Patriots Discover That The More Things Change, The More They (Must) Stay The Same

"We always try to play well early. Whether we're home or away, we always try to get off to a fast start. We did things well early in the game, so we were able to get that going." - Bill Belichick

There is no better example of the Erhardt-Perkins offensive philosophy in play than what we saw from the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon in New Orleans.

The Erhardt-Perkins offense sparked the mantra "Pass to score, run to win" to accommodate the changing world of professional football in the mid-to-late 1970's, when the league started changing things up to spark an uptick in the popularity of the sport.

For example, in 1972 through the 1977 NFL seasons, the NFL instituted rules that were supposed to make the game more exciting by playing with the location of the hash marks more towards the middle of the field so that since the rules already stated that the ball was to be placed between the hash marks, it theoretically would open up the outsides so receivers could have more room to separate from the ball placement...

...but what ended up happening is that it instead helped defensive coordinators disguise coverages more efficiently and opened up the middle of the field for the running game, so it took a strong running game to force the defense to commit to stopping the run before the passing game could work effectively.

The Patriots were one of the best at taking advantage of the rule changes, as they had an elite running game led by the likes of Sam Cunningham, Andy Johnson and Don Calhoun, the Patriots owned the middle of the field - because not only were those backs great runners, but they also represented three of the top four receiving threats on the team.

But things started to change in 1978 when the league implemented the Illegal Contact rules that freed up receivers and made trying to disguise coverages an exercise in futility.  The impact was immediate as receivers Stanley Morgan (25.1 yards per reception), Harold Jackson (20.1) and tight end Russ Francis (13.9) proved so dangerous outside the hash marks that they had to be double-covered, opening up the Patriots' punishing ground game to set an NFL rushing record that still stands today.

They passed the ball to score early, usually on long chunk plays, then ran the ball to move the chains and kill the clock.  It worked so well that quarterback Steve Grogan went from throwing for 1900 yards in 1976 to 2800 yards in 1978, finding enough room underneath to contribute over 500 yards on the ground as well.

Now, Tom Brady is never going to contribute 500 yards rushing in a season - he has gained just 950 yards in seventeen seasons - but he still runs the offense as if Ron Erhardt and Ray Perkins were calling the shots.

In both 2017 contests thus far, Brady has come out flinging the ball all over the place, but the approaches have been different.

Against the Chiefs, head ball coach Bill Belichick seemed to want to test Kansas City's run defense, as they finished last season among the bottom four teams in the league in that department and did little in the offseason to repair it - but after some initial success with James White carrying the load, he found out the hard way that if the Chiefs were expecting a run, they played it well.

Twice on fourth and less than one yard to go, power back Mike Gillislee was stoned for no gain, and White was held short of the line to gain on a third and short - and it just so happened that those plays turned out to be pivotal points that gave advantage to their opposition - but against New Orleans, the Patriots attained proper balance by sticking to the tenets of their offensive philosophy, and it gained them the typical results.

Those aforementioned tenets produced a 30-13 halftime lead for the Patriots, who scored on five of their six first half possession while racking up 300 of their 447 passing yards, then switched gears in the second half to eat clock, picking up 59 of their 119 rushing yards as all four of their second half drives ate up at least 3:35 off the game clock.

Pass to score, run to win.

It has been effective enough to make the Patriots the top offense in the National Football League after two weeks, averaging 342 yards per game through the air and 462 total yards per game, and have them sitting at sixth in scoring despite putting up just 16 second half points - a typical disparity of the Erhardt-Perkins scheme where the offense is looking more to move the chains and chew up clock than anything else.

The defense? They rank next to last in both passing yards and total yards yielded, and 29th in points surrendered.

None of these numbers mean very much after just two weeks of play, as evidenced by Oakland, Denver, Kansas City and the Los Angeles Rams being the top four scoring offenses after being middle-of-the-road entities in 2016 and Carolina and Buffalo being atop the football world on defense despite being two of the worst units in the league last season...

...but it does mean that the Patriots have played one game where they didn't play complementary football - that would be against the Chiefs when in the second half and up by six points, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels forgot his scheme and tried going vertical against a team built to defend such a thing.

The results were predictable, as the Patriots "vertical" offense produced just two drives out of eight that were over two minutes in length, putting their defense back on the field against an offense with ridiculous speed and a powerful running game.

That was corrected against the Saints as the Patriots went back to their bread-and-butter short passing game while spreading the field horizontally, moving the chains methodically and chewing up both yardage and clock on drives of 8, 9, 9 and 7 plays for nearly eighteen minutes - which produced the also-predictable results of a victory pulling away from their opponents in the second half.  In response, the New England defense had to be on the field for just five second half possessions totaling 12:40 of game clock.

So, the Patriots got back on track against the Saints after whatever that was that they were experimenting with against the Chiefs - and if they continue to play their game, they should be able to settle into the kind of football that has made them successful for going on two-decades now...