The New England Patriots are 8-0 and look a whole lot like the best team in football. They're 4-0 at home, 4-0 on the road, 4-0 in the division, and 6-0 in the conference. They've outscored their opponents by 189 points, which is the third-most through eight games in NFL history. 

This week's opponent is the Baltimore Ravens, who are by far the best team the Pats will have faced this season. Lamar Jackson and his 5-2 squad welcome the Patriots to town on Sunday night, and provide the greatest and most interesting test yet for Bill Belichick's defense.

Let's break things down.

Patriots at Ravens

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When the Patriots have the ball

The Patriots are the highest-scoring team in the NFL at 31.3 points per game ... but they have gotten six touchdowns and a safety from their defense. Accounting only for offensive points per game, the Patriots drop down to fifth in the NFL. They're 16th in yards per game, though, and 15th in Football Outsiders' offensive DVOA. They've been only average at converting third downs (39.8 percent, 18th in the NFL) and considerably below-average at converting in the red zone (50.0 percent, 23rd in the league). 

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A decent amount of their offenses success has stemmed from the fact that they just keep being given short fields to work with. The average New England drive has begun on the 33.7-yard line, the second-best starting field position in the league, and they have started 18 drives in opposition territory. That's more than two drives per game! Folks, it's nuts. 

The advantageous situations they've been gifted have somewhat masked what has been a surprisingly average offense. 

Sony Michel is having one of the least efficient rushing seasons you'll ever see. Michel's 140 carries have gained just 464 yards. There have been 662 instances of a player receiving at least 140 carries in a season since 2000, and among that group of seasons, Michel's 3.30 yards per carry average ranks 630th. 

Tom Brady's yards per attempt average is at its lowest since 2014, his passer rating, completion percentage, and touchdown rate are at their lowest since 2013, and despite being on pace to throw 618 passes (fourth-most of his career) he is on pace for only 26 touchdown passes, which would be the sixth-fewest of his career. The Pats have cycled through a few receivers that are no longer with the team (Antonio Brown, Josh Gordon) and have not had a threat at tight end for most of the year, but Brady has maintained his usual chemistry with James White (6.0 catches, 51.1 yards per game) and Julian Edelman (6.6-71.8), and he has turned Phillip Dorsett into a weapon. 

The issues with Brady's performance have been more situational. On third downs, he is just 43 of 82 (52.4 percent) for 599 yards (7.3 per attempts), four touchdowns, two picks, and a an 82.3 passer rating. He's 13 of 23 inside the 10-yard line but only six of those 13 completions have resulted in scores. Instead of annihilating blitzes, he has been merely good against them (95.6 passer rating), and the Patriots' play-action game has been largely ineffective (89.0 rating).

Some of the relative struggles are due to the patchwork offensive line, but some are that Brady has simply not been at this best quite yet. There's hope that adding Mohamed Sanu as an additional threat over the middle will re-create the kind of offense the Pats have run over the past few years, and we'll see how that works out over the next few weeks. 

The Baltimore pass defense has not been all that imposing this season, but the team was without Jimmy Smith for several weeks and only got Marcus Peters a couple games ago. Marlon Humphrey has been a shutdown shadow corner all year, and there's no reason to expect that he won't be exactly that the rest of the way. He's the rare shadow guy who has also bumped down into the slot, and it would not be a surprise if he were assigned to follow Julian Edelman all night. Peters seems likely to track Phillip Dorsett because he is the speed guy on the perimeter and the least technically-refined of the Pats wideouts, which helps Peters, who is susceptible to double moves. That would leave Smith (and/or Brandon Carr) on Sanu.

When the Ravens have the ball

Before we get to what should be perhaps the most intriguing tactical matchup of the season, let's just quickly run through the numbers for the New England defense: first yards per game (234.0), first in points per game (7.6), first in yards per play (4.1), first in . yards per drive (17.7), first in points per drive (0.38), first in third down conversion rate (15.6 percent), first in red-zone conversion rate (14.3 percent), second in pass DVOA, eighth in rush DVOA, and first in overall defensive DVOA (the single best defense since 1989). 

