Upon further review, I’m having a tough time putting this Patriots team in historical context as far as the stats go. One advantage of blogging solely about the Pats for the past decade and keeping detailed stats on each season, is that I’m able to quickly look back and compare how each season stacks up against those that came before it.
2017 feels like a mix of a lot of the bad seasons, but with just enough sprinkling of the good seasons that this year feels totally unpredictable to me.
Let’s dive in on both sides of the ball and try to find some common threads.
Offense
Offensively the Pats mostly were where they’ve always been in recent years, top five in scoring and red zone, but there was a bit of dropoff on third down as you might’ve expected. As was the case in the injury and turnover-riddled years of 2013 (16th) and 2015 (11th), the Pats fell from 4th on third down in 2016 to 10th in 2017. Not a monumental drop, but it’s a critical part of the game.
In the playoff losses those two seasons, the Pats went 6-12 on third down in 2013 and 2-15 in 2015. This is definitely an area to watch.
But the great wildcard for the 2017 Pats has been the elevation of their run game, which climbed from a three year stretch of ranking 14th, 12th and 17th in DVOA to 2nd this season. Despite some third down struggles this might be the first time in a long time where the Pats’ ground game can dictate in the playoffs. However their 2nd-ranked rush offense in 2010 did little to help avoid a divisional exit against the Jets despite 120 yards on the ground.
Getting Chris Hogan and James White back seem like the critical pieces for playoff success. Both can help on third down, they were second (White) and fifth (Hogan) on third down targets despite both missing games.
Defense
The defense is even more of an enigma. The good? They were 5th in points and 4th in the red zone. After those two stats, which are of course extremely meaningful, the rest of the Pats defense was on par with some of the worst of the Belichick era.
On third down they fell to 21st in the league after ranking 10th and 7th the last two seasons. Overall they finished allowing conversions 39.4 percent of the time, which is actually 9th-best under Belichick and nowhere close to the rate of 47.1 percent in 2010, which was worst in the league. This speaks somewhat to overall down season for offenses in the league this year.
Their bend-don’t-break numbers also regressed this year and their takeaway rate was the second-worst under Belichick. They had 35 sacks, one better than last year, 12th-best under Belichick.
On the whole, the Patriots defense is a real enigma to me, marked by inconsistencies in both their play and their stats. Outside of getting red zone stops and not allowing many points there really isn’t anything they can hang their hat on so to speak. Of course those might be the two most important stats for defensive football so they do go a long way.
They cannot allow their inconsistencies to pop up in the red zone, because if teams score touchdowns on them in the playoffs it’s going to be hard for them to turn the tide. They’re not a turnover defense. They’re not a pressure defense. They’re a fundamentally sound defense that offenses have continually flamed out against after long drives.
Conclusion
This is somewhat of an anomaly year. Despite injuries to two of their most clutch players they still managed to get the top seed in the AFC. They can certainly have their moments where they struggle on both sides of the ball, namely on third down between the 20s.
I don’t see them like the 2010-2011 Pats, who were really good on offense and lived off turnovers on defense. Living on that edge eventually ended both their seasons, even though the 2011 team exceeded all expectations and came incredibly close to winning Super Bowl 46.
They’re not really the 2013/2015 Pats either, that were neutered on offense by injuries and couldn’t overcome those losses on the road in Denver in the AFC Championships.
In sum, the 2017 have a lot of the statistical weaknesses of all those teams, but have thus far avoided the pitfalls that doomed all those seasons. The playoffs have a way of exposing what you don’t want exposed so it will be fascinating to see if this Patriots team can overcome these weaknesses by getting healthy in the right spots with Hogan, White and Kyle Van Noy, and leaning on a ground game that is as good as they’ve ever had.