Patriots vs. Colts: What Are Experts Saying About New England?

The New England Patriots have made a habit of peaking in the regular season's second half, and that trend has continued into 2014.  The Pats experienced arguably the biggest split of any team over the first nine weeks, ascending from collapsing afterthoughts to consensus Super Bowl contenders. 

At 7-2, the Patriots sit in prime position to secure a first-round bye for the fifth consecutive season.  However, a cozy cruise to the finish line is far from a given, as the Pats face a brutal stretch run that includes six opponents with winning records in their final seven games.

Thus, if New England is to stave off the Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts, its peak must continue into November and December.  Improved health has aided the Pats' five-game winning streak, and it will be interesting to see what schematic adjustments the coaches have conjured over the bye, especially for the revamped front seven.

While comfortable at the moment, the Pats have already illustrated how suddenly a team's circumstances can totally double back.  As New England enters a high-profile Sunday night matchup against AFC rival Indy, let's take a pulse on the national views of the Patriots.

Chris Simms: Brady Not Top 5

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It would seem as though the furor surrounding Tom Brady's decline would have subsided after the 37-year-old's scorching five-game streak.  However, Bleacher Report's Chris Simms made some waves when he excluded Brady from his top-five quarterbacks, as relayed by the MMQB's Peter King:

"

I hate how everybody just says Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are the best two quarterbacks in football. They’re not. Are they gonna be 65 years old and we’ll all be saying, “Brady and Manning are still the best?” Tom Brady’s not in my top five. I mean, he’s still really good, but I like other guys better. I’d go Aaron Rodgers one, Andrew Luck two, Ben Roethlisberger three, Russell Wilson four and Peyton five.

"

Truthfully, it's difficult to garner much statistical support for Simms' argument.  Despite a rough opening month, Brady still ranks fourth in Football Outsiders' DVOA metric and sixth in Expected Points Added per Play (EPA/P), per Advanced Football Analytics.

If one wanted to nitpick, one could point to Brady's persistent deep-ball issues.  For the year, his 35.1 percent accuracy percentage on passes traveling 20 or more yards in the air ranks 18th out of 23 qualified quarterbacks, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).  But even that argument appears fallacious, for if we limit the sample to Week 5 and beyond, Brady's 57.1 percent accuracy ranks fourth in that time span.

Brady has been the league's best quarterback over the past month, with the possible exception of Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers.  It's hard to conjure an argument for Wilson ahead of Brady, as Simms does, though Roethlisberger does rank ahead of the New England QB on many rate stats. 

Simms' claim is not totally unreasonable if he is simply projecting for Brady's decline the rest of the season, but it appears unfounded at the moment.  Ironically, though, one of Brady's biggest offseason detractors has now flipped camps and sits in firm support of Brady as an elite quarterback.

Sam Monson: Brady Is the League's Best QB

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PFF's Sam Monson incited a considerable uproar this summer when he declared that Brady was no longer a top-five quarterback.  However, in a heavy statistical comeuppance, Monson revoked his preseason claim, noting that he and his supporting cast have essentially flipped a switch since the Week 4 catastrophe against the Kansas City Chiefs:

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I still believe that Brady had let his game slip and had been declining in performance for a while, especially in a couple of key areas, but the beginning of this season his teammates kicked that decline into overdrive, culminating in that debacle against the Chiefs. That game has served as the jolt that the entire franchise needed to right the ship. Brady himself has been like a different player since that game, clearly irked by the talk of his poor play and decline, but he has also had help from those around him who have experienced a similar upturn in performance.

"

In calling Brady, "the best quarterback in football," Monson details significant improvements in deep-ball accuracy, passing under pressure and overall accuracy.  But we've already detailed Brady's progress on the previous slide; the real question is about his sustainability.

Brady had a five-game stretch from Weeks 8 to 12 of the 2012 season that was virtually identical statistically.  His 9.74 adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A) led the league, while his 9.73 AY/A over the last five weeks in 2014 ranks second behind Rodgers.  Over the rest of that 2012 campaign, Brady regressed back almost exactly to his career average, posting a 7.73 AY/A.

That latter mark would rank ninth in the league this season, so regression certainly would not make Brady a below-average option.  It's worth noting, however, that FO ranks the remaining Pats' schedule as the second-hardest in the league, which includes matchups against three of the top four defenses by DVOA.  Brady may have been the league's best quarterback over the season's second quarter, but remaining in the top five over the last seven games is far from a cakewalk.

Mike Chappell: Colts Zeroing in on Gronkowski

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"

#colts Pagano: Rob Gronkowski threat. Huge. We've had some TEs hurt us. One of things we spend great deal of time on. Have to slow him down

— Mike Chappell (@mchappell51) November 10, 2014"

It's hardly a secret that Rob Gronkowski is the straw that stirs the drink of the Patriots offense.  Though Indy has received terrific play from corners Vontae Davis and safety Mike Adams, the Colts have no natural middle-of-the-field option who possesses the strength and speed to at least compete with Gronk.

