The First-Year Patriots That Just Won Us a Super Bowl: An Appreciation

Once we crash from the high-fructose, corn syrupy, Willy Wonkasque sugar rush that is the post-Super Bowl LIII we’re all experiencing, there will be a hard landing. If you’ve been paying attention since Bill Belichick’s first player meeting in Foxboro in 2000 when his first order of business was to tell former 1st round pick Andy Katzenmoyer he could go piss up a rope for walking into the room late, this is not a Dynasty built on being sentimental about the past.

The offseason will be here soon enough. And it will mean productive players we’ve grown emotionally attached to, winners by every definition, leaving. Winter just doesn’t turn into Spring around here without it. It’s our reality. Our lot in life. It’s not a lot, but it’s our life.

Here’s what I wrote last year when we lost Nate Solder, Danny Amendola, Malcolm Butler and Dion Lewis in the same day, which I said “Officially Makes This the Worst Offseason 24 Hours in Team History.” And I stand by it:

In terms of non-game situations, this was as bad a rotation of the Earth as any Pats fan has ever seen. It wasn’t enough that nature was already giving us a running kick in the pud with steel toed boots, the day basically turned into a bleak, Chekovian winter hellscape when we lost four of our 22 starters* within hours of each other. …

I keep reminding myself that this is how the month of March works around here. It’s the best time on the calendar to be emotionally attached to franchises who spend big this time of year, like Miami or Washington. But the worst for us. And all we can do is ride it out and hope it doesn’t get any worse before it finally gets better. #InBillWeTrust

And it did get better, obviously. My faith was rewarded. Because that’s our reality in April-to-about the trading deadline. The guys we loved and lost get replaced. And way more often than not, with younger, more cap friendly and better options. And by late November I’m authoring ingeniously written posts like “It’s Time to Acknowledge the Patriots Won the Offseason.”

And it’s time once again to acknowledge it. But recognizing the new faces that just won us a Super Bowl. In order of their impact on the postseason, from most to least:

1. Brian Flores
Replaced: Matt Patricia

Holy moly, does Patricia have a lot to answer for. He’s a Stoolie and wears our merchandise and I’ll always appreciate the championships he won here. Loyalty is how I roll. But it’s hard not to look at the polar opposite game plans they each came up with in their final games here and not see the startling difference in their approaches. Patricia played a passive, deep shell scheme waiting for Nick Foles to make a mistake, and he never cooperated. Flores let his guys off the leash all throughout the postseason and they responded with an aggressive, relentless, Terminator mode of attack. You could just see in their body language how much they loved it. Plus he countered Sean McVay’s early clock headset audibles by putting his guys in one look and then switching after the communcations were shut off. In doing so, he forced Jared Goff into mistakes, instead of just counting on them.

One example: On a 3rd & 2 with the game still tight, Flores went with an even front, which the Pats rarely do, against a 3-tight end set. He rushed three linemen, Malcolm Brown, Deatrich Wise and Lawrence Guy (Note: I still have to finish my script for my drama about a city cop infiltrating the mob, Brown Wiseguy.), dropping eight into coverage. Kyle Van Noy had dropped into the shallow middle zone, but almost immediately broke into a pass rush. Guy penetrated, Goff hesitated and Van Noy came screaming in at full sprint for a loss of about 20. That’s just one example but it’s indicative of how he held the 11th best offense in NFL history to as many points as you get for sinking a corner jumper.

2. Sony Michel
Replaced: Dion Lewis

There’s not a lot to add here. His peformance speaks for itself. In a league evolving more and more into smaller, faster defenses designed to stop the pass, the Patriots are devolving more toward a power run team. Zigging when when everyone else is zagging. Which is why they used the 31st pick on Michel. And he rewarded them with six postseason touchdowns, the only touchdown in this game a 112 YPG rushing average and finished six yards shy of topping 100 in all three games. And ripped off a crucial 26 yarder on 2nd & 9 from the Patriots own 5. Felger & Mazz still think he sucks,

… arguing he only gets those yards because the line blocks for him. I’m still waiting for a list of running backs who get yards without blocking. (I stipulate to Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl.) I was surprised by the selection too, but I can admit when I’m wrong. Drafting Sony Michel helped win a championship.

3. Jason McCourty
Replaced: Malcolm Butler

Flores relied heavily on Jason McCourty in this one. His 64 total snaps with 44 in coverage were as many as he’d had in all but one of the previous eight games. He was targeted twice. Gave up two completions for only 18 yards. And broke up two passes. One (out of Flores’ State Worker front with Trey Flowers at nose tackle and everyone else standing around) against Josh Reynolds to force a punt, and the other this all-timer when Brandin Cooks was left all alone in the end zone on a broken coverage. You can’t ask a guy to do much more than go from the Vegan Dinner Party sub-basement of an 0-16 team to the penthouse of making a Super Bowl-winning play to bail out your teammates. But McCourty did it.

4. The Special Teamers
Replaced: Brandon Bolden and whoever the hell else came out of Belchick’s droid factory last year.

