Early Morning Pondering Of The Patriots' Offense

2:17am, Lewiston, Maine

I stay up late when it's raining. I love the weather here, especially this time of year when we get a good rain storm a couple of times a week and the temperatures dip into the 40's at night. I sit out on the deck that during the daytime treats me to an explosion of color as the leaves turn, but tonight, nothing but the cool blackness that brings me comfort.

I just finished watching the Patriots' victory over the New York Giants for the second time and made many notes, now sitting on the deck, a canopy protecting both man and machine from the weird misty rain that is indigenous to Maine. Every week, I watch the replay twice - first to study the offense and the second to do the same with the defense.

The last three weeks have been a struggle for the Patriots' offensively, but we've seen this before.

In 2015, the New England Patriots made it to the AFC Championship game against the Denver Broncos with Julian Edelman being the only healthy receiver left on the roster and with no lead back to try and take all of the pressure off of quarterback Tom Brady and the passing game.

Brady took an epic beating, yet nearly prevailed anyway on sheer determination and by riding one of the main tenents of Belichickian philosophy, that of wearing down opposing defenses with large snap counts and superior conditioning that eventually gives him the upper hand.

And that's what the Patriots are all about. How many times have we seen the offense seem like they are an 11-man mosh pit early in games and then come on like gangbusters late to overpower their foes?

The most vivid example of this was in Super Bowl 51, where the Patriots were completely dominated by the Atlanta Falcons through most of three quarters, then staged the greatest comeback in NFL post-season history - erasing a 25 point deficit in eighteen minutes of game time...

...the turning point coming at the end of a 13-play drive in the second quarter, Brady throwing an interception in the red zone that was returned by the Falcons for a touchdown - then the Patriots taking the ensuing kickoff and driving down the field again on a 12 play drive.

By the time that 25 play sequence ended on a Stephen Gostkowski field goal to make the halftime score 21-3, the Falcons' defense was so gassed that they just couldn't keep up with the relentless Patriots' offense in the second half, scoring at will after Atlanta had taken a 28-3 lead coming out of the room at halftime - to the point that when the Patriots won the coin flip to start the overtime period, there was no doubt that they would drive the length of the field and win the game.

The same thing happened during last year's AFC Championship game, when New England wore down the Kansas City defense to keep pace with the powerful Chiefs' offense, then scored easily in overtime to advance to Super Bowl 53, where they used the same ploy to wear down the Los Angeles Rams' helter-skelter attack to eventually pull out another title.

It has worked so well for so long that head ball coach Bill Belichick always builds his teams with superior depth on both sides of the ball so he is able to rotate players in and out of the lineup to keep them fresh, maintaining his game plans throughout with the knowledge that his well-conditioned and fresh players will eventually gain the upper hand and crush their opponents into submission in the latter stages.

Other than Brady, the Patriots feature no superstars, just a collection of players who buy into Belichick's philosophy, knowing that if they just continue to stay the course during games, that they will have a chance to win, no matter the opponent - and that's exactly what we are witnessing six games into this 2019 season...

...the main difference between those teams of the recent past and this years' incarnation is that Belichick has finally built a defense that will not allow the Patriots to fall behind, no matter how incongruous the offense looks - and knowing that sticking with their offensive game plan will eventually cause the opposing defense to wear down enough for the aging Brady to work his late-game magic.

That said, the start to this season is the personification of this Belichickian philosophy.

Three yards and a cloud of dust is not just the calling card for the running game, but applies to the offense as a whole. For all of Belichick's tenure, he has stated matter-of-factly that the short passing game is simply an extension of the running game, and he employs running backs who can produce in both facets.

With one notable exception, his receivers have always been of the variety that finds the sticks and make good use of the field between the hashes - his longest gainers usually down the seam, but those are shots taken just a few times per contest, and normally only after Brady has lulled the defense to sleep with his methodical, incessant approach.

