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

Following consecutive 22-point victories over the top two AFC contenders, the New England Patriots look like the NFL's most complete team.  Since Week 5, New England's plus-115 point differential is tops in the entire league; the Green Bay Packers are the only other team even within shouting distance.

While the Pats are far from clinching anything, the focus is now on optimizing themselves for January.  Now that there are no doubts about the Patriots' viability as contenders, the rest of the regular season is not only about wins and losses but also gearing themselves to peak during the postseason.

The national perspective on the Pats seems to reflect this, as many are taking the long view on New England.  Examining some of the most prominent analysts, let's take a look at how the Patriots have risen to the top of the league hierarchy, as well as what their future outlook may be.

Chris Burke: Collins a Burgeoning Star

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Most of the fallout from the Week 11 victory centered on New England's suddenly multidimensional offense.  However, the defense has possessed that kind of versatility all season, and as SI.com's Chris Burke opines, the breakout of second-year linebacker Jamie Collins has played a large factor:

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He has seen far more playing time in year two of his NFL career than he did in year one, yet it's been the past month or so that Collins has taken his game to another level. We saw how he has done so again Sunday: with an athleticism that allows him to be equally adept covering guys like Bradshaw as he is hitting a gap at the line of scrimmage.

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Collins struggled over the first few weeks while dealing with a lingering thigh injury.  However, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), he has played 280 out of 298 defensive snaps since Jerod Mayo's season-ending injury, serving as the front seven's most versatile weapon.  Though he had roughly one month of similar experience at the end of 2013, it remains impressive to see Collins adapt to an expanded role so seamlessly.

With Chandler Jones injured, perhaps the most impressive facet of Collins' improvement has been his pass-rushing from both the edge and interior. Among inside linebackers, he ranks second in pass-rushing productivity, having compiled 12 pressures in just 37 rushes. 

Half of those pressures have come in the last two games, as Bill Belichick has been much more liberal in his blitz frequency and creativity.  At this point, New England's best pressure scheme entails Collins and Dont'a Hightower "sugaring" the center in a double A-gap blitz look.

For now, it would hardly be a stretch to label Collins the front seven's most indispensable player, though Hightower, Vince Wilfork and Rob Ninkovich could also make cases.  Nevertheless, that's an astounding leap for a player who was considered too raw to immediately produce coming out of Southern Miss. 

Football Outsiders: Gray's Game One of 10 Best Since 1999

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With a scoring change bumping Jonas Gray's Sunday night total up to 201 rushing yards and four touchdowns, it's clear that his performance was an all-time great from a fantasy football perspective.  However, as Football Outsiders' Vincent Verhei measures, using FO's Yards Above Replacement (YAR) metric, Gray also turned in one of the 10 most impactful rushing games since 1999:

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Gray averaged 5.2 yards on a whopping 38 carries. Only four other men have had a higher average with such a heavy workload. More impressive than the totals, however, was Gray's consistency. There were no 90-yard carries skewing that average; his longest run gained only 20 yards. Gray's yeoman-like effort produced a whopping 15 first downs on the ground. That's the most for any player in a game this year, and only the sixth time a player has hit double digits in this category.

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Because Gray has just 70 carries on the season, his numbers are heavily skewed because of his one exemplary 38-carry game.  Still, if he had enough carries to qualify, Gray would rank 11th in Defense-adjusted YAR (DYAR), right behind Matt Forte and ahead of the likes of Frank Gore and Eddie Lacy.

The question, of course, is whether he can sustain an above-average level of performance.  After all, the now-available LeGarrette Blount took advantage of a crack in the door last season to run away with the full-time job.  With some openly wondering if Blount could return to Foxborough, Gray cannot afford to rest on his one breakout performance, a la Mike Cloud.

Unfortunately, the sample size is too small to conduct a meaningful statistical analysis of how likely Gray is to remain productive.  His game log, though, seems to portray a player who is heavily dependent on his offensive line.  His two best performances came against Chicago and Indy teams who were too small to control the trenches, while he largely floundered against the Broncos' and Jets' strong D-lines.

The Pats will face an abundance of impressive front sevens down the stretch, so Gray will get the chance to diffuse any skepticism.  Still, it's encouraging to see that if the Pats commit to a run-heavy game plan, Gray is capable of delivering.

Bill Barnwell: Pats Continue to Buy Low on RBs

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Over the last decade, Bill Belichick has earned acclaim for his ability to coax production out of obscure acquisitions.  Though Belichick the general manger came under fire earlier this season, Grantland's Bill Barnwell highlights one of his best qualities, namely his ability to unearth cheap ground-game production:

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The out-of-nowhere arrival of Gray speaks to another classic Belichick tenet: his faith in buying low on running backs...After letting Blount go to the Steelers in free agency and losing Stevan Ridley to a torn ACL and MCL, New England happily plugged in Gray and found results. It’s the same organization that bought low on Antowain Smith, Sammy Morris, and Danny Woodhead while turning BenJarvus Green-Ellis from an undrafted free agent into a starter. In fact, most of the Patriots’ serious investments at the position — the contract extension for Corey Dillon, their first-round pick on Laurence Maroney — haven’t quite worked out.

