they were outschemed and outplayed, yes. however the same two teams are meeting a little over a year later with mostly the same personel and the line is basically the same.

so last year, after four games in which the defense looked equally as LOL according to:

standard metrics
advances metrics
the naked eye

you saw that they could improve a lot? yet thats not the case this year?

anybody who thought theo "drastically" overpaid for crawford probably doesn't understand the economics of free agency in baseball where overpaying for premium talent is the norm.

the guy was signed for 20m a year for his ages leading up to 35. over the previous two seasons he was a top 5-10 postion player according to war. he fit a glaring need on a team that shares a division with both ny and TB...they without a doubt paid a premium, but people seem to forget just how damn good this guy was between 04-10.

FYP.

You cant knock theo for signing Crawford because no one knows whether it was his move or forced by ownership.

They certainly could improve this year but I don't believe it's easy to improve as much as they did last year over the course of a season. They probably will improve to some degree though as BB has a long track record of his teams getting better as the season progresses.

The reason I think its unlikely they won't improve from where they are now into an average or above average defense is they have played worse rather than better from game one until last Sunday.

McCourty seems to be struggling adapting to how they're using him this year in more man-on-man coverages, the injuries are piling up, the pass rush is still anemic, and the 3rd down efficiency is horrible. Their greatest hope for improvement relies on a guy that's basically taken 2 years off while screwing over his teammates and coach in the process somehow changing his stripes.

Also, everyone loves to throw variance out there... Well last year a huge part of their defensive performance (as far as how many points they gave up) was based on an extraordinary number of takeaways. I don't believe takeaways are all variance, but certainly takeaways are one of the things in football most affected by variance and it's unlikely they will get so many this year.

I do think the Pats have a well below average defense, but I'm willing to cut them just a tiny bit of slack given they have arguably had the toughest schedule in the league thus far (just going off of offenses)

i'm not going to knock him because i dont think it was that bad a deal. obv in hindsight it looks weak as hell.

pfft, there isn't a soul in the world that could have predicted crawford would have the season he had.

Eh, they already have 9 takeaways. Not quite on pace for 38, and there's good reason to believe they'll fall of some, but a large part of the NE defense seems to revolve around waiting for their opponents to make mistakes. It's all speculation on my part to whether it's sustainable or not, but I'm not going to completely write it off as variance (which I realize you made it clear you weren't doing.)

FWIW, NE has been above average in defensive INT% every year since 2006, according to PFR.

I've been DELIGHTED by McCourty's performance in man-on-man. Every time they throw his way, he's got his guy covered like a blanket.

I recall him looking awful in a lot of on man spots.

The knock on him coming out of college iirc was he would struggle with man to man coverage. last year he was zone a ton and looked great. this year it appears he has been asked to assume the role of a shutdown 1v1 type and the early returns (imo) havent been great.

if BB thinks he can be a shutdown guy, i trust him and will be patient. if hes wrong, i assume he adjusts. i hate to sound like a broken record, but when your teams offense is as good as NE's and your defense is ran by BB, well you are in a good spot.

Basically this. I'll just add that he has had insanely tough assignments and he is still in only his second year so I'll cut him some slack. Sergio Brown, however, has not looked good.

Basically a Revis schmooze but I am quite ok with that.

Dunno, how much this Rev guy actually knows but this thread was a good read and showed a lot of why Revis is so damn good.

As the evolution of statistical analysis continues I will be interested in seeing if BB's defensive philosophies were ahead of the curve. His NE defenses have never been elite in terms of total y/a but they have been at worst top 20 in terms of points allowed and usually much much better. they rarely if ever give up HUGE plays, but do give up a lot of 3rd down conversions. they also seem to be better than average in terms of turnovers.

i admit to viewing BB as god though, so this could be a pollyanna view of the past.

During Raiders game, tv cameras show Al Davis in the box, but he's behind so much glass that I commented to those nearby, "He looks like a ghost! I think he IS a ghost!"

Old Al checked out today, probably because he sees his chance to make a move on Myra Kraft now.

I made a similar comment to my brother during the Raiders game as well. We thought he may have been already dead and they were propping him up "Weekend at Bernie's" style.

Pats' PR is on Twitter really hyping the hell out of a surprise pre-game ceremony at 3:45.

Nice job of counting to 12, Phil Simms. Wish I still had a DVR.

A muff counts as a fumble?

Another cross-up between Ocho and Brady. Shocker.

BJGE just moved the pile with one leg!

that drive just made us look like a high school defense my god

1st quarter shut-out, four straight three-and-outs, you could hear the crickets here.

Give up a TD, let's race for the panic button!

(But even I will admit that those 3+outs were more a product of Sanchez sucking and The Terminator dropping an easy one.)

By the way, you gambling M*******s might find it interesting that the Lawrence Eagle Tribune found my Letter to the Editor about the pending casino legislation a little long, so they ran it as a Sunday morning Op-Ed piece instead.

http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/...asino-gambling

(They cut out the part where I flat-out called her a liar.)

You can take the Ocho out of the Bengals, but you can't take the Bengals out of the Ocho.

Brady setting new records...