I was bored and looking through the Patriots drive history (yeah, yeah, laugh it up) and I found something pretty interesting:
The Patriots offense has only played with the lead in the past four games:
Total Drives: 2 drives
Total Snaps: 15 snaps
Total time: 6 minutes, 37 seconds
One of those drives was a clock killing drive against Houston, where LeGarrette Blount ran three times in the final two minutes of the game, taking down 1:52 of the clock.
The other was a field goal drive against Denver, where the offense went 34 yards in 12(!) plays. They started on the Denver 47 and had 12 (!) plays and only wound up with a field goal and 4:45 off the clock.
The Patriots record over those four games is a highly improbably 3-1, with that one loss coming against the Panthers.
In total, the Patriots have held the lead for just:
5:27 in the Panthers game
10:03 in the Broncos game
3:15 in the Texans game
0:35 in the Browns game
Total: 19 minutes, 20 seconds, or approximately 7.6% of the game time
Those are some crazy numbers. Hopefully they can start well against the Dolphins and buck their recent trend because the team has not been able to sustain a lead at all.
Oh well. At least they're winning.