The results stemming from this approach usually has the Patriots' offense at or near the top of the league in both plays run and time of possession. You see where this is going.

For example, in last Thursday's match up with the New York Giants, New England ran a whopping 75 offensive snaps, compared to 46 for New York, and the time of possession was fully double that of the Giants. New York played admirably, but deep in their hearts they knew it was for naught...

...that Brady, for as docile and ordinary as he looked, was just setting them up for the kill by running 44 plays in the first half, then finishing them off with an absurd 16 play, sixty yard drive in their only third-quarter possession that kept the Redskins' defense on the field for nearly ten minutes.

That drive resulted in a missed field goal attempt, but the damage was done and the purpose well taken.

That's what New England does to people. That's what they did to Denver in that AFC title tilt in '15 and to Atlanta in Super Bowl 51 and to the Rams last February - and what they have done to every single opponent so far this season, and what they will continue to do to the rest of the teams on their schedule.

And good thing, too, as injuries have dictated to the Patriots' offense in much the same fashion that they did in 2015. In fact, the hurts have left the Patriots' pass catching corps so thin that in the second half against the Redskins, they were left with only one personnel package featuring Edelman and rookies Jakobi Meyers and Gunner Olswezski - not to mention that they were trying to function with only one healthy tight end and no fullback, both staples of the offense.

Even Belichick will have a tough time grinding out yardage and scores with such a bare cupboard, but with ten days off before their Monday night showdown with the hated New York Jets, he has time to develop a game plan to attack a decent Jets' defense.

Time is also on the side of receiver Josh Gordon, who suffered what was apparently an MCL sprain to his left knee on Thursday night - or even work out a pass catcher or two, or maybe even swing a trade for a veteran receiver on another team as Belichick has plenty of capital to barter with, but not a lot of cap dollars to spend.

There is also the presence of rookie wide out N'Keal Harry on the I/R with a bad hammy, who has a designation to return and can do so this week should the team choose to activate him - and there's really no reason not to bring him back to the active roster, unless the hamstring hasn't healed. If it has, he gives the offense a large perimeter target with the skill to haul down those back-shoulder throws that Brady loves.

If nothing else, he's a physically imposing target who specializes in fighting for the ball in the air, with the size and wingspan to collect a good percentage of 50/50 balls - and once he establishes himself as a legitimate threat, just his presence will free up more room for Edelman, Gordon, Meyers and passing back James White to operate in.

It also helps the running game by forcing defenses to eliminate a linebacker in favor of a fifth defensive back, making one less big body for the patchwork offensive line to deal with - and with left tackle Isaiah Wynn eligible to be activated off the IR as well, the protection of Brady's backside and run blocking on the edge would become a strength rather than the weakness that it is now.

Some even want the Patriots to bring back troubled Antonio Brown, citing the fact that New England owes the mercurial receiver a lot of money, so they may as well bring him back and make him earn it. For Brown's part, he has requested that the NFL hurry up and make a decision in regard to punishment for alleged sexual abuse allegations so that he can continue his career without that storm cloud hanging over his head.

Will it happen? Who knows? Certainly none of  us know what goes on behind the closed doors at One Patriots' Place, but the odds are in favor of Belichick running with what he has, using superb running backs James White and Rex Burkhead as wide receivers, which will most likely give the Jets all kinds of knots to untie.

But what they have now should do fine against the Jets, particularly given that the offense shouldn't have to score an exorbitant number of points with their "Boogeyman" defense suffocating opposing offenses.

But that is a topic for another night...

Patriots' Return To Fundamental Football Keys Punking Of Falcons

"To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that success can only come to the play that hits the line hard." - Teddy Roosevelt

Running the football is one of the most fundamental of all tenets of the sport. Along with blocking and tackling, Walter Camp devised rules to separate the fledgling American sport of football from the international sport of rugby. Since that period in the latter half of the 19th century, Roosevelt stepped in to institute measures to make the game safer to play, paving the way for innovators like Glenn "Pop" Warner to introduce many of the novelties that football fans today take for granted as part of the appeal of the modern game.

