Beware the New England Patriots 2-TE sets, and more offensive notes for Kansas City Chiefs

Let's take a few minutes to get to know the New England Patriots and what they like to do on offense. The NFL keeps tabs on formations teams run so I've compiled some of that data for a high level view of what the Patriots do.

Two tight end sets

Just less than a quarter of the Patriots offensive sets include two tight ends. The tight ends with the most snaps this season are Michael Hoomanawanui and Rob Gronkowski. Tim Wright, who was traded to New England as part of the Logan Mankins deal, has played 21, eight and five snaps the last three weeks so I'm not sure how they'll use him. Gronk is obviously the biggest receiving threat. The Patriots are balanced out of their two tight end sets, running the ball 21 times and passing it 28 times.

Three receiver sets

This will be a formation that gets the Chiefs into their nickel defense, which means cornerback Chris Owens is on the field. This formation has been almost half of the Patriots offensive plays to this point in the season. They pass it out of this formation about three of four times while they run it the other quarter of the time.

On 1st-and-10, the Patriots have lined up with two backs, one tight end and two receivers 26 times this season, and run it on 23 of those plays.

Run formations

On plays where the Patriots have one or no receivers with extra backs and / or tight ends, the Patriots have run it 17 times and passed it three times. This is interesting because last week against the Broncos, the Chiefs ran six of these types of formations and passed it out of all of them.