Boston Sports Then and Now

On the surface, it is easy for any fan to see just how good or bad of a season their team has had. Whether it be wins and losses or total points put up, some stats tell the story, god or bad, of the year of their favorite team.

What most fans fail to sometimes realize, however, is all the stats that go into making an NFL team successful. Here are a bunch you would never even think to remotely consider about the 2012 season of the New England Patriots.

You name it. If it can be statistically tracked in the NFL, it’s probably in this post.

0 – The number of wins the team had when their leading rusher was under 40 yards for the game (0-2).

0 – The Patriots had no two-point conversions on the year. Just kind of odd.

0.5 – Brandon Bolden averaged half a yard more per carry than Stevan Ridley did.

1 – The number of franchises to score 500 points four different times. New England accomplished that this year after 500-point seasons in 2007, 2010 and 2011 as well.

1 – The New England offense ranked first in the NFL in total yards, yards per game, points and points per game in 2012.

1 – Of the four members of the team who finished the year as the starting secondary, only one (Devin McCourty) was on the team last year. Alfonzo Dennard, Aqib Talib, Steve Gregory were the other three.

1 – Vince Wilfork‘s four forced fumbles were tied for first in the NFL.

1 – The number of full games that tight ends Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski were both on the field for the whole contest – the season finale against the Dolphins.

1 – The number of NFL quarterbacks to throw at least one touchdown pass in all 16 regular season games for three straight seasons – Tom Brady in 2010-12.

2 – The number of teams to ever win 10-plus games in 10 consecutive seasons – the Patriots became the second to accomplish that this year.

2 – Their two-game losing streak in Weeks 2 and 3 was tied for their longest losing streak since they lost four straight in the 2002 season.

2 – This season was the second time they have gone undefeated against the AFC East, joining the 2007 team.

2 – The number of teams to ever record 400 first downs in a season – the 2012 Pats and the 2011 Saints.

2 – The number of points that Stephen Gostkowski needed to tie the all-time single-season Patriots scoring record set by Gino Cappelletti in 1964.

3 – Pass plays in the NFL this season longer than Shane Vereen‘s 83-yard reception in Week 12.

3 – It had been three years since the Patriots lost four or more games in a season (10-6 in 2009).

3 – The Pats have scored 500-plus points in three consecutive seasons.

The Patriots’ offense has been nearly unstoppable in the three years since drafting this duo.

4 – New England had four different players lead the team in receiving in their 16 games – Brandon Lloyd (3), Wes Welker (9), Gronkowski (3) and Vereen (1).

4 – It was Brady’s fourth career season of throwing 30 or more touchdown passes, good for a tie for the fourth-most all-time.

4 – Welker finished four receptions behind league-leader Calvin Johnson, who had 122 on the year.

4 – The Patriots have made the playoffs in each of the last four seasons.

4 – The team had four different players lead them in rushing in their 16 games – Ridley (13), Bolden (1), Julian Edelman (1) and Danny Woodhead (1).

5 – There have only been five Patriots running backs to rush for 1,200 yards in the team’s history. Ridley became the fifth this year.

5 – Wilfork was elected to the fifth Pro Bowl of his career and will start on the defensive line for the AFC.

5 – The team has held its opponents to 20 points or less in five of six games since Nov. 18 (5-1).

6 – In 16 games, the Patriots only lost six fumbles.

6 – The Pats finished six spots higher in total defense this year compared to last season when they finished 31st in the league.

6 – New England has been a top-10 offense in the NFL for six straight seasons.

7 – The amount of consecutive games that Brady needs to throw a touchdown pass in to break the all-time record of 54.

7 – New England’s longest winning streak of the year from Week 7 through Week 14.

7 – The number of points that Brady’s total QBR trailed Peyton Manning‘s for tops in the league.

7 – McCourty was one of seven NFL players to return a kickoff more than 100 yards on the year.

7 – The team sent seven members to the Pro Bowl in 2012.

New England’s seven Pro Bowlers in 2012 are the third-most in the league.