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It's no secret that teams can get terrific running production without significant draft capital investment.  Yes, the running game is becoming less central to NFL offenses, but that fact has played as large a role in the diminishing draft stock of running backs as anything else. 

New England has drafted just four running backs in the first three rounds during the Belichick era, two of which (Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen) are currently on the roster.  The Pats essentially traded Cierre Wood for Gray on January 10, as New England and the Baltimore Ravens poached from each other's practice squad. 

So for those keeping record, the Patriots have given up Wood, Jeff Demps and a seventh-rounder for two backs who have combined to compile 367 rushing yards and eight touchdowns in the last two meetings against the Colts.  That's the definition of shrewd purchasing, and part of the reason why the Pats are on their way to extending their streak of 11 consecutive seasons with double-digit wins.

Mike Sando: Fast Starts Protecting O-Line

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The Patriots offensive line has undeniably made strides since settling on a new starting combination in Week 5.  After conceding sacks on 6.5 percent of dropbacks through the first month, that number is all the way down to 4.1 percent on the season, eighth-best in the league, per TeamRankings.com.  Though acknowledging personnel improvements, ESPN.com's Mike Sando (subscription required) believes that game situation, rather than significant personnel improvement, has played the largest role in that monumental leap:

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The Patriots have not trailed by more than five points since their Week 4 game at Kansas City. Tom Brady has one touchdown pass, two interceptions and a 35.5 QBR score when New England has trailed by at least that many points. He entered Sunday night with 21 TD passes and one pick in all other situations.

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Sando is correct in asserting that the Pats have jumped on teams early.  Since Week 5, New England's plus-83 point differential trails only Green Bay for the best mark in the league, per Pro-Football-Reference.  That mark improves to plus-88 after three quarters, as the Patriots have really hardly been challenged during their six-game winning streak.  According to PFR, New England has run just 30 offensive plays in fourth-quarter one-possession situations during the streak, sixth-fewest in the league over that span.

However, while game situation obviously helps, simple regression to the mean has played a role as well.  For instance, since Week 5, Nate Solder has posted a 96.6 percent pass-blocking efficiency, which ranks seventh among tackles in that time, per PFF.  More importantly, it's much more in line with the 95.3 percent mark he posted each of the last two seasons, as opposed to the 94.0 percent rate he had through the first month.  In some cases, small sample size can explain away the line's issues.

More importantly, though, having a defined starting five erases much of the uncertainty that surrounded the shuffling during training camp and preseason.  Chemistry and continuity were always going to help mask some issues, and the Pats are finally reaping the rewards of settling on their long-term line combination.

Scott Kacsmar: History on Pats Side

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Matthew Stafford: 0-15 on the road vs. winning teams. Week 12: Lions at Patriots. pic.twitter.com/4M4MgMzSUK

— Scott Kacsmar (@FO_ScottKacsmar) November 17, 2014"

The Week 11 win provided plenty to digest, but in reality, the Patriots cannot afford a drop-off against a Detroit Lions team that could earn a first-round bye in the brutally competitive NFC (South excluded).  However, while much of the attention will revolve around the titanic clash between New England's offense and Detroit's defense, it's clear that Matthew Stafford will need to bring his A-game into a hostile environment for the Lions to pull the upset.

As Kacsmar illustrates, Stafford's career track record bodes ominously in that regard.  Over half of those games have come within the last two seasons, so it's not as if Stafford was struggling when Detroit was in the talent-acquisition phase.  Last Sunday, against an Arizona Cardinals team that plays a similar brand of physical coverage as the Pats, Stafford went 18-of-30 for just 183 yards and one interception.

In Foxborough, the Pats defense has barely bent over the past two seasons.  Using 7.1 adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A) as the baseline (this year's league average), only six of 13 starting quarterbacks have even posted an above-average AY/A at Gillette Stadium, per Pro-Football-Reference.  Drew Brees and Peyton Manning (twice) failed to record an above-average mark (though, for what it's worth, Jason Campbell and Thad Lewis did).

Stafford has been much less mistake-prone this season, adopting more three-step-drop passing concepts and getting the ball out quicker.  Nevertheless, against a Pats defense that rarely concedes big plays, that kind of dink-and-dunk conservatism would eliminate almost any margin for error.  Unless Calvin Johnson gets loose from bracket coverage multiple times, do not expect many fireworks from the Lions offense.