25 October, 2019
The New England Patriots' 2019 schedule reads like
a fine dining menu.
The first part of the season has been a
seven-course appetizer, with the next six games a meaty main course and the
last three a delectable selection of desserts.
We've been to this restaurant many times in the
past two decades, but rarely have we been looking forward to the main course
like we are this time around - because as the season wears on, the meat looks
easier to chew than what it appeared to be when the menu came out earlier in
the offseason.
The Patriots devoured the appetizers, suffering
little heartburn in victories over a selection of savory delicacies in
preparation for what had promised to be a complex
combination of beef and fowl; a selection of regional favorites from places
like Texas, the east coast and the midwest promising to stick to their ribs...
...the teams they are preparing to face having
been tenderized by the first half of their collective schedules.
Up first, a Cleveland Browns' team that stands at
2-5 on the season after being touted by friend and foe alike as the next-big-thing
in professional football, but now resemble a pack of surly waiters stuck in a
dead-end jobs and in need of a collective cigarette break.
That break came last week as the Browns took their
scheduled bye week and hope to come back refreshed.
But anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant
knows that waiters are treacherous and opinionated drama queens who can flip on
the charm in front of the public, but back in the kitchen cause turmoil and eat
french fries off of your plate before delivering it to the table.
Certainly the Browns' vocal chords are in fine
shape. Receiver Jarvis Landry was asked by a reported from a local Cleveland
rag what he expected from his team coming out of the bye week, to which Landry
replied, “We're going to Foxborough to win.”. Of course, the Boston media took
that and ran with it, openly wondering why Landry would say anything to incite
the Patriots.
The rest of the Browns are being very complementary
of the Patriots, perhaps knowing that they are walking into a meat grinder with
little chance to emerge with anything more than table scraps to feed their Dawg
Pound.
The main reason for that is a player that the
Browns released this past offseason who became the final piece of a Patriots'
defense dubbed “The Boogeyman” that has terrorized opposing quarterbacks and
smothered their pass catchers with such ferocity that they lead the National
Football League in so many categories that it's conceivable that they could
possibly be the best unit of stoppers that football has ever seen...
...the caveat to that statement being that the
offenses the Boogeyman have faced thus far aren't exactly a murderer's row of
firepower, featuring young and inexperienced quarterbacks who wilt like fresh
spinach under the intense heat of the Patriots' shape-shifting pass rush.
Linebacker Jamie Collins, the Browns' leading
tackler last season and a former Patriot before that, has returned to
Foxborough as an integral part of a defense that causes so much chaos along the
offensive line that those inexperienced quarterbacks have no choice but to
either deliver quick throws or become pancakes.
The proof is in the pudding, as it were, as
Collins leads their pack of swift and violent pass rushers who are on pace to
collect sixty sacks – and if the quarterback does happen to get rid of the
ball, they still take punishment, being hit anyway and reducing them to
skittish turnover machines who have collectively thrown 18 interceptions.
And even when their opponents try to catch them
off guard by attempting to run the football, Collins and strong-side linebacker
Kyle Van Noy set such a hard edge that the defense as a whole have collected
fifty tackles for a loss, as they turn the running backs back inside where
folks like Lawrence Guy, Adam Butler and Danny Shelton are waiting to
obliterate them.
The secret ingredient is what is known as a
cover-zero package, wherein the Patriots' excellent group of defensive backs
cover pass catchers in press-man without a safety over the top – a scheme
wrought with danger if the quarterback has time to make his reads and deliver a
strike, as one broken tackle can turn a short throw into a long touchdown run.
That has happened just once in seven games, as the
combination of the intense pressure and tight man coverage turn opposing
receivers into impromptu pigs in a blanket – such an overwhelming percentage of
success that Patriots' head ball coach Bill Belichick, who calls his group of
stoppers an “Amoeba”, can disguise his coverages to the point that their foes
can't tell who is rushing the quarterback and who is dropping into coverage.
Hard cheese for young quarterbacks to swallow, but
it remains to be seen if Cleveland's Baker Mayfield, a second-year signal
caller, will be able to decipher it in time to get the ball out to his
top-shelf group of receivers.
Under normal circumstances, those pass catchers
comprise one of the most dangerous downfield threats in the league, but given
the relentlessness of the Patriots' pass rush, Baker's big arm and gunslinger
mentality should be rendered inert, or taken advantage of in other ways, so the
Browns would be wise to become a more methodical, move-the-chains attack, with
short throws and trap draws to the running backs.
The Patriots' defense dictates to opposing
offenses what they can be – and usually when a defense is that dominating, the
offenses simply take what the defense gives them, which can work to their
advantage. But this Patriots' defense gives absolutely nothing to those
offenses, so there's nothing to take.
Further complicating matters, the Patriots'
offense is already the aforementioned methodical, sometimes plodding entity
that will lull defenses to sleep with possessions that feature double-digit
snap counts and eat game clock like a starving man would a free cheeseburger,
both wearing them down and setting them up for a sporadic big gainer.
And the whole time this is happening, that vicious
Patriots' defense is sitting on the sidelines resting up, staying fresh and
plotting their next assault on the poor geeks charged with trying to move the
ball against them.
In the past, Patriots' fans reached for the Xanax
when watching teams drive the field on the defense, but also with the knowledge
that Belichick's designs made them a bend-but-don't-break entity, hoping that
the defense would surrender only a field goal attempt...
...but now the stressor is in hoping that this
defense can pitch a shutout, something that they've done three times already
this season (if you count their first meeting with the New York Jets, when the
Jets' defense and special teams tallied touchdowns), and have allowed only
three touchdowns in total.
The Browns represent the best collection of talent
that the Patriots will have faced all season long, and are coming off of their
bye week, so they should be fresh and ready to give New England their best shot
– and whether that best shot will be good enough to net them anything more than
a purple heart is doubtful.
And should the Patriots be able to keep Mayfield
and his All Pro receivers in check, perhaps their pundits will start to
acknowledge that perhaps this is the best, most complete team in the history of
the game – but anything less and the naysayers will continue to hammer on New
England, saying that they still haven't played anyone.
Not that it matters to Belichick or his players,
because either way, the chances are very good that the Patriots will run their
record to 8-0, topping off the first half of their 2019 season with whipped
cream and a cherry.
