Week 1 vs Patriots
Keys to victory
Offense
The Patriots defense is not that great anymore. Just play mistake free. Run the ball. Throw off PA. Don't get into obvious passing situations. Score and get ahead early. We shouldn't even have to give up too much of our playbook for opponents to game plan. A good outing from Waddle, Gesicki and a revenge game from Sony should suffice. Keep Tyreek a bit under wraps. Run up the score all you can, you don't want a close ending.
Defense
Stop the run. Make them one dimensional. Choke them. Make Mac and their WRs beat you deep. Don't get too cute.
Week 2 @ Baltimore
Keys to victory
Offense
This is the game to unveil Tyreek, Edmonds, Mostert, the stretch, and the short passing game. The Ravens have a formidable secondary, an aggressive pass rush and a physical front seven but we can beat them with our speed and scheme. Things can get pretty out of hand if you start the season with a losing streak with a "player's coach" whose often positive and relaxed. You really want to prove all that confidence and all the talk were warranted otherwise you might lose the team. This is the game to go all out and make some noise. Give Tyreek some 20 targets/touches and maybe even a few returns. After putting up a lecture on stretch runs, short passing, screens, sweeps and trickery set yourself apart with a few deep shots to Tyreek when they least expect it.
Defense
Baker and Tindall better mark this on their calendars. I really like how our front seven is very disciplined and always executes exactly what was called. Besides stopping their running game, Mark Andrews makes this the game where you play Rowe instead of Jones. No need to blitz too much or play confusing coverages, just play everyone 1o1, keep good gap discipline and keep two spies on Lamar at all times possible.
Week 3 vs Bills
Keys to victory
Offense
This is what Tyreek was brought here for. He's the knight or the sword that shall slay the dragon. They've proven vulnerable to this one player. The Patriots did beat them with nothing but power running last season so you may want to trot some Alec Ingold out there instead. Throw deep to Tyreek a couple of times early on and then just run them over with power instead.
Defense
It's kind of a nice rehearsal to play the Ravens right before the Bills since they're similar teams. If we can make Allen uncomfortable in the pocket and stop him in his tracks when he tries to run for it and force him to throw we'll have a fighting chance. Just take the QB run away.
Week 4 @ Bengals
Keys to victory
Offense
Gesicki is their kryptonite. In general they suck against intermediate passing, specially between the hashes. It's also a good game to throw it to Wilson a lot. I think this is when we let Tua get in his big boy pants and let him kill the Bengals with precision passing.
Defense
We actually match up to the Bengals very well. They got two really good tall deep threats, we got a great pair of physical corners and the "Flying Dutchman" Holland at FS. They got Burrow, we got our pass rush. Just stop Joe Mixon. The good thing about Mixon is that his pass blocking is poor. When he's in, he's either a pretty big tell or a pretty large liability.
Keys to victory
Offense
The Patriots defense is not that great anymore. Just play mistake free. Run the ball. Throw off PA. Don't get into obvious passing situations. Score and get ahead early. We shouldn't even have to give up too much of our playbook for opponents to game plan. A good outing from Waddle, Gesicki and a revenge game from Sony should suffice. Keep Tyreek a bit under wraps. Run up the score all you can, you don't want a close ending.
Defense
Stop the run. Make them one dimensional. Choke them. Make Mac and their WRs beat you deep. Don't get too cute.
Week 2 @ Baltimore
Keys to victory
Offense
This is the game to unveil Tyreek, Edmonds, Mostert, the stretch, and the short passing game. The Ravens have a formidable secondary, an aggressive pass rush and a physical front seven but we can beat them with our speed and scheme. Things can get pretty out of hand if you start the season with a losing streak with a "player's coach" whose often positive and relaxed. You really want to prove all that confidence and all the talk were warranted otherwise you might lose the team. This is the game to go all out and make some noise. Give Tyreek some 20 targets/touches and maybe even a few returns. After putting up a lecture on stretch runs, short passing, screens, sweeps and trickery set yourself apart with a few deep shots to Tyreek when they least expect it.
Defense
Baker and Tindall better mark this on their calendars. I really like how our front seven is very disciplined and always executes exactly what was called. Besides stopping their running game, Mark Andrews makes this the game where you play Rowe instead of Jones. No need to blitz too much or play confusing coverages, just play everyone 1o1, keep good gap discipline and keep two spies on Lamar at all times possible.
Week 3 vs Bills
Keys to victory
Offense
This is what Tyreek was brought here for. He's the knight or the sword that shall slay the dragon. They've proven vulnerable to this one player. The Patriots did beat them with nothing but power running last season so you may want to trot some Alec Ingold out there instead. Throw deep to Tyreek a couple of times early on and then just run them over with power instead.
Defense
It's kind of a nice rehearsal to play the Ravens right before the Bills since they're similar teams. If we can make Allen uncomfortable in the pocket and stop him in his tracks when he tries to run for it and force him to throw we'll have a fighting chance. Just take the QB run away.
Week 4 @ Bengals
Keys to victory
Offense
Gesicki is their kryptonite. In general they suck against intermediate passing, specially between the hashes. It's also a good game to throw it to Wilson a lot. I think this is when we let Tua get in his big boy pants and let him kill the Bengals with precision passing.
Defense
We actually match up to the Bengals very well. They got two really good tall deep threats, we got a great pair of physical corners and the "Flying Dutchman" Holland at FS. They got Burrow, we got our pass rush. Just stop Joe Mixon. The good thing about Mixon is that his pass blocking is poor. When he's in, he's either a pretty big tell or a pretty large liability.
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