New England Patriots: 5 Reasons Tom Brady and the Pats Own the Steelers

The New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers are two of the most successful franchises in the NFL since 1994. In fact, they are neck and neck in the success race. The Patriots boast 202 victories to the Steelers' 194, including the postseason. The Patriots hold a .664 to .638 winning percentage edge. The Patriots have five conference titles; the Steelers have four.

Other than the Packers, these two teams are the only ones to have won multiple Super Bowls in that time frame (New England three, Pittsburgh two). Each team has played in an identical 26 playoff games with an identical 17 victories. It doesn't get any tighter than that folks.

And yet, since 2001 the Patriots have gone 6-2 against the Steelers, with one of the losses coming during the Matt Cassel-led 2008 season. What gives? Here are five reasons Tom Brady and the New England Patriots own the Pittsburgh Steelers:

The Passing War

The Steelers defense is typically one of the toughest and stingiest year in and year out. It's a hallmark of this organization and a great symbol of the hard-nosed blue collar work ethic in the Steel City. The pass defense this year is allowing only 171 yards per game, a 78.9 passer rating and 5.3 yards per pass attempt.

Since the advent of Tom Brady, the Patriots have been viciously efficient in carving up defenses through the air, picking them apart this year at a whopping 350 yards per game, a 104.8 passer rating and 9.1yards per pass attempt.

Since 2001, the Patriots are averaging 286.6 yards a game passing against Pittsburgh (not including the 2008 game led by Matt Cassel), a number well below their current clip. But the Cold Hard Football Facts guys will tell you that volume doesn't mean that much. The bigger number is 7.3—the respectable yards per pass attempt the Pats are averaging in those games against the Steelers, two yards above the Steelers' current stinginess.

The past few years, and especially this season, the Patriots have been widely criticized for their porous defense. You might be shocked to know that over the years against the Steelers (all but one game have been against the highly efficient Ben Roethlisberger), the Patriots have held the Steelers' passing attack to a mere 6.8 yards per attempt and 226 yards a game, a far cry from the 8.2 yards per attempt and the 322 yards a game the defense is allowing this year.

Brady holds a 6-1 record against the Steelers largely in part due to his 100-plus overall passer rating in those contests.  Roethlisberger himself has played fairly well against New England, but is roughly 10 rating points lower than Brady and has a 2-4 record in his starts.

New England simply wins the passing war against Pittsburgh more often than not.

Getting After the Quarterback

The Patriots have had their share of struggles putting pressure on quarterbacks the past two years. Fans have clamored for an elite pass-rusher for some time now, only to watch Bill Belichick pass on the likes of Clay Matthews and Ryan Kerrigan in recent drafts.

The Steelers are one team the Patriots seem to get after. Some of that is certainly due to the Steelers seeming to have the same annual problem with their offensive line continuity as the Patriots have with rushing the passer, but give the Pats credit. In the seven Brady games, New England has wracked up 21 sacks, or an average of three per game, and they went without a sack in the 2004 34-20 loss.

Meanwhile, the vaunted Dick LeBeau-blitzing Steelers have only managed 15 sacks against the Patriots in that span, barely two a game. This is a team that year in and year out is at the top of the sack leaders' pack.

Turnovers

Since 1994, the Patriots lead the NFL with a plus-107 turnover margin. The Kansas City Chiefs are No. 2 with a plus-103 margin and, you guessed it, the Steelers are No. 3, but they are far behind these two with a plus-62 margin.

Tom Brady takes care of the ball as well as any quarterback who has ever played the game, and the running backs rarely fumble—in the case of BenJarvus Green-Ellis, he never fumbles. And even when their defense allows enough yards to wrap around the planet three times, they always seem to create critical turnovers.

In the head to head matchups since 2001 not including the Matt Cassel game, the Patriots own a 2-1 turnover edge, snagging 10 interceptions and six fumble recoveries. The Steelers have only forced eight turnovers against the Patriots in that span.

