After showing so much success with their running game in recent weeks, the Patriots still decided to throw the ball 58 times on Sunday against the Seahawks, while only running it 26 times.
It's a decision that New England's coaching staff made during the week, based on how they saw Seattle's defense playing mostly with a safety down inside the box.
"We usually make a good choice of what we end up trying to do, or how we end up trying to play the game," said Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels in a conference call on Monday. "And we knew Seattle was a really good, talented defense. We knew that there were certainly some challenges playing there, in their stadium. And then couple that with their scheme, where they really play with a safety down, either in the box or at the line of scrimmage almost every play, we knew we were going to rely a little bit more heavily on our passing game, as kind of an extension of our running game.
"Going into the game, we kind of knew we would be a little heavier throwing the football than we were the past few weeks. We just didn't make enough plays in the red zone, and turned the ball over in a couple situations, which really ended up hurting us in the final result of the game."