Dean Pees has insisted it was his decision to step down as defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots with his contract expiring at the end of the 2009 season.

But who voluntarily gives up a coordinator's job in New England to become a linebackers coach in Baltimore?

While things are not always what they seem, they usually are.

At the time of the announcement that Pees wouldn't be coming back, there were legitimate concerns about his health. He'd had a bout with prostate cancer, followed by a blood clot in his leg, and then was hospitalized overnight prior to the Patriots' season finale in Houston because of breathing problems.

Clearly, however, health isn't an issue, or he wouldn't have accepted another coaching job so quickly.

Statistics, in the case of New England's defense under Pees, are deceiving.

While the 2006 unit set a franchise record by allowing just 14.8 points per game, it also blew the biggest lead in the history of an NFL conference championship game, allowing the Colts to rally from a 21-3, first-half deficit in Indianapolis and win, 38-34. The winning touchdown came on an 80-yard drive in the closing minutes.

Even more disappointingly, it was the defense's inability to keep the Giants bottled up in the waning minutes of Super Bowl XLII that cost the Pats a perfect season.

After a Tom Brady-to-Randy Moss TD pass capped an 80-yard drive and gave New England a 14-10 lead with less than three minutes to play, the Giants returned the ensuing kickoff only to their own 17.

But the Patriots "D" couldn't prevent N.Y. QB Eli Manning from taking his team 83 yards to the winning touchdown, after which it didn't really matter that New England had allowed less than 290 yards total offense per game that season.

This season, with defensive mainstays Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi retired, and Richard Seymour and Mike Vrabel having been traded, the Patriots proved to be embarrassingly vulnerable against top-flight passing teams.

They were riddled at New Orleans, and couldn't hold late leads at Indy -- where they led by 17 early in the fourth quarter, and by 13 with less than four minutes to play -- Houston, or Denver.

Then, on the first play of the opening playoff game with Baltimore, the Ravens' Ray Rice bolted 83 yards up the middle for a touchdown -- the second-longest run in NFLplayoff history -- and the Patriots never recovered, going down to a humiliating, 33-14 defeat at Gillette Stadium, where they'd been undefeated during the regular season.

So, kudos to the Journal's Patriots beat writer, Shalise Manza Young, who broke the story last month that Pees was leaving, noting at the time that: "It is believed that Pees didn't have much of a choice, and that this (the resignation announcement) was a classy way for him to exit."