7 – Last year’s NFL leader in interceptions, Kyle Arrington, had seven fewer interceptions in 2012 than a year ago. He had seven in 2011.

8 – The number of years it had been since the team had a 1,200-yard rusher before this year. Corey Dillon rushed for 1,635 yards in 2004.

8 – Rob Ninkovich led the team with eight sacks on the year.

8 – The Pats had eight return TD’s on the season.

9 – The number of games in which the starting offensive line of Nate Solder, Sebastian Vollmer, Ryan Wendell, Dan Connolly and Logan Mankins were all on the field together.

9 – Brady now ranks ninth on the NFL’s all-time passing list with 44,806 yards. He needs 1,427 yards to pass Vinny Testaverde.

9 – Ridley finished the season as one of just nine non-kickers in the top-40 in the league in scoring.

9 – The team has a nine-game division win streak heading into next season.

10 – The number of consecutive 10-win seasons for the Patriots – the second longest such streak ever (16).

10 – The team scored 30-plus points 10 times in their 16 games in 2012 (8-2).

10 – The number of players who had a rushing attempt for the Pats in 2012 led by Ridley’s 290 carries.

10 – New England had 10 more sacks than it allowed in 2012.

11 – They also had 11 more interceptions than their opponents did.

11 – The combined number of points New England fell by in its four losses against the Cardinals (2), Ravens (1), Seahawks (1) and 49ers (7).

11 – The number of current and former Pro Bowl running backs that Ridley out-rushed in 2012.

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The Patriots treated service men and women both still in New England and abroad to a Veterans Day win on Sunday as they found a way to hold on and beat the Bills 37-31 in a shootout at home with the help of a couple of crucial Buffalo turnovers and 14 penalties.

The Bills had a chance to win it as they got the ball back with just over two minutes remaining, trailing by six following Stephen Gostkowski‘s third field goal of the day, but Ryan Fitzpatrick was picked off by Devin McCourty in the endzone with less than 30 seconds left – the Bills’ second red zone turnover of the day. Somehow McCourty ended up being huge for the Patriots in this win, something that will need to continue down the stretch if the Patriots want to make a deep playoff run. He figured in both Buffalo red zone turnovers in the 2nd half, which were clearly monumental in securing the win for the Pats.

In an ugly game that featured virtually no defense and its fair share of drops, the team that had the ball last surprisingly didn’t win. The Bills were called for 14 penalties – 6 of which came in the 1st quarter alone. After a 3rd & 1 on their opening drive, Buffalo was guilty of three straight penalties and conceded possession with a draw on 3rd & 21 that put them out of scoring range.

New England got the scoring started with the first of three Gostkowski field goals on their opening drive. Gostkowski connected from 43 yards out to put the home team on top 3-0 with six minutes left in the 1st quarter. The Pats were forced to settle for the field goal, however, after Wes Welker dropped a slightly high pass from Tom Brady with nothing but the goal post in front of him.

The Pats were also aided by two dropped interceptions resulting from tipped passes at the line of scrimmage. Deion Branch caught two balls on the drive, equaling his most productive game reception wise all season. Branch would finish with four catches on the day for 30 yards – the most catches he’s had for the Patriots this year.

On the ensuing Buffalo drive, Vince Wilfork sacked Fitzpatrick for his first sack of the year believe it or not and forced a fumble to be recovered by Jermaine Cunningham at the Bills’ 13-yard line. Three plays later, Stevan Ridley punched it in from a yard out to make the score 10-0 Patriots. Ridley finished with 98 yards on 22 carries and had 100 until a loss of two in the 4th quarter set him back below the century mark. The Pats were aided by two pass interference calls on the Bills in the endzone on the very quick drive.

After one, the Patriots led 10-0, the Bills had committed six penalties for 40 yards and turned the ball over leading to a New England touchdown. But, as we have seen in the last three meetings between these two teams, an early lead is never safe.

