What Are the Patriots Playing Again
This is an era of wide-open football — basketball on grass, every bit they say.
RPO this , imitation pressure level that , spread offense here , two high safeties there …
Beak Belichick, ever the inventor, could have aggressively embraced the way of today in the post-Tom Brady era.
Instead, the New England Patriots — on every level — wait similar a squad that hurts to play against.
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The Cleveland Browns, a team that anybody would recognize as 1 of the most physically imposing in the NFL, ran headfirst into that brick wall in Week 10. The 45-7 beatdown was a definitive punctuation to New England's final month of football, and the team currently stands as the hottest in the sport.
| NFL Functioning Metrics, Since Week vii | Value (Rank) |
| Offensive Grade | 92.9 (1st) |
| Defensive Grade | 82.0 (1st) |
| Expected Points Added Per Play | .0150 (1st) |
| Expected Points Allowed Per Play | -0.260 (second) |
In the past four weeks, the Patriots take the best expected points added (EPA) per play and the second-all-time EPA allowed per play figure, too as the superlative offensive and defensive grades in the league.
The recipe for success? Acting like the schematic advances of the past decade never even happened. In a league that's been 62% pass over the past month, the Patriots are legitimately a run-first criminal offense at fifty.4% (and that's removing all garbage-time snaps). Just 4 of the 657 RPOs and iii of the 243 bootlegs in the NFL since Week 7 came from New England, and simply the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens use 21 personnel — two backs and one tight end — more often.
Those two other teams have a particular brand of football in those packages that we've come to know over the past few years: the Shan-Francisco outside zone scheme and Baltimore creating multiple new gaps with pullers and quarterback runs.
Compare those to the Patriots, who are missing a burner at tailback. On top of that, rookie quarterback Mac Jones would probably do more than to eliminate existing running lanes than open up new ones every bit a running threat.
| Squad | 21 Personnel Snaps | Top Run Concept | #2 Run Concept | #3 Run Concepts |
| San Francisco 49ers | 99 | Outside Zone (42%) | Inside Zone (22%) | Man (15%) |
| Baltimore Ravens | 74 | Counter (25%) | Man (25%) | Power (21%) |
| New England Patriots | 71 | Human (24%) | Counter (22%) | Draw (20%) |
Instead of creating the horizontal stretches that make those offenses get, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels opts to get downhill with a combination of run concepts designed specifically to force linemen and linebackers to play slower than they're used to.
The key is using fullbacks and broad receivers equally "inserts" in the run game, pb blocking upwards to the 2nd level and going between the tackles instead of on the edge.
It may be an iso concept or atomic number 82 draw, where the offensive linemen "fan out" to the most unsafe defensive linemen and lead blockers look for the first linebacker through the gap. This gives a running back a ii-way go off his block, and while information technology lacks the explosive play potential you'd find on the race to the edge on outside zone, it's been an constructive way to generate easy yards before contact.
After being kicked out one snap afterwards another, McDaniels will become to his modify-upwardly and telephone call a "wham" trap, where a guard volition cut a defensive tackle loose and take the fullback kick him out. With the guard climbing to the linebacker, this creates a similar pathway for a running dorsum while looking unlike to a box defender.
An important result of these runs is seen on the edge — the tackles fanning out to edge rushers make every run and every play activity feel the same. The most important skill in a laissez passer blitz is how much basis is gained in the first 2 strides, but even the all-time pass-rusher has to honor the run if there's no obvious pass protection stimulus to work off of.
| 21 Personnel Play-Activity Passes (since Calendar week 7) | Value |
| Dropbacks | 18 |
| Yards Per Attempt | xi.1 |
| % of Throws Past the Sticks | 47% |
| Completions of 15+ Yards | 8 |
Since Week 7, merely one of the Patriots' 18 play-action passes out of 21 personnel have resulted in a quarterback hit (and only ii pressures altogether). When the quarterback stays make clean, he can piece of work the ball downfield efficiently, leading to eight passes going for 15 or more than yards. Selling downhill runs brings linebackers forward equally well, creating perfect scenarios for Mac Jones to work with.
