Patriots Trying to Fix Defense One Draft Pick At a Time

The New England Patriots had a dominant offense last year, and have had ever since the early 2000’s. Tom Brady-led offenses are not averse to scoring touchdowns, but the Pats are rarely known for their defensive play. That was true once again in 2011 and 2012 in the playoffs when New England ranked 31st in front of only Green Bay in total yards allowed, giving up around 23 points per game.

They tried to rectify that in the draft, spending all but one of their picks on the defensive side of the ball. You really don’t see that a lot from teams, but actually interestingly enough, both the Patriots and the Packers used a majority of their top picks on the defensive side of the ball.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.

Up until their seventh round selection of Northwestern receiver Jeremy Ebert, the Pats took six defenders–three on the front seven and three in the defensive backfield. True to form, the picks were somewhat unexpected, including the selection of Tavon Wilson in the second round, a guy who was expected to go in the mid-late rounds at best.

The Pats came away from the draft with a trio of Big Ten defensive backs, most notably in the seventh round where they took former star Nebraska cornerback Alfonzo Dennard. Dennard punched Alshon Jeffery in the team’s bowl game, and ran into some trouble with the law the week before the draft.

I didn’t expect Dennard, a clear first round talent, to drop to the seventh round, but there he sat and the Pats cashed in. I’m not saying that Dennard is going to step in and be a Pro Bowler, but a clean slate with the Patriots will do wonders for his image and his overall mental approach to the game. Being a seventh round pick was his own fault, losing all that money, but he is a guy who can be a starter much faster than any other seventh round pick out there.

This is just scratching the surface of what the Patriots did on draft day, something we’ll get into deeper here on Mocks soon.