As Chuck Pagano alludes to in the above tweet, the Colts have indeed had their issues covering tight ends this season.  Indy ranks 29th in defensive DVOA against opposing tight ends, who have generated a success rate 36.2 percent above league average, per Football Outsiders. 

Gronkowski does not have much history against this particular Colts defense, as he missed last season's AFC Divisional Game.  The last time he played Indy was Week 11 of the 2012 season, when he shredded the Colts for seven catches, 137 yards and a pair of touchdowns.  Of course, that was also the game he broke his forearm blocking for an extra point, kick-starting his star-crossed string of injury luck over the past two years.

Look for Gronk's red-zone utilization to shoot up to even higher levels than usual this week.  Per Pro-Football-Reference, tight ends have caught five of nine red-zone targets this season versus Indy, converting those catches into four touchdowns.  Bigger tight ends like Julius Thomas and Heath Miller have had success boxing out Indy's tiny secondary, so look for a huge game from Gronkowski unless the Colts are willing to accept potential one-on-one mismatches everywhere else on the field.

Adam Pfeifer: Bradshaw an Issue for Patriots?

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"

Ahmad Bradshaw has 6 receiving touchdowns this year. The Patriots have allowed a league-leading 6 receiving TD to RB this year. #Colts

— Adam Pfeifer (@aPfeiferFF) November 12, 2014"

After the team traded away a first-rounder for a former third overall pick, Indy's best running back is instead an eight-year veteran whose string of recent injuries appeared to have ended his career.  While Trent Richardson continues to putter away three yards at a time, Ahmad Bradshaw has quietly become one of the league's best backs during his first healthy campaign as a Colt.

Bradshaw's 714 yards from scrimmage this season rank 10th among all running backs, which is especially impressive considering that his 117 total touches rank just 24th at the position.  Indeed, he has become an advanced stats darling this year, as Advanced Football Analytics ranks him first among all backs with at least 80 carries in Expected Points Added per Play.

Thus, it's clear that Bradshaw will be a tough matchup for Jamie Collins and/or Dont'a Hightower in coverage.  Pfeifer is not exaggerating New England's issues covering backs, as the Pats rank 22nd in passing DVOA versus running backs, per FO. 

The Pats have been sporadic in that facet, shutting down the likes of Giovani Bernard and Fred Jackson but getting torched by Jamaal Charles, Knowshon Moreno and Ronnie Hillman.  Collins and Hightower will face the whole gamut of challenges against Bradshaw; both must exhibit power in stacking and shedding lead blockers Jack Doyle, Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen while also having the agility and eye discipline to contain Bradshaw on screens and angle routes.

Indianapolis possesses plenty of downfield weapons to vertically stretch the Pats secondary.  But containing Bradshaw would be vital toward stifling some of the Colts' offensive versatility and thus their overall output.

Aaron Schatz: Huge Playoff Implications in Pats vs. Colts

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Ultimately, despite their cushy status as a universally acknowledged championship contender, the Pats are far from locked into a breezy playoff route.  In fact, as FO's Aaron Schatz notes via ESPN Insider (subscription required), the Colts are actually slight favorites over the Patriots to take a first-round bye:

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Yes, even though New England is currently in the top spot in the AFC, we have Indianapolis and Denver, not the Patriots, currently projected to get first-round byes.

Right now, the Colts get a first-round bye in 37 percent of simulations and the Patriots in 30 percent. If we look only at simulations in which the Colts win Sunday night's game, those percentages become 50 percent for the Colts and only 18 percent for the Patriots. If we look only at simulations where the Patriots win Sunday night's game, those percentages become 51 percent for the Patriots and only 16 percent for the Colts.

"

Strength of schedule is the primary reason for the Colts being slight favorites, as FO ranks Indy's remaining schedule the fourth-easiest and New England's the second-hardest.  Indeed, with games against NFC North titans Detroit and Green Bay and a road trip to San Diego, the Pats are in the midst of their toughest month of the season.

However, given the tiebreaking implications of this game, a loss at Lucas Oil Stadium would be far more damaging than, say, to either of the NFC squads.  This is the final game within the Denver-New England-Indianapolis round robin, and a Colts win would nullify head-to-head tiebreakers and bring conference record into play.  There, the Pats and Colts are both 5-2, while Denver is 5-1. 

Even coming off a bye, this is an extremely tough spot for the Patriots.  Given the issues Andrew Luck has had in Foxborough, Sunday's result is vital toward bringing the Colts to New England in the postseason and staving off Luck's ascent to the top of the league.