Chiefs vs. Patriots: A successful game plan against Bill Belichick

What the Patriots Do Poorly

If the Chiefs offense over the last couple weeks has been “lazy,” and “not that of a Super Bowl caliber team,” then the Patriots offense has been atrocious, straight up asleep, and not that of a playoff-caliber team.

Tom Brady is second in the league in attempted passes, but is 29th in the league in completion percentage with a notable 19.5% of his passes being considered off target (excluding spikes and throw aways, bumping up to 26.1% when including those).

Sony Michel is 41st in the league in yards per rushing attempt despite being just 12th in attempts this season.

Despite having the 2nd most pass attempts, only two Patriots’ receivers have more then one touchdown and only 4 wide receivers have caught a touchdown at all (5 if you count Antonio Brown, but he is not on the team anymore so he was not counted).

The Patriots offense has been able to capitalize on short fields created by the defense, but not effectively, only scoring touchdowns on 49% of red zone visits and only scoring from outside the red zone 5 times. Six of Brady’s 7 interceptions actually came from within their opponents territory, further squandering the defenses efforts.

Despite past success against the blitz due to Brady’s ability throwing quick passes and great field vision, he has been significantly worse this season, with only a 53.9 completion percentage and 4 interceptions (despite only seeing blitz half as often as non-blitz packages).

A defense would find it extremely easy to stop the Patriots’ offense, but completely shutting down the offense would take great blitz packages and long fields.