I do credit Patricia for helping evolve their overall process as DC. I wish I could find the link, but I recall reading he helped drive the adoption of tech like tablets and analytics, where Bill was still a film room guy. I also believe that D wasn't exactly overachieving its talent under his watch, but my perception is they were VERY two gap centric in technique and personnel at the beginning of the '10s but by the end were much more multiple, and I think that may have been his influence as well. I know, hard to distinguish from Bill, and I'm not a Patricia fan, but there you go.I'm not sure Flores was better but his defenses did seem to be a little more aggressive and that's more fun to watch as a fan. And Flores is also very good.
That Super Bowl was bad--and lord knows what happened with Butler--but looking back at the snap count holy cow that was a talentless defensive unit. James Harrison's corpse playing 91 percent of the snaps? Trey Flowers and Van Noy were both decent enough and got money in free agency but when those guys are your best defensive front seven players and are playing a hundred percent of the snaps you don't have a good front seven. Malcom Brown and Guy played huge minutes; Ricky Francois started the game.
My overall take on the Pats of the 2010s is they were generally speaking able to get very good defensive performances out of smart solid coaching, help from an offense that didn't turn it over and good special teams, a couple of actually underrated players (DMac, Hightower--in schemes where they could get better numbers those guys could have been consistent all pros IMO) but overall cruddy talent. Patricia and Flores were big parts of that (BB probably being the biggest from the coaching standpoint).
Edit....Patricia helped modernize the Patriots’ film process in his first season in 2004. In New England, Patricia helped modernize the Patriots’ film process in his first season in 2004. He put in regular 20-hour days that endeared him to Belichick and others, and friend and former teammate Scott Sasenbury said "that was probably one of his early successes" in New England.