The Patriots defense has looked a heck of a lot better over the past few games, and not coincidentally, Aqib Talib has entered the mix in the secondary.
Talib was locked on to Houston's Andre Johnson for much of the first half, allowing other players on the Pats secondary to focus on other ends of the field.
Tom E. Curran and Mike Giardi talk about the "trickle down effect" that Talib has had on the Pats secondary.
"It's interesting because if you are singled up in the Patriots' secondary -- and Kyle Arrington was many times after Talib got hurt -- he was attacked, on the right side as Andre Johnson was on that play," Curran said. "Talib's presence made them say, 'You know what? We're not going to go in that direction to Andre Johnson, let's go to the other side to Kevin Walter', who anybody in planet Earth or on planet Earth would prefer Kevin Walter as the target to Andre Johnson, and as a result the Patriots benefited from that."
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