The New England Patriots are fresh off of a Monday night smackdown of their divisional rival, the New York Jets. With the 33-0 win over the Jets, the Patriots remain one of the leagues only undefeated teams, the other being the San Francisco 49ers.
If you follow the NFL, you know that the Patriots are perennial favorites to win the Super Bowl. The have appeared in five of the last eight championships, winning three of them. Since the dynamic duo of head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady have over in New England, the two have taken the team to nine Super Bowls, winning six of them. These two have more wins and appearances than any other franchise.
Avid sports fans remember the year that the Patriots nearly went undefeated, only to fall short in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. They are still the only team to go 16-0 in the regular season, the 1972 Miami Dolphins remain the only team to go undefeated through the regular season and the playoffs.
Could the Patriots go undefeated again in 2019? It certainly looks like it could happen. They are already 7-0 nearly halfway through the season, and only once have been threatened.
Their offense is just as potent as ever. Brady always gives the Patriots an advantage, but this year he is on another level. The Patriots have scored less than 30 points only once this season, and have never given up more than 14.
There lies the key to the Patriots success: a defense that looks like it could be one of the best ever. The Patriots defense has given up single-digit points in four of their seven games, including shutting out opponents twice. The defense has 22 takeaways through seven games, but has only given up six touchdowns.
So how do you defeat a team like this? First, let’s talk about what they’re doing right.
The Patriot’s dominance
Offense
The Patriots offense will always be a problem for defenses when Brady is the quarterback. But this is an odd year in which he is outside the league’s top 10 in many important categories, like passer rating, touchdowns, and completion percentage.
He also has a great stable of running backs that include Sony Michel, James White, Rex Burkhead, and Brandon Bolden. These running backs are first, second, fourth, and fifth on the team in touches, respectively. How many other teams can say their backup running backs have more touches than most of their starters?
So far this season, Michel has over 400 yards of total offense and six rushing touchdowns in seven games. Julian Edelman lead the team with over 500 yards from scrimmage, while Phillip Dorsett has caught four of Brady’s 11 passing touchdowns.
This is what makes the Patriots offense so dangerous year after year. Anyone could get the ball, but you never know who it will be. No matter who it is, though, they can do some serious damage.
Defense
The incredible thing about the defense is that the Patriots don’t have a defensive coordinator. That means Belichick is calling the plays himself. While it is rare to have the head coach acting as a defensive coordinator, it may actually be why the Patriots defense has been so dominant.
The Patriots have incredible depth at the defensive line, which is in part what makes the rest of their defense so deadly. Belichick rotated 10 players in and out of their front seven, which keeps everyone on the line fresh for four quarters of play.
In the secondary, the Patriots are are stout as any team in the league. Reigning All-Pro cornerback Stephon Gilmore can shut down any team’s top receiver, and beating Jason McCourty on the opposite boundary is no easy task either. Jason’s twin brother Devin McCourty plays at safety next to Patrick Chung in one of the most proven and experienced tandems in the league.
So how does this help Belichick with his schemes?
Having such a great secondary means that he can leave his corners on islands, freeing up the front seven to bring extra pressure. But he doesn’t present pressure the same way twice. One thing that confused opposing quarterback Sam Darnold on Monday night was the continually disguising of his schemes. Darnold couldn’t figure it out.
If you are an offense going against the Patriots, you have to be ready for pressure, tight coverage, and pretty much anything but the kitchen sink.
So how do you beat this team? Let’s ask the Buffalo Bills, who played the Patriots in Week 4. They didn’t win, but they got closer than anyone else so far this season.
The Bills’ model
Defense
What did the Bills do that helped them beat the Patriots?
First of all, they got Brady “off his spot.”
When defenses face a traditional pocket passer quarterback like Brady, their main goal is to move him around. This means that they give him pressure with their defensive line so that he has to escape. When that happens, he never gets his feet set, and his accuracy and arm strength drop off.
This is what the Philadelphia Eagles did in Super Bowl LII, and it worked. So the Bills decided to follow suit.