The Bills would kick a field goal to cut the lead to seven and then Brady led the Patriots on a methodical drive using the no-huddle to perfection and Danny Woodhead ran the ball in untouched from 15 yards out to put New England on top by 14 and their largest margin of the day at 17-3. Woodhead was responsible for the final three plays on the drive as Brady fed the ball to the hot hand. Both Welker and Rob Gronkowski came up big on the drive as Brady floated a perfect pass to Gronk right down the middle of the field to gain 24 yards on 1st down.

Feeling a bit of urgency, the Bills quickly answered the latest Patriots’ score with one of their own. Fred Jackson ran through about seven Patriots tacklers on his way to the endzone from 14 yards out to bring it back within seven. Fitzpatrick was perfect on the drive, completing all three of his passes and bringing his total to seven straight completions. A 12-yard C.J. Spiller burst on the previous play set up Jackson, who made McCourty’s tackling attempt look like that of a pee wee player.

Like they so often do, the Patriots came right back and Brady connected with a diving Gronkowski in the corner of the endzone to make it 24-10. Gronk now has five touchdown catches in his last three games, but chose to celebrate this one with a traditional American spike. He finished with three catches for 31 yards and the score on the day and now has at least one touchdown catch in all six career games against the Bills. The TD pass marks the 41st straight game in which Brady has recorded a touchdown throw and he remains 11 behind Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, who threw at least one touchdown in his 52nd straight game in Sunday’s upset win over the previously undefeated Falcons. The Pats were helped by 69 more Buffalo penalty yards on the drive.

Now of course that wasn’t the end of the scoring for the half in this wildly offensive game. With 31 seconds left, Fitzpatrick found Patriot killer Scott Chandler for a 3-yard score as Dont’a Hightower somehow lost the big tight end in the endzone. After a slight bobble, Chandler held on for his fifth touchdown catch of the year and third against the Patriots. It was 24-17 at the half and with the late touchdown drive by the Bills, the crowd was taken out of it for the time being.

Getting the ball first in the 2nd half, it would serve the Patriots well to come away with points, but their opening drive of the half stalled and Brady adamantly voiced his displeasure with Welker, who may have run the wrong route a couple of plays earlier. Brady was then sacked on 3rd down and openly voiced his displeasure with his offensive line as well. After scoring on their first four possessions, the Pats failed to come away with points again.

After a Buffalo punt, the next Patriots drive was much more Patriot-like. They struck quickly and efficiently, going 39 yards in 1:39 as Brady found Woodhead for his second touchdown catch of the day and the 31-17 lead. Sunday was the first time in his five-year NFL career that Woodhead has recorded a multi-touchdown game. For the sixth time in nine games, the Patriots offense hit the 30 point plateau (5-1). Brady would finish the game 23-38 for 237 yards and two touchdowns.

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Will Gronkowski dominate his hometown team once again?

The second half of the season has arrived for the 2012 New England Patriots. With a roller coaster 5-3 start, Bill Belichick and crew have weathered the storm to settle on top of the AFC East. Furthermore, the Patriots went on their Week 9 bye after an impressive schoolyard stomping of the Rams – winning 45-7 and looking like the unstoppable 2007 attack. Since 2003, Belichick teams hold a record of 8-1 in games after the bye, New England lost to Pittsburgh 25-17 last year. The jury is still not out on the 2012 Patriots, three of the next four games come against division rivals.

The 3-5 Buffalo Bills will travel into Gillette Stadium this Sunday, creating an opportunity for the Patriots to distinguish themselves and cement their slot atop the AFC East for good. New England has not lost a game in the second half of the season since Week 17 of the 2009 season. Buffalo has not beat the Patriots on the road since Week 10 of 2000, will the tables turn? Check out these three keys to victory for the Patriots to extend their second half success come Sunday:

1) Run the Ball: It was not too long ago (Week 4) that the Patriots dropped a 45-point half and 580 total yards to dismantle the hopeful Bills at home. How did New England achieve their success? For starters, the team rushed 40 times – spreading the love to Bolden (16 ATT, 137 yards, 1 TD) and Ridley (22 ATT 106 yards, 2 TD). Brady even joined the mix with a four-yard TD scamper that fired up the Hall-Of-Famer and his squad on the bench.

