Road to Super Bowl XLVI: Pats' offense made it look easy

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01/30/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - History will show that the New England Patriots did not beat a team with a winning record during the 2011 regular season. That perhaps made them their own worst enemy during their march to Super Bowl XLVI.

For the second straight season, the Patriots went into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the AFC. While last year's campaign ended with a disappointing loss to the New York Jets in the Divisional Round, New England used a customary explosive offense and some big-time rallies to earn a spot in this Super Bowl and a rematch with Gotham's other resident, the Giants, from the two clubs' memorable clash in the NFL's championship game four years ago.

It's the same Giants who also handed the Patriots one of their three regular- season losses in 2011. In fact, the Giants (9-7) and Pittsburgh (12-4) were the only teams that New England faced during the regular season that ended with a record above .500. Both games culminated in losses, as did a Week 3 affair with Buffalo that was part of the Bills' 3-0 start that ultimately ended with a 6-10 finish.

In total, seven of New England's 13 regular-season victories came against teams that ended with a mark of 8-8, so it at least won the games it was supposed to.

Regardless of who the Patriots lined up against, it was still a dominating effort by Tom Brady and the offense that carried the club all season long. While the defense ranked 31st in the league in yards allowed per game, the Brady-led offense set a new team record with 6,848 net yards and finished the season with 513 points. That marked New England's fifth straight year with 400 points or more and second in a row over the 500 mark.

New England showed right off the bat just how talented the offense was. The Pats set a new team record for total yards in a game with 622 in a 38-24 season-opening win over Miami, a contest that featured a 99-yard touchdown pass from Brady to wide receiver Wes Welker.

The duo didn't slow down all season, with Welker leading the AFC with 1,569 receiving yards. Brady's other favorite target, tight end Rob Gronkowski, finished second with 1,327 yards to go along with an incredible 17 touchdown catches. Gronkowski's yardage and touchdown totals both set NFL single-season records by a tight end.

Brady, meanwhile, set a new personal record with 5,235 passing yards, a number that broke Dan Marino's league single-season mark but was also eclipsed in 2011 by New Orleans' Drew Brees (5,476 yards).

New England would go on to post 1,621 yards of offense over its first three games, but was just 2-1 thanks to a 34-31 defeat in Buffalo on Sept. 25 in which Brady threw four interceptions and the defense allowed 448 yards.

The Patriots quickly rebounded with consecutive wins over Oakland, the New York Jets and Dallas prior to their bye week. They then came out of the break with two tough games -- at Pittsburgh and home versus the Giants -- and were held to just 213 yards of offense in a 25-17 defeat to the Steelers.

Seven days later, the Patriots led the Giants by three points following a 14- yard touchdown pass from Brady to Gronkowski with 1:36 remaining. However, Eli Manning took his offense 80 yards and hit tight end Jake Ballard for the game- winning score with 15 ticks left on the clock as New York pulled out a 24-20 win.

Not only did that result send the Patriots to a second straight loss, but it ended their 20-game home winning streak.

"We're not playing the way we're capable of playing - so try to figure out the reasons why." Brady said at the time. "We keep practicing. We keep battling out there. I'll say that there's a lot of fight in the guys."

The Giants' game was also a preview of something that would plague the Pats down the stretch: Slow starts.

Though New England hasn't lost since that setback to New York, it hasn't always been easy. The Patriots didn't score their first points versus the Giants until 5:29 left in the third quarter, but a solid defensive effort that featured a scoreless first half kept them in it.

Still, it was a sign of things to come. New England gave up 10 quick points in Philadelphia on Nov. 27 before settling down for a 38-20 win. The following week against 0-11 Indianapolis, the Pats allowed 21 fourth-quarter points before holding on for a 31-24 win. Not helping was the fact that New England was held to only three points by the then-winless team in the first quarter.

Consecutive road wins at Washington and Denver led to New England clinching the AFC East, filling in one check box for the Patriots.

"That's one of our goals at the start of the season: to meet the challenge of our division, and our players have done that," said head coach Bill Belichick following the division-clinching 41-23 win over Denver on Dec. 18. "We are 6-2 on the road. They've done a good job. They've met a lot of challenges and this was a big one."

Though New England won its final two home games of the season to lock up the AFC's top seed, the games were far from walkovers despite being against a pair of eventual 6-10 opponents. The Patriots trailed Miami 17-0 before rallying for a 27-24 victory, and an even bigger comeback was in the cards eight days later versus the Bills.

Buffalo scored the game's first 21 points in a Week 17 rematch on New Year's Day, but Brady and company responded with 480 yards of offense and 49 unanswered points for a 49-21 triumph.

"It's not planned that way," Brady said afterward. "There's no panic. I don't feel like the guys on the sidelines really panic. I just feel like it's really a matter of execution, and we started executing better and we put points on the board."

Still, the three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback knew that the Patriots might not be as lucky in the postseason, so they gave it all they had against visiting Denver in the Divisional Round. New England set single-game franchise playoff records for points and net yards (509), including 146 on the ground, in the 45-10 rout of the Broncos, with Brady matching an NFL playoff record with six touchdown passes in one game. Three of those, of course, went to Gronkowski, giving him a share of the postseason single-game record for that category.

Things were much tighter the following weekend in a 23-20 triumph over Baltimore, which outgained the AFC East champs by a 398-330 margin in total yards and nearly forced overtime before Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds remaining.

In fact, it may have been Brady's worst performance of the season. While the former league MVP did put New England ahead for good with a one-yard touchdown dive with 11:29 to play, he was picked off twice and held without a touchdown pass for the first time in two years.

"I sucked pretty bad today," Brady said during the on-field ceremony that followed the AFC Championship, "but our defense saved us."

That was a pretty harsh assessment for a man who had just matched Joe Montana for the most career playoff wins (16) in a career. Brady, though, praised his teammates in the locker room afterwards.

"We won 10 straight games and they haven't all been pretty. We've started slow, we've started fast. The offense has played really well at times; the defense has played really well at times. It's a pretty mentally-tough team. There's really some resiliency, we've shown that all season. Even in the games we've lost, the three games we lost, we fought until the end."

The Pats will need to be prepared mentally for this game as well, given their recent history with the Giants. Not only does New York already own one victory over New England this season, but this second meeting also serves as a rematch of Super Bowl XLII, a contest in which the Pats were undone by Manning's incredible late-game pass to David Tyree, who cradled the ball against his headgear after his quarterback escaped pressure. Known as "The Helmet Catch," the play extended the drive and helped set up New York's go-ahead touchdown in a 17-14 win.

That loss ended New England's bid for a perfect season as well, but the good news for the Patriots is that all roads lead forward, not backwards.

"It's in the past. We can't do anything about our past," running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis said. "We have to do something about our future moving forward and how we prepare for those guys. We know they're a good team, so we have to be ready."