While the Patriots take a few well-earned days off of rest, let's look at five key questions facing the Patriots once they get back for the final four games. (BSJ members, leave your looming questions in the comments and I may mix them in.)
Previously:
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When Stephon Gilmore stayed on the PUP list at the start of the regular season, the Patriots could take solace in knowing they still had JC Jackson and Jonathan Jones at cornerback, so they could largely stay with their man-based scheme.
With a month of data on their roster, including newcomer Jalen Mills, the Patriots decided they could do without Gilmore, and traded him to the Panthers on Oct. 6th.
A little over two weeks later, Jones had shoulder surgery and was lost for the season.
Uh-oh.
Looked like trouble for a Patriots team that, since the early 2010s, has relied on man coverage as their base of operations to free up more players in the run game, and to get after the quarterback.
But since that time, the Patriots have been terrific on pass defense. They are now second in the league in defensive passer rating at 70.9. Now, in fairness, the Patriots have only faced one formidable pass opponent: Justin Herbert and the Chargers. The rest — Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Matt Ryan, Ryan Tannehill and Josh Allen in a hurricane — all had some sort of issue that helped the Patriots a bit on the back end.
But still, the Patriots have executed. Whatever they've faced, they've aced. And they've morphed as a unit. The Patriots are now a zone-based team that will occasionally play man, but mostly they spin the dial with different zone coverages.
With Frank Reich — the architect for the Eagles' 41-point outburst against the Patriots in Super Bowl LII — staring them in the face on Saturday night, and Allen in better weather after that — to say nothing of having to face the surging Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs, and whatever the NFC has to offer in a possible Super Bowl matchup — can the Patriots continue to play this way and hold up in the biggest games to come?
Well, the answer to that was basically revealed in what an NFL personnel executive told us this weekend:
I think they can play zone and they’re getting enough pressure to make it possible. That's been the whole key to this point for the defense. They're getting a lot of pressure with (Matthew) Judon and (Christian) Barmore. If that continues, it feeds into how they're playing coverages. If the rush doesn't get home and the QB has time to work through his progressions, that's where an issue could arise.
You can get away with playing zone only if you generate a lot of pressure. If the QB can sit back there and wait for targets to float from zone to zone, and for coverage players to get out of their area, any zone defense is going to get picked apart, no matter how good you think you might be.
But if the QB is forced to get rid of the ball quickly, that plays into the coverages' hands. And that's how the Patriots have played great pass defense since the Cowboys game.
In that loss, the Patriots generated pressure on Dak Prescott a season-low 17.54 percent. Since that time, the Patriots haven't failed to generate at least 23 percent pressure, and they had high rates against the Chargers (50%), Panthers (50%) and Falcons (47.4%). They have averaged pressure on the QB on 35.4 percent of snaps.
If the Patriots stay at around that rate on average, then absolutely yes they can play exactly like this and win a lot of games. In the 2-4 start, they only eclipsed 23 percent twice — the Jets and the Saints.
There's no question that Judon and Barmore have been the key to all of this, so their health and continued high level of play will be crucial. Judon leads the team with 43.5 total QB pressures, and Barmore is second with 31.5. That's 75 total between the two players.
The rest of the team has combined for 83.5 and no one has more than 11.5 (Deatrich Wise, Dont'a Hightower).
Judon looked a bit fatigued in the past two games. After averaging 3.6 pressures in the first 11 games, he has four in the past two. Hopefully the bye refreshes him for the stretch run. Barmore, before dealing with an injury the previous two games, has shown no signs of being anything other than a pain in the rear to block for interior offensive lineman. But after averaging 3.0 pressures in the first 11 games, he has 0.5 in two games.
Like Judon, the bye is hopefully the best medicine for Barmore. It's one thing to face the Titans without AJ Brown, Julio Jones and Derrick Henry, and Buffalo in heavy winds with your best pass rushers at less than 100 percent. It could be much different vs. Indy and Buffalo in good weather.
So, really, the answer to this question comes down to the Patriots' ability to generate pressure. If they average 30 percent against Indy, Buffalo, Miami, and perhaps Tennessee and Kansas City in the postseason, absolutely the Patriots can hold up just fine without Gilmore and Jones.
But teams that can handle Judon and Barmore — especially those with multiple viable weapons that need coverage attention so players can't be used to augment the pass rush as much — have to be somewhat of a worry going forward. The Patriots haven't seen that, really, since the Bucs and Cowboys — both losses to NFC teams. The Colts and Bills should be good test runs and give us a better answer going forward.