{"id":75964,"date":"2019-11-10T16:07:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=75964"},"modified":"2019-11-10T16:07:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T21:07:09","slug":"new-england-patriots-bye-week-report-safeties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2019\/11\/10\/new-england-patriots-bye-week-report-safeties\/","title":{"rendered":"New England Patriots Bye Week Report: Safeties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/patriots\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New England Patriots<\/a> have a bye week after their first loss of the season to the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/ravens\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Baltimore Ravens<\/a>. The extra time should allow them to regroup and recover. During the bye week, Last Word on Pro Football will be evaluating all of the Patriots\u2019 position groups. The Patriots\u2019 secondary is easily the best unit in the NFL right now. Safeties <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/McCoDe99.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin McCourty<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/ChunPa99.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Chung<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/H\/HarmDu00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Duron Harmon<\/a>, <\/strong>and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BrooTe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Terrence Brooks<\/a><\/strong> are all key contributors to their success.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>New England Patriots Bye Week Report: Safeties<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3>The Good<\/h3>\n<p>Free safety Devin McCourty is having a career season. Despite playing as a safety, as opposed to a cornerback early in his career, McCourty is on pace to shatter his<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/player\/devinmccourty\/494287\/careerstats\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> career-high of seven interceptions<\/a> in a season. Only nine weeks in, he already has five. Five is also the number of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patriots.com\/team\/stats\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">receptions he\u2019s allowed<\/a> all season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Devin McCourty with 4 picks in 4 weeks <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/c7z1GVL8Vv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/c7z1GVL8Vv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sunny Kapadia (@SunnyKapadia4) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SunnyKapadia4\/status\/1193586642361241600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The strong safeties are holding their end of the bargain up as well. The Patriots have allowed the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.footballdb.com\/fantasy-football\/points-allowed.html?pos=TE\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> third-fewest yards per game to tight ends<\/a> this season, only behind the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/49ers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco 49ers<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/bills\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Buffalo Bills<\/a>. Of the 288 yards they\u2019ve surrendered, <a href=\"https:\/\/static.clubs.nfl.com\/image\/upload\/patriots\/xhuk0xcqzed0py2c5moh.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">63 of them came against the Ravens<\/a>. This phenomenal performance comes despite Patrick Chung being largely sidelined for three weeks due to a chest injury suffered against the Giants.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most pleasant surprises from New England\u2019s off-season acquisitions has been the play of safety Terrence Brooks. Most people, including the Jets, had Brooks slated primarily as a special teams ace and not much more. However, he\u2019s played 178 snaps (32.19 percent) on defense this season, all but filling in for Patrick Chung in Week 7 against the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/jets\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Jets<\/a>. Of course, Brooks, along with safety <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/E\/EbneNa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nate Ebner<\/a><\/strong>, does happen to be a special teams ace; Brooks has played 48 percent of special teams snaps while Ebner has played 59 percent.<\/p>\n<h3>The Bad<\/h3>\n<p>Because the Patriots play a lot of nickel and dime defense, the defensive backs get a lot of playing time. While they have performed excellently against the pass, the Patriots defense as a whole has struggled against the run. If they want to continue playing a lot of defensive backs against strong running teams like the Ravens, the box safeties may have to step up in terms of playing the run.<\/p>\n<p>Team captain Patrick Chung is facing off-the-field trouble for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nfl\/news\/patriots-safety-patrick-chung-indicted-on-cocaine-possession-in-new-hampshire\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">potential possession of cocaine<\/a>. Although he denies the allegations, it may still be having an impact on his locker room presence.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, there is not much bad to say about any of the safeties.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overall Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"W_XXdGOWQ5hN3gFnEbEieQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/619876834\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'W_XXdGOWQ5hN3gFnEbEieQ',sig:'pKXvjUznxkVcsIRGsC6B8MjXWO4l-cIa1VCsbx7yvfM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'619876834',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the New England Patriots bye week, Last Word on Pro Football will be evaluating all of the team&#8217;s position groups. Here, the focus is on safeties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3044,"featured_media":75968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,5],"tags":[1708,61,38,40,1012],"class_list":["post-75964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-patriots","tag-devin-mccourty","tag-football","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-chung"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}