Bedard's Defensive Breakdown: Marquis Flowers' role among bigger failures than Butler issue

In the aftermath of the Patriots’ loss to the Eagles in Super Bowl LII, a lot of time, energy and words have been spent on roasting Bill Belichick for his decision not to play Malcolm Butler.

Could the Super Bowl XLIX hero have helped the Patriots’ defense? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not really the point.

The Patriots had the ball with a chance to win the game with 2:20 remaining, and turned the ball over (New England lost the turnover battle with a fumble, a missed field goal and a failed fourth-down play, and the Eagles only had an interception which acted as a good punt).

But, yes, the Patriots defense could have made one more play to win the game, basically at any point. And, yes, Butler could have made one more play.

In my opinion, it’s way too easy to pin the defensive struggles on missing one player. After reviewing the TV and coaches film copy of the game, there are plenty of second guesses that have little to do with Butler.

They are, in order:

Marquis Flowers' role in the third-down defense

As the regular season advanced, former Bengals special teams linebacker Marquis Flowers became an important role player for the defense. Using the speed that made him such a valuable contributor on special teams, the Patriots put him to use spying athletic quarterbacks, covering running backs out of the backfield, and occasionally rushing the passer on blitzes.

In facing the Eagles, you figured Flowers would be an essential part of the third-down package — at least covering running backs — but he wouldn't be needed to spy the slow-footed Foles.

Flowers was indeed in on the Patriots' third-down (or long-yardage) package, playing some 17 plays (he's listed as playing 16). His role, however, was a major head-scratcher.

Basically, before you even get to the Butler situation, the Patriots' decisions with Flowers had them, in essence, playing with 10 players even before the ball was snapped.

Here are his plays, responsibilities and results.

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Flowers, who is 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, was used to rush the passer against the Eagles' much larger offensive line (all of whom outweighed him by at least 50 pounds) nine times (often causing a better pass rusher to drop into coverage), and spied Foles (I guess?) on another two.

All but one of Flowers' 17 snaps (when he made a nice play to take down Nelson Agholor for an 8-yard loss) were completely useless and put the rest of the players at a disadvantage.

Not surprisingly, the Patriots were atrocious when Flowers was on the field, and this was where the game was lost.

The Eagles converted 11 of the 17 plays for a first down (including one on second down) and scored two touchdowns, including the Eagles' final two scores. On one of the few times Flowers actually covered down the field, he was beaten for a touchdown by Corey Clement for a 22-yard touchdown when safety Devin McCourty was likely even more at fault.

The final score to Zach Ertz was a perfect example of the Patriots' problems with their subpackages. The Patriots didn't use Flowers to cover Clement in motion, they made Duron Harmon sprint from his free safety position. And on a fairly important play, Marquis Flowers rushed the passer and Trey Flowers — by far the team's best pass rusher — dropped into coverage.

How that or any other of Marquis Flowers' 17 plays made any sense in planning was a crucial mistake by defensive coordinator Matt Patricia and Bill Belichick.



For the record, PFF has Flowers for playing 18 snaps on defense (12 rushes, five in coverage, one vs. the run) and also notes that he had zero pressures. They included the final two-point conversion.

Speaking of that final play...

Not calling timeout before final Eagles touchdown

The Patriots had one timeout remaining when the Eagles came to the line with 2:25 remaining and facing third-and-7 at the New England 11 with the Patriots leading 33-32. A stop would mean the Patriots need only a field goal to win the game.

After breaking the huddle, all hell broke loose on the New England side of the ball when RB Corey Clement when in motion to the right. Instead of a player like Marquis Flowers going with Clement, it was Harmon who ran with Clement. The play called for the Patriots' best pass rusher, Trey Flowers, to drop into coverage while Marquis Flowers rushed the passer. After the snap, the Patriots had five players covering four Eagles receivers, and Stephon Gilmore and Harmon ran into each other for good measure.

Trey Flowers should have been rushing the passer there, with Marquis Flowers covering Clement. That would have allowed Harmon to remain in the middle of the field and, essentially, double Ertz with McCourty.

That did not happen, McCourty was left all by himself on two-thirds of the field and predictably got exposed by Ertz.

The Patriots were completely out of sorts on the most important play of the game. A timeout should have been taken.

