The Patriots really aren't that good

It's the popular idea today: The Patriots didn't necessarily do anything egregiously wrong in their loss at Miami on Sunday. The Patriots don't necessarily have some sort of mental block when it comes to winning on the road. The Patriots aren't necessarily gag artists who can't live up to expectations.

The Patriots might just not be all that good.

Given the numerous factors that go into winning and losing football games, it's a tough theory to try to prove. With help from our friends at ProFootballFocus.com, though, we'll give it a shot. Here's a position-by-position look -- with stats up to date entering play entering play in Week 13 and thus not including Week 13 -- at how the Patriots rank when compared to their counterparts around the NFL:

(Note: The PFF.com rankings include every aspect of the game -- meaning wide receivers are evaluated on their run-blocking as well as their pass-catching, and linebackers are evaluated on their pass coverage as well as their tackling.)

Center
1. Ryan Kalil, Carolina
2. Nick Mangold, N.Y. Jets
3. Jake Grove, Miami
13. Dan Koppen, New England

Guard
1. Jahri Evans, New Orleans
2. Steve Neal, New England
3. Carl Nicks, New Orleans
12. Logan Mankins, New England

Tackle
1. Joe Thomas, Cleveland
2. Willie Colon, Pittsburgh
3. Jake Long, Miami
5. Sebastian Vollmer, New England
14. Nick Kaczur, New England
45. Matt Light, New England

Tight end
1. Kevin Boss, N.Y. Giants
2. Jason Witten, Dallas
3. Dallas Clark, Indianapolis
18. Chris Baker, New England
33. Ben Watson, New England

Wide receiver
1. Reggie Wayne, Indianapolis
2. Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona
3. Vincent Jackson, San Diego
9. Wes Welker, New England
18. Randy Moss, New England
45. Sam Aiken, New England

Running back
1. Maurice Jones-Drew, Jacksonville
2. Ray Rice, Baltimore
3. Ricky Williams, Miami
9. Kevin Faulk, New England
49. Laurence Maroney, New England

Quarterback
1. Drew Brees, New Orleans
2. Brett Favre, Minnesota
3. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis
10. Tom Brady, New England

Offensive analysis: The Patriots have two players who rank among the top five at their position in the NFL. Both -- Neal and Vollmer -- were injured against Miami. Wes Welker remains a playmaking machine. Brady ranks ahead of names like Carson Palmer, Eli Manning and Joe Flacco but behind David Garrard, Kurt Warner and Matt Schaub.

3-4 defensive end
1. Justin Smith, San Francisco
2. Randy Starks, Miami
3. Corey Williams, Cleveland
11. Ty Warren, New England
(Neither Jarvis Green nor Mike Wright has played enough snaps at 3-4 end to qualify.)

Defensive tackle
1. Kevin Williams, Minnesota
2. Kelly Gregg, Baltimore
3. Vince Wilfork, New England

3-4 outside linebacker
1. DeMarcus Ware, Dallas
2. James Harrison, Pittsburgh
3. Tully Banta-Cain, New England

Inside linebacker
1. Ray Lewis, Baltimore
2. Patrick Willis, San Francisco
3. Nick Barnett, Green Bay
33. Gary Guyton, New England
39. Jerod Mayo, New England

Cornerback
1. Charles Woodson, Green Bay
2. Darrelle Revis, N.Y. Jets
3. Antoine Winfield, Minnesota
14. Leigh Bodden, New England
61. Darius Butler, New England
68. Shawn Springs, New England
81. Jonathan Wilhite, New England

Safety
1. Ed Reed, Baltimore
2. Reed Doughty, Washington
3. Nick Collins, Green Bay
14. Brandon Meriweather, New England
68. Brandon McGowan, New England

Defensive analysis: The dismal rankings of the Patriots' cornerbacks shouldn't be surprising. Whoever it is that watches film for ProFootballFocus.com, though, also is having a tough time finding impact plays made either by Mayo or McGowan. The disappearance of Mayo in particular -- he has 64 tackles in nine games this season, but raise your hand if you remember the last impact play he made -- might be one of the most under-discussed subplots of the Patriots' collapse. That might be worth a separate film breakdown and discussion in this space.

