We know that the Cardinals did a great defensive job against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots with their 20-18 win on Sunday. Khodder takes a deeper look and gives us some defensive numbers with pressures and coverage stats.
I might have a look again to have a look more specifically at the coverages we were playing however from my initial look through we played a heck of a lot more zone coverage this week, it was close to 50/50 man or zone this week whereas against Seattle we played almost exclusively man coverage.
Daryl Washington's day look like a bit of a stinker, but in reality he was dealt some very tough matchups in man coverage which included at different periods of time him playing man coverage and allowing catches to Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman.
Adrian Wilson along with Washington took most of the coverage responsibility on Gronkowski, with Lenon playing him in the fourth quarter, both of Lenon's targets and allowed catches were Gronkowski in man coverage.
Patrick Peterson through two weeks, 11 targets, 1 catch allowed.
Entering the fourth quarter Jamell Fleming had been targeted once and not allowed a catch. In the fourth quarter he allowed all four of his targets to be completed for 44 yards.
William Gay was repeatedly picked on in the slot where he was playing Edelman and Welker a lot. Welker is the cause of most of his damage.
The Patriots threw a lot of smoke routes (classified here as a screen) when the Cardinals were in off coverage. In fact most of the first quarter consistent of these plays.
Because of the fact we played nickel just about all day Acho, Schofield and Groves was almost always used to rush the passer and create a four man rush.
The pressure metrics could be a little bit off, but our pass rush was very sporadic, most of the game Brady had a clean pocket to operate from. Sam Acho was our only consistent pressure rushing the passer, Dockett was well contained, but had a big impact in the few rushing plays I watched. Campbell's two sacks were A] A coverage sack and B] A result of a hurry from Acho forcing Brady to step into the arms of Calais.
Any questions about specific plays, offensive or defensive, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.
***BONUS***
I watched Ryan Williams' late runs, the first, for five yards he missed a cutback lane that could have extended the play to a 10-15 yard gain. The 13 yard gain was a good run, found a cutback hole and hit it hard. The -4 yard loss he had nowhere to go, Brace was in him in a flash. The 1 yard run is a play that could have been a big gainer as the Patriots were fully committed to the run. The toss was well executed, Ryan needs to put two hands on the football in that situation, Spikes made a great play to (literally) put a helmet on the football and pop it loose.