The New England Patriots made the Super Bowl last season, but there are still areas the team has room to improve in. One of those areas is the rushing attack.
The Patriots were sixth in rushing yards in the regular season and 13th in yards per attempt. The run game was not bad, but Mike Vrabel noted at the NFL’s Annual Meeting that he felt it could be more consistent.
“We want to be more consistent running the football,” Vrabel said, per MassLive's Karen Guregian. “This isn’t like we’re going to run it every single play. It’s just that I felt like there were too many times where we wanted to run it, and it was just inefficient. Now we popped some, which was great. We had some explosives. … But I want to be able to do it more consistently to allow for some of the run actions in the passing game to really come alive.
“It’s a tough league if you have to sit there and drop back and throw the football as much as we did in the last game of the season.”
The Patriots' inability to run the football consistently was evident in the playoffs. In the Super Bowl, the Patriots had 79 rushing yards. The Patriots had to drop back and pass often, and the score of the game played a role in that, but it led to plenty of sacks. The Patriots drafted TreVeyon Henderson last year, and he had a solid rookie season.
However, Henderson was more of a home run threat than a consistent force. He had 911 rushing yards on the season, but 241 of those yards came on four runs. Those are the type of plays that inflate the Patriots' averages. Vrabel knows the team cannot be as reliant on explosive run plays.
How are the Patriots addressing the issue? Well, the team signed blocking fullback Reggie Gilliam and blocking tight end Julian Hill. They also added Alijah Vera-Tucker at guard and moved Jared Wilson to center. The team is improving its blocking and offensive line in hopes of creating better running lanes.
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