Patriots Defense Struggles Against Seattle In First Game Post-Jamie Collins Trade
BOSTON (CBS) -- Not even Jamie Collins could have saved the Patriots defense with the way they played on Sunday night. But the first game after Bill Belichick traded the Pro-Bowl linebacker to the Cleveland Browns for a conditional draft pick was not a pretty one, as they allowed 31 points and 420 total yards of offense.
The Patriots struggled to stop Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson all night, as he shredded their soft zone defense to the tune of 348 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. The Patriots rushed only three down linemen for much of the game, mostly failing to get pressure on Wilson, while the secondary appeared to struggle to communicate with each other in coverage, which often left receivers wide open down the field.
The real back-breaker for the defense came at the end of the first half, with the Patriots having just taken a 14-12 lead. Wilson got time to throw against the Patriots' three-man rush and lofted a throw down to the right side of the end zone, where he found a wide-open Doug Baldwin for a touchdown to put the team back up 19-14.
The secondary simply blew its coverage on Baldwin down the field, and team captain Devin McCourty knew it.
"Just bad by us in the secondary," said McCourty after the game. "We rushed three. Sack's not coming in two seconds. We've got to be able to hold up and be ready for an extended play, and that play wasn't even extended that long. We'll watch it, but we've got to do a better job on that play in the secondary."
What was surprising about the Patriots' defense was the amount of big plays they allowed down the field. Matt Patricia's schemes typically try to prevent teams from gaining chunk yardage, but on Sunday night the defense allowed five plays of at least 20 yards, including three for at least 36 yards.
One of the most devastating plays came in the fourth quarter with the Patriots up two points and the Seahawks out of field goal range on 3rd-and-6. Wilson connected with running back C.J. Prosise on a wheel route for 38 yards down the left sideline, which eventually led to a field goal to put Seattle back up 25-24.
Tom Brady and the Patriots offense kept the team alive in the game all the way to the end, but Bill Belichick admitted that the team's final drive that got stopped by a Seattle goal line stand was as much about clock management as it was about punching the ball into the end zone.
The Patriots defense simply didn't challenge Wilson for most of the night, daring him to pick them apart with multiple passing plays and long drives. Wilson was more than ready for the challenge. It was the kind of performance that will have the coaching staff reassessing the entire unit and their entire approach on the field.
