Brady, Pats know score
Comfort zone eludes offense inside 20
FOXBORO — Tom Brady knows the Patriots have left points on the field this season, and he hopes that troubling trend doesn’t further devolve into a more costly issue.
Unprompted, the quarterback blamed his red-zone inaccuracies in each of the previous two weeks, pointing toward that as a reason why the Pats’ victories against the Buccaneers and Jets were more stressful than necessary. And even though the Pats had their way with the Falcons on Sunday, they only scored two touchdowns in five trips to the red zone to brighten the light on that ongoing focus.
“They’re important plays,” Brady reiterated yesterday. “It’s a small margin of error, but I think we all realize that. It’s a tight space. There are a lot of tight throws. It’s just something we’ve got to do a better job of. Scoring those extra four points, obviously, are very critical. We’d love to convert more, but we just haven’t done as well as we’re capable.”
For such an explosive offense, the Patriots have been pedestrian in the red zone this season. Their 30 trips to the red zone are the second-most in the NFL, and they’ve turned that into a league-best 144 points because they have at least been smart with the ball.
But the efficiency is sorely lacking, as they’ve scored a touchdown on just 53.3 percent of their trips inside the 20, which is tied for 15th in the league. Including field goals, they’ve scored on 90 percent of their red-zone visits, which is tied for 12th.
By kicking 11 field goals from the red zone, the Patriots view it as leaving 44 points on the board.
“The question answers itself,” wide receiver Brandin Cooks said of the straightforward objective to crack the end zone more than splitting the goal posts. “You’d rather walk away with a touchdown than a field goal. We’ve been working at that.”
Brady is 23-of-39 for 128 yards, 10 touchdowns and no interceptions inside the 20 this season. His 104.5 passer rating is ranked ninth among quarterbacks who have at least 10 redzone pass attempts.
Brady’s accountability is admirable, but the numbers actually don’t bear out. He has a 101.2 career passer rating inside the red zone, so he has been slightly better this season in those tight spaces.
Then again, it’s easier to remember the miscues in a short sample size. He is just 3-of-9 for 12 yards and two touchdowns when targeting tight end Rob Gronkowski in the red zone this season, and he is 5-of-10 for 33 yards and four scores when looking at wide receiver Chris Hogan. He shovel pass to Cooks on Sunday for an 11-yard touchdown was just the first time those two connected for a score in the money area.
So maybe it’s a matter of life without Julian Edelman and a natural progression to get other receivers implemented into new roles. It’s not always so easy to execute in those tense situations when Brady might have a subconscious seed of doubt, even if it halts his decision by a tenth of a second.
“We just have to pay attention to the little details,” Cooks said. “So at the end of the day, when you’re down there, you’re thinking touchdown.”
The red-zone woes have played a role in the Pats’ two losses. They scored touchdowns on 3-of-6 trips against the Chiefs, though that season-opening beatdown was the result of a myriad of mistakes. And the Pats were 3-of-4 in their 33-30 loss to the Panthers. It’s tough to expect a team to be perfect in the red zone in any given game, but if the Pats turned Stephen Gostkowski’s second-quarter field goal into a touchdown, they’d have had enough points to be victorious. And Brady, who remembers everything, likely recalls how that drive closed with backto-back incompletions to Gronkowski and Hogan.
The Patriots will host a pesky Chargers team Sunday before heading into their bye week, and the Bolts will make them earn those points by the goal line. They’ll be important points, too, as the Chargers (3-4) have lost three games by three or fewer points, and they hang close with their opponents with their eighth-ranked scoring defense. The Chargers are also ranked fourth in defensive touchdown percentage in the red zone (37.5 percent) and tied for second in red-zone scoring allowed (75 percent).
While Brady has put it on himself, his teammates wouldn’t hear it. The production has to be better across the board.
“It’s executing and doing your job as best you you can,” Cooks said. “I think it’s a mixture of everything, to be honest. You can’t just pinpoint one thing.”