Patriots’ strong, flexible defense holds key to success

MIAMI – The New England Patriots can grind an opponent into the ground or hit quickly in a football form of “shock and awe.” They can defend the best passing attack in the NFL with an umbrella zone one week or stonewall the league’s second-best running game the next.

In AFC playoff wins against Indianapolis and then Pittsburgh, the Patriots have proven to be as malleable as a water bed, yet as unbreakable as a diamond.

It’s that flexibility that has the Patriots on the cusp of their third bejeweled ring in four years Sunday against Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville.

Whatever the circumstance, the Patriots always seem to have the answer.

But not because they invent something on the fly. Rather, it’s because they are so sound with what they do.

“Nothing they do is gimmicks, it all makes sense,” New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi said.

Said Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy: “Most people say they’re going to do what they’re going to do and that’s it. The Patriots will change up all the time. It’s not something that’s easy to do.”

Accorsi remembered when the Giants scrimmaged the Patriots during training camp before the 2001 season. The Giants were coming off a Super Bowl appearance and the Patriots were on the way to the first of their current run.

Accorsi remembered being completely impressed with the Patriots’ coaching staff and its ability to teach.

“I never saw a teaching staff like that, they were so great at being able to explain what they wanted the players to do that they could teach so much,” said Accorsi, who has worked in the NFL since 1970.

Buffalo coach Mike Mularkey said that adaptability makes for a perception that isn’t quite right.

“The perception is that they are very complicated, but that’s not it,” Mularkey said. “The big thing is that they are so sound in everything that they do that they don’t make mistakes. Scheme-wise, they’re not doing anything that people don’t understand, it’s that they do so much so well.”

Through the playoffs, the Patriots have been just short of flawless. In the first round, they slowed Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning and the top passing team in the league with constant zone coverage and sprinkled more than the usual number of blitzes, confusing Manning.

The next week, New England went toe-to-toe in the trenches with Pittsburgh, stopping the No. 2-ranked rushing offense in the league. The Patriots did that by playing extremely physically.

“This wasn’t nothin’ fancy,” Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork said after the victory against the Steelers. “Everybody knew they had a responsibility.”

What other coaches admire is that the Patriots seem to carry out those responsibilities so well even as new players come in.

“It takes a group of guys who are focused, can concentrate and communicate well,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “You have to also have strong leadership to get the young guys on board. That’s part of the reason they have become totally flexible with all the changes, because everybody is responsible.”

The ability to be flexible also extends to the offense. In the win against Indianapolis, the Patriots worked the clock carefully to keep the Colts off the field. They had three drives of 14 plays or longer and averaging more than eight minutes each.

By contrast against Pittsburgh, the Patriots scored on a one-play drive when Tom Brady hit wide receiver Deion Branch for a 60-yarder and set up another touchdown with a 45-yard bomb to Branch.

Branch scored another touchdown in the fourth quarter on a reverse at a time when everyone thought the Patriots simply would try to milk the clock.

“If you put together a three-game tendency chart of them, you wouldn’t get a rhyme or reason for what they do,” Giants scout Steve Verderosa said.

But, as Accorsi said, all the ideas do have logic.

“It’s completely sound.”

Just completely different.