Patriots vs. Jets: How Bendable Is New England's Defense?

Coming into this weekend's critical divisional battle between two rivals, the New York Jets and the New England Patriots, one of the biggest storylines is how New England's pass defense will matchup against the inconsistent play of quarterback Mark Sanchez. 

Entering Week 5, Sanchez is slotted in as 28th best in the entire NFL for quarterback rating with a very mediocre 75.9—which also happens to be a career-high for the third-year quarterback out of USC. Sanchez has also thrown for 1,005 yards while completing 55.1 percent of his passes for six touchdowns and five interceptions—definitely not impressive numbers. 

New England's pass defense, on the other hand, hasn't fared much better than Sanchez this season. The team is dead last in the NFL with average yards per-game and ranked 20th best with an average of 24.5 points per-game. Granted, those numbers may be significant to the average fan, but let's put those numbers aside for now.

So far this season, the Patriots opposing team's quarterback rating is pitiful, coming in at 91.0—on a side note, if you have a quarterback facing New England in one of your fantasy leagues, you better start them. So how bad is a 91.0 quarterback rating? Well, it ranks in as 20th best with the New York Jets' defense opposing quarterback rating being the NFL's best at 57.1.

Another intriguing stat that we can analyze aside from total yards and total points is how bendable New England's defense actually is. For starters all fans, analysts and "experts" have labeled New England's defense as a bend-don't-break type—something that we've been hearing for quite sometime now. So how bendable is it?

For every point allowed, the team averages 19.5 yards allowed—which compares to New York's 13.1 yards per-point allowed. 

How could this be? New England's defense is more bendable than New York's? You bet—it sure is.

What does this mean? New England's defense requires more yards to score a point, which you can practically say it requires more effort to score against New England's bend-don't-break defense.

This Sunday will be a real test for the Patriots' defensive unit. It will be the so-called league worst defense squaring off against one of the league's worst quarterbacks—the battle of league's worst, if you will. 

*Defensive bendability is a stat used by the experts at ColdHardFootballFacts.com*

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