Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick talks with defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia prior to the start of an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, N.C., Friday, Aug. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Mike McCarn)

(Mike McCarn)

PITTSBURGH -- With all but one starter returning, most of which are entering the primes of their careers, the 2016 New England Patriots defense looked poised to ascend into the pantheon of the league's scariest units.

Like a Seattle or Denver, or what Minnesota has become. Nasty.

Thus far, this has not been the case in New England.

This 2016 Patriots defense does not overwhelm opponents. Then again, the 2016 Patriots defense has not been required to overwhelm opponents.

When considering the Patriots' defensive approach, always consider the opponent. They have faced Landry Jones, Cody Kessler/Charlie Whitehurst, Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Tannehill, and Brock Osweiler. They have played inept quarterbacks, and have several others remaining on the schedule: Colin Kaepernick/Blaine Gabbert and the Niners, Case Keenum/Jared Goff (?) and the Rams, and Trevor Siemian and the Broncos. You can throw Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Jets in there, too.

A few of these teams can run it effectively, but these are dreadful passing offenses. Whatever is the opposite of a Murderers' Row, that's what the Pats are looking at on the schedule.

In a nutshell: To beat the Patriots, you'll need a minimum of 28-30 points. The New England offense, when healthy, is too good. Even a solid defense at home under the lights -- like Pittsburgh on Sunday -- will not slow the Pats for an entire game. And Tom Brady won't do you any favors. He does not turn the ball over. Rarely ever will the Pats gift another team points (although fumbles by Chris Hogan and Julian Edelman in Sunday's 27-16 win gave the Steelers two short fields).

To beat the Patriots, a team needs to generate significant offense.

And what is Landry Jones' best chance of generating significant offense: Making one correct read and one accurate throw for a 60-yard touchdown, or making six correct reads and accurate throws for gains of 10 yards at a time? The former.

No way in hell Landry Jones was beating the Patriots without several chunk yardage plays. So, naturally, the foundation of New England's gameplan was the elimination of big plays.

The Pats rarely blitzed or risked vulnerability in the secondary. They kept everything in front of them. The Steelers ran 42 plays in the second half, and none went for 20+ yards. The Pats did a fine job in the run game, holding stud tailback Le'Veon Bell to 21 carries for 81 yards.

The Patriots brought extra pressure -- 5 or more rushers -- on only eight of Jones' 47 dropbacks. They rushed three defenders or less on 28 dropbacks. Turns out all that extra time in the pocket did not make Landry Jones good, especially when the Pats had eight players to cover his five pass catchers. Jones threw one terrible interception in this game, and was inches away from throwing two or three more.

Jones didn't totally flop, but he was not consistent enough to put up the 28-30 points needed against the Pats.

As Devin McCourty told The Boston Globe after Sunday's 27-16 win, "I feel like every year it's something. We'll never be just, 'You're a good defensive team.' Nobody will say that to us. So, we don't care. Whatever we are in points allowed we know that's what's important. We know that is what the game comes down to."

As Malcolm Butler said, "It's not going to be perfect, we aren't going to stop everything. Stats only take you so far. It's about winning the game."

What we saw Sunday was not a sexy gameplan from Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia. But it wasn't much different from the gameplan the Pats used to shut out the Texans in Week 3 (another team with vertical receiving threats and unstable quarterback play).

It's not as though Brock Osweiler was getting rocked that night. Save for a pair of Jabaal Sheard sacks, he was barely touched. When Osweiler was intercepted over the middle by Jamie Collins, the Pats only rushed three defenders. Osweiler faced a weak four-man rush when he sailed a ball over Ryan Griffin's head on an early 3rd-and-8. He didn't need to be pressured into stinking. He stunk anyway.

The Pats would not allow DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller to beat them deep on a single play, and Osweiler was unsurprisingly incapable of beating them consistently for an entire drive, let alone the entire game.

A sensible approach.

Against Andy Dalton and the Bengals in Week 6, the Pats played conservative defense early. Dalton, the only competent pocket passer they have faced since Carson Palmer, completed 18 of his first 22 passes. Then the Pats started using Dont'a Hightower to rush Dalton, a move that produced a momentum-swinging safety. They sent Patrick Chung after him twice. Logan Ryan blitzed from his cornerback spot and forced an errant Dalton throw. They adapted.

Yes, it is true that the front four has struggled to generate pass rush. Chris Long, Jabaal Sheard, and Rob Ninkovich have not dominated off the edge. It is also true that edge defenders were often double teamed Sunday against Pittsburgh, leaving the nose tackle one-on-one with the center. When the Patriots have needed to bring pressure, they have enlisted Jamie Collins and/or Dont'a Hightower to help.

These 2016 Pats don't have a Von Miller, or even a Chandler Jones. To a degree, this is why their defense may seem unappealing. Or bland, even.

They do, however, have the league's best offense, a group that will only improve when Dion Lewis returns. They have a cake schedule, having already beaten Arizona and having dodged Big Ben on the road.

They have a defense yielding 15.3 points per game, which would be the franchise's best mark in a decade.

Their worst performance to date: The loss to the Bills in Week 4. The gameplan aimed to keep Tyrod Taylor contained in the pocket and, for the most part, the Pats were successful in doing so. They dared Taylor to beat them as a pocket passer. Occasionally, he did.

Yet...the Bills scored 16 points. Rex Ryan knows damn well his team has zero shot of beating the Patriots in Week 8 if they only get 16 on the board.

That's the luxury in New England. The Patriots defense does not need to dominate. It merely needs to avoid getting dominated.

We can start talking about New England's "struggling" defense once it actually surrenders enough points to lose a game. Looking at the schedule, and looking around the league, the guess here is that we won't be talking much. Maybe come January. Maybe in 2018.