Tom Brady, Josh McDaniels and the New England Patriots offense have spent much of the last six weeks toiling over what they’re good at.

In early December, McDaniels listed three things: “Protecting the quarterback and not going backwards in the running game and trying to stay out of long-yardage situations to improve your chances on third down.”

Thrilling.

That doesn’t sound like a Tom Brady offense. That doesn’t sound like a Super Bowl-worthy offense. But during the team’s Week 16 win over the Buffalo Bills, the Patriots put together an impressive product. It became clear what they were working toward but had been too inefficient to accomplish.

New England is putting together the offense Brady ran in the early 2000s and, to some degree, the one the Patriots ran during the postseason last year. They want to run the ball and they want Brady to slice away at the defense in eight-yards chunks. That has required a level of precision which Brady and his pass-catchers weren’t attaining — hence Brady’s frustration. But in Week 16, receiver Julian Edelman and running back Rex Burkhead proved dangerous. When Edelman was in single coverage, he said he was licking his chops. When McDaniels saw the Bills pass-rush overcommitting, he deferred to Burkhead and the screen game. All the while, the Patriots hammered the ball with running back Michel (21 carries, 96 yards).

The problem is that the Patriots don’t have a bail-out player like they’ve had in year’s past. There’s no Rob Gronkowski to provide the big play in the event of an emergency. (Think about how crucial each of Gronk’s catches were in the Patriots’ games against the Chiefs and their Super Bowl win over the Rams.) In turn, there’s no room for error. Against good teams, the Patriots probably won’t win if Brady is completing 50% of their passes — they won’t win if Michel is averaging 3.3 yards per carry. The offense isn’t built that way.

The degree of difficulty for Brady, 42, might be at an all-time high in 2019.

“I think we’ve all seen Tom play a lot of his best football in the most critical games of the year, in the most critical situations in those games,” Bill Belichick said Saturday night after the team’s 24-17 win. “Nobody prepares harder than Tom does, and he was ready to go, got a lot of help from the running game, the offensive line, the receivers. But, as you said, he was on the money, he was sharp. Again, that’s what we need from everybody this time of year.”

Belichick rarely praises Brady like this. The coach is better know for comparing Brady’s throws to those of the quarterback at Foxborough High School. Surely, Belichick knows he’s asking a lot of his quarterback.

To give Brady some help, McDaniels is drawing up trick plays — to serve as the bail-out option in lieu of Gronk. New England has also needed to get inventive to get the ball in the hands of rookie N’Keal Harry, a physically gifted receiver who doesn’t seem to grasp the team’s playbook yet. McDaniel’s creative work also drew Belichick’s praise.

“(McDaniels) does a great job of creating an advantage for us, whatever that is,” Belichick said. “There’s a number of ways to do it – formations is one thing, but there’s other things, as well. I think he does an excellent job of that.”

The Patritos’ stat sheet looked like a spray chart in Week 16. Brady completed passes to nine different players: four receivers, three running backs and two tight ends. Edelman is clearly the focal-point of the passing offense. Michel powers the rushing attack. But they won’t be enough to win games with consistency. Brady and McDaniels will need to feed the supporting cast, which had been underwhelming until this game — and, arguably, was still underwhelming in this game. Mohamed Sanu, who cost the Patriots a second-round pick at the trade deadline, had just three catches for 24 yards. He needs to take a bigger role. Harry got four touches for 49 yards, and drew two penalties, but he, too, needs to take a bigger role.

There’s more work for New England to do. But at least they’ve found an offensive identity which works against an elite defense in Buffalo. To this point, they’d lost to every playoff-bound AFC team on their schedule (Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs).

“I think one game doesn’t always necessarily lead to the next,” Brady said after the game, “so I think you just have to keep building week-to-week on some things that maybe we did good that worked out, and the things that didn’t, you kind of move on from them.”

The fine-tuning will continue. As good as the defense has been, New England needs balance. It seems they’ll only get it if Brady looks like Brady. For the first time in weeks, he did just that.

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