New England Patriots: A Fresh Perspective On The 'Bend Don't Break' Defense

Bill Belichick's "bend don't break" defense doesn't have the rankings we're used to seeing from the Super Bowl winning teams of the previous decade. In fact, they have bent over backwards and snapped like a twig on several occasions this year.

Belichick often preaches taking things one game at a time. The wild finish to the Giants-Eagles game this past Sunday could be proof to take that a step further, and take things one quarter at a time.

The New England Patriots defense, though, goes even further than that: one play at a time.

I was reading an article on BostonHerald.com by Ron Borges about how much different the New England Patriots defense is when they don't have a lead.

I'm not going to try to argue against him using all sorts of tricky numbers formulated to make the Patriots defense sound better than it is. Instead, I'll just use simple logic and a few concrete examples.

People are often quick to exonerate an offense because they may not have played great for the duration of the game, but if they make the plays down the stretch to win, that's all that matters.

When a defense does that? They just got lucky.

Like the Johnny Cochran Chewbacca defense, it does not make sense.

Sometimes the hardest time to make a play is when your back's up against a wall. That's when the pressure is on. That's when it's all on the line. That's when good teams win and bad teams lose.

When you think about it, the Patriots made that play twice on Sunday vs. the Packers. The first time, Brandon Meriweather's game-ending interception was negated on a hands-to-the-face penalty by Tully Banta-Cain. Five minutes later, Banta-Cain repented for his transgression and landed the game-ending sack as time ran out.

Game-winning plays from the lowly Patriots defense? But of course; we've seen this before.

A pair of interceptions helped the Patriots hang onto an eight point lead against the Bills in their first meeting of the season.

Against the Ravens, they made several big plays in overtime, while the juggernaut offense struggled mightily but finally mustered a measly field goal with under two minutes remaining in the fifth quarter.

The game-winning interception on Peyton Manning came in the red zone in the closing minutes of their heavyweight matchup with the Colts.

A goal-line stand against Adrian Peterson and the Minnesota Vikings? That's not something a lot of defenses can lay claim to, but the Patriots are among them.

It's certainly not comfortable to watch a defense that ranks low in several statistical categories be tasked with making a clutch play, and it won't ever become comfortable no matter how many times the Patriots prove themselves. But the fact that they've done this before says a lot about their mental toughness.

Forget the rankings. "Stats are for losers. The final score is for winners."

The defense doesn't have to be good all the time. They don't have to rank first against the pass, put up 40 or more sacks or hold opponents to less than 10 points on a consistent basis.

We knew coming into the season that the offense would determine just how far this Patriots team would go, and look where they sit: first in the league in scoring.

With this Patriots team, if the offense is good, the defense just has to be good enough.

And more importantly, good enough when it counts.