Patriots Notebook: Pats Coverage System Failed Them in Loss to the Bills

The Patriots under head coach Bill Belichick fundamentally believe in building their defensive system around man coverage in the secondary.

Even in a season where we’ve seen New England’s defense lean on more zone structures, the Pats rank second in the NFL in cover-one frequency at 42.2% of their coverage snaps.

Although they’ve been successful at times, quarterback Josh Allen and the Bills offense converted 11 first downs in Sunday’s pivotal divisional win against the Pats’ cover-one schemes.

In all, the Patriots were in cover-one on 47.4% of their coverage snaps against Buffalo.

Along with tipping our caps to Allen, you also have to credit Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll for dialing up coverage beaters that made it challenging to leverage crossing patterns.

However, every time the Patriots’ defensive system fails in a big game, it feels like we have the same discussion about how crossers and other in-breakers were their demises in those losses.

Let’s start with the Pats cornerback who is getting most of the blame for Sunday’s loss, Myles Bryant. Bryant was tasked in man coverage situations with running across the field with speedy Bills receiver Isaiah McKenzie. Although Bryant got beat, the system let him down.

On a critical late third-down conversion, the Patriots anticipate a crossing concept from Buffalo and play a coverage scheme called “one cross” with Devin McCourty rotating into the crosser window. J.C. Jackson passes Stefon Diggs to McCourty, but the Bills stress the coverage by sending Diggs and McKenzie across the formation. McCourty can close off the middle on one crosser (Diggs), but it leaves Bryant helpless on McKenzie. Furthermore, in an ideal world, we’d like to see Kyle Dugger jam or redirect McKenzie on his release in the five-yard window, giving Bryant a better chance of catching up to McKenzie in a foot race.

Here’s another example of Daboll stressing cover-one and finding leverage for a crossing route.

This time, Bryant passes off McKenzie’s crosser to McCourty in the deep part of the field. With McCourty overtaking McKenzie, it leaves the rest of the DBs in single coverage. Daboll runs tight end Dawson Knox on a shallow crosser in the opposite direction, and Adrian Phillips is out-leveraged running across the field. Like the example above with Bryant, Matthew Judon doesn’t redirect Knox at the line and lets him get a free release, and Phillips is left in the dust.

If you’re looking for an adjustment to the crossers, one answer is two-man coverages like Buffalo deployed against the Pats offense.

In two-man or cover-two man, corners can take inside leverage knowing they have help over the top from the deep safeties, forcing crossing routes to fight through their leverage rather than breaking away from the DBs over the middle.

The Patriots’ coaching staff more than likely didn’t adjust to two-man because it takes defenders out of the box who can help contain Allen on scrambles. In man coverage, everyone’s back is to the defense, and they’ll lose sight of Allen.

Assuming they wanted to stick in cover-one for those reasons, the other answer is to be more aggressive on the receivers at the line of scrimmage.

The lack of jams or redirects from Pats shallow defenders cost them bigly. As much as you want to blame Bryant and others, it’s impossible to cover at this level from an out-leveraged position without any resistance at the line.

We’ve seen this passing script before from teams that know the Patriots’ coverage system well and attack its vulnerabilities.

And, again, credit where credit is due to Allen and Daboll for essentially playing a perfect game.

But if the Pats face this game plan in the future, whether it’s from Buffalo or another opponent in the playoffs, they need to be more aggressive at the line of scrimmage in their cover-one man calls.

Continuing reading for more leftover film notes and other Patriots-related thoughts in this week’s notebook:

1. Brain Farts at Critical Moments Cost Patriots Defense

The most frustrating play in Sunday’s loss was a 19-yard shovel pass on third-and-ten as Allen escaped the pocket and flipped the ball to a wide-open Stefon Diggs.

If you were like me and were wondering how Diggs got so far away from J.C. Jackson, the answer is that it was a busted coverage. Jackson drops into the deep third as if he’s playing cover-three, but the rest of the defense is in man. With Myles Bryant running upfield with McKenzie out of the slot, it leaves nobody in an underneath zone to account for Diggs. Seeing that the entire defense is playing man besides Jackson, it’s safe to assume that he was in the wrong.

