New England On England Moore

Football Betting Lines

(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A year ago, Sterling Moore was taking in the Super Bowl as a spectator, perched way up in the rafters of spacious Cowboys Stadium as a college senior at nearby Southern Methodist University. The rookie cornerback will have a far better view of this year's game, and a well-deserved upgrade to boot after coming up with perhaps the most important play of the New England Patriots' nail-biting win in the AFC Championship.

 

Moore, just one moth removed from toiling on New England's practice squad, also broke up a pass on the ensuing play that would have given the Ravens a first down and forced Cundiff to be sent out for his now-famous blunder.

 

While a defense universally regarded as the soft underbelly of the offensively- abundant AFC champions rising to the rescue in such a critical spot seems tinged in irony, having an unproven commodity like Moore emerge as a hero fits in perfectly with a unit that's gotten by with no-names and misfits all throughout the Patriots' successful 2011 run.

 

While that ability to plug holes with scrap-heap talent speaks to the savvy and evaluation skills of Belichick and player personnel director Nick Caserio, New England's reliance on castoffs and obscure players hasn't exactly been by design. Season-ending injuries to regulars such as veteran end Andre Carter, promising rookie corner Ras-I Dowling and safety Josh Barrett have greatly tested the defense's depth, and despite the Patriots' reputation for superb drafts, the team has had a considerable amount of misses on the defensive side in recent years.

 

New England selected seven defensive players in the first three rounds of the two drafts that followed the franchise's last Super Bowl appearance, the memorable 17-14 loss to the New York Giants in Arizona during the 2007 season. The Pats did hit a home run with linebacker Jerod Mayo, a 2008 first-round choice and one of the group's linchpins, and safety Patrick Chung has developed into a reliable contributor since being tabbed in the second round the subsequent year. However, cornerbacks Terrence Wheatley (2nd Round, 2008) and Darius Butler (2nd Round, 2009), linebackers Shawn Crable (3rd Round, 2008) and Tyrone McKenzie (3rd Round, 2009) and lineman Ron Brace (2nd Round, 2009) never panned out, and Brace is the only one of those five that currently remains with the organization.

 

"We've had a lot of things that haven't been perfect out there, but we have everybody that will stand in there and fight and give it their best all the way through, and that's a good place to be and that's what I like about this team," Belichick remarked after the AFC Championship. "They're tough, they're competitive and they really don't lose their confidence or get down on themselves. They just go out there and keep competing and see what happens."

 

Another example of that resiliency, not to mention Belichick's knack for maximizing the available talent, came after Carter -- an esteemed leader who had racked up 10 sacks through the first 14 games -- tore his quadriceps in a mid-December triumph at Denver. Presumed to be a devastating blow to the pass rush, the Patriots have instead generated an impressive 15 sacks in the four games since he went down.

 

Below is a capsule look at the defense of the New England Patriots, with regular season statistics in parentheses:

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