Brady was under constant pressure against the Bills, and he started missing throws that he normally makes. On one such play, the Bills had him running for his life when he threw an ill-advised throw that resulted in his first interception of the year.
This is the best way to go about winning against the Patriots: get to Brady. The Bills tried it and it nearly worked. Brady had his worst game by far, with only 150 passing yards, no touchdowns, and a passer rating of 45.1. Those are all his worst marks of the season.
When Brady struggles, the whole team struggles. The offense only scored 16 points that day, half of their season average (31.9 points per game).
The problem is, you had better keep their offense from scoring, because this defense only gives up an average of 6.8 points per game.
Offense
To beat the Patriots, you will need an intelligent quarterback who won’t be fooled by the disguised looks Belichick will give you. The Patriots have destroyed the young (Darnold, Josh Allen, Daniel Jones) and the experienced (Ben Roethlisberger, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Case Keenum) alike. Experience doesn’t appear to help.
Something else that will help is a quarterback that has mobility. Even the best coverage will break down eventually, so a quarterback needs to be able to escape initial pressure to give his receivers time to get open. Some of Josh Allen’s best throws came after he escaped pressure in the pocket in Week 4.
One final key to helping against this defense is a solid run game. With the amount of pressure Belichick likes to dial up and the way defensive backs cover, the middle of field can be left vulnerable. Bills running back Frank Gore, who is an ancient 36 years old, but still found over 100 yards of daylight. Both of the Bills’ scoring drives were off the back of the running game.
The Bills’ undoing was giveaways. When a defense is as tough as the Patriots, losing possessions to turnovers will kill you. The Bills had four giveaways; you can’t beat the Patriots when you give them the ball that many times.
“Losable” games
This is all well and good, but how many teams can actually pull this off?
For one, if your team is facing the Patriots down the road, one thing that bodes well is their schedule. Buffalo is the only team with a winning record that they have faced so far, and it nearly toppled them.
However, there are few winning teams scheduled to play them in the rest of 2019. They do see the Bills again (5-1), as well as the division-leading Chiefs (5-2), Ravens (5-2), and Cowboys (4-3). The only other winning team on their schedule is the Texans (4-3). They also have games against the Browns (2-4), Bengals (0-7), Eagles (3-4), and a rematch with the Dolphins (0-7).
Which of these teams can actually beat the Patriots?
The Cowboys could compete on paper, but results have shown that they tend to crumble when they are pushed. The Eagles did it in the Big Game two years ago, but they seem to be going into a tailspin right now.
One team that could be a dark horse to beat the Patriots would be the Texans. While their defense and offensive line will have a full day’s work in front of them, Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins are explosive enough to make it interesting. It’s a long shot, but not outside the realm of possibilities.
The Ravens could also do it, since they have a few dynamic playmakers on their offense. They also have the advantage of facing the Patriots in Baltimore, since all five of the Patriots losses in 2018 came on the road. But quarterback Lamar Jackson’s inexperience could prove costly.
The two teams with the best chances at taking down New England are the Chiefs and the Bills.
The Chiefs went toe-to-toe against the Patriots in last year’s AFC Championship, narrowly losing in overtime. Patrick Mahomes is a superstar, and his offense is returning four All-Pro selections from 2018. In addition to adding Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu in the offseason, the Chiefs defense is much better than last years’.
However, the Chiefs are also spiraling downwards and are in the middle of a two-game losing streak. Not to mention, Mahomes’ injury still looms large. They would need a healthy Mahomes to even compete.
So this leaves us with the Bills. Buffalo has one big advantage, and that is that they’ve already seen the Patriots once this year. The bad news is that this time the game is in Foxborough, giving the Patriots home field advantage.
Will the Patriots actually go undefeated? It’s more likely than not. But it’s still not a guarantee because anything can happen in this league. A 16-win season has only happened once before in NFL history, despite some great teams gracing the gridiron.
Because of Belichick’s hands-on influence on the defense, the Patriots’ schedule, and Brady’s timeless talent, the Patriots will have the best chance to go undefeated of any team we have seen in the last decade. It will probably be another decade before another team even gets this close.