Bobs My Uncle

Carucci is a local writer that I'm very familiar with. He's usually very much on the ball and very much appreciative of the Pats. He musta missed this one.

patchick

I was trying to find Bert Breer's breakdown of the Pats-Cowboys game showing the number of times various combinations of personnel were on the field. It's hard to say that the Patriots run any single dominant, identifiable offense. They mix it up with a lot of different looks and a whole lot of shotgun, but nothing's really exotic. It's just that so far, everything they've tried passing-wise has worked. E.g., every team takes an occasional try downfield to keep the defense honest. When it's Brady to Moss the play just looks a little different, because it's a touchdown.

I can almost understand looking at the passing numbers and the shotgun formations and concluding this is not a running team, or that the offense is descended from the run-n-shoot. But watch them on the field and it's just not so.

Metaphors

I put this in another thread, but it seems appropriate here. The Pats lead the league in passing yards per game at about 300. So they must also lead the league in attempts per game, right? Run-n-shoot? No running game?

The Pats rank 18th in pass attempts per game at 33 att/gm...behind the following (getta load of some of these names):

Packers, Saints, Ravens, Bengals, Rams, Bears, Cardinals, Dolphins, Lions, Falcons, Texans, Giants, Eagles, Cowboys, Seahawks, Colts and Chiefs

The Pats rank 7th in rushing at 133 per game. How about rushing attempts? They rank 5th at 32 att/gm, ahead of these teams:

Colts, Jaguars, Chargers, Broncos, Cowboys, Chiefs and Dolphins

Anyone accuse these teams of not running enough or not being able to run? Didn't think so.

The Pats have almost a perfectly balanced offense. Throw from the spread early, get the other team in the nickel/dime, back off the safeties, run draws to keep in managable down/distance, get a lead, go on time-consuming 2nd half drives against an exhausted defense, kill the clock, shake hands, go home. This is a problem?

JoeSixPat

Any team who wants to beat the Patriots will have to do it with Offense more so than defense

Keep the Pats offense off the field - control the ball, eat up minutes, and score TDs

Yes, the Pats will get the ball back and can probably score a TD within 2 minutes - but the less time the Pats offense has the ball the closer the game will be...

That in turn might keep them within striking distance towards the end of the game with a chance to win.

All this assumes that our Defense isn't able to effectively stop an opposing offense - which is a dubious assumption - but its the only overall gameplan that would work.

The Patriots are simply too prolific and dominant to have the ball for an equal or greater amount of time than another team and not win.

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Metaphors

I agree with you, but have a couple of additional points:

1. You have to get turnovers on the Pats. Many threads have solid reasons why it is foolish to plan on getting strip-sacks on Brady or intercepting him with great frequency. There is another angle though...tipped passes at the line of scrimmage. Credit the OL with giving Brady great passing lanes to deliver short slants...particularly to Welker. But if the DTs can stay on their feet and get their hands up at the right time, a tipped pass can quickly turn into a pick-6 the other way.

2. We seem to ignore special teams in these conversations. There is only one constant involving the Pats scoring...they always have to kick off afterward. Big special teams play many times is the key to an upset win. Fortunately Belichick understands this better than most. He is more than willing to have a 35 yard punt out of bounds rather than a big return. Kickoff depth, hangtime and coverage has been great with few exceptions.

So there is more than one way to skin a cat...but the best way in this case is to control the ball and shorten the game as you suggest.

tedy hagler

Good post. The unnamed executive should place a bag on his head like the Unknown Comic and figure out why his team was not the subject of the article.

Also, Welker does get hit often because he has been frequently seen this autumn running free in the direction of the endzone. Teams then are forced to try to tackle him. It's called football.

jaychamp

Nevermind. I think I misunderstood your post