Dion Lewis finds lots of running room vs Falcons

In between, rules have been added that make the game safer and that make the game more fan friendly - more exciting to the casual viewer, hence the popularity of the sport on many levels, from Pop Warner leagues to high school and college conferences to the professional game - but the fundamentals of running the football, blocking and tackling have endured the test of time...

...and it is the teams that implement all components of the modern game with the tenets of the genesis of the sport that are ultimately the most successful.

On a cool, mid-October Sunday evening in Massachusetts on a football field enveloped in a dense fog right out of a dream, the New England Patriots defeated an Atlanta Falcons team by honoring the roots of their game. A display of fundamental football missing all too often in favor of the allure that the exciting vertical passing game provides.

But for football purists, Sunday night's game before a packed house at Gillette Stadium and a national television audience of millions more, the Patriots' dominating 23-7 victory was simply a matter of the team with the best collection of talent in the game using that talent in the way that the fundamentals tell us they should be used.

Against a team like the Falcons who have successfully victimized many-a-defense with their vertical passing game to score quickly and frequently at a torrid pace, the cure is to limit the number of opportunities they have to do so, and to dictate how and when they are able to, working in tandem with the offense to play a complementary style of ball.

Executing an offensive game plan that called for a rotation of their excellent kennel of young runners, the Patriots methodically moved the ball on offense by finding a balance between the running and passing games, the backs running for 157 yards on 31 carries and quarterback Tom Brady throwing 29 times and completing 21 of those attempts for 249 yards and two scores...

...as a result winning the time of possession battle by a wide margin and limiting the opportunities that the Falcons had to operate on offense to just seven possessions for the entire game, including an absurd three possessions in the second half.

New England scored touchdowns on drives of 74 and 53 yards - each taking seven plays to accomplish - but the real damage done to the Falcons' defense came on drives that resulted in just field goals being scored, where taking time off the clock was paramount to points.

The Patriots took a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter on a drive that went 64 yards in 14 plays and ate up 6:37, then after a James White scoring reception brought the Falcons' defenders to their knees just before halftime, Brady stepped on their throats by leading drives of 71 and 74 yards on their first two possessions of the second half, chewing up 6:23 and 5:17 respectively...

...bringing the score to 23-0 by the time that Atlanta finally got a fourth quarter possession, at which time the New England defense had retreated into a three-deep shell and forced the Falcons to kill over five minutes of clock before scoring a meaningless touchdown with just four minutes remaining in the game.

The fundamental approach is a good look for a Patriots' team that has been struggling to find an identity.

New England's offense is stacked with playmakers who do what they do on different levels, but have had to perhaps scale back their own expectations for the good of the team. For example, receiver Brandin Cooks has Olympic-class sprinter speed, but on a team that has been a move-the-chains, chew-the-clock entity for going on two decades, the vertical element he brings to the offense has helped the team as a threat more than a realization.

Yet, despite playing in a more conservative offense than he was used to in New Orleans before migrating north at the behest of Bill Belichick, he is on pace to destroy nearly every one of his career marks, including receiving yards, yards per reception and yards per game - and all of this while being on pace for a career low in targets and receptions.

In fact, Cooks has become just one of the guys, his 28 receptions tied for third on the team with Chris Hogan, which is just one behind the duo of Danny Amendola and tight end Rob Gronkowski and a full ten behind running back James White.

That's called balance, and it's something that also filtered into the running game on Sunday night, as the Patriots used four backs, with Dion Lewis assuming lead back duties and rushing for 76 yards on 13 carries (5.84ypc), White continuing his vital passing back role and handling the ball nine times for 47 combined yards, and easing previously injured Rex Burkhead back into the mix (seven combined touches for 41 yards)...