It’s hard to remember now, but the Patriots’ Special Teams were a totally uncharacteristic disaster early in the season. Remember the Kansas city game where they returned one kickoff to their own 45 and another to the Patriots 3? The punt coverage was no better. At one point they were last in the league in special teams. Then Belichick picked up Albert McClellan and Ramon Humber and the complete 180 was almost immediate. In the playoffs, they stepped it up further. In the championship game at Kansas City, those two pinned one of the most dangerous return guys in the game, Tyreek Hill, inside his 10 while taking a block in the back that put the ball inside the 5. In the Super Bowl, the Patriots won the field position battle even though they were facing Johnny Hekker, who Belichick looks at like I look at Gal Gadot. [Pause here because I don’t want this to get too football nerdy. Large would do the same.]

Along with Matthew Slater (of course, Matthew Slater) the coverage units put the Rams at their 6 once and another time at their 2. In a game that was disproportionately about the epic clash between the titans Hekker and Ryan Allen, the importance of the upgraded Special Teams can’t be overstated.

5. Trent Brown
Replaced: Nate Solder

In case you haven’t seen the numbers, Tom Brady attempted 125 passes in the postseason. And was sacked a grand total of … [doing the math … carrying the one … distracted by the Gal Gadot gif for a few minutes …] once. Facing two pair of the best edge rushers in the game, first Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa, then Dee Ford and Justin Houston. And in the Super Bowl facing THE best pair of interior rushers, Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh. That is a phenomenal accomplishment for your O-line. And since the biggest question mark of the entire offseason was how a franchise that’s only had three starting left tackles since 1987 was going to keep their 41-year-old quarterback in one glorious, perfectly formed piece, Trent Brown was a godsend. In the Super Bowl he mostly took on the ROLB in Wade Phillips’ family owned and operated 3-4 defense, Dante Fowler. But several times he took on Suh. Which was especially tricky because I’m convinced the Patriot plan was to take advantage of Suh and Donald’s natural instinct to penetrate, then seal them off with reach blocks. It didn’t always work. At one point they ran a Jet Sweep to Cordarelle Patterson where Brown blocked down on the end leaving Suh uncovered, but Suh was in perfect position to make the TFL. But in all Brown gave up two hurries, two pressures but no sacks and the run game produced 154 yards on 32 attempts, 4.8 YPA. You’ll take that all day and twice on Super Sunday.

6. Danny Shelton
Replaced: Alan Branch

Another member of The 0-16 to Champions Club. For most of the year I had Shelton down as the most disappointing player on the team, based on how good he looked in July and August and how little he played during the season. And he didn’t get a ton of reps Sunday, but he made them count. Sean McVay was calling his usual misdirections, motions, fake sweeps and so on. At one point he got the flow all going to the right with a fake stretch run only to have Goff roll left and throw for 11. But the middle of the Patriots line held. They kept attacking vertically against the run and the pass. Shelton and Wise penetrated on a 7-step drop by Goff to force an incompletion. Another time with the Rams backed up inside their own 10, he lined up in 0-shade to the weakside, put on a swim move around the center to the play side, came in unblocked and forced a throw that should’ve been picked off. (More on that in a second.) To butcher a line from the great Harry Dunne, just when I think you didn’t play well all year, you do something like this and totally redeem yourself!

7. Cordarelle Patterson
Replaced: Lewis

I’m not going to overstate the case or suggest in any way that Patterson is anywhere close to being the player Lewis was. But he was an upgrade over Lewis as a kick returner. That opening return should have led to points, but the drive ended on a turnover. In the playoffs he averaged 28.2 yards per return, which was significantly better than Lewis’s 17.7 in last year’s postseason. Plus Corduroy mixed in a few rushes and a catch or two (among his drops), as constraint plays to make defenses have to account for him, if nothing else.

8. John Simon
Replaced: James Harrison

Yeah, this would be the play. I’ll die before I fault a linebacker for getting his hands on a pass, even if, judging by Devin McCourty’s reaction, he was taking that to end zone. Still a great play that forced a punt. Simon was one of those guys you read about them picking up, you don’t burn a lot of calories on the move because they sign and cut two dozen guys over the course of a season who you never hear from again. But then one them turns out to be a John Simon. Some new guy who understands what’s being asked of him, plays a role and makes an impact. It’ll be interesting to see if he can grow into a starter’s role next year, the way Van Noy has.

9. JC Jackson
Replaced: Johnson Bademosi

Not that anyone was calling for The Purge to vent our anger when the Patriots decided they’d seen enough Bademosi coverage and released him. And Jackson’s play clearly dropped off as the postseason went along. He went from an every-rep starter to part timer. Owing very much to the fact he got Rookie Shamed by the officials in Kansas City. But also because the Chiefs were smart enough to realize and target him with the most diverse skill position unit in the league. He ended up with a horrible 141.4 Passer Rating Against in that one. And against the Rams, while not getting the full Malcolm Butler treatment, his playing time was reduced to 28 total snaps. Targeted three times he gave up two completions for 34 yards. Not gawdawful, but not good enough to rely on except in subpackages. But that doesn’t take away from what he did from halfway through the season right up to the Chargers game, when he gave up just five passes on 12 targets and broke up two. If JC Jackson was a publicly traded company, I’d invest in him.

Let’s just make a promise to each other that we remember this list come free agency time when we start losing guys who have won rings here and someone wants to pay them handsomely for it. There is always another future champion Patriot just waiting to come here for their ring.