Credit should go to Tully Banta-Cain, however, who really is having a Pro Bowl-caliber year rushing the passer. Entering play Sunday, PFF.com had credited Banta-Cain with five sacks, seven hits on the quarterback and 13 pressures -- and he'd missed just two tackles all season.

Leftover lessons from Patriots-Colts

While the vultures circle around Bill Belichick this week -- even as evidence suggests he might have actually been playing the percentages after all -- it's easy to overlook some of the other lessons we learned during the Patriots' 35-34 loss in Indianapolis:

* The Colts can't defend Randy Moss. The Jets (with Darrelle Revis, the best cover corner in the NFL) remain a tough matchup for Moss. But the Colts' rookie corners had no chance to cover Moss deep -- as evidenced by his 63-yard touchdown reception -- and gave no indication they'd have any chance to do better if the two teams met again.

* The Patriots can defend Dallas Clark. Brandon McGowan did quite a bit of it. Darius Butler and Patrick Chung did their part, too. It was a total team effort, but the Patriots made the Colts' star tight end a virtual non-factor. Clark caught four passes for 65 yards, but he also was virtually invisible during the second and third quarters of the game.

* The Patriots can't necessarily defend Clark and Reggie Wayne at the same time. Credit has to go, of course, to Wayne and Peyton Manning. A couple of the passes Wayne caught were perfect throws from Manning, and there was nothing the Patriots' corners could have done. But the Patriots focused quite a bit on Clark, and that allowed Wayne to run free a little bit.

If they had a Revis-type cover corner, they could afford to do that, but they don't: Leigh Bodden ranked 23rd among cornerbacks entering play Sunday, according to ProFootballFocus.com, and while he's been a huge upgrade on Ellis Hobbs and Deltha O'Neal, he got beat clean by Pierre Garcon in the third quarter for a touchdown.

* The Patriots are getting dangerously thin along the line of scrimmage. Bill Belichick had no update Monday on the head injury suffered by Stephen Neal during Sunday's second half, but if Neal misses any length of time, the Patriots could be in trouble. Center Dan Koppen was a game-day decision on Sunday, and left tackle Matt Light now has missed a month with a knee injury. Neal might be the most difficult to replace, though: He entered the weekend as the best offensive guard in football.

On the other side, Jarvis Green and Ty Warren both were deactivated against the Colts, and pass-rushing linebacker Tully Banta-Cain left the game in the first quarter with a knee injury. The emergence of Myron Pryor and the steadiness of Mike Wright mitigates the issue a little bit, but the Patriots are running out of bodies to play alongside star nose tackle Vince Wilfork.

(This has less to do with the line of scrimmage, but did anyone notice how little Adalius Thomas did in the game even after Banta-Cain and journeyman Rob Ninkovich -- the Patriots' first two options at outside linebacker, apparently -- were injured?)

Patriots get out the bag of tricks

"The Patriots want to blitz," Phil Simms said early in the CBS broadcast of the New England-Tampa Bay game on Sunday, "and they want to put pressure on the quarterback and they want to put pressure on the short routes."

But the Patriots hadn't blitzed. All season long, with Jerod Mayo and without, the Patriots hadn't blitzed. They'd done some shifting between a 4-3 formation and a 3-4 formation while mixing in some nickel and dime, but they'd mostly stayed home and avoided the creative gambles that for so long was the hallmark of Bill Belichick defenses. Against Denver two weeks ago, with the Broncos' "Wild Horses" offense causing all sorts of problems, the Patriots did almost nothing but stay at home in their base defensive packages -- and Kyle Orton picked them apart.

