Over the past five games, the Patriots have adjusted their offense and made themselves more balanced, a response to how much their personnel - especially at wide receiver - has changed since the last time Brady led the offense.
“Every year is different and every year you have different strengths and weaknesses,’’ Brady said Friday on the “Patriots All Access’’ show. “The last time I played a full season was ’07. We had a great receiving group that was very deep. All those guys were very versatile. They were all [able to] play different positions, and we moved those guys around a lot.
“I think this year we tried to do some of those things early, but realized that’s not the kind of team we were going to be. We’re a balanced team. We’re trying to run the ball. We’ve got to do that efficiently, and then set up some of our play-action stuff. I think as a group, we have more clearly defined roles, I think, at this point than we did seven weeks ago, which I think we all feel very positive about.’’
In 2007, the Patriots passed on 741 of their 1,227 plays, not counting kneel-downs and penalties; that’s 60.1 percent. Brady threw to a constellation of weapons, a stable that included Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Donte’ Stallworth, and Jabar Gaffney.
When Brady stepped back into the huddle this year, his options had dwindled. The Joey Galloway experiment crashed and burned, Julian Edelman broke his forearm, and the third wideout position was left to rookie Brandon Tate and special teams standout Sam Aiken.
The Patriots accepted the shift and altered their offensive identity. In the first two games, again not counting penalties and kneel-downs, the Patriots dropped back to pass 102 times and ran a running play 42 times, calling pass plays at a 70.8 percent rate. In the last five games, the Patriots have dropped back to pass 196 times and run 139 rushing plays - a 58.5 percent passing rate.
In that time, the Patriots have gone 4-1 and scored 32.8 points per game. (Even without the 59-0 aberration against Tennessee, they have averaged 26.3 points per game.)
