Matthew Judon Explains What Happened to the Patriots Defense and What a 'Baller' Mac Jones Is

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A couple of days after the Patriots got plowed into the turf in Buffalo so badly that every player on defense still has tiny rubber pellets in their stool, my brother Jack and I spent a good hour and a half trying to figure out where they went wrong. Not just on that night, but in four of the five games they played after that late season bye. (It's possible we spent five of those minutes catching up on our families, but I promise you the other 85 were on this topic. The other Thorntons don't need our help, the Pats do.)

It's beyond obvious that Week 14 bye was the line of demarcation for this unit. They went into a cocoon as a butterfly and a dung beetle when they emerged. They were Superman going into the phone booth and came out Mr. Mxyzptlk. To get all Kafkaesque on you, "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect," and all that.

One theory we discussed was whether Bill Belichick didn't like where they were trending, so over the bye week he gave more control to Matt Patricia. The logic being that what we saw in December and January looked a lot more like what we saw in Super Bowl LII than anything we saw in September-November. They became far less aggressive. More worried about containing mobile quarterbacks than attacking. And not even doing that. So maybe it was a scheme change. But that's a possibility too hideous to contemplate. 

Injuries were no doubt a factor. For instance, they certainly could've used Jalen Mills and Jonathan Jones:

But that's loser talk and a crutch, solves no problems and explains nothing. What might explain something is Matthew Judon's answer when asked what happened on The Sports Hub:

Source - “There’s really no excuses. I wish I could be like ‘well, this person got hurt’ but it wasn’t that. It was just, we weren’t playing good football.” …

“I think, after like two games, then everybody tried to start making a play like ‘I’m going to be the player to this, I’m going to be the player to do that’ instead of just playing within the defensive scheme and stuff like that,” he explained. “And I kind of think that’s kind of what happened.”

It would explain a lot. I mean, I hate the answer for the painful truth of it. When he says the coaches were making the right calls but suggests guys weren't playing "within the defensive scheme," that begins to sound like a discipline problem. Things like freelancing, going outside of the structure, not taking care of your assignment and trying do too much, that's the opposite of "Do Your Job." Which would indicate they weren't listening. At least they weren't doing what they were instructed to do. And as we've seen before here, Belichick's defense is all about all 11 parts functioning together. Being talented is great, but it's not as important as meshing with the other 10 and executing your assignment on a given play. Like a Roman phalanx where each shield protects the next guy over. And when guys abandon their posts, the whole structure falls. In Foxboro, the ones who dive inside when their job is to set the edge, or sell out for a sack and end up over pursuing the quarterback on a regular basis are quickly gone. We've seen it time and time again here. 

Assuming Judon is right, hopefully it's something that can be cleaned up. That it is on all the tape, defenders who have only been here for one season got an abject lesson in what happens when they try to "be the player to do this." That both games against Buffalo  can be teachable moments, followed by hugging and learning and heartfelt vows to do better. 

But it got better from there. Specifically when my favorite topic, not just with the Patriots but in life, came up. Mac Jones:

 “Mac is a very cool dude, and he’s a great leader. Very intelligent of the game and where the ball needs to go. Everything like that,” Judon said. “I love Mac as a quarterback and as a person – who he is. And I think he’s gonna be great for New England, he’s gonna be great for our offense.” He also called Jones a “baller” and added “I think he’s gonna be just a great player, individually.”

Well alright then. That's what we needed to hear. And it was genuine. If the reverse was true, if the defense was getting this kind of praise and we were sitting here wondering why Mac10 flamed out over the last five weeks, we'd have a full blown, five-alarm, Terror Threat Level: Red, DEFCON-1 panic on our hands. If a veteran like Judon can honestly assess where his side of the ball went wrong and what needs to be done to correct it, but sees his franchise QB as a "cool dude," "great leader" and a "baller" that he loves? Then there's nothing going on here that can't be fixed. Glad we got that settled. 

And based on Jones being Mic'd up at the Pro Bowl, everything Judon said about him seems spot on.