Oh I agree it's really freaking hard which is why they "only" have 4 Lombardis. You definitely have to win ugly sometimes. More than any of their other titles the offense carried the team in the 2014 playoffs. But I think we are mainly arguing semantics here, I am saying that the offense has some room to play below average but still be good enough to win with an ok defensive performance. I don't expect 30 a week in January, but I also don't expect them to give the ball up at their own 25 against a terrible offense like Brady did with the pick last year, to only score 12 points through 59 minutes, etc. There is a middle ground where I think the D is good enough even if the offense doesn't play lights out. KC game last year is a decent example. Offense only had 340 yards, D gave up 380, gave up 20 points, Pats won 27-20. Offense wasn't particularly awesome (22 minutes possession, 38 rushing yards) but it wasn't a shitshow either.