On Monday, I looked at the top passers in 2019 after adjusting for strength of schedule. The same process and methodology is used to rank the defenses, so let’s look at that today. And while they had an easy schedule, there’s no denying that the 2019 Patriots had — by a good measure — the best pass defense in the NFL. Quarterbacks throwing against New England gained just 3.41 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt in 2019, a whopping 2.75 ANY/A better than average. And while that group was 0.31 ANY/A worse than average, it still means the Patriots pass defense was 2.44 ANY/A better than average.
The Bills actually had the easiest SOS in 2019, followed by the Dolphins, Cowboys, Jets, and then Patriots. No surprise there: the AFC East and NFC East had the six easiest opposing passing schedules in 2019. Meanwhile, the Panthers, Chargers, Texans, Cardinals, and Chies all had very difficult passing schedules. In particular, this is noteworthy for Kansas City: after adjusting for SOS, Kansas City’s pass defense ranked 3rd in the NFL in 2019. Derek Carr had his worst and third-worst games of the season against the Chiefs; Tom Brady had his second-worst game of the season against Kansas City; and Philip Rivers had two of his five worst games of the year when facing Kansas City. Lamar Jackson struggled, too: he had a rare game with no passing touchdowns against Kansas City, and averaged just 5.41 net yards per pass attempt.
The full results, below.
| Rk | Quarterback | ANY | DB | ANY/A | RANY/A | SOS | Adj RANY/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patriots | 1975 | 579 | 3.41 | 2.75 | -0.31 | 2.44 |
| 2 | 49ers | 2607 | 566 | 4.61 | 1.55 | 0.18 | 1.73 |
| 3 | Chiefs | 3215 | 625 | 5.14 | 1.01 | 0.44 | 1.45 |
| 4 | Steelers | 2686 | 566 | 4.75 | 1.41 | -0.16 | 1.25 |
| 5 | Bills | 2803 | 596 | 4.70 | 1.46 | -0.50 | 0.95 |
| 6 | Vikings | 3439 | 646 | 5.32 | 0.84 | -0.08 | 0.75 |
| 7 | Ravens | 3079 | 577 | 5.34 | 0.82 | -0.17 | 0.65 |
| 8 | Panthers | 3573 | 594 | 6.02 | 0.14 | 0.47 | 0.62 |
| 9 | Bears | 3444 | 603 | 5.71 | 0.45 | 0.07 | 0.52 |
| 10 | Saints | 3768 | 653 | 5.77 | 0.39 | 0.07 | 0.46 |
| 11 | Rams | 3500 | 612 | 5.72 | 0.44 | -0.06 | 0.38 |
| 12 | Broncos | 3539 | 577 | 6.13 | 0.03 | 0.31 | 0.33 |
| 13 | Chargers | 3110 | 491 | 6.33 | -0.18 | 0.47 | 0.29 |
| 14 | Packers | 3297 | 585 | 5.64 | 0.52 | -0.24 | 0.28 |
| 15 | Buccaneers | 4343 | 709 | 6.13 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.06 |
| 16 | Browns | 3314 | 550 | 6.03 | 0.13 | -0.15 | -0.01 |
| 17 | Titans | 3950 | 640 | 6.17 | -0.01 | -0.03 | -0.04 |
| 18 | Eagles | 3854 | 612 | 6.30 | -0.14 | 0.02 | -0.12 |
| 19 | Jets | 3739 | 620 | 6.03 | 0.13 | -0.34 | -0.21 |
| 20 | Colts | 3875 | 602 | 6.44 | -0.28 | 0.04 | -0.24 |
| 21 | Seahawks | 3883 | 624 | 6.22 | -0.06 | -0.19 | -0.26 |
| 22 | Cowboys | 3628 | 606 | 5.99 | 0.17 | -0.43 | -0.26 |
| 23 | Texans | 4417 | 613 | 7.21 | -1.05 | 0.47 | -0.58 |
| 24 | Jaguars | 3768 | 563 | 6.69 | -0.53 | -0.05 | -0.58 |
| 25 | Falcons | 3908 | 562 | 6.95 | -0.80 | 0.07 | -0.72 |
| 26 | Redskins | 3938 | 585 | 6.73 | -0.57 | -0.31 | -0.88 |
| 27 | Cardinals | 4955 | 641 | 7.73 | -1.57 | 0.47 | -1.10 |
| 28 | Bengals | 3875 | 526 | 7.37 | -1.21 | 0.01 | -1.20 |
| 29 | Giants | 4364 | 591 | 7.38 | -1.23 | -0.01 | -1.24 |
| 30 | Raiders | 4362 | 558 | 7.82 | -1.66 | 0.31 | -1.35 |
| 31 | Lions | 4889 | 637 | 7.68 | -1.52 | 0.11 | -1.40 |
| 32 | Dolphins | 4393 | 568 | 7.73 | -1.58 | -0.49 | -2.06 |
I also want to investigate the Patriots defense a bit more here.
You may have noticed that I highlighted five quarterbacks, all of whom finished with well under 200 pass attempts in 2019: Matt Barkley, Ben Roethlisberger, Josh Rosen, Luke Falk, Colt McCoy. For quarterbacks with a small number of pass attempts, you can’t really grade them or adjust for SOS because of the low sample size. So for all quarterbacks with under 200 pass attempts, I lumped them together, into one Pseudo QB. The Pseudo QBs, as a group, were very bad: they averaged 4.43 against a SOS that was 0.16 ANY/A harder than average (so these quarterbacks would averaged 4.59 ANY/A against a neutral defense).
But the Patriots didn’t get much of a benefit in facing these part-time or backup quarterbacks. They made up 25% of all pass attempts thrown against New England, and they averaged an anemic 2.68 ANY/A. That means New England’s defense lowered their production by 1.91 ANY/A. On the other hand, the other 75% of pass attempts came against regular starters. That group was actually slightly above average (+0.11 ANY/A), mostly because of Dak Prescott, Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Mahomes. But these other quarterbacks averaged just 3.66 ANY/A, which is 2.50 ANY/A worse than average! So the Patriots defense actually made better quarterbacks look worse than normal even more so than they did to the dregs of the league. (One reason: Barkley and Roethlisberger were actually not too bad against New England.)
Sam Darnold was absolutely awful against New England, easily producing the worst game of his season.
Ryan Fitzpatrick in week 2 had his worst game of the year against the Patriots.
Josh Allen in week 4 had his worst game of the year against the Patriots.
Andy Dalton? He had his worst game this season against New England, too: he averaged negative ANY/A.
Daniel Jones averaged 1.44 ANY/A against New England; he averaged at least 2.9 ANY/A in every other game.
That’s 5 quarterbacks out of 13 (ignoring the five backups) who had their worst game of the season against New England.
Dak Prescott had his second worst game of the year against the Patriots (admittedly in bad weather); he averaged 5.06 ANY/A in New England and 4.91 ANY/A against the Saints.
Patrick Mahomes had a bad game against the Chargers (4.70), but his New England game was arguably is second-worst of the season, too (6.00 ANY/A on 41 dropbacks).
Baker Mayfield and Carson Wentz? They had their 3rd-worst ANY/A games of the season against New England.
Yes, Deshaun Watson did well, and Fitzpatrick and Allen did better the second times they faced the Patriots. And yes, New England’s schedule was easy. But even if you ignore those easy games, the Patriots pass defense was absolutely outstanding this season.