The Patriots had their best defensive performance in six weeks Sunday, and it wasn’t just because Matt Moore was playing quarterback for the other team. After the game Sunday, several defensive players touched on an important decision coaches had made during the week. Along with the shifting of personnel, the Patriots scaled back the defense and made it less complex.
Over the past few games, which including giving up 38 points to the Saints, Bill Belichick came to the conclusion part of the poor execution owed to slow reaction or not having practiced a certain defense enough.

“Well, we felt like, in the last couple games, maybe some of the execution might have been the result of not practicing things enough or not reacting quite quickly enough, so we tried to simplify it a little bit so there would be a little less decision making,” Belichick said. “Maybe we weren’t always in the best defense we could be in, but at least we all knew what we were doing and we could be aggressive and take our chances on the weaknesses in that particular call."

The Patriots also altered their personnel, starting Pierre Woods and Rob Ninkovich at the outside linebacker spots and inserting Shawn Springs and James Sanders into the secondary. The new pieces and the pared-down defense worked, the players thinking less and reacting more, which led to stronger tackling.

“I think the players did a good job of that," Belichick said. "Not everything was perfect, but they played hard and we tackled better. I think for the most part, we were not on everything, but we were on it pretty good."

The most significant improvement may have been on third down. Against Miami, the Patriots allowed the Dolphins to convert 10 of 19 third downs, and two of three fourth downs. Against the Panthers, the Patriots stuffed the Panthers on 10 of their 13 third-down tries.

"When you play good on third down then that really takes care of a lot of issues," Belichick said. "And really, that was the big difference between the Miami game and the Carolina game, was our third down defense. We played better on third down against Miami and statistically that probably looked better than the Carolina game did, honestly, but we played good on third down against Carolina and that led to a lot fewer points, a lot fewer plays, and a lot better field position for the offense.”