NFL1000: Why New England's Defense Can Carry Belichick to Another Super Bowl

From 2012 through 2015, the Seattle Seahawks led the NFL in scoring defense every season. It was a remarkable feat—no NFL team had accomplished it since the 1953-57 Cleveland Browns, who did it five straight seasons well before the NFL-AFL merger and all the strategic changes that followed.

The Seahawks finished third in scoring defense in 2016 with 292 points allowed, behind the New England Patriots (250) and New York Giants (284).

And while the lucrative contracts handed out to veterans like Olivier Vernon, Janoris Jenkins and Damon Harrison can in part explain the Giants' defensive improvement, the Patriots led the league in scoring defense with a squad lacking many major financial constraints.

Of the Patriots' starters, only safety Devin McCourty carries a major cap charge, according to Over the Cap. Most of the guys in this defense are on their first contracts or are veterans thrown on the scrapheap by other teams and given the best chance to succeed by head coach Bill Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia.

Moreover, the Patriots lapped the field without two of their prior stars. They traded defensive end Chandler Jones to the Arizona Cardinals for guard Jonathan Cooper in March and traded linebacker Jamie Collins to the Browns for a conditional draft pick in October. Jones had been the team's sack leader the year before with 12.5, and Collins had been the team's best coverage linebacker by a long shot.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

But in true Belichick fashion, the Pats jettisoned both players before their second contracts came, believing they had the personnel and coaching acumen on board to replace their production.

It hasn't always worked, but Belichick has done this better than any of his colleagues, primarily because he understands so completely who will fit his concepts and who is replaceable. And he's got a bead on those players on other teams who can come in and make it work—quickly.

It's hard to say which Belichick coaching season is best, but 2016 is right up there. The obvious reason is the team's 14-2 record despite Tom Brady's four-game Deflategate suspension, but what Belichick and Patricia have done with their defensive personnel is even more impressive.

New England's defensive line is a different animal without Jones as the primary sack artist. This season, defensive tackle Trey Flowers led the team with seven sacks, end Jabaal Sheard finished second with five and end Chris Long finished tied for third with linebacker Rob Ninkovich, who each had four.

That doesn't sound like a lot, but Belichick has long been a proponent of the theory that hits and hurries add up just as well as quarterback takedowns, and in that category, New England is doing just fine.

Long, who signed a one-year, $2.375 million contract in March after injuries hindered his last two seasons with the Rams, led the team with 46 quarterback hurries, adding six hits to his total, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Matt Moore interception thrown to cornerback Logan Ryan in the Patriots' Week 17 win over the Miami Dolphins is but one example of how the newly healthy Long affects opposing quarterbacks. Here (click the link to see the play), Long (95) gets blocked out by left tackle Branden Albert (76) at the start of the play, but he reads Moore's rollout to the left and breaks off quickly to stop the quarterback from gaining yardage and getting a clear view of the intended target.

"I followed Chris [Long] since he came out of Virginia," Belichick said in November of the man who went second overall in the 2008 draft. "We did our scouting on him, followed his career, and when he was released last spring and available, like we do with a lot of free agents, whether they're free agents or players who were released, followed up on him, and we were able to work things out.

"He's good to have on our team, and I'm glad he's here. I think he enjoys coming to work, working on football and competing every day. I really respect that about him. He gives a great effort every day."

Sheard, taken in the second round of the 2011 draft by Cleveland, was an early standout but got lost in the shuffle in 2013 and 2014, when the team went to more of a 3-4/hybrid front instead of a straight 4-3 look. Belichick had made the switch to a 4-3 around that time, and Sheard was a natural fit in free agency in 2015, signing a two-year, $11 million deal.

George Gojkovich/Getty Images

Sheard has slipped down the depth chart at times this season as other linemen find rotational work, but the 27-year-old can still bring down opposing quarterbacks—he's second on the team behind Long with 27 hurries.

Here, against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6 (click the link to see the play), he runs a line game with linebacker Dont'a Hightower (54), one of Belichick's secret weapons as an interior blitzer. Sheard (93) starts the play lined up between left tackle Andrew Whitworth (77) and guard Clint Boling (65), while Hightower is on center T.J. Johnson's (60) right shoulder. Sheard blows by the inside blocking on the stunt for the sack, while Hightower takes the outside gap. If Sheard hadn't taken down Andy Dalton when he did, Hightower was just a step away.

"He's a powerful player that can power rush, work inside, also work the edge," Belichick said of Sheard in October. "We've used him both inside and outside. We've used him some as a defensive tackle in pass-rush situations and also some in coverage. He's been productive for us in a lot of different areas. A good kid, works hard, smart, very physically strong for his size, with good instincts, good awareness. He's a good football player."

