Patriots’ offensive and defensive statistics from divisional playoff game via PFF

Our friends at ProFootballFocus.com were kind enough to share their quick stats from Sunday’s game. Make sure you check out their PFF Edge and PFF Elite products to give you insight, and an edge with your fantasy team. The PFF guys really know the game, so make sure you follow them at @PFF.

Patriots Offensive Stats

Even though the Patriots offensive line did not allow a single sack against Tennessee, they did allow 14 total pressures (1 hit and 13 hurries) on 53 pass blocking snaps. However, their pass blocking efficiency rating of 80.2 was still an improvement from the 76.7 that they achieved in the regular season. While that ranked 23rd, the 80.2 rating would have been good for 11th in the regular season.

Cameron Fleming started the Patriots’ last five regular season games at right tackle, he appeared to play in the Patriots’ Divisional Playoff game only due to LaAdrian Waddle’s injury. However, Fleming once again impressed in his limited playing time as he did not allow a single pressure on his 22 pass blocking plays and was the only Patriots offensive lineman to keep a clean sheet yesterday.

Quarterback Tom Brady did a good job of evading sacks in the Patriots’ first playoff game as he was not sacked on any of his 13 pressured dropbacks. As a comparison, the New England signal caller was sacked on 17.9 percent of his pressured dropbacks in the regular season, which was just the 21st best rate in the NFL.

Danny Amendola proved to be an unstoppable force from the slot against the Titans. Eleven of Amendola’s 12 targets came when he lined up in the slot and he caught all 10 of his catchable targets for 106 receiving yards and averaged 2.94 yards per route run, which was significantly up from his average of 1.78 yards per route run from the slot in the regular season, which ranked 17th in the league. As a comparison, his 2.94 yards per route run from the slot against Tennessee would have ranked second in the regular season.

The Patriots focused on running behind left guard Joe Thuney in their win against the Titans on Saturday night. 11 of New England’s 23 designed runs hit either the gap outside or inside of Thuney. Furthermore, the Patriots gained 43 yards on these carries and averaged 2.1 yards before contact on these runs.

Patriots Defensive Stats

The Patriots excelled in tackling late in the regular season and this has continued in the postseason. New England missed just one tackle in the entire game, which played a big part in limiting big plays and yards after the catch. As a result, they missed just 2.5 percent of their tackle attempts, which is a significant improvement from their missed tackle rate of 12.5 percent in the regular season, which ranked 14th in the NFL.

Cornerback Stephon Gilmore had a terrific outing in his first career playoff game as he shut down Titans wide receivers. Gilmore was targeted a total of four times, but he did not allow a single reception and had a pass breakup. Consequently, the former Buffalo Bill allowed a passer rating of just 39.6 in coverage.

During the regular season Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota was under pressure on just 29.8 percent of his dropbacks, which was the sixth-lowest rate in the NFL. However, the Patriots were able to generate pressure on 39.6 percent of Mariota’s dropbacks and sack the quarterback eight times as well. Furthermore, while the Titans signal caller had a passer rating of 82.7 under pressure in the regular season – the third best in the league – he had a passer rating of just 63.8 yesterday when the New England pass rush got to him.

Edge rusher Trey Flowers once again led the Patriots pass rush while he was in the game. Flowers picked up at least three pressures for the eighth straight time as he recorded a sack, two quarterback hits and a quarterback hurry.

Following his best game of the season against the Jets, rookie interior defender Adam Butler had another strong performance in the first playoff game of his career. Against the Jets Butler picked up more than two pressures for the first time since Week 1 and he was able to follow that up by recording more than two pressures against the Titans as well. The former Vanderbilt player was featured in a situational pass rusher role (was on the field for 24 pass plays and just one play, similarly to Deatrich Wise) and recorded one sack and two hurries on his 24 pass rushing plays.