This Patriots Secondary Might Have The Best Ball Skills Yet
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Bill Belichick places a lot of value on a player's ability to "do his job," to understand certain plays and situations and have his fundamentals down and put himself in the best position to make plays. But he also understands that it's important to be able to actually make plays, especially when considering the cornerback position and the much-ballyhooed "ball skills" that you can't really coach.
Fortunately for Belichick, it looks like the Patriots cornerback group is filled with guys who have those intangibles. He acknowledged how important ball skills are to effective cornerback play - and how little he can really do to "coach" it.
"Some guys have a real knack for [ball skills], other guys not as much," said Belichick in his Monday press conference when asked about ball skills and how much of it comes from measurables versus instinct. "Sometimes it's a little bit acquired, sometimes it's just instinctive."
Belichick amusingly harkened back to former Giants cornerback Everson Walls, whom he coached in both New York and Cleveland at the end of his career. Walls was never known for his measurables or fundamentals, but simply had that knack for making plays on the ball when he had the chance and amassed 57 career interceptions with that innate ability.
"[Walls] didn't technically do hardly anything right from a fundamental standpoint," said Belichick, drawing chuckles from reporters. "You would never take another player and say, 'Look, do it the way Everson's doing it. This is the way you would want to do it.' ... but he could find the ball and he had a great instinct for quarterbacks, routes, pattern combinations and so forth.
"Certainly, it wasn't a speed or measurables thing ... you would have released [Walls] on those measurables - that's why he wasn't drafted. But as a football player ... he made a lot of plays and he made them on his awareness, his instinctive-ness."
It's easy to think of a Patriots player who doesn't necessarily wow you with his measurables or physical skills, but seems to have that knack for finding the ball ...
But similar skills showed up big-time Friday night with Patriots cornerback Logan Ryan, who made his presence felt with a beautiful interception while covering the Panthers' Kelvin Benjamin. There's no doubt that Ryan had his fundamentals down and did his job, but you have to have that instinctive gene in you to basically take over a guy's route and run it for him and make the catch.
Preseason or not, it was impressive of Ryan to make this play on a bigger, talented receiver in Benjamin. That had nothing to do with speed or jumping ability, just good old-fashioned football smarts.
Speaking of making an instinctive play on a receiver, there are other examples of this kind of play ...
Another young cornerback making waves during the preseason and training camp for the Patriots is undrafted free agent Cre'Von LeBlanc. The 5-foot-11, 174-pound rookie out of Florida Atlantic won't wow you with his measurables, which as Belichick said about Walls is probably the same reason he wasn't drafted. But you really can't coach the ability to make this kind of play ...
LeBlanc continues to earn playing time and make a push for a roster spot, which could put guys like Justin Coleman on the hot seat.
Speaking of rookies, Cyrus Jones also made a great play in the Patriots' second preseason game with an interception of Brian Hoyer. He read the quarterback's eyes, jumped the route, went for the ball and got it.
For several years - approximately between the Asante Samuel and Aqib Talib eras - the Patriots secondary really struggled to stop even below-average quarterbacks and receivers, and a big reason for that was a lack of instinct to find the ball. For a long time, it felt like Patriots cornerbacks wouldn't even LOOK for the ball, let alone come down with it.
Talib changed that when he came into the fold in 2012, and Darrelle Revis certainly did for his one transcendent year in the Pats secondary. But it appears that the team's ability to find players with those kinds of playmaking instincts has improved in recent years, down to the undrafted free agents. The group feels talented and deep in that skill set. It's a major reason that the secondary could still, amazingly, be the true strength of the Patriots defense, even with their deep front-seven and elite linebacker combo.
Speaking of undrafted free agents ... sorry, can't help myself.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Have a news tip or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