As for Flowers, I had my eye on him when the Patriots selected him in the fourth round in 2015. Flowers played multiple gaps at Arkansas, which made him a perfect fit for what Belichick likes to do: move his linemen around to affect protection schemes. At 6'2" and 266 pounds, Flowers had a bit of the "tweener" label, and he disappeared on tape at times, but that hasn't been a problem in the NFL. Funny what good coaching does.

Check out this sack of Joe Flacco in New England's Week 14 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Flowers (98) is the only down lineman in a NASCAR (stand-up) front. Watch the way he burns through the line on a delayed stunt with Hightower. Flowers shows exceptional quickness and gap understanding here.

"Trey just does a great job of playing the fundamentals the way that we want him to," Patricia said Monday morning. "He's extremely long. He's got great leverage. He does a good job with his hands, and he's a guy that really tries to improve himself. He studies very hard, really tries to do the things the way that we want them done. He understands the scheme. He does a great job of communicating, too, at the front, at the line of scrimmage. He's a guy that's just really kind of accepted a bunch of different roles and has really tried to excel at all of them and just tried to improve every day."

The same 2015 draft that brought the Patriots Flowers also brought them defensive tackle Malcom Brown in the first round. Brown, who starred at Texas, was the perfect "power pig" to help replace the legendary Vince Wilfork, and like Wilfork in his prime, Brown can manhandle blockers just as easily as he can scoot around them. 

He's been exceptional against the run, but one play against the Seahawks in Week 10 showed how he can work multiple opponents on his way to the quarterback.

Not that Seattle's offensive line is a test case for excellence, but left guard Mark Glowinski is probably still burning over how badly Brown beat him on this play. Flowers got the sack, but Brown wrecked the backfield. He started on Glowinski's outside shoulder, then embarrassed him with a quick, killer inside move. Then, running back Christine Michael had to deal with Brown, which went about as well as expected. Glowinski was busted for holding—not that it mattered.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

"Malcom [Butler] is a big guy; he's a strong guy," Patricia said in late November. "But when you go against some of the offensive linemen that we see week in, week out—these guys that are 6'6", 6'7" and the length that they possess and the ability that they have to…we'll call it blocking legally while holding the shoulder pads—the ability for our guys to get their hands in position and get some separation and play with good leverage and technique, that's where we're really focused on with him. I think that's kind of where, if you're watching the tape, you'll see some improvement with him."

Cornerback Malcolm Butler first hit the national stage with his clinching interception in Super Bowl XLIX, but this is no flash in the pan. The undrafted free agent from West Alabama leads all Patriots cornerbacks with 630 coverage snaps, and he's allowed 50 catches on 90 targets for 724 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions, according to Pro Football Focus.

The four touchdowns are a debit, but when you watch tape of Butler in his third NFL season, it's clear he's become an excellent boundary cornerback, as this pick against the Jets in Week 16 shows.

Bryce Petty is trying to hit Robby Anderson (11) on a deep sideline route, but Butler establishes inside position, running step-for-step with Anderson. The feature aspect of this interception is how well Butler (21) works with safety Duron Harmon (30). Harmon drops back into coverage, giving Petty a disguised coverage look, and takes Anderson out of the play as Butler brings the ball in. As he showed in that fabled Super Bowl pick, Butler is adept at boxing out receivers and taking the ball.

McCourty is perhaps the ultimate soldier in Belichick's current defense. A first-round pick out of Rutgers in 2010, he played cornerback at a Pro Bowl level his first few seasons but switched to safety in 2013, becoming New England's version of an important, rare defensive puzzle piece: the deep coverage man who can roam the field, show recovery speed to eliminate deep passes and trail speed receivers wherever they go.

His one interception this season, against the Ravens in Week 14, is a perfect example of how he's able to do it.

Flacco is trying to hit Mike Wallace (17) on a deep post (click here to see the play), and you can see McCourty (32) starting the play working at the intermediate level to help tackle Steve Smith (89) if Smith gets the ball. Once McCourty realizes he's the last line of defense, he takes off in a hurry. He catches up to the speedy Wallace and makes sure he's in better position than the receiver to catch the ball.

"Devin is very smart," Belichick said in late December, after it was announced McCourty had made the Pro Bowl as a safety, after making it as a cornerback in his rookie year. "He has great awareness of the entire concept of the defense, what the defense is designed to do, what its strengths are, what it's taking away, where we're weak, how to compensate for that. Sometimes we have checks that will get us out of situations that we feel vulnerable in, certain calls. He's responsible for a lot of that.

"His leadership, his on-the-field play, his toughness, he's done whatever we've asked him to do, whether it's return kickoffs, or cover kicks, or block the gunners on the punt return team, or rush field goals or whatever it is. He's been not only a dependable player but a good player for us in all of those different areas, and as I said, he gives us great communication and great leadership on and off the field."

Toughness. Intelligence. Leadership. It's common among all great defenses, man-to-man, and it's common among the 2016 Patriots defense—the one that just may be Belichick's most interesting creation yet.

All quotes courtesy of the New England Patriots media department.