FOXBOROUGH - It was the perfect ending to a damn near perfect game by the Patriots’ defense. And no, I’m not talking about the 4th and 9 sack by Milton Williams to end the Chargers’ final drive. I’m talking about Williams bloodying Mike Vrabel in their post-play celebration. If anything embodied this game, or more importantly, this team for the majority of this season, it was that.
“I was just turnt,” Williams said, talking about how fired up he was in the moment. “That was pure emotion. I think I hit him with a head butt and forgot that Vrabes didn’t have a helmet on. He’ll be alright, though.”
“We talked to them about being willing to spill some blood out there, that the big dogs come out in January,” Vrabel said. “I think Milt took that to heart in the way that he played the game, in the way he finished the game. He came over and got me pretty good. That's what happens.”
There was nothing pretty about this game. Then again, they’re not supposed to be in January (or February, if you’re good enough to still be playing then). Even though the Patriots knew they were playing a Charger offense that entered this gunfight with nothing but an empty holster and a butter knife in its hand, they still respected what had to be done. And they did it.
“I thought they played extremely well,” Vrabel said.
Up until the final, borderline meaningless drive (and that was a slog), the Chargers couldn’t generate anything, be it via the air or on the ground. In fact, their second-longest play of the entire evening was the 17-yard gain by Kimani Vidal after Justin Herbert was sacked by Marcus Jones and fumbled. I mean, if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know…let me help you.
K’Lavon Chaisson was standing by his locker, getting ready to head to the podium as one of the stars of the game. He was basically talking to himself, but asked loudly, “How many did we have?”
I, being the helpful sort I am, responded, “sacks?” (In my best Ron Burgundy voice).
“Yeah,” he said.
“Six,” I told him.
He flashed a mega-watt smile.
“We didn’t give them a drop.”
No, sir, you did not. The Pats defense made life miserable for Herbert. When they weren’t sacking him, they were forcing him to bail from the pocket, often because they were dialing up one blitz after another. Up until late in that final quarter, interim coordinator Zak Kuhr had his group blitzing at a 53% rate (finished at 45.4%) and generating pressure at a 47.7% clip (4% higher than the Chargers had allowed on average this season). This group knew they could challenge the communication of that makeshift LA line, and did they ever.
But some of the heat Herbert felt stemmed from the secondary dominating their matchup against the Chargers’ wide receiving corps. This was another matchup the Pats were confident about heading into the game, but it played out even better than they could have hoped. Though the advanced metrics (Sumer Sports) had the Pats playing nearly 70% zone, there was a ton of match coverage, and Christian Gonzalez (0 catches allowed), Carlton Davis, and Jones deserved all the love they got postgame.“Man, shout out to the defensive backs and the back seven,” Chaisson said. “Just giving us those extra seconds to get to the quarterback. ... without them, none of this would have been possible.”
Credit should also go to defensive coordinator Zak Kuhr and the rest of the Patriots' defensive coaches for coming up with a plan that, even after 60 minutes, the Chargers still didn't have answers for.
"After the game, talking to a few of the guys on the other team, they had no clue what we were doing," Robert Spillane said. "And they came up and said that, ‘We had no clue what you guys were in all game.’ So for (Kuhr) just to be able to build those packages throughout the week, our back-end players to know how to disguise the different defenses, really keeps quarterbacks guessing.”
The Pats allowed just 2 conversions on 13 third and fourth down attempts. Included in those numbers was a critical turnover on downs in the opening quarter after the first of two Drake Maye turnovers (he also had another fumble that Jared Wilson recovered). That could have put the Pats in a quick 7-0 hole, and maybe quieted the crowd. Instead, the stop kept the energy level at 100.
“That was major for our team,” Davis told me. “That was major for the momentum shift. We're just out there playing D no matter where it's at or how we get out there. We're gonna go defend every blade of grass.”
“That was big,” Williams added. “You play good red-zone defense, you're gonna win a lot of games. Shout out to our coaching staff and all our players. We showed up when we needed to.”
“I think they probably got tired of hearing me talk about them being fourth in the league in third down,” Vrabel said of the Chargers and the third and fourth-down defensive success. “What they were able to do as an offense, so to be able to do that... You have to be able to create some longer yardage situations. We were able to do that. That was real positive. I think being able to get drives stopped, certainly the Chargers want to possess the football, wear you down. I don't think we ever let them do that.”
Rare has been the occasion that the Patriot defense has had to lift up the offense. But with Maye and company struggling to consistently move the ball, and when they did, failing to turn red-zone trips into touchdowns, they needed a boost. And, as an ode to complimentary football, the D gave them that.
“I'm glad we were able to go out there and have our offense back,” Harold Landry said. “We were able to show up the way we did as a defense, and when we play great team defense, stuff like that can happen.”
“Credit to our defense for just hanging in there and just playing unreal all day long,” added Hunter Henry. “Just really, really cool to watch. Just a lot of guys competing at a high level and just continuing to strain and find different ways to make a play.”
In doing so, the defense delivered its best performance in its latest game (the 3 points allowed were a season low). The road will only get more difficult as they move forward, but now that they can see what they’re capable of, perhaps they can repeat that effort and performance.