The Patriots have been known to use the hurry-up offense from a run-based approach in various situations over the past few seasons. In Sunday’s win over the Bears, the Patriots opted to use the quick-snap run offense at the goal-line, and it didn’t produce a touchdown as the team had hoped.

Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels explained the thought process and decision-making in the call to use the quick-snap run offense.

“We’ve always had the ability to try to [quick snap], and it’s been a productive part of our offense the past few years,” McDaniels said in a conference call on Tuesday. “But, I think that ultimately any time you choose to do that and go to the line of scrimmage and try to snap the ball quickly and on any type of play whether it is short-yardage, goal-line, first-and-10, you have to understand that there are going to be some times where the look on defense might not be exactly aligned perfectly because they are trying to hurry up and get aligned as well.”

There have been countless times where the Patriots have caught the opposing defense off-guard, and they've worn down a defense by pounding away with a no-huddle run game. It just didn’t happen in the red zone in the first quarter against the Bears.

“On a couple of those situations, we had a couple guys on the defensive side that made a really good play,” McDaniels said. “And sometimes it’s as simple as that, and they deserve credit too. And they were ready to go and made a good play and stopped us from getting in there.”

To properly use a quick-snap run offense, the Patriots need to get to the line, keep the defense jumbled, assess the misalignments of the defense and hit blocking assignments all in a matter of seconds. The Patriots have had success processing all of those steps and pounding the ball against opposing defenses.

“Sometimes, we have had great success because of [the quick-snap],” McDaniels said. “And that’s the reason for our success is because they haven’t been aligned properly. And other times you kind of fall into a situation where maybe you wish you would have let them get lined up because they ended up in a little bit better situation than what you wanted them to be in defensively as well.”

While the Patriots have employed the quick-snap run offense on a fairly regular basis, McDaniels said it is a game-plan choice each week.

“So, I think you just have to make a choice each week of whether or not it is something you feel good about doing relative to the specific team you are going against in those situations,” McDaniels said. “And try to do a good job of giving the players an opportunity to be successful on the field in those situations when they come up.”