...saving power back Mike Gillislee for the four-minute offense in which he picked up 31 yards on eight tough carries. Brady taking a knee cut their combined average down, but if you factor in only what the backs accomplished on the ground, they ran for over five yards a pop in what was by far their largest contributions of the season.

The defense has been seeking something to hang their hats on as well, and have discovered in the past three games that with all of the role players that they employ, sticking to the most elementary disciplines of staying in their rush lanes and and using their excellent stable of safeties as buffers against big plays has enabled their linebackers to flow more freely to the ball and their pass rushers move the opposing quarterback off their mark.

Though they still are mired at the bottom of the league in yards surrendered, they have managed to climb out of the abyss as far as scoring defense, having given up only 38 points in that three-week span, an average of 12.7 points per game.

It's not like they've done anything differently other than having an intense focus on fundamentals and employing the three-safety element into their nickel and dime packages as their base defense, rushing just three and keeping two linebackers on the second level, enabling them to work a heavier concentration of their safety corps into supporting roles all over the formation.

Known as a "Giant Dime", the Patriots used free safety Devin McCourty and Big Nickel centerfielder Duron Harmon as twin deep safeties in support of a cornerback corps that featured Malcolm Butler in his usual chess piece role, and also second-year nickleback Jonathan Jones and recent addition Johnson Bademosi, a sixth-year, career special teamer - and all former undrafted free agents....

...while dropping strong safety Patrick Chung into the box, forming a 2-2-2 (heretofore known as the "triple-double") stack that forces quarterbacks to the perimeter and optimizes support for the run defense.

The result was pretty much just how Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia drew it up, the Falcons' vertical passing game nullified by the physicality of the New England coverage - eight targets of more than 15 yards downfield with only two connections totaling 35 yards - while keeping Atlanta's vaunted running game in the background by consistently forcing the Falcons into long-yardage situations.

The only real bitch-kitty for the Patriots' defense was keeping Falcons' quarterback Matt Ryan in the pocket consistently, as he escaped three times for 37 yards and three first downs to extend drives and made their rushing average look a lot better than it actually was.

New England took a 17-0 lead into the room at halftime on the strength of a Cooks 11-yard jet sweep / shuffle pass touchdown, a 29-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal and White's two yard slant, then built the lead to 23-0 on two more Gostkowski field goals after the thick blanket of fog settled in over the field, then settled in for a little clock killing to close out the game.

Cooks' touchdown was set up by a heavy dose of Lewis gashing the Atlanta defense right up the middle and a roughing the passer penalty on Atlanta that nullified a bad Brady interception in the end zone - the speedster crossing the shallow formation and taking the short flip from Brady, turning on the jets to gain the corner and following the blocking of Gronkowski into paydirt.

Belichick admitted in his Monday morning conference call with reporters that the exchange between Brady and Cooks on the play ad-libbed on the fly to take advantage of Cooks' speed. "I mean, it could have been a handoff," Belichick said, "we felt like that was the best way to run that play. We just ended up doing it that way."

Gronkowski said he heard Cooks coming up on him, felt him tug in his jersey at about the two-yard line. "He was kind of hiding behind me, and he was like 'Go, Rob, go!' I had the little block and he made it into the end zone."

White's touchdown just before the half wasn't as colorful or flashy, but good for six nevertheless - and was set up by a poor decision by the Falcon's offensive coordinator who called for a pass play on 4th and six from the Patriots' 47 yard line against the triple-double stack, which Ryan airmailed out of bounds.

Three White runs up the gut and the same number of opportunistic pass plays later and White was celebrating in the end zone and Patriots' fans were celebrating the best half of football they've seen from their team all season.

"Bill said it best this week" McCourty said after the game. "He said it was about time that we played complementary football for four quarters. He said at times, we play really well on offense and at other times we play really well on defense. At times, we play really well on special teams, but we haven't gotten it all together. I think tonight we did a good job of that."

McCourty won't hear any contrasting opinions on that.

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.

Analysis: Patriots' Schedule A Matter Of Perspective

It's good to be the king...