Defensively, this is nevertheless the best mind the NFL has ever seen, and no one better understands how to lucifer up and find the winning edge situationally. In the past iv weeks, New England is edged only past the Tennessee Titans and Miami Dolphins in percentage of dime snaps (six defensive backs).
| Actor (since Week 7) | Outside CB Snaps | Slot CB Snaps |
| J.C. Jackson | 163 | 8 |
| Jalen Mills | 154 | 29 |
| Myles Bryant | 3 | 116 |
| Joejuan Williams | 95 | 2 |
| Player | Box Snaps | Slot Snaps | Costless Safety Snaps |
| Kyle Dugger | 78 | 46 | 32 |
| Adrian Phillips | lxxx | 29 | 51 |
| Devin McCourty | 30 | 11 | 139 |
When the time comes to play the pass, it's hard to discover ameliorate examples of how to brand single-high defense work in this era, outside of Foxborough, Massachusetts. But the Dolphins have more snaps on the twelvemonth with the middle of the field "closed," just the Patriots more than eclipse Miami in defensive grade (90.0 to 73.i) and EPA per pass (-0.342 to -0.147).
Playing with half dozen defensive backs will put you lot in a position to succeed in Encompass 1, when y'all have the players you lot need to friction match up with receiving threats. Even in Encompass 3, though, you can see underneath defenders nigh perfectly find the balance between protecting the seams of the defense (just outside of the hash marks) and the sideline, where at that place should be more airspace to throw into.
Information technology wouldn't be a Belichick defence force without a brutal tendency billow, either. Later on looking at one-loftier safe and pressed defenders, safeties volition spin out and play Cover 2, taking away access to the throws that would exist available against Cover 1, along the sidelines.
But there's more to information technology than flooding the field with defensive backs because every defensive package has its ain structural identity.
Have, for example, how this defense fits the run out of its base personnel (only four defensive backs). If you've followed my work (or that of PFF's Seth Galina) yous've heard mentions of the "Tite/Odd" forepart — with two defensive tackles inside of offensive tackles and a nose over the tackles. This is supposed to keep linebackers clean, at the expense of pass rush.
Belichick does run an odd front but opts instead for his "Base" front (what you lot may hear called the "Okie" forepart in other football parlance), with two defensive tackles outside of the tackles and a nose tackle.
What New England wants to do with that is hibernate the "rotation" of the safeties (which 1 is rolling down) and the "reduction" of the front (which outside linebacker is rushing, and which defensive tackle is slanting down inside of the offensive tackle). This is a rare approach in the NFL, as only three teams have played more than than 45 total defensive snaps with an odd front end and ane high condom in the by iv weeks.
| Team | Odd Forepart, Single-Loftier Snaps (since Week 7) | Defensive Course (Rank min. 10 Snaps) | EPA/Play (Rank) |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 66 (1st) | 63.0 (9th) | 0.116 (12) |
| Miami Dolphins | 58 (2d) | 59.2 (twelfth) | -0.035 (9th) |
| New England Patriots | 49 (third) | 75.3 (3rd) | -0.139 (sixth) |
This is much improve for edge presence in laissez passer-rushing situations, but it asks linebackers to take on uncovered guards in the run game. While the degree of difficulty is through the roof, information technology leads to incredible reps of Ja'Whaun Bentley and Dont'a Hightower flying downhill to fix the run fit for this defense. You tin can see teaching tape quality reps on the border, too, closing off creases by moving the point of assault into the backfield.
Every season comes with a team dubbed the one "nobody wants to play."
This twelvemonth, just like every other, it'due south the Patriots.
Source: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-new-england-patriots-bill-belichick-mac-jones-offense-defense-2021
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