hrough seven games, the New England Patriots remain undefeated — and they appear unstoppable. No longer a team defined by the play of quarterback Tom Brady, New England is fielding one of the most dominant defenses in NFL history. The 48 total points allowed by New England heading into Week 8 are the lowest since the AFL-NFL merger and the second-lowest on record, trailing only the Otto Graham-led 1946 Cleveland Browns.1 The Patriots’ score differential of 175 points is the best all time through seven games, and perhaps because of that, our Elo forecasts have New England as a virtual lock to make the playoffs. History agrees: No team since the 1948 San Francisco 49ers has started a season 7-0 and missed the playoffs.

It turns out that the pass attempts that really end up hurting a defense are the deep shots taken by an offense when its quarterback has time in the pocket. Throws with target depths of 20 air yards or more are significantly more valuable than those thrown short (from 1-to-10 yards), and unpressured quarterbacks with time in the pocket tend to attempt more of them. The Patriots have a low Pass Rush Win Rate, so we might expect them to have seen quite a few deep passes attempted against them this year — and that’s just what we find. No other team has had more passes of 20-plus yards thrown against them this season.4

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-so-damn-good/




Putting it simple, this is a historic defensive unit in the making. The best defense we've seen since the 2015 Broncos.




They're winning the battle against the deep ball and that's huge.

This is not a joke of a team. They weren't last year and they were the only team in the AFC that truly scared me last year, and so far this year that same thing is happening.

I have long said I don't think we would've beat them last year in the SB with how bad our offense had declined and struggled by the end of the year. It's hilarious how people try to discredit the Pats every year by talking about the AFC East and then completely ignoring it when they mop the floor with the overrated hyped up AFC teams in the playoffs. People look for anything to complain about the Pats yet in the end, they beat the crap out of whatever AFC team is picked against them in the playoffs. So much is talked up of how bad the AFC East is, yet the Pats will blow out their opponents in the playoffs.

Every year, there is some "AFC Dark horse" and the Patriots will beat the living crap out of that team in the playoffs. For crying out loud, people were convinced the Chargers last year had a shot in Foxboro and then acted shocked when the Pats moped the floor with them.

NE is the only team this year that I worry about. I don't care about the AFC East or their schedule. It's a good team's job to pummel and destroy trash teams, and they do that job incredibly well. They don't look like the Seahawks or 49ers who are barely beating bad teams. It's ironic to me that people worry about Seattle when they've struggled against horrible teams, yet in the same breath people argue the Pats are overrated cause of the AFC East, even though they are outright destroying those teams.

There are no other teams in the AFC who are going to really posse a threat to them. Don't even bother trying to convince yourself the Chiefs can do it, cause even if they can, Andy Reid will find a way to screw that up. Baltimore used to be able to compete with the Pats, but those days are over for them. Houston has been hyped up for years to do it but Bill O'Brien gets outcoached any time against his former master.

If we get a Saints/Patriots SB, I hope we're healthy going in and don't face the same problems we had at the end of last year when the offense struggled. I expect something like SB 50, with a real defensive battle and an ugly game that is a slugfest.