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Rating the Patriots: Just shy of Super

On football: Season review

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 14, 2012|By Greg A. Bedard

Rob Gronkowski may have been slowed by a bum ankle in the Super Bowl, but he… (Barry Chin/Globe Staff )

First in a three-part series analyzing the Patriots’ season.

The Patriots embarked from training camp with talk of another Super Bowl title.

By the end of the season, they came up just short with a 21-17 loss to the New York Giants in Indianapolis.

The defense, originally a 4-3 scheme, fell apart early because of injuries up front and ineffectiveness in the secondary.

But over the course of 19 games, the Patriots were able to morph into a supremely opportunistic defensive unit (34 takeaways) and were able to execute the fundamentals to give their top-ranked offense, led by quarterback Tom Brady, a chance to run the opposition ragged.

Things weren’t perfect on the offensive side. Brady had accuracy problems because of an elbow injury, and the receivers ran into trouble against tough man coverage.

Once the schedule softened up, the Patriots got healthy as a whole and rolled into the playoffs.

The bottom line was the Patriots were but a few plays from being world champions, and that is a resounding success, no matter how it happened.

Here are the average positional ratings from each of the 19 games. The ratings are not about talent. They reflect only the overall execution at each position on a game-to-game basis on a 0 to 5 scale. Only five perfect ratings were given during the season: the receivers, linebackers, and special teams against the Broncos in the playoffs, and twice by the defensive line in the first two postseason games. Turnovers on offense are graded harshly, as are big plays allowed on defense.

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