This season the Patriots are far below their torrid turnover margin success rate of last year as they currently hold a mere plus-1 edge margin, but the Steelers are really struggling at a minus-9 margin, both in forcing errors and taking care of the football. With their history against New England, this is a deadly trend.

Yards Per Play Efficiency

The Patriots currently rank No. 1 in the league in average yards per play at a scorching 6.8 yards. Pittsburgh is a respectable eighth at 6.0 yards per play. Last season the Patriots averaged 5.8 yards per play to the Steelers' 5.4.

Most teams this year, it seems, are moving the ball down the field in bigger chunks, but the Patriots have clearly become even more efficient than last year's league leading offense, and that's a scary thought. Pittsburgh's defense only allows 4.7 yards a play, ranking them third overall this season, but it's a bit of a dropoff from last year's 4.5 average. So while the Patriots have gotten better, the Steelers have regressed slightly. Of course, New England's defense is dead last at 6.6, up a full yard from last year's 5.6 yards per play, but they have been playing better as of late.

The Pats only averaged 3.2 yards per rush in the seven Brady-led matchups against Pittsburgh, but it has been enough to keep the Steelers honest while the passing attack carries the load. Meanwhile, the Patriots have managed to keep the Steelers' bread-and-butter rushing attack in check at 4.2 yards a clip while holding them to 122 yards a game; this against a team that generally piles up over 150 yards a game on the ground.

During the head to head matchups of the past 10 years, the Patriots hold the yards per play edge on Pittsburgh at 5.9 to 5.5, so the offense has maintained consistent productivity and improvement while the defense has given up more chunks over the years, yet the defense manages to keep the Steelers down on the scoreboard, which leads to the next point.  

Scoring Efficiency

The Patriots are humming along at their amazingly reliable 30 (30.8 to be exact) points a game clip this season. New England is currently fourth in scoring while Pittsburgh is 19th at 21.6 points; ironically, those scoring averages are nearly identical to the averages during the head to head matchups. The Patriots have outscored the Steelers by an average margin of 30.1 to 21.6 in that 10-year span.

Defensively, the Steelers typically are at the top of the league, ranking third with a 17.4 points per game average. The Patriots, however, aren't as inept as one might think if only looking at the horrific defensive yardage numbers. They are 15th at a 22.5 points per game clip.

The Steelers clearly struggle defensively much more in holding down the Patriots than they do other opponents. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to matter who the opponent is, whether the mighty Steelers or anyone else; the Patriots just seem to have a magic number against the NFL and that is 30 or more.

And as much maligned as that New England defense has been, they aren't that far off that 21.6 points average that previous defenses have held against Pittsburgh.

Conclusion

Throw out all the yards and stats, and sometimes the bottom line in sports is some teams just have other team's numbers—while the stats back it up, it's safe to say the New England Patriots just own the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Many experts say it might have something to do with matchups, and it sure seems to be the case between these two teams.

We've witnessed over the years, Patriots wins where they spread out the Steelers defense with five wide and empty backfields and Brady flings it all over the field to the likes of Deion Branch, David Givens, David Patten and Troy Brown. In fact, only one time in those seven games did Brady attempt less than 39 passes.  If it's not broke, why fix it, right?

In 2007, the Patriots pounded the Steelers by 21 points by going underneath to Wes Welker and deep to Randy Moss.

And last year, we saw them beat the Steelers into submission with two rookie tight ends, with one catching three touchdown passes.

It doesn't matter what the Steelers try defensively, they maintain the same basic 3-4 defensive philosophy—aggressive, attacking defense, and Tom Brady is a surgeon at dissecting blitzing, attacking defenses.  His passer rating this season has actually been higher against the blitz than regular fronts.

If Brady can decipher Rex and Rob Ryan defenses, there's no wonder he has been able to pick apart the Pittsburgh Steelers often enough that the New England Patriots simply own the Pittsburgh Steelers.