New England’s “game-plan offense” is well-outlined in a piece by Mike Reiss, who called it “an attack that morphs itself into something completely different each week.”

The principle is simple -- if your opponent struggles in a particular area, that’s probably the area you’re best served to attack. How heavily has New England’s play-calling reflected this strategy, one that requires such versatility in personnel?

Measuring that starts with defining the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Yards are a misleading measure -- for example, is a team that allowed the fourth-most passing yards per game (like the Cardinals) a bad pass defense?

Defensive efficiency, which measures the impact of each play on a team’s scoring margin, is a better measure of how effective a team’s defense is. Arizona’s pass defense has the fifth-best defensive efficiency rating in the league. Yards alone won’t account for the Cardinals’ 18 interceptions (fourth most) or the fact that they’ve allowed touchdowns on only 40.5 percent of red-zone possessions (second best in the league). Defensive efficiency accounts for both of those and more.

The efficiency ranks of each Patriots opponent are split out by rushing and passing in the chart to the right.

When the team has been successful, it hasn’t just reached season averages in play-calling. The Patriots called more than half of their plays to target the opponent’s defensive weakness in 9 of the team’s 11 wins.

Both of the wins in which New England didn’t were against divisional opponents, and might have had interesting game-specific reasons.

In Week 15, the Dolphins had just placed starting safety Louis Delmas on IR before the game, and New England still rushed on a higher percentage than their season average.

Entering Week 6, the Bills ranked fourth in defensive efficiency against the pass and fifth against the run. With no significant difference between the pass and rush defense, New England’s play calling (38 percent rush, 62 percent dropback) was almost exactly at its season average (39 percent rush, 61 percent pass).

Based on New England’s tendencies this season, what should be expected on Sunday against the Jets? As the first chart shows, New York ranks 12th against the run, no surprise given the quality of defensive linemen Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson.

But the Jets pass defense ranks 28th in efficiency for a reason. Only the Redskins (31) and Bears (33) have given up more passing touchdowns than the Jets (29), while only the Chiefs (four) have intercepted fewer passes than New York (five).

The Patriots have already noticed this once. Tom Brady dropped back to pass on 72 percent of snaps in New England’s Week 7 win over New York, its second-highest percentage this season. Barring a game-specific occurrence (like Wilkerson missing a fourth straight game with a toe injury), recent history suggests Brady will be busy.