Mr. Magoo
Ayatollah of rock and rolla
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Magoo's Ten Keys to the Game (Patriots edition)
This is a long post so I'll just get right to it.
When the Dolphins are on offense:
1. Attack the perimeter.
This was also my key thought when I was breaking down the first Patriots game last year, and many of the reasons for that thought haven't changed. The strength of the Patriots defense, then as now, is up the middle. Moving Vince Wilfork is like trying to move a dead rhinoceros, and I think you can make a case that Jerod Mayo is the 2nd best 3-4 inside linebacker in the NFL after Patrick Willis. Last year, Tully Banta Cain and Rob Ninkovitch did a very poor job setting the edge in the run game and I thought that outside runs would prove effective relative to inside runs because our weakness is the middle of our offensive line. Sure enough, the Dolphins tried this fairly often in the early part of the game and had success until turnovers and the runaway nature of the game put a stop to it.
In this game, I also like the outside running game and would also advise a heavy dose of wide receiver screens, especially early. Players like Wilfork, Haynesworth and Shaun Ellis have the ability to wreak havoc when they're fresh and healthy, but Haynesworth and Wilfork have a tendency to wear down and Ellis is 34 years old. Making them chase plays on the perimeter will not only test their conditioning but also might blunt their aggressiveness as pass rushers as the game goes on.
2. Exploit how they play Reggie Bush.
It remains to be seen whether teams are going to chose to play Reggie Bush as a wide receiver or a running back. Either choice on the defenses' part has advantages and disadvantages that provide opportunities for us to counter with. One formation and personnel grouping I think would be effective is 20 personnel (two running backs, no tight ends, three WRs), in shotgun with the backs (Bush and Thomas/Johnson) on either side of Henne. The formation would look like the one found at this link (not my image):
http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/image...ultipart.28889.0_display_image.jpg?1256783298
In the NFL, this personnel and formation is usually a sign the offense is going max protect, typically on third and long, but the key here would be Henne's freedom to send either Bush or Thomas/Johnson in motion to different parts of the formation depending on the defensive personnel and alignment and choose a play to attack what they're showing.
For instance, if the defense came out in nickel (two linebackers, five DBs), that would be a sign that a linebacker would be matched in man to man coverage on Reggie Bush. So what you do is send Bush in motion and then have him run an isolation route on that linebacker, which should be an easy win. If the defense comes out in dime (one linebacker, six DBs), showing a man to man matchup on Bush with a corner, what you do then is motion Thomas/Johnson out as a receiver. The linebacker follows him, leaving four defensive linemen and a corner in the box to defend a run up the middle with Bush. If the defense responds by dropping a safety into the box or in coverage on Thomas/Johnson, then you have a single high safety and man to man matchups with Marshall, Bess and Hartline/Gates across the board and can attack that.
This is just an idea. I'm sure the Dolphins have their own plans. But a scheme like this (especially run hurry up/no huddle) could help get the most out of Bush's ability.
3. Don't get TOO aggressive.
One of the main things the Dolphins identified as a problem with their offense last year was it's predictability. In that case, it was predictable conservatism. Avoidance of the middle of the field, an unwillingness to challenge deep, an over-reliance on max protection, etc etc. This year, we've been almost completely the opposite, but there's been a one-note quality to our aggressiveness that -- though it's worked so far -- can be exploited by smart coaches and players.
For instance, in nearly every instance that we've faced a single high safety with man coverage across the board this preseason, Henne has audibled to a pass play where everyone went deep. Tampa recognized this and switched to a cover 2 look at one point, which Henne recognized and made a nice throw to hit Fasano over the middle.
That play worked, but these kinds of predictable responses to certain coverages can get you killed if you're not careful. Henne needs to recognize how and when defenses are going to respond to his audibles and have a plan to counter them. For instance, seeing man free and then dummy audibling (assuming a run play had already been called). Then, if the defense switches into a soft cover 2 to counter an all verticals play, you've burned them with a run. It's important to keep them guessing. Just one successful dummy audible can really put a defense on their heels.
4. Who's in the Patriots' secondary?
With the release of Brandon Merriweather and James Sanders and the continuing, though predictable, injury to Ras I Dowling, the Patriots are a confusing team in the secondary. Outside of outstanding rookie (and newly elected team captain) Devin McCourty, players like Leigh Bodden, Kyle Arrington and James Ihedigbo are nothing more than JAGs, but it's hard for me to figuring out who's playing where. The presumed starting free safety in New England, I believe, is Josh Barrett, a 6'2, 225 pounder out of ASU who was a seventh round pick of the Broncos four years ago. He spent time on the Broncos' practice squad and on IR with a shoulder injury before being released by Denver and didn't have a tackle this preseason until the finale against the Giants.
Can this guy play at all? Who knows? Belichick apparently likes him, but the guy certainly needs to be tested, and it's hard not to look at their situation as a whole and see opportunities. Remember, the Patriots were one of the very worst teams against the pass in the NFL last year, and that's with getting to play us and the Jets twice.
