There is a Blueprint for Losing to New England by as Little as Possible.

 

In Week 9, Indianapolis showed that if a team is able to break a 73-yard touchdown on a check-down pass, and benefit from 146 yards of penalties, then it was possible to lose by only 4 points. Indy's defense contributed to the non-blowout loss by exerting pressure on Tom Brady for three-and-a-half quarters and collecting two of the five INTs he's thrown all season.

 

This appeared to be the best possible result. Then Philadelphia improved on it. As in the Colts plan, the Philly defense exerted pressure on Brady. The Eagles also recovered an unexpected onside kick early in the game and converted a fourth down. Additionally, Philly quarterback A.J. Feeley flung the ball with abandon and hoped that something good happened. A lot of good things did happen, as Feeley had a career day with personal bests in passing yards (345) and TD passes (3).

 

The downside of the “fling with abandon” approach is that it often leads to mistakes. If the Patriots had not intercepted three balls, it is possible that the Eagles could have prevailed. Still, losing by 3 points was better than anyone thought possible.

 

In Week 13, the Ravens improved upon the Eagles plan to nearly pull off the upset. The Ravens applied pressure and flung the ball with abandon. They also converted a key fourth down. To improve upon the Eagles plan, they preferred to throw only one interception, and compensated for that with a pick of their own. Additionally, the Ravens ran the ball successfully (166 yards) where the Eagles did not (55).

 

The Ravens plan was a genuine success ... were the Ravens not struck by their normal share of in-game misfortune. They were flagged for 13 penalties, including many at critical times, while emotionally falling apart late in the game. Were it not for those minor issues, Baltimore's plan could very well have succeeded.

 

These plans have several elements in common:

These elements are motivated by statistical properties of the Patriots offense.

 

If you don’t send an extra guy, then the Patriots passing offense will cut you to pieces anyway, so it makes sense to take a chance. It is very likely that a blitz will be picked up, as evidenced by New England's top ranking in Negative Pass Plays: the Patriots suffer a Negative Pass Play (sack or INT) on just 4.38 percent of drop-backs. Blitzing against the Patriots might increases their risk when passing: maybe New England won’t hit a big play. And if they don’t then you can get them off the field.

 

Each of these three opponents was able to hold down New England's normally high-flying passing attack, one that otherwise averages well over 8.0 Passing Yards Per Attempt. In fact, each of these three teams won the Passing-Yards-Per-Attempt battle:

As the Cold, Hard Football Facts have shown, winning the Passing-Yards-Per-Attempt battle normally spells victory. Of course, as we've seen so far, this year for New England is anything but normal.

 

It won’t be easy to pass more efficiently than New England's historic passing attack, but a team has to at least try. For instance, the Patriots defense allows 4.29 yards per rush, but 5.65 yards per pass attempt. Nearly every team’s offense gains more yards per pass than per rush. So it stands to reason that more passes and fewer rushes increase your chances to move the ball down the field, to score more often and, more importantly, to win.

 

Third, going for it on fourth down against New England does not incur much risk

Normally, a team punts to pin an opponents deeper in their own territory. But distance has proven little obstacle to the New England offense this year.

 

The Patriots have scored touchdowns on over 60 percent of their offensive possessions when starting from inside their own 20 yard line. Is there really a downside to failing to convert a fourth down try? The upside is big: you get to keep the football for a few minutes more, and maybe score. The downside? New England's probably going to score whether you pin them on their own 12 or turn it over to them on their own 40.

 

The Steelers last Sunday attempted four fourth-down conversions against New England. They rushed five or six men when defending the pass. They ran a balanced offense, with 32 rushes and 32 passes. Their rushing game was productive, averaging 5.7 yards per carry. Big Ben has averaged over 8 yards per passing attempt in his career, so the game plan had a decent chance of success ... if not for one little problem:

 

Four, it appears opponents must literally play the perfect game to beat New England

It seems the Steelers, as the Colts, Eagles and Ravens have shown, needed to play the perfect game to beat New England.

 

They didn't.

 

The Steelers simply didn't make the plays they needed to win. They converted only 2 of 4 fourth downs, and averaged just 4.8 Yards Per Pass Attempte (compared with 8.7 for New England). The Steelers also committed a turnover, and the Patriots did not (despite fumbling twice). And the Pittsburgh pass rush did not produce a single Negative Pass Play. Brady stepped back to pass 47 times last Sunday. And the most positive thing that happened for Pittsburgh on those 47 drop-packs was that 14 passes fell incomplete.

 

As a result, one of the five best teams in football was blown out by three touchdowns, 34-13.

 

No matter how you attack the Patriots, you will need big breaks to win. As the Relativity Index data below shows, the Patriots are 9.7 points better than the second best team in the league, Indy. That 9.7-point gap is greater than the distance between the No. 2 team and the No. 9 team.

 

In games between teams rated more than 9 points apart this season, the higher-rated team has won 77 of 86 meetings (89.5%).

 

	Team	PPGF	PPGA	Opp-PF	Opp-PA	Relativity
1	New England	38.7	17.1	22.7	20.2	24.1
2	Indianapolis	29.3	16.7	21.8	20.0	14.4
3	Dallas	32.5	21.2	21.9	20.6	12.6
4	Green Bay	27.8	17.6	21.9	20.9	11.1
5	Pittsburgh	23.8	14.5	23.6	24.0	8.8
6	San Diego	23.7	19.2	22.4	20.4	6.4
7	Jacksonville	23.5	17.6	21.0	20.7	6.2
8	Seattle	24.2	17.5	20.7	22.4	4.9
9	Minnesota	23.5	18.8	21.8	21.7	4.8
10	Philadelphia	20.8	20.2	24.0	21.4	3.2
11	Tampa Bay	19.6	16.5	21.7	21.9	2.9
12	N.Y. Giants	22.3	20.8	21.9	22.1	1.3
13	Cleveland	27.7	27.4	21.2	21.2	0.3
14	Washington	19.5	21.0	23.2	21.8	-0.1
15	Tennessee	19.2	20.3	21.8	21.4	-0.8
16	Cincinnati	23.8	25.1	21.3	21.1	-1.0
17	New Orleans	23.1	22.5	18.7	20.4	-1.2
18	Detroit	22.6	26.1	22.1	20.9	-2.3
19	Houston	22.4	23.5	19.9	21.2	-2.4
20	Chicago	19.5	22.8	22.5	21.7	-2.5
21	Denver	21.7	25.8	20.4	20.1	-3.9
22	Arizona	23.2	24.8	19.4	21.7	-3.9
23	Buffalo	17.1	22.4	24.0	22.8	-4.1
24	N.Y. Jets	18.4	24.2	22.4	22.8	-6.2
25	Baltimore	17.4	24.2	23.5	23.2	-6.5
26	Kansas City	13.8	20.8	23.0	22.4	-6.5
27	Oakland	18.5	22.9	20.9	23.2	-6.7
28	Carolina	16.2	22.6	20.4	22.0	-8.0
29	Atlanta	14.2	23.5	20.2	21.7	-10.8
30	St. Louis	15.8	24.3	20.6	23.1	-11.0
31	Miami	16.4	27.3	22.1	22.3	-11.1
32	San Francisco	13.2	24.0	20.3	22.6	-13.2

PG - The average PPG scored

PPFA - The average PPG allowed

OppPPG - The average PPG scored by that team's opponents in their other games

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