On Sunday, though, the Patriots blitzed. They blitzed corners off the edge. They blitzed safeties up the middle. They blitzed linebackers from just about everywhere. They didn't blitz too much -- by the count of this reporter, they blitzed on 13 of their 36 defensive snaps in the first half -- but they blitzed enough to keep young quarterback Josh Johnson looking over his shoulder.

And while it didn't make much of a difference against the woeful Buccaneers, who would have lost big no matter what, it did demonstrate that it did demonstrate that the Patriots' new-look defense still is capable of executing the same complex defensive packages as its predecessors.

Here's a look at how the Patriots distributed their blitzes in the first half before the score started to get out of hand:

* Brandon McGowan blitzed four times;
* Jonathan Wilhite blitzed three times;
* Adalius Thomas -- remember him? -- blitzed three times;
* Wilhite and McGowan blitzed at the same time twice, including on the interception that Brandon Meriweather returned for a touchdown;
* Gary Guyton blitzed twice;
* Meriweather blitzed once, doing so in tandem with Thomas;
* Jerod Mayo blitzed once;
* Patrick Chung blitzed once;
* Leigh Bodden blitzed once.

And that's just the first half.

Oh, and the Patriots frequently lined up Tully Banta-Cain and Derrick Burgess at defensive end, flanking Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren, and both Banta-Cain and Burgess are at their best when they're going after the quarterback.

The result?

* Thomas had a quarterback hurry;
* Banta-Cain had two tackles for a loss;
* Chung had a sack and a quarterback hurry;
* Guyton had a tackle for a loss and a quarterback hurry;
* Mike Wright had a sack and a quarterback hurry;
* Myron Pryor had a quarterback hurry and a tackle for a loss;
* McGowan, Meriweather and bodden each broke up two passes.

The Patriots will face the Dolphins at Gillette Stadium in two weeks, a team that sparked the Wildcat revolution across the NFL. The Patriots weren't able to deal with the "Wild Horses" offense the Broncos threw at them, eschewing creativity in favor of conservatism.

It'll be interesting to see if they do the same against Miami.

Safety help on wide receivers

Derrick Mason had six catches for 77 yards and a touchdown on the Ravens' first drive against the Patriots on Sunday. He had one catch for 11 yards after that.

Adjustment, much?

"We played more split-safety coverage after the first drive," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said during a press conference on Monday. "I don't think that was all of it, but I think that might have had something to do with it."

For the layman, here's how Belichick described split-safety coverage: "Where there’s a safety over the top of the receivers, which gives the corners an opportunity to play down on them a little bit tighter because they are backed up -- as opposed to having a middle of the field safety on the outside perimeter routes, there isn’t anybody behind him."

Along those same lines, Belichick was asked immediately after the game on Sunday why the Patriots spread the ball out so much and used their running backs so much in the passing game.

"Well, they played a lot of coverage over Randy (Moss), like we expected, with (Ed) Reed over the top, and so they took a lot of those plays away," he said.

Let's go to the chalkboard to figure out a little bit about how the Patriots and Ravens utilized their safeties to take away their opponents' best wide receiver -- and how that played to the Patriots' advantage. (Mason and the Patriots' safeties will be highlighted in yellow.)

First quarter
Baltimore's first drive
First-and-10, 33-yard line going in
Mason already had three catches to this point in the game, including a catch for 17 yards to kick-start the drive deep in Patriots' territory. The Patriots lined up in a basic 3-4 defense with two cornerbacks and two safeties. Some specifics:
* The Ravens split two wide receivers out to the left, and safety Brandon McGowan and cornerback Leigh Bodden lined up across from them. Bodden lined up across from Mason.
* Jonathan Wilhite, the other corner, lined up opposite tight end Todd Heap on the opposite side.
* Brandon Meriweather lined up as the deep safety.


