Breaking Down a First-Down Fix for the Patriots Defense

March 6, 2013   ·   Mike Dussault   ·   Jump to comments

If you asked New England Patriots fans or pundits what's needed to fix their defense, you'd likely get a variety of answers, most likely to include all or some combination of the words "pass rusher", "punishing strong safety", "Ed Reed", "Aqib Talib", or "a time machine".
But when you dig into the numbers, it's clear where the prime focus for improving the defense this offseason must be. 
Addressing their first-down pass defense. 
That might sound overly specific, but it's really just that simple.
When we talk about first down we're talking mostly about the base defense, and in games where the Patriots played a majority of their base defense, they gave up nearly half the passing yardage on first down. They also lost three of those six games.
The teams that attacked the Patriots early and often through the air against their base defense were the ones that had the most success. They tried to evolve their base defense in 2012 to put m...

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