PITTSBURGH — Rejoice, Patriots' fans. Sunday marked the end of New England's regular-season road slate for 2018, the conclusion of a sad and sorrowful tale for the Patriots' offense.
As the postseason looms, the home-road splits for the New England offense are jarring. The Patriots’ closed out their regular-season road slate averaging 21.6 points per game away from Gillette. That includes three games this year where the New England offense barely broke into double digits with 10 points. In all, the last time the Patriots’ offense was this anemic away from home when it came to scoring points?
It was 2009, when they averaged 22.1 per game on the road in the regular season.
The good news? They don't play any more games on the road, at least when it comes to the regular season. But for a team that will now likely have to spend a sizable portion of the postseason on the road if it wants to reach its ultimate destination, the offensive struggles away from Gillette could be a major obstacle.
“We’re obviously haven’t played well on the road,” said quarterback Tom Brady. “Obviously, what we’re doing isn’t good enough. It’s a cumulative thing. We’re out here as a team trying to compete (and) when you’re on the road, you have to play well. Some things are just a little bit more challenging on the road. We have to embrace those things, and we just haven’t done a great job on that.”
No one preaches the value of complementary football more than the Patriots. But on Sunday against the Steelers, the offense let the defense (and special teams) down, setting the stage for New England’s second straight gut-punch of a road loss.
• The offense was flagged for eight of the 14 penalties, including two on a late drive that saw the Patriots reach the Pittsburgh 5-yard line, only to be pushed back to the 21 because of a false start on left tackle Trent Brown, and later, a holding call on Marcus Cannon. New England was in a second-and-16 when Brady was flushed from the pocket and ended up tossing a bad ball for the end zone in the direction of Julian Edelman that was picked off.
WOW.@joehaden23 picks off TB12!
?: CBS
WATCH: https://t.co/wt3rDg2WEM #HereWeGo pic.twitter.com/gOBPJBiLp7
— NFL (@NFL) December 16, 2018