Mason and Mark Clayton, the other wide receiver, both ran relatively short routes, and with Meriweather still playing center field, Bodden had to give Clayton more than enough cushion to make a catch for 12 yards and a first down:

The result: An easy first down.

Contrast that to the way the Ravens defended the Patriots on a play on which Tom Brady was forced to throw a dump-off pass to Laurence Maroney. This time, Moss and the Ravens' safeties are highlighted in yellow.

First quarter
New England's second drive
First-and-10, 45-yard line going out
Some highlights:
* The Patriots lined up two wide receivers to the right of the formation -- Moss and Wes Welker -- and two tight ends to the left.
* The Ravens lined up in a nickel defensive package with three defensive linemen and three linebackers with three cornerbacks and two safeties available in coverage.
* When Welker went in motion at the snap, it looked like this:

Correctly anticipating a pass, the Ravens dropped into coverage -- and by splitting their safeties, Reed was able to focus mostly on Moss going deep while Dawan Landry, the other safety, mostly played center field on the other side.

Brady, despite all the time in the world given to him by a lackluster pass rush, could find no one open downfield and instead threw a dump pass to Laurence Maroney:

Let's skip ahead to the Ravens' next drive and the adjustment the Patriots made on Derrick Mason.

Second quarter
Baltimore's second drive
Third-and-10, 38-yard line going in
In a fairly obvious passing situation, the Patriots went to the dime formation they used frequently the rest of the way, employing three defensive linemen, two linebackers and six defensive backs. Make sure to note:
* Meriweather, McGowan and James Sanders, all safeties, all were on the field at the same time. Both Meriweather and Sanders played so deep they were actually out of the picture on the CBS broadcast.
* Mason lined up by himself on the left side of the formation.
* Bodden, rather than giving Mason a wide cushion, crept up to the line of scrimmage at the snap to give Mason a bump before he could get into his route.

Mason went straight for the end zone. Bodden got a little bit of a bump on him and then passed him off, chasing a little bit but sitting back in zone coverage. McGowan, right in the middle of the formation, pursued Mark Clayton and Kelley Washington, the two receivers on the right side of the formation.

That left Meriweather and Sanders, the deep safeties, to pursue Mason. The wide receiver actually seemed to beat the coverage, but quarterback Joe Flacco threw off his back foot and gave Meriweather a chance to come all the way across the field and knock the ball away to save a touchdown:

Had the Patriots still been playing one safety deep rather than what Belichick called "split-safety" coverage, Meriweather wouldn't have been in the area to go knock down the pass: He would have been up in coverage and involved with either Clayton or Washington and nowhere near where the ball came down.

It's easy to see how playing an extra deep safety helps defend an opponents' best receiver -- but it also demonstrates how the Patriots won Sunday's game.

The split-safety coverage of the Patriots all but nullified Mason as a weapon. The coverage of Reed all but nullified Moss, too. All three times Moss caught the ball, Reed was uninvolved in the coverage. When Brady hit Moss for a touchdown, Reed was coming on a blitz from the outside -- and Brady only barely got the pass away before Reed was on him.

But the reason the Patriots won was because they had other weapons to employ. Nine different receivers caught passes for the Patriots on Sunday, including all four of the team's active running backs. One of the biggest plays of the game was a fourth-quarter pass Brady threw to running back Sammy Morris, split out wide, a pass Morris took for 14 yards that set up a field goal and pushed the Patriots' lead to six points.

(Reed, on that play, was playing in the middle of the field -- and Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins went out to block him before he could get to Morris.)

The Ravens, on the other hand, needed a big play from Clayton at the end of the game -- and Clayton let a perfect pass from Flacco hit him right in the numbers.

That was the difference.

The Denver Broncos don't have a safety like Reed, but they do have one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL in Champ Bailey. It'll be interesting to see if they do what the Ravens did or if they do what the Jets did -- isolating their top corner on Moss while using their other 10 defenders to put extra pressure on Brady.