Bedard: With Patriots' roster makeup, it's clear Bill Belichick is betting his chips on defense over offense

When you watch the Patriots on Sundays, it feels as if the defense is loaded for bear, while the offense is forced to piece together their attack with sticky tape and paperclips.

Your eyes do not deceive you.

One of the exercises we like to go through around here every so often is placing a chip value on the Patriots, usually in relation to opponents. Basically, the more Blue (elite at position vs. the league) and Purple (good starter) chips you have, the better your chances for victory. And, really, it comes down to how many of those players execute at that level — or better — on game day.

In an effort to breakdown this roster, we broke out the chips and applied them to both sides of the ball — Blue, Purple, Red (NFL starters) and White (reserves).

After looking at the results, it's clear that Bill Belichick feels that doubling down on defense — often at the expense of the offense — is the best way to win a seventh Lombardi Trophy. The rest of the league is running wild to find receiving targets and dangerous running backs. Belichick thinks multiple and versatile linebackers are more important.

Whether that turns out to be true remains to be seen and we're making no judgments on it (the Patriots were our preseason pick, and they remain so).

We're just pointing out what is largely obvious: Belichick has prioritized defense over offense this season. You can do all the fudging you want — He drafted N'Keal Harry in the first round ... He signed Demaryius Thomas ... He signed Antonio Brown — but the bottom line is the roster is the roster. It's what will or won't win them another Super Bowl.

And what Belichick has done is certainly to prioritize the defensive roster over the offense.

For example, in our estimation, 12 of the 26 offensive players for the Patriots are White Chips, or reserves in most circumstances — they would not start for most teams in the league. That's almost half the offensive personnel (46 percent).

On defense, just three of 23 players (13 percent) are truly reserves.

That means the defense is rolling with a roster where 20 players would be starters on an average NFL team. You can only play 11 at a time. That means at nine spots are two-deep with NFL starters.

On offense — and we've included injured players like David Andrews and Isaiah Wynn into the calculations since the defense hasn't lost anyone — the Patriots have three spots of extra talent — and that's mostly at running back (three players) and receiver (four players).

You might think the numbers don't mean all that much, but let's take a look at a couple of positions to find examples where Belichick beefed up the defense, but left the offense short. It's something we discussed after the final roster came out. Belichick could have dumped some veterans and played cheaper, younger players on defense to spread the wealth around. But he did not.

The Patriots lost Wynn (Red Chip) for now and replaced him with Marshall Newhouse (White Chip), who was a street free agent. They didn't even have a backup in the pipeline.

If the Patriots lost Kyle Van Noy (Blue) on the end, they would replace him with — take your pick — Shilique Calhoun (Red), Jamie Collins (Blue), Chase Winovich (Red - yes, he would start a lot of places), John Simon (White), etc.

If the offense lost Julian Edelman (Blue), they would replace him with ... Jakobi Meyers (White)?

If the defense lost Stephon Gilmore (Blue), they could replace him with Jason McCourty (Red), Jonathan Jones (Blue as a slot, Red outside), J.C. Jackson (Red) or Joejuan Williams (White, but I really want to make him a Red because he would start on a lot of teams as a second-round pick).

In any event, let's lay our chips on the table ... you tell me where I'm off.





 

(One note: Players are listed at their spot on the team relative to the rest of the league. I consider Jason McCourty elite for No. 2 corners. Likewise Jonathan Jones at slot. Same goes for James White as a third-down back.)

I actually don't think there's that much imbalance at the top with the Blue and Purple Chips. And if you factor in an Antonio Brown, who they actually spent a lot of money on, you could say at least Belichick realized there was a disparity in game-changers and tried to right the wrong.

And he still could add another piece there — you can definitely say this offense needs another top-caliber piece at a skill position.

But this exercise really lays where Belichick did and didn't want to allocate his resources on this roster. I really stretched to add John Simon and Joejuan Williams to the White on defense. I could easily make the argument they would start for many teams — and Simon has started four of six games for these Patriots!

I don't think there's any real argument to be made that the 12 White players on offense are unfair considering nearly or maybe all of them have been on the street in the past few years. Maybe Ben Watson, but any team could have signed him this offseason and after he was released by the Patriots, and no one gave him a sniff. Brandon Bolden isn't far off when you strip away special-teams duties — and we didn't include the Nate Ebners and Matthew Slaters.

If it wasn't clear before, it should be crystal clear now: Belichick believes a deep and talented defensive roster is the way to win a title. Offense just has to, really, get by.

It worked last year — the Super Bowl was 3-3 into the fourth quarter — and the Patriots won 13-3 because of their defense.

Not only did Belichick like what he saw, he doubled and tripled down on it this season.

Most of the time, he's right on this.