Not putting Patrick Chung on Zach Ertz

We don't know exactly how the Butler decision went down, but at the least, it appears clear that Butler was not going to play in their base package (nickel) against the Eagles, as the Patriots decided to go with Gilmore and Rowe at the corners, and Chung as the star or slot corner position.

Even before you get into the Butler decision, the choice to play Chung on Agholor (among others) instead of using a player like Johnson Bademosi looms large. Would Bademosi done any worse on Agholor? Doubtful. Would Chung have doing better than Jordan Richards and McCourty against Ertz? Considering covering the tight end is Chung's calling card, absolutely.



We all knew Foles loves to find Ertz on third or fourth down, and it killed the Patriots, especially late. After missing on his first attempt to his tight end, he completed his last five, including two on the Eagles' final scoring drive, for 53 yards and the game-winning score.

Putting Chung in the slot and not on Ertz — regardless of Butler — essentially weakened the Patriots at two positions. And when you combined the fact that the usage of Marquis Flowers weakened the pass rush and took a good pass rusher out the mix, the Patriots were up to four weakened spots in subpackages before even entertaining Butler.

Players not executing

The bottom line is the players missed some eight tackles in this game — including Bademosi's crucial miss on third down against Agholor — and that's three or four games worth for this team. They're not talented enough not to do the fundamentals well, and they failed in that regard. That's not on the coaches, it's on the players.

Agholor missed tackle:



There were also crucial mistakes made by the players in this game, including defensive backs stopping their feet in coverage.

Here's Kyle Van Noy (who was brutal in coverage in the middle of the defense) going inside instead of outside on an early screen to Clement:



Players had trouble getting out of gaps. Here's Elandon Roberts turning his back on a run play:



Here's: Richards being way too aggressive on the 55-yard wheel route to Clement:


Also, nobody covered Foles on fourth down, McCourty getting beat over the top on Clements' touchdown, etc.

Those are plays the players should be making. That's why they're getting paid.

Not matching personnel correctly

How many times have we seen it: the Patriots know their opponent like the back of their hand, and they have perfect counters to each of the opponent's personnel packages.

Well, the Patriots got exposed big time on two of the Eagles' longest plays when they decided to match heavy Eagles personnel groupings with their very light dime (six defensive backs) package.

On Blount's 36-yard run (second longest play), the Eagles came out with six offensive linemen plus a tight end, and the Patriots decided to answer with six defensive backs. And you wonder why the Patriots were largely defenseless as the larger Eagles pushed them around?



Then on the Eagles' first third down of the second half, they produced a 26-yard run (fourth longest play) with 11 personnel (one back, one tight end, three receivers). Not only were the Patriots in dime, the only put two defensive linemen on the field with three linebackers (including Marquis Flowers). It's no wonder Jay Ajayi easily ran for such a big gain.



This wasn't about the Patriots playing porous run defense. This was about them not even being in a fair fight as far as personnel goes. Those two plays accounted for 37.8 percent of the Eagles' ground game. That's on coaching.

Too many special teams players

I'm not going to say I told you so because I didn't come out one way or the another on it — I was just asking the question early in the season with the defensive struggles. But in this Super Bowl, the Patriots were way too reliant on players whose primary job is playing on special teams.

There were seven total kick returns in the Super Bowl, as the Patriots kicked touchbacks three times, and the Eagles had six of their own. There were 143 offensive plays combined by both teams, so that means that special teams coverage plays made it an even 150.

Those seven coverage plays were 4.7 percent of the plays in the Super Bowl.

And, taking the specialists out of it, the Patriots had eight players who had predominant special teams roles in the game (Matthew Slater, Bademosi, Brandon King, Richards, Brandon Bolden, Nicholas Grigsby, Geneo Grissom and Rex Burkhead) for seven plays.

This is a coaching decision. The game was played in a dome. They didn't have a fairly good idea they would try for touchbacks 43 percent of the time? They didn't think this game could maybe become a track meet and feature very few punts (one)?

The Patriots couldn't have sat one special teamer to get a smart linebacker (David Harris) on the field, or their (at one time) best interior player (Alan Branch) in the mix? The Patriots couldn't release one special teams player for this game and signed one of the two cornerbacks on the practice squad to give options with the Butler situation?

For comparisons' sake, the Eagles had five: LB Kamu Grugier-Hill, LB Bryan Braman, LB Najee Goode, LB Nathan Gerry.