The Patriots need to keep the Bills on their heels by executing a balanced offensive attack. Week in and week out opposing defenses face the challenge of stopping the monster that is the New England offensive unit. Buffalo is coming off a 21-9 loss to the Houston Texas where Arian Foster rushed for 111 yards and Andre Johnson hauled in 8 rec for 118 yards. The week before that, Chris Johnson ripped Buffalo for 198 yards and 2 TD on the ground. Setting up success in the pass game will rely heavily on New England’s ability to expose the Bills pompous rush defense, Buffalo ranks second to last in the NFL with 169.2 YPG and last in YPC, giving up 5.6 yards per scamper.

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Patriots running backs, Brandon Bolden (38) and Stevan Ridely celebrate after Bolden’s rushing touchdown on Sunday (via @BB_HulkSmash).

Before last Sunday’s offensive explosion in Buffalo, we didn’t know much about rookie running back, Brandon Bolden. Just yet another “Brandon” on the Patriots active roster (one of four).

We knew he was a rookie, he was undrafted and he wore # 38. That, and he sports some brownish-orangeish dreadlocks that stick out of the back of his helmet.

Eventually, as we all scrambled to follow him on Twitter, it became apparent that he may try to model his tough style of running after the Incredible Hulk. Tweets to @BB_HulkSmash were certainly pouring in from friends and family and even appreciative fans on Sunday as the running back took time to respond to many of them.

Bolden went off for 137 yards on 16 carries with a touchdown in Sunday’s win at Buffalo. And we were all like, “Oh, hey. That kid might have some skills.”

The Patriots signed the 5 foot 11, 220 pound Baton Rouge native  as an undrafted free agent on May 10, 2012. Four and a half months later, he became the AFC’s Ground Player of the Week following his dazzling performance against the Bills.

In the first three weeks of the 2012 season, the 22-year-old Bolden ran the ball a total of seven times for 15 yards and a touchdown. He easily blew those numbers away on Sunday as he and Stevan Ridley combined to be the first pair of Patriots teammates to each rush for 100 yards in the same game since 1982.

Bolden attended Scotlandville Magnet High School in Baton Rouge, La. In four seasons at the University of Mississippi, under head coach, Houston Nutt, Bolden rushed for a total of 2,604 yards – good enough for fourth in the school’s history.

He also finished his 4-year career having played in 48 games, only missing two games in his senior season, which saw the Rebels win just two games and miss out on postseason play for the second straight year.

To go along with his 2,406 career rushing yards, Bolden also ranks second in school history with 33 total touchdowns, second with 27 career rushing touchdowns and third with 3,681 all-purpose yards.

Racking up those kinds of numbers over four years in the SEC – the NFL’s minor leagues – is nothing short of impressive. Even though he wasn’t drafted alongside names like Trent Richardson and Doug Martin, he still made it to where he wanted to be – on an NFL field, helping an NFL team win.

That’s just where he finds himself. Right in the thick of the greatest football in the world for one of the most storied franchises the game has seen in recent memory.

He is also fortunate, should he continue to keep hearing his number called, to get to play in the same division as great backs like C.J. Spiller, Reggie Bush and Shonn Greene.

Should he keep getting the ball though? Was this performance just a fluke?

Well, no one can call it a fluke for certain until he has a chance to run the ball again. The Patriots could never hand him the ball again and he’d never have another bad game.

Something tells me, however, that he’s got at least one more boatload of carries coming his way this week against Denver. Bill Belichick tends to like to ride the hot hand and they don’t get much hotter than Bolden’s.

The Broncos do have the league’s 9th ranked rushing defense, however, which features both Elvis Dumervil and Von Miller in its front seven. Last week, Bolden faced the league’s 28th ranked rush defense in the Bills. Hey, that just means that another dynamic performance this week will make him all the more impressive.