Between poor in-game coaching and too many brain farts in critical moments, New England’s coaching staff failed to prepare the players on defense for a difficult matchup against Allen.

2. Pats Run Game Still a Force in Loss to Bills

A silver-lining for the Patriots versus Buffalo was that they added 0.30 expected points per rush with a 50% success rate behind a monster performance by Damien Harris.

Harris’s 31-yard run in the third quarter was a beautifully blocked RG/TE counter scheme by the Pats O-Line and tight end Jonnu Smith. Center David Andrews and left guard Ted Karras folded the interior D-Line to create the counter action. Then, with Shaq Mason (kick-out the edge) and Smith (lead through the hole) coming from the backside, it allows left tackle Isaiah Wynn to bump Harrison Phillips into Karras’ grips and combo up to Tremaine Edmunds at the second level. Harris makes an excellent read when he sees Edmunds over-pursue to press the pullers and cuts it back to daylight.

The Pats also fooled the entire second level of the defense, especially Edmunds, on their fake jet/toss scheme that they ran on Harris’s first touchdown. Edmunds is still trying to find the ball.

As much as we all want to see Mac air it out and be productive doing so, New England’s only consistent offense right now is running the football.

3. Rookie DT Christian Barmore a Bright Spot on Sunday

Although he was called for an offside penalty that could’ve been called a false-start on the center for simulating the snap, Barmore was a one-man wrecking crew for most of the game.

The Pats’ rookie DT flashed both upper-body strength and flexibility to tally six quarterback pressures, mostly rushing on Buffalo’s guards. In the first play above, Barmore uses a push-pull technique to lock out right guard Daryl Williams and then pull him towards Barmore to disengage, hurrying Allen into a pass behind Emmanuel Sanders on fourth down. In the second clip, Barmore crosses over the left guard with an inside-out move and uses a shoulder slap finisher to force Allen to throw the ball away.

According to Pro Football Focus, Barmore’s 42 quarterback pressures are already the most by a rookie defensive tackle since DeForest Bucker in 2016 (48). He’s having a terrific rookie season.

4. Pats OC Josh McDaniels and TEs Coach Nick Caley On TE Jonnu Smith

The number one question I’ve received following the loss to the Bills is, “where is Jonnu Smith, and why did the Patriots sign him if they weren’t going to use him?” It’s a fair question.

Smith had zero targets in Sunday’s game, and for $31.25 million guaranteed on a four-year contract, he’s currently 52nd among 74 qualified tight ends in PFF grade with 34 touches for 304 yards and one touchdown. Yikes. And the contract doesn’t get any better after this season.

According to cap wizard Miguel Benzan (aka @PatsCap), Smith carries $25.6 million in dead money if the Pats cut him before June 2nd, 2022, and $14.5 million if he is a post-June 1st cut.

In other words, the Patriots are stuck with Smith’s contract on the books through at least 2022. On Tuesday, we spoke to McDaniels and tight ends coach Nick Caley, so I went searching for answers on what is going on with one of the two big-money free-agent additions at tight end.

Caley said all the coaches speak terms about Smith’s work ethic and desire to get better, including, “I have nothing but confidence in Jonnu.”

As for McDaniels, he put the onus on himself to get Smith the ball in some way, shape, or form.

“He’s a player that can do some things with the ball in his hands. We know that. Very talented guy, works really hard. I’ve got to do better to get him the ball,” McDaniels told CLNS Media.

So far, Smith looks like an expensive player that is miscast in the offense. He doesn’t run precise routes, he fights the ball at the catch point, and his blocking hasn’t been good either.

If there’s a more productive player to unlock with his run-after-catch skills, we’ll leave that up to McDaniels to figure out how to scheme touches for Smith.

5. NFL’s New Protocols Will Help Pats on COVID List

As is the case for every team in the league, the Patriots are starting to have their own COVID issues with Pro Bowler Matthew Judon, starting linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley, second-year pass-rusher Josh Uche, and backup quarterback Brian Hoyer going on the reserve/COVID list in recent days. The league is now allowing a five-day quarantine for all asymptomatic players regardless of vaccination status. For Judon and Bentley, that means that they could return to the team as early as Friday if they’re not experiencing symptoms.