The National Football League released the 2017 schedule on Thursday evening, and while the fans of the New England Patriots have known for weeks who their opponents were going to be, the schedule revealed the details - and the schedule makers couldn't have been any kinder to the defending champions.

But many are viewing the Patriots' overall schedule with gritted teeth - and that because of playing five of eight after the bye on the road, including three in a row in early December and two in a row in altitude in November - and those games will be challenging for sure, but things do tend to balance out.

How? Well first of all, the two games in altitude come at a fortuitous time, coming off of the midseason bye.

After playing two consecutive home games to close out the first half of the season, the Patriots take their bye in week 9, the effective two week break giving them many options to prepare for games at Denver and at Mexico City to play the Raiders - perhaps taking off for Denver on Tuesday or Wednesday to acclimate to the thinner air in the Rockies...

...then after playing the Broncos on that Sunday night, they will have the option to either stay in Denver or head straight for Mexico City, depending on the availability of venues in which to prepare for the Raiders.

After that two week stretch, the Patriots return home for the Dolphins, the go for three straight at Buffalo, Miami and Pittsburgh - but then end the regular season with two straight at home against the Bills and Jets.

According to my math, those circumstances neutralize both the disadvantage of playing two straight games in high altitude by giving the Patriots two weeks to prepare, physiologically, for the thin air of Denver and Mexico City, gives them two of their three game roadie against divisional opponents, then see them closing with two straight at home against divisional opponents.

The latter means that if the Patriots take care of their business down thew stretch and secure a first round bye after playing the Steelers in Pittsburgh on December 17th, they may not have to leave Foxborough for the following seven weeks until having to travel to Minneapolis to participate in Super Bowl LII.

So stress out all you want about the schedule, but the glass-half-full perspective shows that there is nothing goofy about the schedule-making - no conspiracies, no hanky-panky.  And the fact that they play five prime time contests and also play in two late-afternoon games scheduled for National Broadcasts means that Patriots' fans around the globe will be sure to catch nearly half of their schedule by doing nothing more than picking up their remote and clicking a couple of buttons.

Thursday, September 7 (8:30pm)
Kansas City Chiefs at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

Raising the banner is always a special occasion, but the Patriots need to figure out where to put the sucker, as they have run out of room adjacent to the scoreboard.  But, alas, they will figure it out - and also get the opportunity to face a dangerous Chiefs' squad that won the tough AFC West last season before being scalped by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Divisional round of the playoffs.

On the surface, the Chiefs did very little to improve upon last season, re-signing a couple of core players and signing TE Gavin Escobar while giving the ax to RB Jamal Charles - so don't look for them to improve much over their 20th ranked offense and 24th ranked defense.

Sunday, September 17 (1:00pm)
New England Patriots at New Orleans Saints
The Superdome, New Orleans. Louisiana

An early test for the Patriots' defense, as the Saints finished first in total offense in 2016 - but lost a playmaker when they traded WR Brandin Cooks to New England.  The Saints still have Drew Brees chucking the ball about and they signed former Panther Ted Ginn to try and replace Cooks' speed on the outside.

They still sport a terrible defense (27th overall, 31st in scoring defense), so the first round pick they got from New England in the Cooks trade will probably go toward shoring up their secondary, which ranked dead last in the NFL.

Sunday, September 24 (1:00pm)
Houston Texans at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

The Texans have a great defense - tops in the NFL last season - and they have plenty of receiving weapons on offense, but no one to get the ball to them.  Unless Houston takes a quarterback in the draft, it will be third-year man Tom Savage pulling the trigger in the passing game.  Savage will have a top ten running game to keep the heat down to a minimum, but that might not be enough for them to repeat as the "Default" champions of a horrible AFC South...but then again, the division is so bad, it just might.

