Early-down defense making life miserable for the Patriots right now

How the Rams used play-action to dominate New England on early downs in Week 11.

Through the first 15 minutes at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, DeMarcus Covington’s defense held the upper hand on Sean McVay. The New England Patriots held on two third-down stops at midfield, forcing the Los Angeles Rams to punt twice.

Then, the dam broke.

The Rams scored touchdowns on four of their next five possessions and missed a field goal from the 8-yard line on the other. A 7-0 New England lead quickly became a 28-13 deficit.

Sean McVay exploited a league-worst pass defense on early downs, using the run early to set up big play action passes and attacking down the field.

Through their first two possessions, the Rams had seven snaps on early downs (1st and 2nd downs). Four of those seven featured 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight ends, 2 wide receivers), and all four were runs.

The Patriots matched that with a 3-4 front featuring three defensive tackles, Anfernee Jennings and Keion White at outside linebacker, two cornerbacks, and two safeties. Outside of one big run allowed for 18 yards, New England held firm, allowing carries for 1, 2, and 4 yards.

Starting with the first play of their third series, the Rams went away from the run and shifted to play-action. Through taking to the air, Los Angeles gained nearly 17 yards per play on a series of big passes that would help shift the game.

Motion revealed the Patriots were in a Cover 3 shell, with Marco Wilson, Dell Pettus, and Christian Gonzalez each covering a deep third of the field from the defensive left to right.

The Patriots dialed up a five-man rush with the Rams showing a run look, with Kyle Dugger, Jahlani Tavai, and Christian Elliss playing zones underneath the deep defenders.

With the outside deep zone defenders needing to eliminate anything deep or outside, that leaves the seams open. Typically, those seams will be filled by underneath defenders, but the five-man rush pulled a defender out of coverage and left the seams vacant.

Wide receiver Puka Nacua widened outside corner Marco Wilson and then cut into the open space between the numbers and the hashmarks. The pre-snap motion showed this space was likely to be open, and Matthew Stafford didn’t hesitate to rip a throw into his receiver despite defensive tackle Eric Johnson pushing center Beaux Limmer back into his lap.

On the next play, the Rams went right back to play action with the same personnel grouping.

Los Angeles aligned both wide receivers on the same side of the field, with Puka Nacua attacking the middle of the field and Tutu Atwell running a deep out. Tavai carried Nacua up the seam, while Wilson sat underneath Atwell in New England’s Cover 2 zone.

The play-action negated the pass rush, giving Stafford enough time to survey the defense. Seeing defenders backed off to take away the deep pass. Seeing this, he calmly dumped it off to running back Blake Corum underneath who picked up an easy seven yards.

In just two plays, the Rams had gotten past midfield. Seven plays later, the Rams would get into the end zone to tie the game.

It didn’t take long for Los Angeles to get the ball back. A Drake Maye fumble would hand them the ball at New England’s 12-yard line. Sean McVay turned right back to their 12-personnel play action scheme to take the lead for good in just one play.

The Rams aligned with one receiver on each side of the formation, setting up a pair of one-on-one matchups for their wide receivers. The run action pulled safeties Dugger and Kaylinn Hawkins up towards the line of scrimmage, confirming the matchups on the outside.

Nacua stemmed his route to the inside, crossing the face of corner Jonathan Jones and selling a crossing route over the middle behind the defenders biting on the run. Then, just as he hooked Jones, he crossed back to the outside, getting a step of separation.

While Keion White went unblocked off the edge with a free rush on Stafford, he hesitated for just a second chasing after the running back. He quickly turned his attention back to the quarterback, but he was too late.

Stafford fired a dime to his receiver, who made an acrobatic, leaping catch to haul in the pass.

After the teams traded scores early in the third quarter, the Rams got the ball back looking to extend a 21-13 lead.

They picked up 24 yards on the ground to open the drive, all on the ground. Then, they turned back to play action.

Sean McVay called the same play he had used at midfield in the 2nd quarter that resulted in a checkdown to Corum. This time, the Rams got the look they wanted to attack deeper down the field. Stafford took it.

Instead of Cover 2, the Patriots matched the Rams with the same Cover 3 blitz they used on the first play. That put outside corner Marcus Jones one-on-one with Atwell on a 20-yard out.

The five-man rush didn’t get home, and Dugger was pulled towards the line of scrimmage by the running back’s underneath route.

Jones was out leveraged by Atwell to the outside, not anticipating an outward-breaking route. His speed turn wasn’t fast enough, and the receiver separated. Stafford connected to put the Rams in field goal range.

However, the Rams would not need to settle for three. After a run on the subsequent 1st down, it was back to another play action attack. It would be their only such pass out of 12 personnel on 2nd down on the afternoon.

Nacua motioned to the right, and then the Stafford play-faked that way.

The motion froze both Dugger and Elliss on the backside. Tight end Colby Parkinson bee-lined behind them, and Stafford, rolling to his left, placed a throw perfectly between Elliss and the back of the end zone to extend the lead to 28-13.

While the Patriots had success on third down, getting L.A.’s offense off the field two-thirds of the time, they rarely got them there. Big plays like these on early downs, where the defense had to respect the run and the pass, allowed the Rams to avoid those situations for much of the game.

Using 12 personnel to force New England’s bigger defenders on the field, Sean McVay attacked the leverage of outside defenders repeatedly. With the pass rush negated by personnel usage — the Patriots had three defensive tackles on the field for these plays, none of whom excel at rushing the passer — and a play fake to keep them honest, Stafford had enough time to find these matchups and attack vulnerable cornerbacks.

Heading into a Week 12 matchup with another coach from the Shanahan tree of offense, the Miami Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel, it is clear Covington and the Patriots defense as a whole have some work to do. Otherwise, they run risk of getting attacked in the same fashion this Sunday as well.