, and Adam Butler, but it wasn’t enough to offset their biggest loss. Hightower, the heart and soul of the team’s defense and anchor who allows the rest of the linebackers to be more aggressive at the line, has been hampered by an MCL sprain that’s cost him two games and limited him in two more.
New England’s sack rate dropped from 5.6 percent to an even 5 percent this fall. More time in the pocket for opposing quarterbacks means more time spent in coverage for the Patriots secondary. That wasn’t supposed to be a problem — but the cornerbacks and safeties have been a wreck.
Gilmore, the team’s prized $65 million acquisition this offseason, has struggled to pick up the team’s defensive schemes. McCourty, the All-Pro safety tasked with providing support on the last level, has been the victim of several blown coverages and forgotten assignments. Butler, the other All-Pro covering the opposite sideline, has continued to be a boom-or-bust cornerback.
Butler’s uneven play caused him to slip out of the starting lineup in Week 2, but he rebounded with a solid performance against the Texans. However, “solid” hasn’t been good enough in 2017. Four straight opponents have torched the Patriots for more than 300 passing yards to start the season. Alex Smith had, statistically, the fourth-best game of his 13-year career against New England in Week 1. Cam Newton had thrown for 566 yards and two touchdowns over three games to start his 2017 season. On Sunday, he had 316 yards and three passes to the end zone.
Brady has been as sharp as ever, but the problem has been that against the Patriots secondary, so has every opposing quarterback:
Tom Brady’s QB rating through four games: 116.6.
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) October 1, 2017
Combined QB rating of the four opposing QBs when facing the Patriots: 116.5.
That Panthers victory in Foxborough played out like a greatest hits of New England’s secondary issues. At one point, Gilmore and McCourty lost track of Fozzy Whittaker, leaving one side of the field completely uncovered as he rumbled 26 yards into the end zone. Devin Funchess’ first touchdown came because the Patriots left him entirely uncovered in the red zone. His second came after beating Butler on a post route that left the corner out of position:
We you @D_FUNCH!
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) October 1, 2017
First multi-TD game for Devin Funchess #CARvsNE pic.twitter.com/S6CG8xrX0U
Was this preventable?
The Patriots trade of Jones is beginning to look a lot worse for Belichick. Since leaving New England, Jones has 15 sacks in his first 20 games with the Cardinals. The New England front office was correct about his prohibitive cost — he signed a five-year, $82.5 million contract extension with Arizona in March. However, that’s something the Patriots could have made room for after Hightower re-signed for a less-than-expected four years and $35.5 million.
Jones’ cap hit this fall is $10 million. The Patriots went into the 2017 season $5.5 million under the cap. If they had kept their top pass rusher, it would have given them the roster flexibility to rely on minimum salary contributors rather than the duo of David Harris (ineffective thus far) and Guy (not a necessity with Jones around) — clearing the extra $4.5 million needed to fit him under the cap.
While his cap hit jumps to $15.5 million next season, Nate Solder’s expiring contract would help create flexibility for the team moving forward. It’s not a perfect fit — and the franchise will also have to figure out what to do with free agents-to-be Solder, Butler, and Jimmy Garoppolo — but it would be a manageable one.
And of course, this assumes the Patriots would still spend big on Gilmore, whose average annual salary is $3.5 million less than Jones’. Did the Patriots give up on Jones to replace him with Gilmore? Not exactly. But it’s easy to make the comparison between the two highly paid defenders who have worn the red, white, and blue.
A similar case can be made for Collins, who would have had a lesser impact at a cheaper price — four years and $50 million with the Browns. Given his occasional struggles to pick up defensive coordinator Matt Patricia’s defense and the team’s plans to turn him into a part-time player, it seems less likely he’d be retained at that price.
Even without Jones and Collins, the Patriots could have been more proactive in bringing in the veteran pass-rushing presence players, like Long, Sheard, and Ninkovich, brought to the team’s front line rotation. Part of the issue here is the losses of Ninkovich and Rivers, which sent New England looking for free agent/trade help late in the preseason (hence the Marsh trade).
Still, relatively inexpensive veteran pass rushers such as John Simon or Ahmad Brooks would have been useful during New England’s unpleasant start, while maintaining financial flexibility for the future.
Is this fixable?
The Patriots’ pass rush, bookended by a handful of young players, should improve as the season wears on and players like Marsh get more comfortable with their new team — though that progress will be incremental. Hightower has returned to the linebacking corps, which is hopeful to get something, anything, out of veteran Jets castaway Harris. His presence gives Patricia the flexibility to take more risks as the season wears on.
The heaviest pressure lies on the secondary, which has the talent to make immediate improvements but can’t seem to get out of its own way. Butler can swing from “frustrating” to “brilliant” on a whim. Gilmore has been inefficient, but he’ll improve if he, McCourty, and Patrick Chung can all get on the same page. The fact that many of the big plays the Patriots have given up have been the result of communication and assignment breakdowns makes this a more optimistic case than say, a smarter team getting burned due to a lack of athleticism.
A .500 start is anything but a death sentence. This team was 2-2 in 2014 — following the same exact win/loss pattern — before running all the way to a Super Bowl victory. The pieces are there for another run, especially with Brady erasing 14-point deficits in the fourth quarter. Now Belichick has to figure out how they fit.