Since the Pats have not had quite the same level of success defensively on the road, they in turn opened up the offense more to account for it.On the road, they gave up 21.5 ppg vs 11.2 at home. They averaged 25.2 ppg scored at home and 22.4 on the road.25.2 - 11.2 = 14.0 margin of victory at home22.4 - 21.5 ppg = 0.9 margin of victory on roadHowever, that last one is dramatically skewed by the blowout loss in Buffalo (31-0). Not counting that, the numbers would be 25.6 ppg scored - 21.1 ppg allowed = 4.5 margin of victory.The teams that did best against the Pats scoring-wise did much better passing the ball than rushing it, so Carolina better have factored that into their gameplan if they want to move the ball.And LOL to the Pats for amassing 472 yards of total offense against the Texans while giving up 164 and STILL needing OT to win.
Throw out Buffalo on the road, must then throw out the Philly win on the road. Same thing - and the numbers will even out - that is manipulative theory at its finest to toss week one, but not week two. BTW - I agree that NEITHER week one nor week two are reflective of the Pats' season, but week three onward IS, and the bye week forward is reflective of the Pats team we will see in the Bowl.I was using the 3 games on the road since the bye because YOU restricted the pool to the last 10 games - I was certainly not "faulting" them for winning home games - I was just using those numbers as part of the way the defense is playing at home versus on the road - something Pats fans seem to lose sight of since they have played so many consecutive defensively dominated games in Foxboro.As you stated 450+ yards on offense and give up 160 on defense should be a blowout, but they needed OT. Also, as you pointed out, .9 (not even a point) margin of victory for the team on the road versus much more (14) at home. Those numbers help me make my point - I agree that 3 games is too small a pool. When you open up the pool (as I did later in the thread) it proves my point even more convincingly.Finally, their home margin of victory is a bit skewed by their shutout wins v. Dallas and Miami (in a blizzard) and ability to hold a gimpy McNair and rattled Manning to low scores in the freezing Foxboro weather. I would argue that three wins versus southern teams and one versus a dome team in Foxboro weather def. helped skew the numbers in their favor. Houston will be slight chance of rain and 50+ degrees.While the Pats don't have a "road" game (ie - in somone else's stadium) in the Bowl, they certainly do NOT have a HOME game going on. To me, this means their D will give up closer to the 21.5 average given up on the road than the 11.2 average given up at home. One more convincing number to the Pats on the road are not as fierce of a SCORING defense as at home (which has always been my point).I think the Pats win, but I don't think it will be convincingly, and I think the Panthers will be able to score on the Pats D. 14-20 points on offense, and if there are any Panther defensive/ST scores, or a lot of TOs caused, the Pats O better be on their game. (Oh, and I disagree with your "opening the offense more" on the road theory - they scored less on the road than at home)