FOXBORO, Mass. — New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave some insight into the challenges of defending his own team Friday when asked about the Carolina Panthers.
The Patriots and Panthers — New England’s Week 4 opponent — both run two-running back sets. The Panthers do it more frequently than the Patriots, putting Jonathan Stewart and Christian McCaffrey on the field at the same time, but the Patriots also have the ability to utilize two backs at once with combinations of James White, Dion Lewis and Rex Burkhead, all of whom can carry the ball, catch out of the backfield and split out wide.
Belichick was asked how to defend those offensive personnel groupings Friday.
“You just have to be disciplined in your reads,” Belichick said. “There’s only one runner back there, if he’s back there with a tight end or a fullback or something like that, I mean, you know who the runner’s going to be. I mean, it could be a pass, but you know who basically is going to carry the ball.
“With two guys back there, then misdirection plays and reading your keys and making sure that you defend your responsibility because there’s more than one guy that can carry it, becomes more critical, which is the way it was when I came into the league when there were two running backs. So the halfback blocked, the fullback ran. The fullback blocked, the halfback ran, and your keying system was, for linebackers, much more difficult then because of the different combinations of plays that they had.
“As that’s evolved to a one-back set, again, for the most part, we know who’s going to carry the ball, and so that’s just changed a little bit. When you put two guys back there, especially if you’re not used to doing it, understanding that there’s probably not a lot of one guy is blocking for the other guy plays — there’s more of one guy runs here and the other guy runs somewhere else, which guy has the ball — you have to defend both of them as opposed to having lead blockers. I wouldn’t say that that’s featured, but when you have two guys going in different directions, then that can slow down the defense.”
It’s unlikely the Patriots will ever use their two-running back set more often than for a handful of plays per game, but defenses can get discombobulated trying to scramble and figure out where every piece is going to align. That can cause some headaches for teams trying to match a two-running back set in man coverage.
Thumbnail photo via Kelley L Cox/USA TODAY Sports Images
