Greg Cosell's Week 5 Review: Patriots' O was back to normal in Brady's return
Right away on Sunday it was obvious: The New England Patriots’ offense, as we know it, was back.
The Patriots have staple concepts they use to great effectiveness with Tom Brady, and they got right to them on their first plays against the Cleveland Browns. And what we saw the rest of the game was a vintage performance. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels dialed up plays to beat the Browns defense, Brady made adjustments when necessary, and Brady executed at a very high level. He had 406 yards.
The Patriots started the game with a quick three-step drop timing throw to Julian Edelman, who was in a minus split (lined up close to the formation). After Brady missed four games, they wanted to get him comfortable right away with a pitch-and-catch throw.
On the second play, it was power play action with a quick five-step drop, with the run action going one way and Rob Gronkowski crossing the formation the other way. There was confusion in blocking between pulling left guard Joe Thuney and running back LeGarrette Blount, but it did not prevent Brady from hitting Gronkowski for 19 yards. Two plays, two Patriots staple concepts.
The Patriots also used a staple shot-play (deep pass) concept on their third possession. Chris Hogan was in the slot to the field side (on the wide side, away from the hashmark where the ball is placed) inside of Malcolm Mitchell. The Patriots like to use hard stretch run action on their shot-play concepts, and that’s what they did here. Gronkowski was part of the run action, and not in the route concept. Hogan ran a deep over, and Mitchell a deep dig route. Hogan was wide open on the deep over route and Brady laid it out to him. It gained 43 yards.
Brady is also able to make something happen when the structure of the play breaks down. On New England’s fourth possession out of a 3×2 set (three receivers on one side, two on the other), Brady looked to the two-man side with Mitchell running a post and Edelman a quick out, but it wasn’t there. Brady then climbed the pocket and saw Hogan run by cornerback Joe Haden on the trips side. Brady made a great deep throw off his pocket movement for 63 yards.
There were new wrinkles off old concepts too. In the third quarter, the Patriots used tempo after a James White run. They came up quickly to the line, snapped it fast, then ran a play-action fake. Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett initially showed run blocking action before releasing into their routes. The run action ate up safety Ibraheim Campbell, and Gronkowski and Bennett were both wide open on their vertical releases. Bennett scored a 37-yard touchdown. I’ve seen that play and concept many times from the Patriots, but it’s not often you see them use a hurry-up tempo to get to it.
The Patriots did well with young quarterbacks Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett in the first four weeks, but Brady can make plays based on his vast experience that younger players might not be able to make yet. It’s just a different offense with Brady, for obvious reasons. Here’s an example: The Browns matched up in “Cover 1” man coverage with the motion by Bennett outside of Gronkowski causing an adjustment with safety Jordan Poyer widening to play Bennett. That left linebacker Christian Kirksey on Gronkowski. (Also note that it’s a very similar look pre-snap as the Bennett touchdown above). Off a quick five-step play action, Brady took a quick look left to hold the single-high safety. He knew he had Gronkowski running the seam against a linebacker. And with the safety held by Brady’s eyes, Brady came back and hit Gronkowski for 37 yards. That’s advanced quarterbacking.
We saw a lot of staple pass-game concepts from the Patriots, things we have seen often over the years. It should not be a surprise that with Brady back, the Patriots’ offense schematically looked like it has for many seasons. It wasn’t a surprise that it was effective, either.
Related NFL coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.