Sunday, October 1 (1:00pm)
Carolina Panthers at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

The Super Bowl that should have been in 2015, but the Panthers were a just a shadow of themselves in 2016 - but a play here or a play there and a little luck, and it would have been them winning the NFC South instead of the Atlanta Falcons.

The Panthers lost seven games by less than three points, and still finished with six wins.  Fighting through injuries, they were able to hold things together, and now they have almost all of their weapons returning healthy.  Don't let the Panthers' record fool you, they were nowhere near as bad as their record indicated.

Thursday, October 5 (8:25pm)
New England Patriots at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida

Scary team on the rise.  The Bucs tripped over themselves coming out of the gate in 2016, losing five of their first eight, four of those losses dropping close decisions to eventual playoff teams, then went 6-2 down the stretch to make a valiant run at the post-season, but coming up just short, beating the likes of Kansas City, Seattle and Atlanta in the process.

Sunday, October 15 (1:00pm)
New England Patriots at New York Jets
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Sunday, December 31 (1:00pm)
New York Jets at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

The Jets come into this season is full rebuilding mode, and with a coach who is squarely on the hot seat.  A team with nothing to lose - especially a hated division rival - is a very dangerous team.  Unfortunately for the Jets, they come into the season without a quarterback of any note, offensive and defensive lines in disarray and zero weapons.  Tough go for the Jets.

Sunday, October 22 (8:30pm)
Atlanta Falcons at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

How motivated are the Falcons going to be to cone into Foxborough and give the Patriots a taste of the whip?  This game is the crown jewel of the NFL's first half and a chance for the Falcons to gain some measure of respect after having their hearts ripped out of their chests in the Super Bowl.

Problem is, Atlanta will be fielding a team that is essentially the same as it was in February, a team that gave New England all they could handle and then some, but eventually wore down and blew a 25 point lead.  We all know the story, now the Falcons want some payback.

Sunday, October 29 (1:00pm)
Los Angeles Chargers at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

The second of tow consecutive home games to finish up the first half of the season heading into their bye, the Patriots should have a decided advantage over the helter-skelter Chargers - but this team should not be taken lightly.

Playing in the toughest division in all of football, the Chargers went 1-5 in the division, but taking the Chiefs into overtime and playing the Raiders tough before dropping heartbreakers, and splitting their series with the Denver Broncos - in between beating good teams from Atlanta, Tennessee and Houston.  The Chargers have inherent talent, but not the the intestinal fortitude to finish off an opponent.  We'll see if that improves with a new coaching staff.

Sunday, November 12 (8:30pm)
New England Patriots at Denver Broncos
Sports Authority Field at Mile High, Denver, Colorado

The Broncos may all well be the Patriots' division rivals, having played each other at least once a year since the 2011 season, New England going 6-3 against the Broncos in nine tries in that time span - with two of their losses coming in conference championship games played at Denver.

So no one has to remind Patriots' fans of the consequence of playing the Broncos.  They have a great defense and plenty of weapons on offense, but their quarterback situation took a step back last season after they let Brock Osweiller leave in free agency, as he had already proven that his skill set was a good match for what Denver liked to do with the football.  But altitude aside, the Broncos are always a tough matchup.

Sunday, November 19 (4:25pm)
New England Patriots vs. Oakland Raiders
Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

Denver may be known as the Mile High City, but Mexico City has them beat by a full third of a mile. Playing the Broncos in Denver the previous week will act as an impromptu hyperbaric chamber for the Patriots, allowing them to acclimate to being a mile above sea level in advance of traveling to Mexico City, which one can reasonably expect to happen immediately after their Sunday night gig in Denver.

The Raiders are as high-powered on offense as any team the Patriots will play all season, though their defense leaves them scratching and clawing to score enough points to win.  The Raiders bitch-kitty is their run defense, and the Patriots have four excellent running backs to rotate in and out to keep their running game fresh...

