The Patriots offense wasn't as run-heavy as we originally thought in 2018

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Drafting Sony Michel in the first round last year and using him along with James White and Rex Burkhead (and even Cordarrelle Patterson) often out of the backfield made it look like the New England Patriots had a run-heavy offense in 2018. Apparently, that's not the case.

A graph shared by ESPN's Mike Clay on Twitter helped bring to light whether teams had a run or pass-heavy offense during last year's regular season.

NFL play-calling by quarter during the 2018 regular season. "Expected P%" is based on the score/time remaining. Eg. The Chiefs were "expected" to run a lot in 4th quarter because they were ahead often (opposite for Cardinals). This better indicates pass/run heavy offenses. pic.twitter.com/BvhLljnKhA
— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) May 31, 2019

The percentages shown are the percent-chance that each team was expected (Expected P%) to throw the football compared to the percentage in which they actually threw the football (Actual P%).

The graph shows that the Patriots had a balanced offense on average through the first three quarters of each game, with each of those quarters actually rounding out with more passes than rushing attempts. The 2nd quarter was definitely a passing-quarter for the team, as they threw the ball 64% of the time in that frame. However, it was in the fourth quarter that New England had a tendency to run the ball more often but by just a slight margin.

What does this tell us?

New England ran the ball more often than they typically have in past years. But it wasn't enough to label them as a "run-heavy" team according to NFL standards. There was still a slight favor to the passing attack, which makes plenty of sense since they still have Tom Brady under center.