With that out of the way, here are the defensive positional ratings in the Super Bowl:

DEFENSE



Defensive line (3 out of 5)

You can look at the 164 rushing yards allowed, the fact that the Patriots had no sacks, and easily come to the conclusion that the Patriots were whipped up front. But we already illustrated the coaching breakdowns in relations to the 62 rushing yards on two plays (37.8 percent) and the decision to have Marquis Flowers in the mix as a pass rusher in subpackages. Those decisions are not on the players. If the Patriots coaches matched personnel better and had a better subpackage plan, they would have played much better on defense. ... That's not to say there weren't some issues in this group. Lawerence Guy and James Harrison both had issues with gaps, tackling and edge contain. But they both also had their moments. Guy had five plus plays against the run, and Harrison was the pass rush with two hits and four hurries. ... Would have been nice to see Trey Flowers freed up more to wreak havoc because he played well, but the coaches had other ideas. It was like they were expecting Foles to throw Flowers a pick. ... Looked like Eric Lee should have been more aware on the Foles TD reception. ... Malcom Brown had vie plus plays and one blown gap. Not as dominating vs. Jason Kelce as he was against Brandon Linder of the Jaguars, but Brown was still good. ... Deatrich Wise played just six snaps (8 percent). His low this season was at Miami (16 for 21.9 percent). ... Adam Butler was solid in his 13 snaps (17 percent). He played 11 and 17.5 percent in Week 4 vs. Carolina. ... Given hindsight, it's obvious the Patriots' plan on third down was way overthought and in error. They were gouged there.

Linebackers (1 out of 5)

Not to bring up players who had no chance to play in the Super Bowl, but it's a long way down from Dont'a Hightower and Jamie Collins in the middle of this defense. The Patriots won last year without Collins, but they were really limited without both on the biggest stage. ... Van Noy was awful in coverage in the middle of this defense. He constantly drifted in the wrong direction and showed a lack of instincts when dropping into zone coverage. Counted five serious miscues in coverage, and he was swallowed up by the Eagles' blocking against the run. ... Marquis Flowers was like playing with 10 men on defense. His role was basically useless in this game, and that's through no fault of his own. ... Roberts looked completely unsure of himself. He wasn't bad in this game. He was just the most glaring example of the Patriots never being able to get a read on what the Eagles were doing. ... Roberts couldn't even get home on a blitz because of the brilliance of Kelce (who also blocked Butler and Harrison by himself on one play).



Secondary (2 out of 5)

There was some good, and more not-so-good from just about everyone in the secondary. ... After watching the all-22, I'm going to back off much criticism of Eric Rowe, who made five plus plays and had four minus plays. I mean, even the first TD by Alshon Jeffrey was basically a great throw by Foles and adjustment by Jeffrey. This is the type of stuff that happens when the QB is pressured only 25.6 percent of the time.



Gilmore was very good in this game but he also had a few issues when it came to being late to break on the ball out of bunch formation, including a third-down to Ertz. ... As we covered earlier, Chung should have been on Ertz. He's not supposed to be covering slot receivers. ... Harmon was decent in the game, but McCourty had about his worst game since his cornerback days. He did make four good plays, but he was beaten for the last two Eagles touchdowns and he missed two tackles. McCourty could have given up this pass as well. Same with Richards, who was predictably overmatched and awful. But, hey, he protects the punter so...


THREE UP

Trey Flowers: Didn't have the pass rush numbers that he usually does. But that's on the coaches, and he still executed at an elite level.

James Harrison: Was the Patriots' pass rush with six pressures and he had a few more smart plays. Not flawless, but pretty good. Wouldn't mind seeing him back.

Stephon Gilmore: Eliminated Jeffrey from being a problem. Too bad the coaches couldn't figure out how to do that with Ertz.

THREE DOWN

Jordan Richards: He just shouldn't ever be on the field on defense. If that's the case, his spot on the team had to be in jeopardy.

Kyle Van Noy: He's not the greatest athlete in the world, but that's still no excuse for how poorly he played in coverage. Had one knockdown and a tackle for a loss. That was largely it.

Devin McCourty: Along with Roberts, the captain is the other perfect example of the Patriots' plan being very flawed coming into this game. He never looks this lost, and he was on Sunday night.

Coming Saturday: The offensive breakdown.