The Patriots' rushing offense - Is it sustainable?

It would be hard to fathom in the beginning of the season that the Patriots would be relying on a great running game by the end of the year, but going into the AFC championship game against the Denver Broncos, yet that is exactly where we are at.

With Rob Gronkowski out for the rest of the season and the pleasant surprise of LeGarrette Blount, Josh McDaniels smartly stuck with what is working instead of forcing Tom Brady to make throws and plays that might not be there.

The result has been a refreshing new look to the Patriots offense: they are running the ball to set up the pass, not passing the ball to set up the run like in the previous years. The two headed running attack of Blount and Stevan Ridley plays perfectly into Brady's strength as a passer: his short, accurate throws are made easier by the defense getting sucked into the possibility of him handing it off and it opens up a lot of passing lanes.

So, our running game deserves a lot of credit for getting us to the AFC championship game. But is it enough to get us to the Super Bowl? The Patriots recent running success in their last four games was a very respectable 149 yards per game. That is almost exactly a 20 yard uptick in their rushing offense through the whole season, and would have been good for second in the league, only behind the Philadelphia Eagles.

On the other side of the ball, taking a look at the Broncos' rushing defense might be misleading at first, being that they own the NFL's best rushing defense. A lot of that is fool's gold however, as teams are only averaging 18 attempts per game. Teams don't have time to set up a rushing attack against Denver when they are trying to play catchup with the the best offense the league has ever seen. A better look might be at the rush attempts per game, as that would give us a better snapshot at the success of running backs when they do run, instead of just looking at the Broncos giving up 60 rushing yards per game. Denver gives up about 3.6 rushing yards per clip, good for 11th worst in the league. Just looking at simple statistics beyond that seemingly daunting "60 rush yards allowed per game" yielded encouraging results.

When the Patriots played the Broncos in the regular season, Denver notched 280 yards rushing on 48 attempts. Those numbers might make some nervous, but oddly enough, this played right into the hands of the Patriots. If New England was going to lose, it wasn't going to be at the hands of Manning. The Patriots would gladly take Manning checking down to a run of six or seven yards to keep him from picking apart the defense with his arm. So if you see a graphic during Sunday's broadcast of how many rushing yards the Patriots gave up to the Broncos in the regular season, don't think of it as a detriment. Think of it as Bill Belichick and New England playing mind games with Denver, coaxing Manning into running the ball repeatedly instead of throwing the ball where they had the most success of any team in the league. (RELATED: How Bill Belichick made Peyton Manning beat Peyton Manning)

If you are trying to find a way to soundly beat the Broncos that does not include waiting to come back from 24 points or performing rituals to the snow/rain/wind/cold weather gods, some might look at the San Diego Chargers game from earlier this year as the blueprint to follow. While that may be true, the blueprint might have actually been written in 2007 by the New York Giants - ironically against the Patriots when they had the most prolific offense the league had ever seen. To beat the best offense, you need to keep it out of their hands. This means Blount and Ridley are playing their most important game of their lives on Sunday. The Broncos have a below average rushing defense, and the Patriots have an above average rushing attack. This matchup might be billed as another Manning-Brady Bowl, but the Blount and Ridley combination might be the overlooked key on the offense to get the Patriots to the Super Bowl.

Stats via NFL.com
Photo via Getty Images