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As I posted elsewhere, the Pats were inside the Ravens' 35 (which, on a normal day, is well within Gostkowski's FG range) a total of EIGHT times, and FOUR times they were in the red zone.
And all they managed to score was 13 points. Twice they punted inside the Ravens' 35.
The Pats scored TDs on 67.5% of their red zone possessions this year. That comes to an average of 4.7 points per red zone possession, *not counting field goals*. So if the Pats were playing a "normal" game, on those four red zone possessions, they should have put up 19 points (4.7 * 4) on TDs, and add another FG so they should have had between 21-24 points on those red zone trips alone.
That still leaves four other trips where they were between the 21-35 yard line. Figure they try four FGs and Ghost makes 2-3 of them. That's another 6-9 points.
Bottom line, if the Patriots play a "normal" game under normal conditions, they score between 27-33 points. They just had an awful, awful, awful day converting points.
And I think missing Gronk was a HUGE part of that, frankly.
And inside the 25 6 times.
It may not be the exciting deep answer everyone is looking for but the reality is that the offense was in position to make the plays it always does, they were there to be made, and they weren't. It happens.
As a side note, personally I think the root of the problem was we moved in such small chunks that there were way too many cases of where we had to make plays and ultimately we fell short. Usually this offense gets many more big chunks than it did Sunday.