Sunday, November 26 (1:00pm)
Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

Monday, December 11 (8:30pm)
New England Patriots at Miami Dolphins
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida

The Dolphins are always a tough draw, and the fact that they play each other twice in a span of three weeks doesn't make that any easier for either team.  Miami may have made the playoffs last year, but did so ranked in the bottom third of the NFL on both sides of the ball.  The difference between the Dolphins and most other teams on the Patriots' schedule, however, is that they have the stones to finish tight games.

Many will remember their comeback and near upset of New England in Foxborough early last season when the Dolphins scored 21 unanswered points to close within a touchdown of the Patriots, and were threatening to tie the game up with seconds to play until safety Duron Harmon picked off quarterback Ryan Tannehill in the end zone to salvage the win.

One can expect the same effort from Miami this time around as well, as the current staff seems to have the team headed in the right direction.

Sunday, December 3 (1:00pm)
New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills
Ralph Wilson Stadium, Orchard Park, New York

Sunday, December 24 (1:00pm)
Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots
Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts

This is another instance when the Patriots have to play a division rival twice in a short period of time.  The first was when the Patriots and Dolphins combined to make a Buffalo sandwich in between their contests, and now the Patriots have to play the Bills twice in four weeks, with the Dolphins and Steelers on the docket in between.

The Bills have plenty of talent on offense and play an explosive brand of football, though most of the explosion comes from their dynamic running game, but in contrast, the Bills defense can't stop the opposition's running game to save their lives.  Their saving grace had been their secondary, that is until New England lured cornerback Stephon Gilmore away.

With all of the speed Buffalo has in their receiving corps, they just don't make enough plays in the passing game to keep opposing defenses honest, averaging a mere 190 passing yards per game in 2016.  But a new regime is taking over in Buffalo and, of course, when it comes to playing the champs, every team has a little more motivation.

Patriots Stomp Steelers In AFC Title Tilt; Will Face Falcons in Super Bowl

Jesse James had beaten Patrick Chung on a post route and had a sure touchdown.

The Pittsburgh Steelers' tight end had feigned a seam route that he had beaten Chung on earlier, and the New England Patriots' strong safety had taken the cheese, giving James ample room to catch the ball from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and Chung's pursuit angle suggested that even if he was able to bring him down, he would easily break the plane of the goal line anyway...

...then, suddenly, Patriots' centerfielder Duron Harmon appeared out of nowhere, lowering his shoulder as he made contact with James, the collision dropping the tight end to the turf mere inches from the mark, denying the touchdown.

Harmon (30) denied James the end zone

Harmon was playing over the top and somehow was able to get over to assist on the play.  Big deal, right?  The Steelers would surely score anyway - if not on first and goal from 5 inches away, then on the ensuing downs.

But on first down, Patriots' linebacker Dont'a Hightower stuffed Steelers' running back DeAngelo Williams for a one yard loss, then on second down rookie defensive tackle Vincent Valentine dropped Williams for a loss of three.

Eventually, the Steelers would have to settle for a field goal so they would at least get three points out of the drive, but the epic goal line stand by the Patriots turned the tide in what was shaping up to be a track meet, the first team to break the tape at the finish line going on to Houston to play the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51.  But from that point forward, the Steelers seemed to run out of gas, and the track meet was cancelled due to lack of interest.

Up 17-9 and with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, surrendering a touchdown in that situation would have put the Steelers in good shape, down just one point - or even tied with the Patriots with a successful two-point conversion - and knowing that they would be receiving the ball first in the second half, a touchdown would have given Pittsburgh all of the momentum...

...but instead they went into the locker room down by five, and then New England's defense stifled Pittsburgh on their initial possession of the second half, the Patriots' offense taking over from there, going on a 19-0 run over the next twenty minutes to blow the Steelers out of Gillette Stadium, taking the American Football Conference championship by a score of 36-17.

As a result, New England will face the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51 in Houston on February 5th.

In reality, there were many players on the New England side of things who came up big.  There are the obvious ones - like Chris Hogan whom the Steelers apparently either sorely underestimated, or just plain forgot about, to the tune of nine receptions for a whopping 180 yards and two touchdowns - and the ones who did their job in a more subtle manner.

