In 19 games, they had 51 sacks and 83 knockdowns for a total of 134 times the opposing quarterback had to pick himself off the turf, an average of 7.1 per game. That was a significant improvement. And on third down, the Patriots improved slightly overall (43.1 percent, 28th in the NFL), but dramatically on third downs of more than 10 yards (15.9 percent, 10th).