Bedard: Patriots' offense gets in gear but defense, considering recent history, was alarming in loss to Vikings

Oh no, not again.

After watching the Patriots' defense race to great starts the previous three seasons but then crash hard down the stretch to contribute to the team going without a playoff victory since 2018, surely this time was going to be different.

The Patriots entered this game as the NFL's top-ranked defense in DVOA over at FootballOutsiders.com. Matthew Judon led the NFL in sacks. The Vikings seemed like the perfect opponent to help legitimize this Patriots' defense with a statement game against a talented group that was really a paper tiger (19th in offensive DVOA). After all, just four days ago, another excellent defense (Dallas) entered US Bank Stadium and demolished Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson and Dalvin Cook in a 40-3 shellacking that featured seven sacks of Cousins.

No reason to think this would be any different — if the Patriots were really that good.

After the Patriots allowed Cousins and Jefferson to go off while forcing just one punt after the first quarter (two touchdowns on four-straight scoring drives from the second quarter through the middle of the fourth), there will be a lot of questions — namely, was the Patriots' defense really that good? — as they prepare to welcome Josh Allen and the Bills to Gillette in another Thursday night affair.

"Cousins was tough," Bill Belichick told reporters. "They made a lot of good plays, throws, checks. He's a good player. Disappointing to come up a little bit short, but we just had too many mistakes they took advantage of, and that really is the difference in a game. Could point to a lot of things, and any of them would have made a difference, but collectively we've just got to do a better job here and just perform a little bit better than we did tonight."

What makes it even more painful is that Mac Jones and the offense had perhaps their best game of the season (going 3 for 10 on third down, 0 for 3 in the red zone made it far from a banner night) by averaging 7.4 yards per play. The Patriots took the lead four times in the game and three times the defense gave it back (once by special teams) on drives of 72 yards, 75 yards and 65 yards, and the final scoring drive in a tie game was 71 yards.

"Our offense moved the ball up and down the field today, they did a great job," said Devin McCourty. "We got to find a way to get one more stop than their defense did like that's how some games are gonna go. Last week went totally opposite. So we got to be ready to go whatever style the game, whatever rankings are rated a person is or a team or offense, defense is, just find a way to win."

Another big issue in this game for the defense (and special teams): penalties. The Patriots contributed 45 yards in penalties to Vikings drives, including three that resulted in 13 points. Jonathan Jones had two personal foul penalties by himself. The Vikings' defense gave the Patriots zero additional yards.

The most startling aspect of this game was how the Patriots' pass rush was not able, on a consistent basis, to make life difficult for Cousins. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the Vikings completed 81.6 percent of their passes (Jefferson had one). That was the second-highest ever against a Belichick defense (Wildcat game). That's a QB that is way too comfortable.

According to PFF's first viewing of the game, the Patriots had one sack, one hit and seven hurries (nine total QB pressures) on 39 dropbacks. That's 23 percent — good pressure is around 40 percent.

A week ago, the Cowboys had 7 sacks, 4 hits and 9 hurries (20 pressures) on 40 dropbacks — 50 percent pressure.

"Not disappointed ... we want to get that (win) but just frustrated ... frustrated," said Judon, who was limited to three tackles and 2 QB hits officially. :We got to play better on defense. Come up with some of those stops coming down the stretch. We can't let him score on back-to-back drives, especially in a game like that. So, you know, we're not disappointed man, we were gonna bind together and we're gonna keep coming but you know, it's just a little frustrating."

The Vikings obviously had a plan for Judon on this game that involved not only extra bodies, but a variety of plays — which good playcallers always employ.

"Well, we had a real plan, kind of knowing where we'd be at," said Vikings coach/playcaller Kevin O'Connell. "We wanted to try to run the football. It's a tough group to run it against, not a lot of average per carry tonight (Vikings ran it 27 times despite 2.1 yards per carry). But we were able to churn out runs to then allow us to activate some play passes.

"We used a lot of different techniques on the edges to try to condense that rush, try to let Kirk have some clean pockets. I will say they got the NFL sack leader over there, some really good interior rushers, timely pressures. Kirk Cousins was phenomenal tonight getting us in and out of the plays he did, standing back there and making some big-time throws. I can't say enough about the protection as well, those guys doing their jobs. It was not easy. It's never going to be easy against that defensive structure, team or coaching staff. So I give our guys a ton of credit for making plays and just consistently finding ways to drive the football."

On what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown, Cousins had 4.48 seconds and a clean pocket to find Adam Thielen in the back of the end zone which is way too long to cover deep crossing routes from the 16-yard line. It also looked on the play, with Devin McCourty and Jonathan Jones helping on Jefferson that, perhaps, rookie Jack Jones was supposed to pass off Jefferson and help on Thielen. 

Of course, sometimes you can't stop certain players like Jefferson, who caught all nine of his catchable passes for 139 yards (15.4 average) and a touchdown. But, still, when was the last time the Patriots let the most dangerous opponent dictate a game like that?

"Yeah, obviously we didn't do a good job of that at all," McCourty said of covering Jefferson. "So we got another guy that's pretty good next week (Bills' Stefon Diggs). So you know we got to look at what we can do to better handling a guy like that. Between Diggs and Gabe Davis next week it'd be very similar challenge to what we got tonight with Jefferson. So if we play like that against number one guys ... it's gonna be a long year."

In this game, Jefferson eclipsed Randy Moss' NFL record for most receiving yards through the first three seasons of a career (and he still has six games left).

"That's a special talent, a special talent," said Judon. "You get those every so often in the league and he does what he does every week. And so, you gotta cover him. Gotta cover him but it is a special talent."

In another miscue, it appeared that on Jefferson's touchdown both Judon and Jahlani Tavai jumped the back in the flat and that made Tavai just a hair late defending Jefferson on the score.

All told, the Vikings were 3 of 5 in the red zone and 1 for 1 in goal to go situations.

That brings up bad memories from the previous years.

In the final six games of 2019 (including Titans playoff loss), the defense allowed 10 TDs in 16 red zone trips (62.5 percent).

In 2020, it was 10 for 14 in the final four games (71.4 percent).

Last season, it was 13 for 19 after the bye including the playoff loss to Buffalo (68.4 percent).

Against the Vikings, it was 60 percent.

Hopefully that's not a bad omen for things to come, especially with the offense seemingly coming around.

"I felt like that last year, I feel like that this year is finding a way to win, you know?" McCourty said. "I think that's what this league is. There's not a lot of teams that just every Sunday have no shot to win. You guys know, you turn on the TV, you watch a football game, any given Sunday, you know, you're gonna play a team, they got a shot so we're close but I think there's a lot of teams that's close. We got to get over the hump and just find a way to win.

"From now to the rest of the season every game is huge. You know, we say it all the time, you know, football in November and December ... and that's what it is. You know, everybody's playing for something right now. And we got a lot of teams left on our schedule that have a chance and when you point to teams that have a chance you get their best shot, you know, and you got to be ready to go and we got to find a way not to just play tough in these games and have a chance but we got to find a way to win these games making one more extra play. And that's what we needed today. You know, make them kick a field goal on that last drive once they get in the red area instead of a touchdown to make things easier for our offense ... those are the small things we got to figure out how to do."