Are you serious? They averaged 4.0 yards per carry for the game and BJGE averaged 4.8 yard per carry on NINE attempts. How can you write that with any HINT of conviction if the Patriots did not even try to feature a balanced attack on Jan. 16th??
The Patriots featured a very balanced attack their first two drives. While Brady passes 2 out of 3 plays, BJ has great holes and follows his blocks. He's too slow to run outside, and not powerful enough to force something when there's no hole.
It's not a board game.
Watch the game instead of the stat sheet and you'll see that BJ never gets much more than the initial 4-6 yards, which, in a game where they are loading up the middle against the pass, leads to 7 minute drives like we had.
On the other hand, look at Mendenhall. When the middle is stuffed, he breaks it to the outside. He's beating guys up. Hes beating the defense with athleticism, not just following blockers for four yard gains. He's ripping the jets a new a hole.
Stats are for reference. the game is played on the field. If we had one fast powerful back, even if he was a jerk otherwise, we could have forced them out of their defense (Taylor 5 years ago). If we had one freak receiver to beat their man coverage on the outside, we might have made a play to force them to double someone.
We're a work in progress that just happened to go 14-2. As good a job as BJ, Woody and old version Branch did, The Jets, after we screwed up two successful series, said no crossing patterns, we don't think you can tear us a new a hole with the run, or force us out of man coverage with those athletes, and they were right.