Spare me the lecture about how they haven't played anybody. At least six other teams have gotten to play each of New England's opponents, too, and nobody else is doing this. Without a doubt, though, this Ravens offense presents the greatest test this defense has faced so far this year. 

Lamar Jackson has fully broken out as one of the small handful of most dynamic players in the league, and he tests defenses in ways no other player can. Jackson is 10th in the NFL in rushing yards at this moment. To put things in perspective, he has 203 more rushing yards (576) than Alvin Kamara (373) in only one more game. He's gaining 6.9 yards per carry, which is essentially unheard of for a high-volume rusher. Of course, part of the reason he's able to gain so many yards on his runs is because he's a quarterback and defenses have to respect the pass, especially given his improvement through the air this season compared to last. 

At this point we all know that Bill Belichick's defensive strategy is not to accentuate your weaknesses, but to recognize what you do best, take it away, and make you beat him left-handed. His strategy for how to deal with Jackson cannot be like his strategy to deal with any other player, simply because Jackson himself is not like any other player. There are a few different ways to deal with a player like this, and none of them are all that attractive: 

  • Treat him like any other quarterback. Don't do this! He will run all over the field and then just when you come up to stop the run he will hit Hollywood Brown over the top. 
  • Play man coverage and spy him with a linebacker or safety. Again, don't do this! Jackson is faster than your linebackers and safeties and he will beat them to wherever he wants to go every single time. 
  • Load up on the line of scrimmage to take away the run. This was a significantly more attractive option last season when Jackson largely struggled to consistently make throws. Now that he's completing 63 percent of his passes at 7.7 yards per attempt, it's a less than ideal strategy. 
  • Sit back in soft zones, conceding short passes and short runs in an effort to eliminate big plays and make him dink and dunk all the way down the field. This seems like the best of a bunch of bad options, even though it concedes that you will essentially not be able to stop him from running the ball. You just want to limit those gains to four or five yards rather than 10 or 20. Jackson has carried the ball 83 times this season, with 19 of those carries gaining double-digit yards. That's what you want to avoid.

The interesting thing about that final strategy is that it involves a big shift away from what the Pats have done for most of this season. They have played more man coverage than almost any team in the NFL, and they have been extremely aggressive at all levels. But the Patriots are a game-plan team and a game-plan defense, and they have to game-plan specifically for Jackson. Shifting away from what they've done throughout this season can be an asset instead of a liability, if the Ravens themselves game-plan for what they have seen from the Pats this year. 

Baltimore has been teasing since the offseason that they've got some offensive innovations that have the potential change the way offense is played. We haven't really seen them so far this year, and this would be a heck of a time to break them out. 

Perhaps they could include involving rookie running back Justice Hill in the game-plan more often, since one of the only things we haven't seen the Ravens do this season is throw the ball to their running backs, and he is easily the most dynamic of the Ravens' trio of backs. The best way to beat the Patriots so far this year, though, has been to run straight downhill with a power back. Think Nick Chubb last week and Frank Gore back in Week 4. Almost nothing else has worked agains them. So perhaps this could be a good game for the Ravens to break out creative ways to get Mark Ingram going again. He hasn't hit 100 yards since Week 3, and has had either 12 or 13 carries in three of the past four games. 

Innovations in the pass game could be difficult to execute, just because the combination of New England's pass rush and deep coverage is so good. Stephon Gilmore seems likely to shadow Marquise Brown, while the McCourtys, Patrick Chung, Jonathan Jones, Jamie Collins, and Dont'a Hightower all end up on Mark Andrews at some time or another. The Ravens offensive line will face great challenges keeping the pressure out of Jackson's face, which could affect his ability to hit the deep shots that create the ceiling for this offense. 

Prediction: Patriots 26, Ravens 20