It’s been a long NFL season, but the postseason is finally here. Now, you probably didn’t get to study the entire playoff field in-depth during the regular season. No worries. We’ve put together guides that will help you become an instant expert on all 12 teams making up the field.
These guides will tell you how each team uses its personnel on both sides of the ball, what its strategic tendencies are and how efficient the team is based on several advanced metrics.
In this guide, we’ll be looking at the New England Patriots, who had to settle for the third seed in the AFC playoffs after an uneven finish to the season. Let’s get to know them…
[Or find the strategy guide for another team here.]
PATRIOTS OFFENSE
The Patriots have had to tinker with their personnel groupings all season after losing FB James Develin early on. They’ve played more spread out offensive sets after it became apparent that the ground-and-pound approach that worked last January wouldn’t be so effective this season.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen the Patriots offense look this bad. The results don’t reflect how inept the offense has been thanks to an easy schedule, but the passing game has been disjointed for the last three months of the season. New England’s air “attack” has essentially fractured into two units: One is a spread-it-out, quick passing game; the other is operates out of heavy personnel and leans on deep shots off play-action. Neither has been very effective as Tom Brady hasn’t been as precise as he was at the height of his powers.
Brady wasn’t exactly at the height of his powers last season either, but the Patriots had a running game they could lean on to score points and control the clock. That hasn’t been the case this season. The running game has been fine on a down-to-down basis, but big plays have been hard to come by. Develin’s absence has been felt as New England has had to employ more zone concepts in 2019.
PATRIOTS DEFENSE
Bill Belichick loves his defensive backs, so it’s not a surprise that he’s playing less base than almost the entire league. The secondary deep, and the front seven lacks athleticism, so Belichick has been smart to take that approach.
No team in the NFL plays more man coverage than the Patriots. Stephon Gilmore is the star and has been drawing the opponent’s best receiver every week. When in man coverage, the Patriots will typically keep one safety deep and ask the other to help out on receivers running crossing routes over the middle. New England will reserve zone coverages for obvious passing downs when it will play a lot of Cover 2. Or Belichick will just send the house with no safeties deep. That’s how much trust he has in his corners.
New England has been the best defense all season. The secondary has been key, but Belichick deserves a ton of credit for helping out an underwhelming group of pass rushers with his clever blitz designs. The Patriots coach values big defensive linemen who can hold up in the run game and has to sacrifice pass rush ability in order to keep those guys on the field. The results have justified the approach.
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