Will this be the week the Patriots and Tom Brady hit a deep connection?

Tom Brady and the Patriots have doing more damage with their run game this season. (AP)

FOXBORO — Tom Brady has attempted 77 passes in two games.

He’s had one connection over 30 yards and that was 36 yards on a seam route to Wes Welker to open the second half last week.

He’s twice connected to Rob Gronkowski for passes of over 20 yards. He’s had one completion each of over 20 yards to Aaron Hernandez, Brandon Lloyd and Stevan Ridley.

Still the question remains, will the Patriots aim to go deep again this week?

There have been long shots targeted for Lloyd in the first quarter of the first two games. Both fell incomplete. There was a pass last week to Gronkowski in the end zone that the tight end couldn’t quite handle.

Coming into this season, it was assumed that with Lloyd in the arsenal the Patriots would be going deeper more to stretch the field. The intent has been there. The results have been mixed.

“I think, really just about every play is different in the game,” coach Bill Belichick said on Friday. “You try to simulate it in practice but it’s just different in the game. I think the big thing for the quarterback and the receivers is just to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. You call plenty of them, I won’t say every play but there are an awful lot of plays have guys running deep – post patterns, flag patterns, go-routes, whatever it is – you don’t throw them on every play but they’re there on every play depending on what the coverage is and what the matchup is.

“There’s also plenty of times that we go out in practice and run plays and then we get in the game and we see something and it takes us to that and maybe we’ve practiced it and maybe we haven’t. When you think about it, say you run 100 plays during the week in practice – 35, 35 and 30 or whatever it is – and then you have goal-line plays and you have a lot of other plays that are situational plays in there and then you think of all the different coverages a defense can play – on third down, on second down, on first down, in the red area.”

One thing is for certain, if the Patriots can connect early, they might be able to gash the Ravens with Stevan Ridley, who is averaging 5.0 yards per rushing attempt. Baltimore has allowed exactly 129 yards in their first two games, a win over Cincinnati and a loss at Philadelphia.

“The Ravens have different players and they have their own unique scheme, like everybody else does,” Belichick said. “They’re a very good technique team, they play well with their hands, they recognize blocks well, linebackers are, it’s hard to fool them, especially [Ray] Lewis, but all of them are disciplined, they don’t give up a lot of easy plays. You have to block them, they don’t run themselves out of a lot of plays, they make you block them and you have to do a good job. You have to have good pad level, good technique; you have to finish your blocks, they’re a good tackling team. They’re not easy to run the ball against.”