would this defense be playing with a late 14 point lead, instead of us playing catch up......
I'm sure it has been said before but it just makes me smile and other teams cringe to think about it.
Dont get me wrong, they played out-a-sight today. It just would lead to way more INT's and Sacks if, like you said, they could pin their ears back and just bum rush the QB not worring about the run.
Tom Brady is a master of geeting rid of the ball quickly when he is under pressure. Not surprised that there was only one sack. I think that their entire game plan was to dink and dunk, get the ball out of Brady's hand as fast as possible. This is for two reasons:
1. They knew it was likely to do much downfield against the Hawks secondary.
2. They knew that pressure was coming.