Mike Reiss, ESPN Staff Writer 5y

Patriots' run defense remains ongoing area of concern

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Last week, New England Patriots defensive playcaller Brian Flores said playing the run was one of his top priorities, adding, “Teams are going to keep running the ball until we do something to stop it.”

Well, it’s back to the drawing board once again -- with a caveat.

Steelers running back Jaylen Samuels rang up 142 yards on 19 carries, for a whopping 7.5 yards per carry. Those are numbers that are surely going to catch the eye of the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets -- the two remaining opponents on the Patriots’ schedule -- to see if they can follow suit.

That production comes after the Miami Dolphins rushed for 189 yards as a team the week before, and prior to that, the Minnesota Vikings averaged 7.3 yards per carry and possibly could have done more damage if they stuck with it (13 rushes, 95 yards).

The Patriots are allowing 4.99 yards per rush this season, their worst mark in 20 seasons under head coach Bill Belichick, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

As Flores said last week, the Patriots need to do a better job getting off blocks, and arguably one play on Sunday -- Stevan Ridley’s 13-yard run -- highlighted this more than any other.

After the Patriots’ punt team made a remarkable play to down the ball at the 1, the Patriots were in their heavy base defense and weren’t competitive on Ridley’s jaunt over the left side of the line. Defensive tackle Malcom Brown was handled easily by center Maurkice Pouncey (who had to snap the ball first), while fellow tackle Adam Butler was quickly turned by left guard Ramon Foster.

Meanwhile, linebacker Dont'a Hightower followed the fullback into the hole, while fellow linebacker Elandon Roberts ran into a double-team block that the Steelers had on tackle Lawrence Guy.

That opened an easy running lane for Ridley, helping the Steelers dig out of the bad field position. Just bad defense and a case of losing too many one-on-one matchups.

"There were a couple things that could have been better," coach Bill Belichick said. "We could have coached it better. We could have played it better. It wasn’t a good play."

It also was a good example of how frustrating it has been for the Patriots when it comes to playing championship-level, complementary football. The special teams had just made one of the standout plays of the season, and then on the next play, the defense gave it right back.

"I think we just need to do a better job of doing our job -- everybody's trying to do the right thing, we just have to put in a little more effort," Butler said, adding that physicality and technique are two of the main things that need to be addressed.

But now for the caveat.

Samuels’ 142 rushing yards were also a concession of sorts from the Patriots, who played quite a bit of dime defense (six defensive backs). By choosing a faster, more athletic defensive back over a bigger, slower linebacker, it was their way of devoting more resources to better defend the passing game and effectively slowing down dangerous receivers Antonio Brown (four catches, 49 yards, TD) and JuJu Smith-Schuster (four catches, 40 yards).

In making that tradeoff, they were more vulnerable against the run, as this was somewhat similar to Bill Belichick’s Super Bowl XXV game plan against the Buffalo Bills that found its way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

So that adds some more context to the inflated rushing totals, but nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine Flores, Belichick and Co. feeling the issue has resolved itself because there were still too many plays in which the Patriots struggled to get off blocks.

There’s clearly more work to be done.

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