New England Patriots Need Defense to Continue Recent Success

Straight outta nowhere, the New England Patriots have the NFL's No. 1 defense.

At the rate they're losing key personnel pieces on offense, that unit will need to keep playing at a high level for this team to continue winning games. 

The Patriots are still undefeated, but the team that's gone 2-0 in the second half of the season is far different from the juggernaut that curb-stomped its opponents to an 8-0 record in the first half of the season. The Patriots won their first eight games by an average of 16.6 points per game and won their last two by eight points combined.

The offense kept chugging when left tackle Nate Solder was lost for the season. It suffered some minor hiccups when it lost running back Dion Lewis, but it was still moving along smoothly. Add Julian Edelman to the list of subtractions, though, and the result is what you saw on Monday: a sloppy offense. 

That sloppiness could have also been the product of an offensive line that played poorly and allowed quarterback Tom Brady to be pressured on 20 of his 40 dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. But this was the healthiest the offensive line has been in at least three weeks. Yes, Danny Amendola stepped up nicely in that role, but the Patriots are running out of options.

Right now, it seems that the Patriots' best offense is a good defense.

That was the way they pulled out the win against the Buffalo Bills on Monday night. Big stops on third down (three conversions allowed on 15 tries), a suffocating run defense (94 yards on 30 carries) and consistent pressure on quarterback Tyrod Taylor (18 pressures on 40 dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus) paved the way for a sub-14-point performance, the fourth of the season.

The defense has played well all season, but particularly over the past month, when it allowed just 56 points in four games (14 points per game). It has also improved against the run, where it allowed 571 yards in the first five games (114.2 yards per game) and just 315 yards in the past five games (63 yards per game). 

These are impressive feats given the fact that the Patriots have rebuilt massive portions of their defense over the past 12 months, including their secondary and defensive line. Indeed, if I rattled off that ream of statistics in the preseason and told you that those numbers would apply to the Patriots secondary, most would have eye-rolled, sighed and uttered two names: Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner.

The loss of those two cornerbacks was seen as the undoing of the Patriots defense, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The Patriots defense has actually been better than it was last year, statistically speaking, although there are still some questions with the depth of their secondary. That will happen when you have safety Patrick Chung lined up at cornerback in place of Rashaan Melvin and Justin Coleman. 

If the Patriots are going to make a run to the Super Bowl, they'll probably need to win a few games in which the defense carries the offense to the victory. At the start of the season, it looked like the Patriots were going on a similar tear through the NFL to the run they had in 2007, when they put up points in bunches and set records on offense. 

Their pursuit of perfection in 2015 might come down to their defense's ability to play well enough to complement the offense.