Patriots rebuilt secondary finally effective against the deep pass

For the past few years, we Patriots fans have been conditioned to cringe every time an opposing quarterback throws the ball deep.

Why? Because over the two seasons before this one, teams attacked that Patriots secondary deep and they did it often to much success. In 2011 and 2012 combined, opposing teams were 74/166 (44.6%) with 18 TDs on deep passes against the Patriots.

That has changed this year. And Bill Belichick is thankful.

NESN:

“It could definitely be better but it hasn’t been anywhere close to the issue it was last year. So, thank God."

Thank God indeed.

Apparently the deep ball has been quite the emphasis for the Patriots. It's something they've had to do with team's targeting them so often the last few seasons, especially the Baltimore Ravens.

According to NESN's Doug Kyed, Joe Flacco was 0 for 6 against the Patriots on throws of 20 yards or more with one interception. That deep ball is what that Ravens' offense thrives on too, as Flacco hit a couple of deep throws to Torrey Smith in last year's AFC championship game.

Bill Belichick talked today about why defending the deep throw is so important for a team.

"I mean obviously the players are doing a good job. But we’ve spent a lot of time on it and we’ve spent a lot of time on the deep part of the field because it’s so critical. Hopefully we can continue to play fairly well back there because it’s just so important.

When it all happens in one play – there’s nothing else you can do. There’s no chance of stopping in the red area. It takes a lot of other people out of the game too. There’s nothing a nose guard can do about a go-pattern. There’s nothing the inside linebacker — those plays are so far beyond them that it kind of takes them out of the game. When you’re giving those up, that’s below the line. Our below the line comments from last week — we just can’t play like that. Those guys have worked hard. Our safeties have good range back there, our corners have played the ball pretty well. We haven’t had a lot of pass interference calls.

The Patriots improvement in that deep area of the field is pretty drastic, and further evidence that the secondary has actually become a strength of this team. Again, from NESN:

Patriots 2013: 26-84, 30.9%, 9.25 YPA, 777 yards, 5 TDs, 6 INTs, 4 pass interference penalties

NFL 2013 per team: 20.9-63.2, 34%, 11.5 YPA, 725.6 yards, 6.6 TDs, 4.4 INTS, 2.4 pass interference penalties

Teams, likely seeing the Pats' past struggles against the deep ball, are targeting the Pats more often but unlike past years this season's Patriots are allowing a completion percentage that's actually lower than the NFL average. They are also intercepting more of those balls.

There has been a lot of turnover in that area of the Patriots defense, as Devin McCourty has moved over to safety, Alfonzo Dennard and Logan Ryan are newcomers through the draft, and Aqib Talib came over in a trade.

So, as long as the Patriots can keep that group together, they will continue to steadily improve.

It's shown through on the boxscore too. After years of us looking at the Patriots near the bottom of the league in passing yards per game, the Pats are finally in the middle of the back at 18th.

It's not elite, but it's not bad either.

Photo via: Patrick Smith/Getty Images