Pats on top even without Edelman

When Julian Edelman suffered a torn ACL during the third preseason game in August, the Patriots offense lost its perceived invincibility that invited mid-summer comparisons to the team’s 2007 juggernaut unit.

Talks of another run at a 19-0 season ended soon thereafter, and it feels like the Patriots offense has missed a key element without Edelman in the lineup.

However, when you look at the numbers, the Patriots offense has been the most efficient offensive unit in the NFL in 2017.

In the traditional stats, the Patriots lead the NFL averaging 398.5 yards per game and rank third scoring an average of 28.8 points per game.

But beyond the traditional stats, the Patriots offense is even better than those numbers suggest in terms of drive-todrive efficiency.

Three statistics, in particular, suggest the Patriots have the NFL’s top offensive unit, with the team ranked first in all three categories.

First, the Patriots are best in the NFL with 50.6 percent of their drives finishing in a field goal or touchdown, the only team to score on over 47 percent of their drives.

Second, they also lead the league scoring a touchdown on 28.4 percent of their offensive drives.

And third, the Patriots also entered Week 16 with the NFL’s best offense in terms of Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) at 28 percent, which measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent (similar to WAR in baseball).

Furthermore, the Patriots offense is also tops in passing DVOA and ranks fourth in rushing DVOA, the only team to rank in the top six in both categories.

The key to success without Edelman this season has been an explosive attack that ranks second in the league in plays of 20-plus yards with 61.

Rob Gronkowski (18) and Brandin Cooks (16) have combined for 34 of those plays of 20 or more yards, which is tied for third-most by a receiver duo this season.

Over the last month or so the Patriots’ offense has had some of its worst moments of the season. Receivers have struggled to separate from man coverage on the outside, and they scored just 20 points (the second-lowest output of the season) during a rare December loss in Miami.

And it does appear that the team misses Brady’s favorite third-down target in Edelman.

Last season, with Edelman and without Gronkowski for half the season, the Patriots converted on 45.8 percent of their third downs, and that number has dipped to 41.7 percent in 2017.

Plus, Brady, although still the favorite to win MVP, has thrown an interception in five-straight games, his longest streak since 2002. He also threw his first picksix of the season on a thirddown play in the second quarter against the Bills in Week 16.

In fact, six of Brady’s eight interceptions this season have come on third down, tied for the fourth-most in the NFL.

So it hasn’t been the dazzling 50-touchdown season for Brady like in 2007, and the Patriots’ offense has missed one of its core players in Edelman.

But they’ve still been the NFL’s best offense in 2017, and that’s helped pave an automatic pass into the divisional round of this season’s playoffs.