Take your pick, be it James White picking up rogue blitzers, the entire offensive line that protected Brady like he was the King of the world, or even Harmon who flipped the game around with his fundamentally sound tackle. There was Malcolm Butler punking Pittsburgh's All Pro receiver Antonio Brown. not allowing him clean releases at the line of scrimmage, and New England's defensive line winning the battles in the running game - but homage should also be paid to the mistakes made by the Steelers themselves, mistakes that turned a relatively close game into a laugher.

Again, take your pick, be it Eli Rodgers' fumble that gave New England excellent field position and led to a Julian Edelman touchdown catch late in the third quarter, receiver Cobi Hamilton's illegal touching of a pass in the end zone that nullified a touchdown pass, or Roethlisberger's who-the-hell-is-he-throwing-that-to interception early in the fourth quarter that cornerback Eric Rowe returned deep into Pittsburgh territory...

...or the Steelers' safeties losing containment on both of Hogan's deep touchdown receptions - all were contributing factors in the outcome of the game, whether forced by the Patriots' defense or just unforced errors by the Steelers themselves - and one also has to wonder how the game would have gone had Pittsburgh's All Pro running back Le'Veon Bell not pulled a groin and sat out the majority of the game.

Bell had reportedly been bothered by a sore groin for some time, though he looked to be in top form in the post-season prior to coming to Foxborough - and truthfully, he wasn't all that effective in his limited touches before leaving the game, picking up just 20 yards on six carries while his replacement, Williams, averaged a weak 2.4 yards per carry, a stat made even more impressive by the fact that he had a 15 yard scamper mixed into his 14 carries, and if one were to eliminate that, he ran for only 30 yards on 13 carries.

No doubt, Bell being left pouting on the sidelines helped the cause defensively for New England, but only as far as being able to concentrate more on situational football, but what helped even more was that the Patriots' offense was able to build a three-score lead early in the second half, forcing Pittsburgh to become one-dimensional and into obvious passing situations.

As a result, New England was able to rotate fresh defensive personnel into the game at a rate that would impress a hockey coach, with linebackers Shea McClellin, Kyle Van Noy, Elandon Roberts and Hightower each garnering about 50% of the snaps in a two man rotation, with strong safety Chung reducing down to the second level to punk James coming off the line.

That kind of rotation is normally reserved for the Patriots' defensive line to keep the big uglies up front fresh for the stretch run in each ball game - and it works.  All one has to do is to look at some very basic stats to see just how effective that scheme is.

In the last five games, the Patriots' defense has allowed a combined 21 points in the second half, surrendering just two touchdowns, one of them the garbage time scoring pass from Roethlisberger to Cobi Hamilton, and have generated an astounding 14 turnovers, the majority of them coming in the second half when their concentration is broken by being exhausted while the Patriots are rested and focused.

That's what happened to both of New England's playoff opponents, not to mention the number of times that the Patriots have held their opponents on downs late in games, simply because they had more gas in their tank.

So what they did against the Steelers was predictable, kind of an old "Rope-a-Dope" mentality where you take the opponent's best shot, let them wear themselves out, then stomp them like a grape - and it works on both sides of the ball.  Brady had the Patriots up to the line and had the ball in his hands with 15 seconds or more left on the play clock to limit both the time the Steelers had to substitute and to get lined up for the play...

...several times catching Pittsburgh's defenders out of position, most notably on both of Hogan's touchdowns and on a key pass to fullback James Develin for a first down. When one team has the talent, proper scheme and incredible depth, the advantage is with them and the score is usually lopsided.

It's almost unfair.  Almost.

The Patriots can't be blamed for being the more talented, better prepared and better conditioned team, because that's what the game is all about - and is why the Patriots are on their way to Houston, armed with an air of invincibility, a most advantageous intangible indeed...