After being shredded by the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills in consecutive weeks, the New England Patriots’ run defense looked far more respectable in Monday night’s win over the New York Jets.
A true sign of progress or a product of playing one of the NFL’s worst offenses? With the ground-and-pound Baltimore Ravens coming to town this Sunday night, Bill Belichick is banking on the former.
“Well, I hope so," the Patriots coach said Wednesday when asked if his team's run defense is trending upward. "It wasn’t good enough in some of the previous weeks before that, so we’ll see. These guys run the ball as well as anybody in the league, so we’ll definitely get tested here."
Baltimore, as it has since Lamar Jackson first took over for Joe Flacco midway through the 2018 season, boasts arguably the NFL's best rushing attack.
Through nine weeks this season, the Ravens' backfield combo of Jackson and running backs Mark Ingram, J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards leads the league in rushing yards per game (170.1) and rushing attempts per game (33.3). From an efficiency standpoint, they're third in yards per carry (5.1, trailing only the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals) and fifth in rush offense DVOA, which accounts for situation and opponent factors.
That group (sans the rookie Dobbins) gave the Patriots' vaunted 2019 defense major problems when these teams met last November. Jackson's 61 rushing yards and 3.8 yards-per-carry average both were on the low side by his standards, but the soon-to-be NFL MVP contributed two rushing touchdowns, and Ingram picked up the slack, carrying 15 times for 115 yards. Edwards added 27 yards and one score on seven carries, and Baltimore blew out the previously undefeated Pats 37-20 on "Sunday Night Football."
The 210 rushing yards and 37 points allowed both were season highs for New England's defense, which finished the year ranked first in scoring defense, total defense and DVOA.
"They have good depth in their backs," Belichick said. "Those guys run hard. I’d say the offense in general, they move the ball, they score points and they don’t turn it over. All those are, I’d say, characteristics of a good offense, and that’s what the Ravens do."
The Patriots' defense, gutted by free agent departures and COVID-19 opt-outs, has regressed sharply this season, tumbling from first in DVOA all the way to 31st. They're 30th against the pass and 31st against the run. (One thing they have done well is create turnovers, leading the league in both interception rate and takeaways per drive.)
This Ravens offense, though, has not looked like the unstoppable juggernaut it was a year ago. They've dropped from first to 23rd in offensive DVOA, and though they stack up well against the rest of the league in those aforementioned rushing metrics, they've declined in each:
Rushing yards per game:
2019: 206.0
2020: 170.1
Yards per carry:
2019: 5.53
2020: 5.12
Rush offense DVOA:
2019: first
2020: fifth
Jackson, too, has not been in MVP form through Baltimore's first eight games. The 23-year-old's numbers are down across the board, both as a rusher and as a passer.
His rushing average has dropped from 6.9 yards per carry to 5.9. He's on pace for 938 rushing yards -- still a strong total for any quarterback, but nearly 300 fewer than he recorded in 15 games last season (1,203).
Through the air, Jackson's interception rate is up (1.5 percent to 1.9 percent), and his touchdown rate is way down (9.0 percent to 5.6 percent). His completion percentage (66.1 percent to 62.9 percent), yards per attempt (7.8 to 7.1), passer rating (113.3 to 95.1) and QBR (82.3 to 61.9) also have slipped. And he's being sacked far more often (on 9.0 percent of dropbacks, up from 5.4 percent last season) behind an offensive line that lost perennial Pro Bowler Marshal Yanda to retirement and recently placed two more starters, including All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley, on injured reserve.
Last week, the Ravens managed just 55 first-half yards against the Indianapolis Colts before rallying for a 24-10 win that improved their record to 6-2. (Ingram missed that game and the one before with an ankle injury. His status for this week remains unclear.)
"There's a lot of misdirection, and they want you to see a lot of things," Patriots safety/linebacker Adrian Phillips said Wednesday. "But when you look at the big picture, it's really just a simple offense. It's just a lot of smoke and mirrors."
Phillips was part of the 2018 Los Angeles Chargers squad that famously smothered Jackson in the wild-card round by flooding the field with defensive backs. The Patriots are weak along the defensive line and at linebacker but do have a deep stable of solid DBs, many of whom can play multiple positions.
"Going back to two years ago, basically our whole (plan) was just to go out there and make sure everybody had a gap," Phillips recalled. "Make sure everybody had a gap, play vertical, put a lot of speed on the field. Because you know they, with Lamar -- I mean, he's able to take that thing however far he wants to take it. Ninety yards, 100 -- if the field was longer, he could take it there, too.
"So it was basically making sure everybody had their gaps, be more physical than them and speed to the ball. And no big plays. ... You've got to play fast and play physical, especially with a team like that."
Familiarity could aid the Patriots this week, as well. They know what to expect from the Ravens' offense having faced them last season. And with Cam Newton as their quarterback, they've also spent the season practicing against some of the read-option and QB run concepts Baltimore employs -- plays that were not in New England's playbook during the Tom Brady era.
"Our offense has run some of those kinds of plays," Belichick said Wednesday. "I mean, we haven’t done that before, but this year we’ve run some of those kind of plays, so it’s not something that we’re unfamiliar with. The Ravens have their way of doing it, and they’re in the pistol a lot. So that changes and makes things a little bit different, because you get either side of the ball more balanced. But we’ve dealt with that, so I wouldn’t say we’re starting all over again, like we might have been in other years where we hadn’t faced those kind of plays."
Will those ancillary factors matter Sunday night? That's hard to say.
On paper, this game looks like a supreme mismatch. The 3-5 Patriots are pegged as seven-point home underdogs -- the first time a Foxboro visitor has been favored by a touchdown or more since 2001. And New England's improving but inconsistent offense will face a tough challenge against a swarming Baltimore D that ranks among the league's best.
But the Ravens, while still a threat in the AFC, have looked vulnerable. And as the Seattle Seahawks, Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills can attest, even these weakened Patriots should not be overlooked.
