Two weeks into the 2025 season, tackling has been a major problem for the New England Patriots. The defense of coordinator Terrell Williams has missed a combined 25 tackles between its games against the Las Vegas Raiders and Miami Dolphins, one of the worst such numbers in the NFL.
Needless to say, tackling needs to improve — and fast. Unsurprisingly, the Patriots are making it a point of emphasis leading up to their Week 3 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“That’s something that we’re going to
really look at this week, especially in the linebacker room,” said linebacker Christian Elliss on Monday. “Just because it’s not normal, and obviously it’s something we have to fix. I think it’s something we’re going to look at heavily into this week, especially me.”
Ellis has been one of the main culprits for the Patriots when it comes to missed tackles. Of his 20 tackling opportunities over the first two games, he has missed six — tied for second most both on the team and in the league as a whole. Teammate and fellow linebacker Robert Spillane tops both of those lists, having been unable to finish eight of 15 tackling attempts.
New England’s starting linebacker duo registering a tackle rate of just 60 percent through two games is a definitive problem. For Elliss, the solution to it is honing in on the fundamentals.
“I see a lot of, for myself, leaving my feet, which is not something I ever really want to do,” he explained. “I want to drive, run through guys, keep your feet driving, driving, driving. There’s been a lot of lunging — I’ll speak for myself on my end — so we’re going to look at that this week, going to get some drills dialed up and figure it out.”
The Patriots’ tackling issues were on full display during Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins. New England surrendered 141 yards after catch to the Dolphins’ pass catchers as well as an additional 47 yards after contact to their running backs.
In total, New England missed 10 tackles on the day. Three of those — including one from Elliss — came on a 29-yard catch-and-run touchdown by De’Von Achane in the second quarter.
For head coach Mike Vrabel, however, the context of those misses is important when it comes to evaluating them.
“I don’t think we tackled terribly in the first week. [Sunday] was a tough task, we missed far too many tackles, so debate whether we tackled well the first week or not,” he said. “It’s always physical. I think mentally it puts you in the right position, puts you in the right frame of mind of what we’re asking out of each tackle. Where are you? Are you in space and we need to come to balance? Are we in close quarters where we can run through somebody, run our feet on contact and be able to wrap? Are we using the sidelines?
“A lot of things that we want to avoid and make sure that we practice and continue to practice. We’ll need to do more of it this week. A team like Miami puts you into a space game, and there’s no shortage of skilled players that are good with the ball in their hands, so we’ll have to be better, be able to use the right technique and the right mentality, and then also having everybody else come in full tilt at a tackle to sometimes make up and atone for some of those misses.”
For Elliss, the Patriots putting an emphasis on tackling is the first step in fixing the issue. And the 26-year-old is optimistic that that will indeed happen.
“It’ll get better as the season goes on,” he predicted. “You don’t get much live tackling, but now that we’ve noticed it, especially those two games in a row where there’s been a few missed tackles, I think that we’re going to really look into it this week.”
