There’s so much to like about Revis’s game, and it was all on display in Sunday’s 34-9 win over the Lions. Revis is fast enough to cover a speedster such as Golden Tate, which he did one-on-one most of the game. He’s big enough to cover Calvin Johnson on the goal line, like he did in the first half, or cover tight end Eric Ebron, which he did at times in the second half.

And in the center of it all is Darrelle Revis, who is having a Randy Moss-like impact in his first season with the Patriots.

The Patriots have won seven in a row and lead the league in point differential at plus-130. Tom Brady and the offense have gotten most of the credit — and deservedly so — but for the first time in 10 years, the Patriots have a championship-caliber defense.


Revis is physical enough to play bump-and-run, smart enough to play zone, and savvy enough to fight his way through pick plays. He’s got unbelievable closing speed, which allowed him to make a diving play even after Tate initially broke free from him. He never mistimes his jump, and always gets his hand on the deep ball in one-on-one situations, like he did in knocking a deep pass away from Ebron. His technique is flawless, he never lets his man get behind him, and he rarely gives up yards after the catch.

The results Sunday were jaw-dropping. Revis was targeted 11 times in the passing game, and he allowed two catches to Tate for 41 yards. Both catches came on the Lions’ first drive of the game – a 24-yard screen pass in which Revis was blocked perfectly, and a 17-yard catch on a pick play.

That’s it. The final nine targets thrown at Revis were all incomplete passes, including three that he broke up himself.


The whole defense revolves around Revis, who shuts down his defender and allows Bill Belichick to get creative with his coverages. Revis has been worth every penny, and the Patriots need to do everything in their power to re-sign him next offseason.

Other observations after reviewing the tape from Sunday’s win:

When the Patriots had the ball . . .

■ The Lions defensive game plan played perfectly into the Patriots’ hands. The Patriots had no interest in running the ball against Ndamukong Suh and the Lions’ No. 1-ranked run defense, throwing the ball on 52 of their first 64 plays. And the Lions gave Brady easy completions all day. Right cornerback Rashean Mathis and left cornerback Darius Slay (they remained on their sides all game) consistently gave Brandon LaFell and Julian Edelman a 7- or 8-yard cushion off the line of scrimmage. They didn’t get beat deep, but Brady chewed them up with quick passes. And linebackers DeAndre Levy and Josh Bynes didn’t bother chipping Rob Gronkowski at the line of scrimmage, allowing him to sit down in the middle of the Lions’ zone and make easy catch-and-runs.

The Lions’ back seven is very average, but they should have tried more press-man technique to try to slow down the Patriots’ receivers and give his defensive line more time to get to Brady.

■ The Patriots used a decent amount of no-huddle and up-tempo in the first half, but for the game it was much less than I initially thought. They went no-huddle on 12 plays in the first half for 60 yards, a touchdown and an offsides penalty, and gained 180 yards on 21 snaps and two touchdowns out of the traditional huddle. The Patriots then used the huddle for most of the second half to run time off the clock.


■ This wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for defensive coordinator Teryl Austin or Levy, who became the Green Dot wearer once Stephen Tulloch suffered a season-ending injury. The Lions were disorganized and had major communication issues.

On Tim Wright’s first touchdown, Brady snapped the ball while the Lions were still communicating their assignments, and Ihedigbo and Bynes had their backs turned to the middle of the field, leaving Wright so wide open a sixth-grader could have completed the pass.

On Wright’s second touchdown, every Lions defender looked to be in zone coverage except Mathis, who was in man-to-man. Glover Quin released Wright, thinking Mathis would be there to pick him up, but Wright was wide open at the pylon and had another easy touchdown. And it was remarkable how many times the Lions left the middle of the field wide open, such as Gronk’s 24-yard catch-and-run late in the first half, when Levy and Cassius Vaughn both played the same area in the flat.

■ Brady still has trouble completing the deep ball, as he overthrew LaFell and Edelman by inches on what should have been touchdowns. And he never saw James Ihedigbo coming across the middle on a slant pass to Gronk in the red zone. But otherwise Brady was a classic point guard on Sunday, making the right reads and distributing the ball to the open man.


■ Eleven players played at least 75 percent of snaps — Brady, the offensive linemen, plus Gronk (season-high 97 percent), LaFell, Edelman, Shane Vereen, and Tim Wright. Vereen played 60 snaps a week after playing 20, and showed some great moves in the open field. Wright played a season-high 59 snaps – his previous high was 21. The power guys — LeGarrette Blount, Michael Hoomanawanui and James Develin — all played 16 or fewer snaps, as did Danny Amendola.

