New England Patriots: What to watch for in Super Bowl 53
By Hal Bent
NE PASSING OFFENSE vs LA PASS DEFENSE
The New England Patriots piled up almost 500 yards of total offense in the AFC divisional round, with quarterback Tom Brady responsible for 343 of those yards through the air. The Patriots followed that performance up in the AFC Championship Game with 524 yards of total offense, another 348 of which were courtesy of Brady and his arm.
The Patriots will try to carry that momentum into the Super Bowl against a Rams defense which has grown stingier since the return of cornerback Aqib Talib.
The Rams held Drew Brees and the potent New Orleans passing attack to just 249 yards through the air and sacked him twice in the process. Their pass rush got to Brees in overtime and forced the interception which eventually led to to the game-winning field goal.
New England’s passing offense finished eighth in the NFL in yards gained and sixth in net yards per attempt during the regular season. Predictably, Brady and his receivers had no problem blasting through the Chargers’ Cover-3 zone defense, before later making mincemeat of the Chiefs’ 31st-ranked passing defense as well.
Now they face a Rams group which just held Michael Thomas to four receptions and only 36 yards.
The Rams and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips will mix man coverage and zone coverage throughout the game. Although Talib excels in man coverage, Marcus Peters and Nickell Robey-Coleman have a bad habit of giving up big plays trying to cover receivers one-on-one. Both are significantly better playing zone, which the Rams have favored in the later stages of the season.
While the thought of Tom Brady facing zone defense seems like a huge advantage, the Rams have been extremely successful with it as of late, forcing 15 turnovers in the last six games of the regular season. Although they only forced one turnover in the playoffs, it was definitely a big one.
The Rams have also been able to take pressure off their secondary with a strong pass rush. All Pro Aaron Donald led the way with a league-leading 20.5 sacks, while his running mate Ndamukong Suh picked up the pace in the playoffs and is now playing some of his best football. And although he only had two sacks in half a season for the Rams after getting traded by the Jaguars, edge rusher Dante Fowler is still a force to be reckoned with.
The Patriots will need their offensive line to step up in pass protection if they hope to win Sunday’s game. So far they have kept quarterback Tom Brady clean in back-to-back stellar showings against some of the best pass rushers in the NFL. They kept Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram off of Brady first, and then slowed Chris Jones, Dee Ford, and Justin Houston. The line now gets to tango with the Rams’ set of explosive pass rushers.
At receiver, the Patriots will need to continue to get Julian Edelman free, as he did against the Chargers and Chiefs. Edelman had nine catches for 151 yards against the Chargers and then seven catches for 96 yards against Kansas City. He also had two huge first down conversions in overtime.
New England will also need timely contributions from role players like Cordarrelle Patterson, Phillip Dorsett, and Chris Hogan, if the offense wants to have any hope of keeping up with the Rams.
Finally, the Pats need tight end Rob Gronkowski to pick right back up where he left off in the AFC Championship Game. Gronk had six catches for 79 yards as well as two huge catches on both of the Patriots’ final drives to set-up their go-ahead and game-winning scores.
In short, the New England passing offense must make plays and finish drives with touchdowns, not field goals. The Rams’ pass defense is a different animal with Talib anchoring the secondary, and the pass rush is downright terrifying with monsters in the middle like Suh, Fowler, and Donald.