The New England Patriots Need To Air It Out On Sunday vs. San Diego

While scouring through the basic stats of the San Diego Chargers last night, there were two big things that stood out to me on the defensive side of the ball: their lack of sacks, and their lack of turnovers.

Yes, they do rank seventh in overall pass defense, but they are 29th in sacks and takeaways per game, which is just not going to cut it against a Tom Brady-led offense. As we saw last week against the Packers, what is the key to stopping Brady and this New England Patriots offense?

Pressure.

You can throw all the coverages you want at him, you can double and triple Rob Gronkowski, and you can try to beat up on his security blanket, but nothing will derail Brady unless you can get to him. And while the Chargers have decent cover corners, and an excellent safety in Eric Weddle, they will be no match for the Pats if they struggle to get after the quarterback.

Staying balanced is always a good thing for an offense, especially when the opposing defense ranks 22nd in the league in yards allowed per attempt. But sometimes you have to go away from that, and just focus on an area where you know you can dominate. All you have to do is look at New England’s drubbing of the Detroit Lions to realize this strategy works. The Pats threw the ball 53 times in that game, against only 20 runs. And the result was a 34-point, 439-yard outburst against the then-number one ranked Detroit defense.

Tom Brady has a lot of talented weapons at his disposal. He can slice apart any secondary with these guys, especially when Tim Wright or Shane Vereen gets going in the passing game. The Patriots’ offensive line struggled against a fired up Packers defense, but they had been playing excellent football up until that point. I expect them to bounce back this week, and handle a San Diego pass rush that is among the worst in the league. And in turn, Tom Brady will absolutely abuse this secondary.

On top of all that, you better believe Brady is going to pissed off this week. He was all kinds of pumped up against the Packers, and you could tell postgame he was extremely disappointed in the end result.

An angry Brady generally doesn’t end well for opposing defenses, particularly when you have no way to pressure him.