This season feels different, though, because the Patriots have a defense that isn’t being claimed as dependents on Tom Brady’s tax return. Led by hired-gun cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, the Patriots secondary can cover receivers like Saran Wrap. The Patriots aren’t simply bending on defense. They’re making air travel as uncomfortable and inconvenient for some of the NFL’s upper-crust quarterbacks as it is for the rest of us.

It’s December déjà vu all over again, as the inimitable Yogi Berra might say. The Patriots are peaking and impressing. They’re getting ready to plop on AFC East Champions caps. Travel plans are being made for the latest version of the Roman Numeral Rumble, better known as Super Bowl XLIX.


Ask Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, and Philip Rivers, whose San Diego Chargers were shut out in the second half Sunday.

The Patriots finally have a defense that appears built to win a big game when the offense falters. Good thing, because there is a common thread that runs through New England’s bitter postseason disappointments since 2007 — the inability to stretch the field in the passing game. Since 2007, every Patriots’ playoff loss has lacked a completion of 40 yards or more. The longest is a 36-yard pass to Wes Welker in the 2010 AFC Divisional playoff loss to the hated Jets.

The lack of a long game reared its head in the last two weeks, a 26-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers and Sunday’s 23-14 victory over the Chargers, as the Patriots have been held under 30 points and 400 yards of offense. Brady didn’t attempt a single pass of 20 yards of more against San Diego, according to the football analysis site Pro Football Focus.

Playoff teams eventually wise up to the Patriots’ precision passing attack. They contest the short, quick throws that are the metier of the Brady-led offense and dare the Patriots to throw the ball down the field. Rather than death by paper cuts, they demand a series of butcher knife prime cuts.


It’s the blueprint for taking down Brady and the Patriots, no matter the gaudy numbers they put up in the regular season. Make them beat you down the field and outside the numbers.

It’s why the Patriots have imported players such as Chad Ochocino, Brandon Lloyd, and now Brandon LaFell to try to counter the strategy.

LaFell has not disappointed, gaining entree into Brady’s circle of trust and putting up career numbers. But the Patriots’ passing game remains a put-put outfit that chugs along with remarkable reliability, not a high-horsepower attack that can smoke its wheels and go from zero to 60 yards.

Since the departure of Randy Moss in 2010 via trade, the Patriots have lacked the ability to take the top off a defense, stretch the field, or any other cliche you want to use for what is commonly known as the deep ball.

It’s the one tool that Bill Belichick’s Swiss Army Knife of a team doesn’t possess.

Yes, the key play in the Patriots’ gutty victory over the Chargers on Sunday was a 69-yard touchdown pass to Julian Edelman, the Patriots’ longest pass play of the season. The ball traveled about 17 yards in the air before Edelman caught it and took it to the house.

Nearly all of the Patriots’ longest pass plays this season are catch-and-run jobs. LaFell’s 56-yard touchdown against the Buffalo Bills in Week 6 was on a deep out that traveled about 20 yards in the air. Rob Gronkowski’s 46-yard catch against the Bears in Week 8 was a smash-and-dash tour de force.


The Patriots rank sixth in the NFL in yards after catch with 1,828 yards, according to STATS Inc.

New England’s deep passing game remains pretty shallow, though. It is not a strength of the 37-year-old Brady’s game.

Out of the 27 NFL quarterbacks that are responsible for at least 50 percent of their teams pass attempts, Brady ranks 25th in accuracy on passes targeted 20 yards or more downfield, according to Pro Football Focus. Only Carolina’s Cam Newton and Oakland rookie Derek Carr rank lower than Brady (32 percent, including passes credited as drops).

Brady ranks 24th in the percentage of his pass attempts per dropback that are targeted 20 or more yards down the field at 10.1 percent, according to Pro Football Focus.

The only quarterbacks with a lower percentage of passes 20 or more yards down the field are New Orleans’s Drew Brees, Jacksonville rookie Blake Bortles, and curiously, Baltimore’s Joe Flacco, who has the top accuracy percentage on such throws at 54.8 percent.

Flacco has thrown 10 touchdown passes on balls that traveled more than 20 yards in the air. The leader is Luck with 12. Aaron Rodgers has 11 and zero interceptions. Brady has thrown four touchdown passes on passes that traveled more than 20 yards and has two interceptions.


It was hard not to watch Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones torching the Packers secondary Monday night for 259 yards and think that was the path of least resistance against the Packers.

Big plays matter because they equate to margin for error. If you have to consistently string together 10-, 11-, and 12-play drives to march down the field it requires a greater level of consistent execution than if you can pick up 40 yards on a deep throw every once in a while.

The ability to complete the long ball also forces a defense to commit resources to protect against it and can open running lanes near the line of scrimmage.

If the Patriots want to go to the deepest point of the playoffs and end their Super Bowl title drought, they should use the last three weeks of the season against their AFC East foils to add the threat of the deep ball to their repertoire.

Playing the short game has seen them come up short when it matters most.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.