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.
How they got there wasn’t exactly how everyone envisioned. 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. They did that, more often than not.
Things weren’t perfect on the offensive side. Brady was on a career-record pace for interceptions, endured accuracy problems because of an elbow injury, and the receivers ran into trouble against tough man coverage.
Once the schedule softened up against a string of backup quarterbacks, the Patriots got healthy as a whole and rolled into the playoffs. There, they played some of their best ball, before the season unraveled with a string of disappointing plays down the stretch.
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 played by the Patriots. A few things to keep in mind: these are not about talent or in comparison to the rest of the league. These ratings reflect only the overall execution at each position over the course of the season on a game-to-game basis on a zero to 5 scale. Only five perfect ratings were given out 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.
Quarterbacks
Seasonal average rating: 3.7 out of 5
