One of the ideas that gets kicked around (and I used it myself in the preview earlier in the week) is the theory that the Patriots do a better job of improving and developing their unheralded players. Especially on defense. The Patriots don’t have a star-studded group on that side of the ball, but they’re leading the league in scoring defense.
Is this do to scheduling? Or do Bill Belichick and his guys do a better job of coaching up their players?
Certainly this year New England has benefitted from playing an easy schedule. The AFC East is a lesser division (with the Bills, Dolphins and Jets), and the Patriots have also played eight against the NFC West and AFC North, which don’t have a lot of offensive firepower.
Specifically on this question, I wanted to look at how rapidly the Patriots can make their defense better. That is, is it a better defense now than it was early in the season? And is this something they’re pulling off year after year.
So a brief look at the numbers.
The Patriots were allowing 16.5 points per game in their first eight games. Since then, they’ve allowed an average of 14.9. So some improvement there.
But widening the net and looking at all of the seasons going back to 2003, I see that in only eight of the last 14 seasons have the Patriots allowed fewer points in the second half of each of those seasons.
Since 2003, the Patriots have allowed 19.0 points per game in the first halves of seasons. They’ve allowed 17.8 points in second halves. So they’ve gotten better, but not by as much as I would expect.
| NEW ENGLAND DEFENSE: second half of the season | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | G 1-8 | G 9-16 | Diff | Improve? |
| 2003 | 16.1 | 13.6 | -2.5 | Better |
| 2004 | 18.3 | 14.3 | -4.0 | Better |
| 2005 | 27.5 | 14.8 | -12.8 | Better |
| 2006 | 14.3 | 15.4 | 1.1 | Worse |
| 2007 | 15.9 | 18.4 | 2.5 | Worse |
| 2008 | 18.8 | 19.9 | 1.1 | Worse |
| 2009 | 14.4 | 21.3 | 6.9 | Worse |
| 2010 | 23.5 | 15.6 | -7.9 | Better |
| 2011 | 22.0 | 18.0 | -4.0 | Better |
| 2012 | 21.3 | 20.1 | -1.1 | Better |
| 2013 | 18.0 | 24.3 | 6.3 | Worse |
| 2014 | 22.1 | 17.0 | -5.1 | Better |
| 2015 | 17.9 | 21.5 | 3.6 | Worse |
| 2016 | 16.5 | 14.9 | -1.6 | Better |
—Ian Allan