FOXBORO – Forget for a minute the punching bag the Browns have been and seem fated to be so long as they call themselves a football team.
This isn’t about the Browns.
This isn’t even about Sunday.
It’s about the punctuation Sunday became for the first half of a season where the Patriots defense is no longer a punching bag.
Not even close.
Yes, the same defense Geno Smith carved up for 362 passing yards in the opener. And the one that forgot how to tackle in Miami. And the same defense that, for whatever reason, insists on spotting opponents a touchdown or field goal on every opening series.
Maybe they’re bored.
Bored or not, these Patriots are nearing top-10 status, a territory that, if reached at season’s end, would make this team a certified contender.
So while Drake Maye builds an MVP case and powers a legitimate top-10 offense, it’s the other side of the ball that may push the Pats from special to spectacular.
“Regardless of whether they like to run the ball (or) pass the ball, if we’re on our s—,” said Patriots cornerback Carlton Davis, “we’ve got a chance to beat any team.”
Here’s the case.
The Pats are the first team since 1950 to play the first eight weeks of a season without allowing a running back to gain 50 yards in a game. Their run defense rates third by Expected Points Added (EPA), and might be first in yards per carry allowed once Week 8 concludes Monday night. Every Sunday, the Pats abide faithfully by Mike Vrabel’s “edge, wall, swarm,” philosophy of controlling the perimeter, damming the middle and gang-tackling until the ball carrier hits the ground.
Just ask Browns rookie Quinshon Judkins, one of the most talented runners in football, who went home with 19 rushing yards Sunday.
OK, so teams throw the ball.
Well, the Patriots’ best player, Christian Gonzalez, just returned to peak form after three weeks away and four weeks of finding himself. Gonzalez held Browns receiver Jerry Jeudy to zero catches, and artfully guided Jeudy into the sideline on a fourth-down throw late in the game that fell incomplete. The two exchanged words afterward, Jeudy trying to save face on a day Gonzalez had taken his soul.
“I love it,” Gonzalez said of getting targeted. “I mean, I talk about being a corner, that’s what you want. You want teams to throw the ball your way. So I invited it.”
Three days earlier, Gonzalez’s position coach shared the star corner was still returning to game form. That box can now officially be checked. You know what comes next for the 23-year-old who made the All-Pro second team in his second year?
Probably dominance.
“It’s always a little tough missing time, and (your) legs are heavy,” Gonzalez said. “But like I said, I’m good.”
The biggest dent in the Patriots’ armor here may, in fact, be a once projected strength: their pass rush. Pats defensive tackle Milton Williams was hard on himself and his position group after Sunday’s win, feeling as if they hadn’t harassed Browns quarterback Dilllon Gabriel quite enough. There’s something to that.
Gabriel took 37 dropbacks, but was sacked just once and hit only one other time. Even in a game where Cleveland schemed to get the ball out of his hands quickly, the Patriots let Gabriel linger in the pocket for four or five seconds on a few plays, and he didn’t go down. But because Gabriel’s arm talent and scrambling ability scare no one, the Pats didn’t pay — even if it felt like they should have.
“We were solid today. But I think I’m just a perfectionist or something. Or something might be wrong with me,” Williams said. “I just feel like we could have done more.”
And that brings us to the final piece: the chase.
Davis said the Patriots knew from the minute their defense was stitched together in the offseason — from him to Williams, Robert Spillane, who grabbed a pick Sunday, and others — it could be great. That drives them to this day.
“It’s the potential,” Davis said. “Obviously, potential means nothing with our work, so we’ve just got to keep working towards it. We know we could be a good team, and we know how far we can go. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to prove it. We’ve got to show it.”
Well, they are lately.
Since Week 3, the Patriots have been a top-10 defense against the run and pass by EPA. They’ve wrestled the league’s MVP to the ground in an upset win at Buffalo, and stonewalled three top-5 rushing attacks in the Bills, Steelers and Panthers. They’ve forced offenses to routinely reach deep into their bag of tricks, like the Browns who called a flea flicker and double-pass both in the second quarter.
But instead of pulling out touchdowns, more often than not, they’re now holding white flags.
“(The Browns) hadn’t turned it over, and then when their gimmick plays ran out,” head coach Mike Vrabel said, “I thought we played pretty good defense.”
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