■ Brady wasn’t sacked for the second straight game and third time in four games overall. Some of that was a function of Brady getting rid of the ball quickly, but the offensive line did a nice job in giving him a clean pocket and time to throw.

Dan Connolly did have a little trouble with C.J. Mosley and gave up a big hit on Brady, but also combined with Nate Solder for a nice double-team on Mosley to give Blount just enough room to squirt through the line for his first touchdown. Ryan Wendell had a good pull block, and Bryan Stork handled Suh on that play. The line had one slip-up early — they let Suh come through clean on a screen play and pop Brady — but otherwise it was another banner week for the unit.


■ Edelman continues to impress each week with his toughness, taking several big hits yet holding onto the ball and popping straight up after each hit.

Kind of a weak penalty on Sebastian Vollmer for hands to the face — it was a quick blow, and certainly didn’t seem worthy of a 10-yard penalty. And the offensive pass interference penalty on Gronk was a phantom call.

When the Lions had the ball . . .

■ The Patriots begged the Lions to run the ball, playing a light box and a lot more two-deep safety than they had in previous games. Devin McCourty was used almost exclusively to help Brandon Browner shadow Johnson over the top, and Duron Harmon got a lot more work this week as a deep centerfielder — 28 snaps, his most in six weeks. Although they took a defender out of the box, they defended the run with a “heavy” defensive line, with Chris Jones at defensive end, Alan Branch playing 28 snaps, and Vince Wilfork playing 62 of 80.

The Lions’ offensive line was a mess, in large part because left tackle Riley Reiff left the game after the first snap, and undrafted rookie Cornelius Lucas wasn’t up to the task against Akeem Ayers (who beat him on an inside move for a sack), Dont’a Hightower and Rob Ninkovich. Like the defense, the offensive line also had major communication issues, and the Patriots twisted and stunted them to death. Ninkovich had one sack on an inside twist, and should’ve had a second if not for penalty. The Lions had four linemen blocking two defenders, while Ninkovich screamed in through the middle untouched to sack Matthew Stafford. No wonder center Dominic Raiola was so upset at the end of the game. He got schooled.

■ The final tally on Dominic Raiola was two clubbings to the back of Zach Moore’s head, one shot to Moore’s helmet after the whistle, and one dive at his knees on the final kneel-down. Way to take cheap shots at a rookie.

■ Browner had a great game against Johnson, although McCourty deserves a lot of credit for helping out over the top. Browner allowed four catches on nine targets for 57 yards, with two passes defended and one pass interference. Johnson doesn’t seem fully healed from that ankle injury.

■ McCourty should teach open-field tackling drills this week. He had an awesome tackle of Joique Bell on the goal line and a great stick of Tate on an end-around. But we counted eight missed tackles by the Patriots, including two each by Akeem Ayers and Patrick Chung. We were impressed with Bell’s hard running style, by the way. He only ran 19 times for 48 yards but turned a lot of nothing into something.

Lions coach Jim Caldwell was outclassed by Belichick. Detroit’s offense let 25 seconds run off the clock in the second quarter to get to the two-minute warning. He opted for a field goal from the 2-yard line and punted from the Patriots’ 39-yard line – that won’t cut it when you’re playing at Gillette. And Belichick duped Caldwell into burning a challenge — the Patriots were clearly doing the “offense sprints off, punt team sprints on” play midway through the fourth quarter that they’ve done several times this year, but Caldwell didn’t recognize it and burned a challenge. He got the challenge right, but he should’ve known the Patriots were going to punt the ball.

■ Harmon might be receiving a fine from the league office for going low on Tate during Logan Ryan’s interception, as blocks below the waist are prohibited on changes of possession.

Special teams . . .

■ Amazing job by Ryan Allen on his second punt. He scooped the snap off the turf and boomed a 66-yard punt that traveled 75 yards in the air. Add in Rob Ninkovich’s sack on the next play, and the Patriots gained 76 yards of field position on those two plays.

The Lions had trouble staying in their lanes on kickoff and punt coverage. Belichick teaches his players not to get stacked vertically in coverage. But the Lions were caught in several of these two- and three-player “stacks” on Amendola’s 81-yard kickoff return and Edelman’s punt return that was called back (Bynes was way out of position on that one). Great blocking by Amendola, Wright, Matthew Slater, and Don Jones on that punt return. And just an awful effort by Detroit.

■

The hit by C.J. Mosley on Danny Aiken at the end of the game was DIRTY. He blatantly violated the NFL’s rule about hitting long-snappers in the head and rocked an unsuspecting Aiken onto his back. Won’t be surprised if Mosley’s wallet is lighter this week.