The only thing you can definitively say about the Patriots' offense after their 34-13 victory over the Bengals is this:
New England's offensive personnel is currently so bad that, in order to secure a victory against a 1-12 team to end a two-game losing streak, the coaching staff allowed an obviously compromised Julian Edelman to take the field, putting the rest of his season, career and the ultimate success of this team in danger.
Actually, that's what will be the epitaph of this team should it fall short of defending its Super Bowl title. Oh, right, and, "Thanks, Tom. Good luck in your future endeavors."
Other than that, the Patriots' offense was a mixed bag. The important thing was that it began to take the small, incremental steps, that we talked about last week, needed to become a viable offense in time for the divisional round of the playoffs.
Will that mean it will, similar to last season, start to gain confidence that rolls into the postseason and gives them enough ammunition to win a Super Bowl title with Stephon "Deion Sanders" Gilmore and the rest of the defense limiting the opponent and outscoring them?
Maybe. Who knows? But at least they'll have a chance.
This is how it happens.
This is how it happened last season. The Patriots were so limited on offense that they passed for over 300 yards just twice in the final seven games in the season.
But in the first two playoff games, they averaged 345.5 passing yards per game, and then did as needed to beat the Rams for the Super Bowl title.
This year's squad averaged 327 total yards in the previous seven games (and that includes the garbage time against the Texans ... Me: Gross.) before Sunday.
The Patriots' average will only go down after 291 total yards, including 128 passing yards (Me: Double gross), against the powerhouse Bengals, but the Patriots didn't need to do anything on offense in the second half once Gilmore put the team on his back and possibly wrapped up the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award.
The important thing is there was, if you can ignore Edelman dragging his left knee across the field and people in the first row ducking some of Tom Brady's throws, some actual, vital progress made with this offense:
The offensive line gets it together on the ground: A week after Isaiah Wynn looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights against the Chiefs, the rookie-in-experience seemed to settle down and play much better. He's never really had issues in run blocking because he's built so low to the ground, but that was a tough matchup against an underrated end in Sam Hubbard. Getting Ted Karras back at center was huge (another statement about this year's personnel). The Patriots actually pulled Shaq Mason on Rex Burkhead's touchdown run, which is something we haven't seen in some time and could be a comment on Mason's past injury woes and him coming around.
3️⃣3️⃣ yards and a score for 3️⃣4️⃣. @RBrex34 | #GoPats pic.twitter.com/TDk6BmXppR
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 15, 2019
Brady finds Harry in the back of the end zone. @NkealHarry15 | @TomBrady pic.twitter.com/U3Nen3o9EV
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 15, 2019