I do not understand what happened to New England’s pass rush. In the regular season, it appeared to be about the worst in the league. In the playoffs, it became a driving force in derailing the league’s two highest-scoring offenses.
If we wind the clock back a month, the Patriots finished the regular season with only 30 sacks. Only the Raiders had fewer. New England doesn’t have an elite pass rusher. It had Chandler Jones once upon a time, who’s had 17 and 13 sacks the last two years, but it traded him to Arizona. There’s no mismatch freak on that defense who commands double teams.
Trey Flowers comes closet. He had 7.5 sacks in the regular season.
Yet the Patriots had 10 sacks in three postseason games, plus a whole bunch of rhythm-altering pressure. And they did so despite facing three quarterbacks who don’t tend to take sacks. Philip Rivers, Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff took only 32, 26 and 33 sacks in regular season.
I don’t think any of New England’s players developed into better pass rushers in January than they were in November and December. I suppose the Patriots instead more frequently cut their linebackers loose as pass rushers (why they didn’t do so in the regular season, I have no idea.)
Kyle Van Noy (pictured) had 3 sacks in the playoffs; he had only 3.5 in the regular season. Donta Hightower had 2 sacks in the postseason; he had only one in the regular season.
Through the design of the defense, the Patriots turned what appeared to be a bottom-5 pass rush into more of a top-5 pass rush (considering the opponents they were playing). New England in the regular season sacked the quarterback on fewer than 5 percent of pass plays. It was up close to 8 percent in the playoffs.
| PASS RUSHES | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| team | Att | Sck | Pct |
| Minnesota | 503 | 50 | 9.0% |
| Arizona | 506 | 49 | 8.8% |
| Pittsburgh | 566 | 52 | 8.4% |
| Detroit | 496 | 43 | 8.0% |
| Washington | 537 | 46 | 7.9% |
| New Orleans | 573 | 49 | 7.9% |
| Green Bay | 527 | 44 | 7.7% |
| Patriots (playoffs) | 120 | 10 | 7.7% |
| Kansas City | 632 | 52 | 7.6% |
| Chicago | 615 | 50 | 7.5% |
| Denver | 549 | 44 | 7.4% |
| Seattle | 546 | 43 | 7.3% |
| LA Rams | 533 | 41 | 7.1% |
| Baltimore | 577 | 43 | 6.9% |
| Jacksonville | 499 | 37 | 6.9% |
| Buffalo | 492 | 36 | 6.8% |
| Tennessee | 533 | 39 | 6.8% |
| Houston | 594 | 43 | 6.8% |
| Dallas | 542 | 39 | 6.7% |
| Tampa Bay | 534 | 38 | 6.6% |
| Philadelphia | 626 | 44 | 6.6% |
| Indianapolis | 542 | 38 | 6.6% |
| LA Chargers | 548 | 38 | 6.5% |
| San Francisco | 542 | 37 | 6.4% |
| NY Jets | 582 | 39 | 6.3% |
| Carolina | 529 | 35 | 6.2% |
| Atlanta | 585 | 37 | 5.9% |
| Miami | 508 | 31 | 5.8% |
| Cleveland | 626 | 37 | 5.6% |
| Cincinnati | 584 | 34 | 5.5% |
| NY Giants | 560 | 30 | 5.1% |
| Patriots (reg. season) | 605 | 30 | 4.7% |
| Oakland | 480 | 13 | 2.6% |
—Ian Allan