mayoclinic

We went pass heavy against the Seahawks out of respect for their rush defense (58 pass attempts, 26 rushes) and put up only 23 points and lost. We went pass heavy against Arizona, and put up only 18 points and lost. The book on Miami was to spread them out rather than go up against their respected run defense, but we didn't exactly dominate doing that through most of 3 quarters, and we ran the ball quite effectively the last quarter+ once we committed to it. We had the lowest YPC allowed going into the Buffalo game, and they ran the ball on us quite effectively and gashed us for 31 points.

Houston does NOT have arun defense that is so elite that you can't run against it. The Pats need to stay balanced, and not get one dimensional. Keep the Texans off balance. There will be tons of pass opportunities, but they shouldn't be afraid of running the ball.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

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AndyJohnson

This its backward thinking. You don't influence the defense to ignore tom Brady by running a few times.
our offense is designed to take what the defense gives. Our personnel was developed to support that. If the Texans try to take away the run we will throw, if they over play the pass we will run.
ignoring that to tout having balance is wrong. Pretending that balance correlates to sizes in our o is wrong.
We threw early vs Miami because they were playing the run, we ran late because they were playing the pass. The success wasn't the play call it was the timing of the play call


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JR4

Right on! Brady has even said so in several interviews.
The Patriots pass/run ratio is largely determined by the opponents defense.
This is so this year because Patriots have a good run offense as well a good pass offense.

KontradictioN

Everything considered, the running game sucked in Miami so McDaniels put the ball in his best weapon's hands for the majority. But I agree with the basic premise of this thread. Stick with the running game and give Houston a taste of it's own medicine: the play action.

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CREDIT - Sicilian

PATSYLICIOUS

So what you're saying is Seattle, Arizona, and Miami for alot of that game (the 3 times I can recall that we've gone extreme pass heavy this season) overplayed for the run a vast majority of those games, in essense forcing Tom Brady to beat them?

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mayoclinic

In the 3 "unbalanced" games cited - Arizona, Seattle and Miami - the Pats' scored 18, 23 and 23 points for an average of 21.3 PPG and went 1-2. In their other 9 games they scored 366 points for an average of almost 41 PPG and went 8-1.

Even without Gronk, when the Pats use their whole offensive arsenal - the "whole pig", to use OTG's term - they can't be stopped. But all too often they lit themselves. Look at the Miami game: 32/76 plays, and 31/40 pass attempts, we're targeted at Welker or Hernandez. Remember 2009, when BB admitted that we had nothing after Moss and Welker and our offense was too predictable and too easily shut down. Lloyd, Vereen and Fells were each targeted once, Edelman and Woody 3 times. And until the last 2 drives, the offense was very unbalanced towards the pass and the spread. That won't work against Houston.

This team has to start using all its weapons. Maintain run-pass balance no matter what. mix the spread with plsy action. Get Lloyd involved more. Get Vereen involved more. Get Fells involved more. Stop trying to "take what they give you" and just give them more than they can handle, every week. No one can stop us but ourselves. Execution is obviously part of it, but it's not just execution - it's taking away weapons and making the offense easier to defend.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

"The key to any successful organization is to anticipate things, not react to them." - Michael Lombardi

JR4

But what you say is sort of opposite with what Brady said and what was done to back up Brady's statement.

Go back to the first Bills game. PATs ran 36 times from stats I read. Brady
was asked after that game why they ran so much. He said it was because the Bills defense was going small.

To be balanced just for the sake of being balanced is not a good idea. IMO.

Are you saying if the opposition defense is configured to take away the
run, the PATs should ignore easy pass plays just to be balanced?

mayoclinic

I'm say that the Pats sometimes go overboard with situational planning and get too unbalanced. When the Jets put 8 DBs on the field and dare you to run, it's great to actually have a running game and be able to run it down their throat, and it's stupid to throw the ball into coverage. And when a team has a massive front it's probably not smart to build a game plan against smashing it down their throat. But in general, the Pats offense does better when it uses all its options, keeps things balanced, keeps defenses off balance, and forces them to respect the different options. We've seen situations where the team has perhaps been more respectful of an opponents reported strength than was necessary the case. They ran the ball quite effectively against Miami on the last 2 drives. And the vaunted Seattle run defense got shredded the following week by San Francisco, so it's not clear to me that we couldn't have run the ball effectively against Seattle and made things a bit easier for Brady against their very good secondary.

I think that Josh McDaniels sometimes outsmarts himself with situational planning and scheming. I understand that Houston's defense is #2 in rushing YPG allowed, but it's not clear to me that they are an elite rush defense, and I think it would be a mistake to abandon the rush against them and spread things out to the extent of being unbalanced. I think that the offense needs to remain balanced, keep a decent amount of commitment to running the ball - even if it's not effective at first - and use a fair amount of play action, as well as the hurry up and spread. Keep the Texan's defense off balance, don't let them get into a rhythm, don't let them tee off on Brady, don't get predictable, and above all, use all of the available offensive options.

JMHO.

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"OVER Loading at ANY position can create a Fatal Advantage. THAT is what interests ME. Attacking With Concentrated Force. THAT is what WINS. In the words ~ more or less ~ of General Patton: 'I'm fighting a WAR, here. Let the B*****ES worry about their FLANKS.' " - Off the Grid

"The key to any successful organization is to anticipate things, not react to them." - Michael Lombardi

Deus Irae

Every year people crack out the "balance" nonsense. Every year, others of us end up having to explain the difference between correlation and causation, and having to demonstrate, time and again, that the reason you get more runs in wins is because you're running more while ahead, not because you're balanced while even or behind. How many times do we have to go through this before the "balance" people stop acting as if they've got an actual point when it comes to the Patriots offense?

They don't. Balance looks nice on the stat sheet. It's generally meaningless in games involving the Patriots offense.

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everlong

Given GB and Detroit's success spreading them out I don't think we'll see Brady under center much. I hope that doesn't mean 5 wide however. You can keep Houston off balance by throwing in a draw, RB screen or reverse any time it looks like their line is getting up the field too fast for their own good. I will say though Watt and Smith both play with their heads up which makes them alert to gadget plays. I think this will be more of a game plan which we've seen VS the Steelers in the past. Spread them out and run selectively. I do hope Vereen sees more of a role. I think his size/speed ratio would play better VS the Texans than Woodhead and I do like splitting him out VS this defense a lot as you have pointed out.

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