Always-reliable Edelman steadied offense

FOXBORO — Although the Patriots held a 1713 lead midway through Saturday night’s AFC divisional playoff against the Houston Texans, the offense just did not have its rhythm.

While wide receiver Chris Hogan made an early impact, the majority of Tom Brady’s weapons were either not getting open or unable to bail out the quarterback, who was facing a brutal rush from the likes of Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus.

But then, as tends to be the case, Julian Edelman started to get open. And in the second half, the Texans couldn’t cover Brady’s most dependable receiver.

With Edelman catching eight passes for 137 yards on 13 targets, the Pats pulled away to win 34-16 and advance to the AFC Championship Game for the sixth straight year.

“Yeah, Jules did a great job. He always does,” Brady said. “He’s a huge playmaker for us and his ability to create separation and make plays down the field; he did a bunch of that tonight, so he did a great job.”

It was Edelman’s second reception of the night — a 48-yarder to set up a field goal late in the second quarter — that gave him the franchise record for career postseason catches with 70.

However, his work in the third quarter was more indicative of how he can help the offense gain consistent traction.

After the Pats went three-and-out to start the second half, Brady went to Edelman on back-to-back passes for a combined 40 yards, both times with the receiver beating one of the Texans’ best cornerbacks, A.J. Bouye. Brady hit Edelman twice more on the drive for another 14 yards, which set up a 19-yard touchdown pass to running back James White to put the Pats up 24-13.

To that point, it was the best sustained drive of the night, and it should come as no surprise that 54 of its 90 yards traveled through Edelman. In other words, when all else fails — or, in this case, just sputters — Brady knows he can always look toward Edelman to get things clicking again.

“We had to make adjustments,” Edelman said of the slow start. “We had to just keep on playing and find something, and we were able to do that.”

Overall, like many of his teammates, Edelman was only partly satisfied with how the Pats played. The two Brady interceptions and a Dion Lewis fumble on a kickoff return all helped keep the Texans in the game longer than most expected.

“If we want to keep winning and we want to move on, we can’t play like that,” Edelman said.

Conversely, if the Pats want to reach their ultimate goal of winning another Super Bowl, they’ll need Edelman to play like that each time out.