Friday, October 20, 2017

Lewis Leads A Talented Backfield That Can Balance Patriots' Offense

The quarterback takes the snap, pivots at a ninety degree angle and holds the ball out and down, so as to place it squarely into the breadbasket of his demure running back.

The back secures the ball and jump-cuts to the spot on the line where the run is designed to go, but he finds several three-hundred pound bodies blocking the gap, so he instinctively spins away from the scrum just out of the reach of gigantic hands attached to those large bodies, plants his left foot in the turf and sprints toward the sidelines.

Defenders give chase, some trying to catch him from behind while others attempt to calculate the proper angle to head him off at the pass, as it were - but when the back clears his offensive line and gains the flat, he finds that at full speed he has beaten both the trailers and the anglers to the edge, where he again plants his foot and bursts upfield for an eleven yard gain.

Finally tackled out of bounds by a safety, the back quickly regains his feet and wags a finger in the direction of the tacklers, as if signaling that there is no way that they can stop him...

That happened on Sunday, when Dion Lewis bounced off a scrum that had clogged all of the interior running lanes, then quickly gained the edge and ran hard for a first down in the third quarter, part of a drive that ended in a Rob Gronkowski catch and run for a 33-yard touchdown that gave the New England Patriots their first lead of the afternoon against their most hated rival New York Jets.

Unremarkable, really, when one considers that when an offense effectively mixes the run in with the pass, good things usually happen - but when considering the Patriots' offense this season, those types of balanced drives have been few and far between.

The Patriots have a wonderful stable of running backs, and the more work they get, the more their roles are becoming defined. Lewis is rounding into what should be a lead back-type role, twenty-two of his thirty carries and 105 of his 153 yards on the season coming in the last two games after four games of seeing a very limited work load...

...and while Lewis has pretty much lived on the injured list since entering the league as a fifth-round pick of the Eagles in 2011, he handled bell cow duties at the University of Pittsburgh for two years, breaking Tony Dorsett's freshman rushing record and being named second-team All-American while he was at it.

For the first time in four years, Lewis appears to be completely healthy and is running like he did in college, which makes it easier for head ball coach Bill Belichick to lean on him as a lead back, which is also a job that a finally-healthy Rex Burkhead also had in college at Nebraska. Burkhead's body of work is minimal, but seems a natural change of pace back with excellent hands in the passing game.

Power back Mike Gillislee seems destined for the heavy bag work in the four minute offense, which is the manner in which he was used in the fourth quarter against the Jets, an 11 play, 63-yard clock sucker that ended with a Stephen Gostkowski field goal and a two score lead for New England - Gillislee handling the ball five times for 21 yards and three first downs.

Passing back James White has pitched in as he normally does, leading the team in targets and receptions in his already clearly defined role, carrying the ball on mostly trap draws out of the shotgun that are a staple of the New England offense, and he has developed a nice punch to stone the blitzer in pass protection.

The problem is that for what they are capable of, the scenario scripted above is an anomaly for the 2017 version of the Patriots, as they seldom find a rhythm that allows them to be what they have been for two decades running, a methodical, chain-moving machine that both lulls a defense to sleep and forces them to defend the entire field at the same time.

But considering that the Patriots come up with a balanced drive about once per game, one has to realize that it's the play calling mixed with circumstance that is to blame. In the first game of the season, power back Mike Gillislee was the featured back, and he was racking up carries, yards and touchdowns until the Chiefs started racking up chunk plays, forcing New England to the air.

That was their most well-balanced game of the season as Gillislee and James White hauled most of the load and producing the team's high yardage total of the season, followed closely by their week two performance in a win at New Orleans - but the running game has taken a back seat to the passing game ever since.

In those two openers, the balance was a very Patriots-like 54/46 pass-to-run ratio - keeping in mind that with Brady, the Patriots are a pass-first entity - but in the four contests since, the ratios has been an absurd 65/35 split in favor of the passing game. Curiously, the production has been about the same, which makes the play calling favoring the passing game by a large margin make even less sense.

It's a shame that there is such imbalance happening this season, when they have the perfect personnel all over the offense to be able to impose their will on opposing defenses - but if they want to start making a habit it, they have an excellent opportunity to do so when New England hosts the Atlanta Falcons this coming Sunday night.

Excellent in pass defense due to an amazing amount of speed throughout their roster, the Falcons give up a miserly 210 yards per game through the air and just over 100 yards per game on the ground, but those rush numbers are skewed by the fact that when the Falcons faced two teams without a certifiable lead back, they gave up an average of just 65 yards per contest, but when facing three teams with established running games, that number escalates to 127.

In all three of those games, the opposing offense threw for under 200 yards - yet Atlanta lost two of those three, both at home and both against New England's AFC East rivals.

The problem is with the Falcons' offense falling off the map in the second half of games, able to generate only eight points per contest after halftime, not just because the opposing defenses are able to adjust, but also because the opposing offense that could feature a four-minute offense, did so. This is evidenced by the Falcons ranking dead last in the league in second half time of possession, averaging just 12 minutes per game.

In their opener, Chicago was able to run on them all game, but panicked when they fell behind by ten early in the fourth quarter and went to Mike Glennon to throw 26 consecutive passes against Atlanta's excellent secondary, losing the game by six points. Green Bay was next and abandoned their running game in favor of Aaron Rodger's arm when they fell behind 31-7 early in the second half and the next week Detroit abandoned their running game after falling behind just a touchdown early in the fourth.

The Falcons were 3-0 after that stretch where all three NFC North teams panicked in the face of a Falcon's lead in the second half, coming home to face AFC East teams on consecutive Sundays - but unlike the first three teams, the Bills and Dolphins set up shop in the trenches and dictated to the Atlanta defense...

...the Bills loading up a preposterously balanced nineteen play, 82-yard drive that chewed up nearly an entire quarter of play to take a seven point lead in the fourth quarter, then laid in wait for the Falcons to start throwing the ball, picking off two Matt Ryan passes to seal the deal - then the Dolphins learned from the other's mistakes and didn't panic despite falling behind 17-0 at halftime, sticking with their running game to create enough balance to dominate time of possession, their defense then picking off Ryan to seal a win.

The lessons are clear: maintain balance in your offense by running the football, sticking to your game plan against a Falcon's squad that starts fast, but fades down the stretch.

Where have we seen that before?

The Falcons are vulnerable on the edges, as they give up 5.25 yards per carry when teams run to the left and 4.76 when teams run to the right - even a decent push up the middle will gain nearly four yards per carry, so there is no reason not to establish a consistent running game against them...

...but it must be maintained because as Denzel Washington said as coach Herman Boone in the film Remember The Titans, the running game against the Falcons is "just like novocaine; give it time, it always works."

The Bears, Packers and Lions panicked and went to their passing game when they fell behind and they all ended up losing, while the Bills and Dolphins stuck to their game plan and came out victorious. Patriots' fans should have intimate knowledge that the way to beat the Falcons is to have patience to ride out the initial blitzkrieg, avoid panic and stick to your game plan.

That game plan needs to include the young greyhounds in the running back kennel, with Lewis providing the initial spark, White spelling him on passing downs and with Burkhead providing spot duty all over the formation, and then with Gillislee hammering it home in the four-minute offense.

That's the running game, how it's supposed to work. Hopefully the Patriots get back to using this collection of amazing runners in balance with Brady and the passing game, as they naturally complement each other - and the more balance achieved, the easier it is to score...

...which is, by the way, the entire purpose of the offense.

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