In Defense of Defense
by Rick Winterson It bears repeating that the Patriots’ defense was the target of much criticism during the 2016 regular season. But it bears repeating only to demonstrate how senseless the boo-birds have been all season long. This writer guesses that they got tired of criticizing the Presidential campaign, or simply got crowded out of that particular issue by all the partisan tweets. There was a school of thought that the “Points Against” statistic, where the Pats led the entire NFL – yes, both Conferences – was somehow meaningless, because the Pats played a lot of weak teams. Well, whether that’s true or not, the Pats’ Points Against figures demonstrate the value of their defense in both playoff games – 17 Points [...]