After being owned in just over 3 percent of ESPN Fantasy Football leagues in Week 4, Bolden has jumped up to a more respectable 18%. Who knows, that number might keep growing if he keeps producing like he did last week. He should also be thankful the offensive line decided to show up.

The Patriots host Peyton Manning and the Broncos tomorrow afternoon in Foxboro in a rematch of last year’s AFC Divisional Playoff game – minus Tebow Mania.

Follow me on Twitter @RealAndyLarmand.

Rob Gronkowski and Wes Welker celebrate after a 2nd half touchdown – 6 of the 45 points that New England scored in the 2nd half of their 52-28 win over Buffalo.

The Patriots panic? Yeah, right. “Panic” is probably one of the words on the list that nobody in the New England locker room ever uses.

Even a Week 4 game at 1-2 in Buffalo, where they were stunned last year, is no cause for concern.

Why not?

Two words: Tom Brady.

Buffalo, the perennial 3^rd place AFC East team, came into they day at 2-1, one game ahead of the Patriots for 2^nd place in the division. After a 7-point 1^st half, Brady and the offense erupted for 45 2^nd half points and beat the Bills in Buffalo, 52-28 in their division opener.

There was no more time to mess around and the three-time champs made that very clear early on. Following a Buffalo punt on its opening drive, Brady went to work and drove the team 90 yards down the field in just over three minutes to jump out on top 7-0.

The drive was capped by a Stevan Rdley six-yard run and highlighted by a 41-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski, who almost doubled his receiving yards from last week (21) with the catch. Brady was 5-5 for 80 yards on the drive. Believe it or not, it was the first time this season that the team has scored on its opening drive. Everyone was on point the entire drive. Yes, even the offensive line.

After that methodical and seemingly easy drive and the inability to turn two Bills’ interceptions into points, however, the offense sputtered and the next drives ended in punts, a missed field goal and a Gronkowski fumble, which the Bills capitalized on as Ryan Fitzpatrick threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to tight end, Scott Chandler on the very next play to tie the score at seven.

The ensuing drive again yielded nothing as Stephen Gostkowski missed his second field goal attempt of the day and gave the ball back to the Bills. Fitzpatrick threw another touchdown pass, this time down the middle, to Chandler to give the Bills their first lead of the day at 14-7 with 3:30 remaining in the 1^st half and had Patriots fans all over New England thinking this couldn’t be happening again.

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Can Brady and the Patriots rise up against adversity?

“It’s not like we sit here in the locker room and say, ‘God, we’re terrible, we can’t make any plays, we’re not even in these games.’ We’re right in them. We just have to do a better job in certain areas. If we do that, we’ll start winning close games. If we don’t, we’ll have a miserable year. No one wants that around here.” Who better than Tom Brady to sum up the Patriots worst start since 2001 (1-3).

New England finished (11-5) and upset the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams (14-2) in Super Bowl XXXVI that year, but Belichick and company are treading in unfamiliar waters in 2012.  So are a few of the squads listed below, take a look at the 2012 records of the 2011 playoff teams in the NFL:

AFC                                                           NFC                                                

New England Patriots (1-2)                  New Orleans Saints (0-3)

Denver Broncos (1-2)                             Green Bay Packers (1-2)

Pittsburgh Steelers (1-2)                        Detroit Lions (1-2)

Cincinati Bengals (2-1)                          New York Giants (2-1)

Baltimore Ravens (3-1)                          San Francisco 49ers (2-1)

Houston Texans (3-0)                           Atlanta Falcons (3-0)

The Patriots sit a game behind division rivals Jets (2-1) and Bills (2-1). New York will be hosting a 49ers team that was upset by the Vikings last week. The Bills are coming off a victory against the Browns in Cleveland and are poised to defend Ralph Wilson Stadium. Buffalo beat New England 34-31 last year at home for the first time since 2003. The implications of this game far outweigh the title of an “Early season AFC East matchup”. It’s hard to decipher the madness of the 2012 NFL Season thus far, we can only embrace it. These three keys to victory should help the Patriots climb back up to .500: