Set him up for success:
1. Have a very good offensive line that can run block and pass protect, giving him time.
2. Harry and the young receivers take a big leap forward.
3. The rookie tight ends actually being good.
4. The defense not being a front-running defense, but being able to hold teams down even when the offense isn't doing much.
That last point, by the way, is how they played last year in the second half of the season.
Against Philly, the Pats were down 10-0 early in the second quarter, but the defense held firm. They didn't allow the Eagles to score again, giving the offense time to get their feet under them and scrape together 17 points for the win.
Against Dallas, the Pats' offense never got going. The defense kept denying the Cowboys, winning 13-9 despite a pretty awful effort from the offense.
Against KC, the D allowed 23 points, which sounds like a lot until you remember that it's KC, who puts up like 35 on everyone. And they definitely gave the offense a chance, but the refs screwed them big-time in that game.
Against Buffalo, the offense once again did very little. The Pats were down 17-13 and then put the clamps on the Bills, allowing the offense to come back and win.
Against Tennessee, the Pats' D held the Titans to just 14 points all game long, despite allowing a lot of TOP. Still, they gave the Pats' offense every chance to come back and win that. But the offense could do nothing all game long.
The two games in the second half where the D really didn't do its job were against Houston (28 points allowed) and Miami (disaster). Still, out of their last 8 games (following their historically dominating start), 6 of them were the kinds of games that they'll likely be in this year - low-scoring, tough games, where points are hard to come by. And the defense showed that they can keep the team in those games, and give the offense a chance to win it. In other words, this defense had a couple of bad blips but on the whole, giving your team a really really good chance to win 6 out of 8 games isn't too bad. And honestly, in normal seasons, when the other team scores 28 and 27 points, the Pats' offense should win those games too. But not last year, sadly.
And probably not this year either. That won't get it done. But if 75% of the time they do a really good job, that's putting Stidham in a good spot.