It would be hard, bordering on impossible, to look at the numbers and find fault with New England Patriots’ marquee free-agent pickup Matt Judon.
In just six games, the $56-million man has piled up 6.5 sacks, a dozen quarterback hits in total, with 16 solo tackles.
Still, as it stands, Judon is the lead piece on a defense that was ravaged by the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday to the tune of 567 yards on 82 plays.
It’s a defense that now has allowed 21.2 points a game and has not been able to come up with a stop when they have had to.
If Mac Jones and the offense have been doing just enough to win, the defense has seemingly played just well enough to lose.
Stop Miami once, the Bucs once, and Dallas once in late in the fourth quarter or overtime (even a stop against the Saints would have helped immensely) and this team is staring at 5-1, instead of wallowing at 2-4. Even Judon knows that.
“We have got to close it out. Our offense went back out there and scored. They put us back up and gave us the lead and we’ve got to do our job,” said Judon, who had one hit on Dak Prescott but went sack-free for the first time since the opener. “We’ve got to watch the film and we’ve got to execute and then practice those situations. We already practice those situations, so we just have to take practice into the game and get that big stop for our team.”
Again, save for the lack of pressure on Dak Prescott (0 sacks in 52 dropbacks), the individual Patriot numbers, especially at linebacker, might make you think it was a productive performance.
Remember, this is a Dallas team that came in leading the NFL in points scored, and one of the TDs on Sunday was a Trevon Diggs pick-6.
Ja’Whaun Bentley posted a career-high 12 solo tackles, with the biggest play of his four-year tenure here in Foxborough, soaring through the air and punching the ball out of Prescott’s hands at the goal line on fourth down.
As a group, they held Dallas to 3 of 13 on third downs. Yet, Prescott, allowed to sit in the pocket unmolested most of the evening, helped the Cowboys put up more yards on Belichick’s defense than the Eagles did back in Super Bowl LII.
“They made some bigtime plays in clutch moments … They just made more plays than we did,” said Bentley. “That’s what it comes down to. That’s really what football comes down to in general. They just made more plays.”
Where are these guys when it counts?
Sunday against Dallas, the game-winning touchdown play from Prescott to CeeDee Lamb, the focus will be on Jalen Mills and his inability to chase the receiver across the field. The fact is there was no safety help for Mills and Prescott had all the time in the world to allow his receiver to break free.
Why? There was no safety help for Mills. The single-high safety on the play, Devin McCourty, rolled up to play one of Dallas’ tight ends in the flat.
Prescott should have been under pressure. He wasn’t because both Judon, the outside backer to the rollout side, and Dont’a Hightower got initially sucked into run flow to the left. Essentially, both linebackers, with the game on the line, got stuck in no-man’s land.
“We were in a tough call, I think, for the route they ran,” said McCourty. “They dialed up a good play for what we tried to do, kind of situational football. What they like to do, we tried to take it away. Dak (Prescott) was able to hold it for another second. We kind of took the first two reads, the two tight ends to the flat on our left side, but an extended play, he got to kind of get back to the middle. That's where we were kind of light at and that was it.”
Only minutes earlier, in regulation, Prescott started at a third-and-25 at midfield, needing a field goal to tie. The Patriots rushed four, and he stood alone in the pocket for a football eternity. Ultimately, he found Lamb in the deep middle for 24, setting up the overtime-forcing field goal.
Judon, New England’s big-play man was in the rush, but that’s a tall ask, with only four rushing.
This one is fresh on the memory, and the sudden-death nature of the play makes it so impactful.
Was Sunday’s late letdown any different than Miami marching through the defense to ice the game with two huge first downs in the late stages of Week 1? Or Tom Brady and Bucs eating up 10 minutes of the fourth quarter to choke the Patriots out in Week 4.
“We just have to make a few plays at the end,” said McCourty. “It’s not like we’re coming in here at home and have no shot to win. All of these games, even the Saints game, came down to a couple plays that we’re not finishing. And we’re falling short.”
The margin for error shrinks with every loss and every missed opportunity.