The Packers had a great defensive plan. Here’s how Bill Belichick broke it

Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine knew what he needed to do to slow down the Patriots Sunday night. Green Bay loaded up its secondary with five or more defensive backs, daring Tom Brady to throw into Pettine’s no-fly zone without the services of Rob Gronkowski to bully through double-teams or rookie tailback Sony Michel to make his team pay for a lack of bulk in the box.

And it worked — until Bill Belichick punched back by putting his All-Pro kick returner in the backfield and crushing the Packers near the line of scrimmage.

The Patriots took advantage of Pettine’s light lineup with a series of plays designed to get the team’s blockers upfield, and the main beneficiary was Cordarrelle Patterson. Patterson, listed as a wide receiver but earning his stripes as Belichick’s Swiss Army Knife, paired with veteran wideout Julian Edelman to add a new dimension to the New England offense. He used his longstanding comfort with long-developing plays and anticipating holes to turn a series of sweeps and off-tackle carries into 61 rushing yards, one actual touchdown, another overturned one, and a shining example of how the Patriots can turn over every inch of their roster to beat you.

Brady had struggled to find open receivers downfield early in Sunday night’s game. The Packers defense was loaded with defensive backs, defaulting to a secondary-heavy system that put four cornerbacks on the field for more than half the team’s 71 defensive snaps.

The strategy paid off in the second half of a tied game. In the course of stonewalling the Pats for four straight plays at the Green Bay one-yard line, the Packers held Brady to a stretch where he’d complete just one of eight passes for seven yards while losing 11 more on a sack. Big plays downfield weren’t there, and even short routes over the middle to players like Chris Hogan and Edelman saw double-coverage across the board. Pettine was doing everything he could to confuse Brady on passing downs, even dropping nose tackle Kenny Clark into coverage at one point.

Running between the tackles wasn’t working — James White would finish the game with just 2.6 yards per rush as the team’s top traditional tailback — but there was still room to exploit Green Bay’s lack of linebacker support behind its defensive line. In the first half that was Patterson, who had carried his team 40 yards of a 69-yard touchdown drive late in the second quarter. But the Pack had adjusted to his presence; he’d notch six carries for just 10 yards in the second half.

Patterson’s efficiency had waned and White’s never really got started in the first place. A nickel-intensive secondary put entirely too much risk into traditional deep plays, but there was still an advantage to be gained in that second level. And Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels dove in with a tricky series of screens to get there.

New England’s biggest plays of the fourth quarter were set up by passes that barely breached the line of scrimmage. First came a toss to Edelman that became a throw-back screen that somehow put four of the team’s five offensive linemen (and Brady, who blocked no one) in White’s command at the opposite sideline:

He’d gain 37 yards on the catch-and-run. Three plays later, he’d dive into the end zone to break a 17-17 tie.

That threat of the short pass — Brady had also scattered five other receptions to White for a grand total of 35 yards — put the Packers’ young secondary on edge. And when the Patriots faked a wide receiver screen to Hogan, two different cornerbacks gave up their assignments to jump on the play. That gave Brady the opportunity to hit either Edelman or Josh Gordon for a likely touchdown; Gordon would break one tackle and jog 55 yards to make this a two-possession game.

These two plays were turning points for the Patriots, but they wouldn’t have been possible without the work McDaniels, Belichick, and Brady put in earlier in the game. New England couldn’t stretch the field vertically, so they did it horizontally in order to move its blockers downfield and clear out Green Bay’s defensive back-heavy defense. It worked on one big screen, and then again when those backs cheated forward to deal with the threat of another one.

The Packers turned the ball over on downs with 3:48 to play, but a pair of timeouts and New England’s struggles running the ball suggested Aaron Rodgers would get at least one more chance to lead his team to an unlikely comeback. Instead, the Patriots ran out the clock with a pair of first downs that didn’t even require White to get a carry.

First came a four-yard carry to Patterson. Then, Brady identified too many Packers on the field and dialed up a free-play pass to Gordon that covered another 15 yards. Patterson got another carry on the ensuing first down, but the game wasn’t sealed until Edelman took a sweep 11 yards to shut the door on a 14-point Patriot win.

The Patriots burned nearly four minutes of clock at the tail end of a meaningful game without a single handoff to a player listed as a running back on their depth chart. More importantly, they got an important win over an increasingly desperate Packers team despite missing their top receiving target (Gronkowski) and No. 1 tailback (Michel).

It took some creativity, and it may not have paid off if not for an injury to linebacker Blake Martinez and a nonsense ejection for safety Jermaine Whitehead, but it worked.

So good luck, opposing defenses. These Patriots are still the football MacGuyvers that turned a moribund franchise into a dynasty. And after six straight wins, they’re rolling toward another AFC East title.