New England Patriots: 5 observations from beatdown in Baltimore
2. The defense will be alright
Despite being carved up on the ground by Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens, the New England Patriots defense still should keep their heads up.
Almost all of the top defenses over the years have had a game in which they gave up over than 30 points in the game. The 1985 Chicago Bears, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, that “Legion of Boom” defense of the Seattle Seahawks all had a hiccup along the way during their dominant seasons.
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The Patriots aren’t looked upon as dominant as those teams despite the numbers, but a loss like Sunday night should be seen as a good thing.
Not only does the loss get the players prepared for similar defenses, they also now have experience going up against Jackson if the two teams were to meet again in the playoffs.
Another motivator is now the defense has to hear about this performance for the next two weeks. Being out performed won’t sit will and defensive lineman Lawrence Guy knows playing better will bring much better results.
"“We have to play a little bit better football,” Guy said, via Patriots.com. “We went out there, but they played every down a little bit better than we did. We weren’t able to keep [QB Lamar Jackson] in the pocket. They pretty much outperformed us. We just need to figure out what to get fixed and move forward. There was a lot of good football played, but there were a lot of mistakes being made. We need to stop the mistakes so that we can move forward.”"
A couple of costly mistakes made stopping Lamar Jackson a lot more difficult and kept the New England Patriots defense on the field during a couple of important drives where a stop would’ve given the offense a chance to put the team closer or even ahead.