In recent seasons, the New England Patriots had earned a reputation for being chameleons, reinventing themselves every few years to great success.
While some attribute this to some abstract notion of the ‘Patriot Way’, it’s actually nothing more than smart coaching.
The Patriot Way was long considered some high-minded notion of good character that all Patriots possessed if on the team, even if they came from less than desirable backgrounds.
But after that was blown up in early 2012 thanks to the Aaron Hernandez debacle, it instead has been used to describe the mysterious, winning way in which the organisation as a whole is run.
It’s all false, of course. The Patriots are good for a very logical, very simple reason.
Put simply: New England make the most out of what they have. And they do this better than anybody else.
When the high-flying passing attack that made the Patriots’ offence back in 2007 left with the departure of receiver Randy Moss in 2009, rather than try and recapture what they had during Tom Brady’s 50-touchdown season, they instead built an offence that suited their current personnel.
In this case, that meant an emphasis on the two-tight end set, and the Rob Gronkowski-Aaron Hernandez monster was born.
That new offense resulted in a combined 2237 yards receiving and 24 touchdowns between the two tight ends in 2011.
However, over the last two seasons, thanks to injury and Hernandez’ lawbreaking, the Patriots often found themselves without their two best weapons on offence.
So once again, they evolved.
Rather than try and run the same old offence and use either rookies or free agents as square pegs for round holes, they simply reevaluated their talent and built their offence around what they had.
That meant a new-found emphasis on the run.
In 2011, the last time they had a healthy Rob Gronkowski and (reasonably) healthy Aaron Hernandez, they had the 20th best rushing attack in the NFL.
In 2012 New England ran the ball 523 times for a seventh best 136.5 yards per game. This season, the Patriots managed 129.1 yards per game on the ground, good for ninth in the league.
Put bluntly, the Patriots saw their best players were now their running backs, and as a result Stevan Ridley, Shane Vereen, Danny Woodhead (now with the Chargers) and most recently, LeGarrette Blount, were suddenly household names.
This shift was clearly demonstrated in their divisional-round win over the Colts this weekend, when the Patriots would run the ball 46 times while only passing it 25.
While you might argue Brady and co. were obviously going to run to protect their early lead, when you consider all six of the team’s touchdowns were from the ground game (five of them from within the redzone) you get an idea where the Patriots truly believe the strength of their offense lies.
Blount alone carried the ball 24 times for 166 yards and four touchdowns on the night.
.@LG_Blount set a single-game franchise record with 4 rushing TDs last night, which ranks 2nd in @NFL playoff history.
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 12, 2014
New England finished the night with 234 yards on the ground (the second-highest number in Patriots post-season history), and only 198 through the air.
It was this dominance on the ground that saw them capitalise on Andrew Lucks’ mistakes, as the Chiefs failed to do in the wild-card round.
Of course, the Patriots’ defence did their part, taking the ball away four times – twice in the fourth quarter – to put the game away.
In a lot of ways, this team looked like the Patriots of old. Their championship-winning teams always had a defence adept at stopping their oppositions from playing to their strengths, and on the back of a physical running game.
And if there’s one way to describe Blount’s running style, it’s ‘physical’.
Just as it was in those championship teams, Brady was there, as efficient as ever, directing the offense and making clutch plays where needed.
He finished completing just 13-of-25 attempts this weekend, with six of those passes being third-down completions.
Brady is obviously one of the constants in the Patriots’ postseason success, and he remains one of the best all-time fourth quarter quarterbacks, but we shouldn’t forget head coach Bill Belichick’s role in this as well.
Belichick is now tied second in the NFL with Don Shula for most career postseason wins with 19 (Tom Landry holds the record with 20).
It’s Belichick who has been willing to time and time again reinvent the Patriots based on where their strengths lie, and for all the stubborn, no-nonsense style he exudes, he himself is incredibly flexible when it comes to managing his team.
He’s not tied down to one style of play, one philosophy or one system, he’s about winning, and by any means necessary. If that means reinventing the wheel every few years, so be it.
As I stated at the top of this article, this isn’t something specific to Belichick and the Patriots.
Everybody wondered how Chip Kelly’s system would fit into the NFL, but as it turned out he created something markedly different based on what he had and, as a result, he made the playoffs after the Eagles were last in their division in 2012.
All good NFL head coaches try and build an offensive or defensive scheme around the parts they have at their disposal. But it’s clear Belichick and the Patriots are one of the best at it and, regardless of who they have on the field, always get the most out of their personnel.
Now, they face the best offense in NFL history in the AFC Championship in the form of Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos.
Whatever the result, expect the Patriots to play to their strengths, and fight like crazy to limit Denver’s.
The Patriot Way is a myth, one of those narratives created to explain something that can’t quite be understood, but the fact is New England’s continued postseason success can be attributed to something: They simply play to their strengths, that’s all.
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