5. Reacting to changes.
No one knows exactly what kind of defense the Patriots will be running on Monday night. Will they really switch to the 4-3 full time? Are they going to stick with the more conservative scheme they ran last year or be more aggressive with pressure? No one really knows. It will be up to the Dolphins to recognize what they're doing early on and react to it. Expect the Patriots to test Mike Pouncey with Steelers-style double A gap blitzes. The Patriots fooled Henne twice with zone blitzes and dropping linebackers in the first game. I'm sure they'll surprise us with something early on, and the key will be in not allowing those surprises to become turnovers.
When the Dolphins are on defense.
1. Contain Hernandez and Welker.
Outside of pressuring Brady (which I'll get to in #2), this is basically the whole game defensively for the Dolphins (and certainly easier said than done). The Patriots are primarily a passing team, and these days their passing game runs through Welker (of course) and Aaron Hernandez (who led NFL in receptions this preseason). Trying to stop Welker has been a problem for defenses for years, of course. Benny Sapp did an okay job in the first game last year but I've long been an advocate of putting your very best corner on Welker at all times. Otherwise you're in the position of him being too quick for your slot corner and too smart for bracketed zone coverage. A healthy Will Allen would have been a great matchup here for the Dolphins, but unfortunately a healthy Will Allen doesn't exist. Nolan Carroll looked pretty poor in preseason so I would do whatever I could to keep him off the field and expose him to the Patriots' smart receivers.
As for Hernandez, I think the key is to treat him like a big wide receiver (like an overgrown Anquan Boldin). Meaning, you treat him like a WR in terms of your personnel, and then make an effort to put a big body on him in man coverage. For many teams, this means a safety. But fortunately for us, we have an corner on our team who in many ways in perfectly designed to cover the 6'2, 245 pound Hernandez, and that's 6'4, 215 pound Sean Smith. Blessed with long arms and more physical in man coverage than is assumed by many because he's not a physical tackler, Smith is an extraordinarily blessed athlete who Hernandez won't be able to push around or use his quick feet to run away from. There are ways to keep Hernandez away from Smith by formation, and indeed the Patriots make an effort to match him up on linebackers whenever possible (fortunately, we have two of the top coverage inside LBs in football in Burnett and Dansby), but although putting one corner on one player all game isn't the Dolphins' style, I think we should make an effort to put Smith on Hernandez whenever possible.
2. Exploit the focus on Wake.
It now looks like rookie Nate Solder will be starting at right tackle for the Patriots on Monday, and that's news that should be music to the ears of Dolphins fans. A former tight end who has rare quickness and feet for someone who stands 6'8, Solder is nonetheless raw and underdeveloped physically from a strength standpoint and a technique standpoint. His tendency to get too tall in his stance and his lack of base strength, in particular, makes him highly vulnerable to players who can get under his pads and play with leverage and/or speed players who can get low in their pass rush.
Sound like anyone familiar?
Yeah, it does to the Patriots, too. And trust me, they'll be focusing on Wake the way a fat kid focuses on a funnel cake.
This kind of attention, though, makes you weak in other ways. So while Brady is sliding his protection to Wake's side, or the Pats are aligning tight ends and running backs by formation to help stop him, they'll be leaving themselves open to blitzes to the other side.
Nolan, of course, knows this, and in my opinion spent the Tampa Bay game preparing for ways to exploit this predictability. Does everyone remember how we dropped Wake into coverage like 8 or 10 times in the first half against the Bucs? Well, I said so at the time in the GM_Davenport chat -- and am even more sure of now -- that we were doing this not just to give Wake some film of his coverage to work on, but dry running a series of blitzes they're planning on running (or faking, to make Brady think we're going to run them and think twice before sliding the protection) on Monday.
The situation is like a boxer who's got a swollen left eye he can barely see out of. Sure, you want to attack from his left, but the smart fighter knows he's going to be protecting that eye and attacks his right, too.
3. Conditioning on the defensive line.
The key to stopping a spread passing attack like the one the Patriots run is a deep rotation of pass rushing defensive linemen. The problem for defenses is that the Patriots have a quick tempo and when Brady gets on a roll completing passes, it's hard to get fresh linemen into the game. To that end, our conditioning up front will be key. Odrick had inexhaustible stamina in college and I would expect him to play a lot in four man front looks. But one thing's for sure, incompletions will be gold for us.
4. Don't get too pass happy.
Another short note. But it's important for the guys on defense to realize that the Patriots have a good run blocking offensive line, including perhaps the best LG in football in Logan Mankins. They also invested two high picks on running backs. They like to run the football out of the same formations they pass from, so maintaining good rush lanes is important. Their backs are not particularly talented runners, in my opinion, but as complementary pieces they have opportunities out there to gain yardage.
5. Watch for Woodhead and Ridley out of the backfield.
An extension of #4, but it's important not to lose these guys when they're out on routes. Both are gifted pass receivers, as Dansby found out last year when Woodhead burned him for a touchdown. Ridley (a rookie from LSU) showed some advanced ability as a receiver out of the backfield in preseason.
***I'm not big on predictions, so I won't make one here. These are just what I think will be the major factors in the game. If the Dolphins can do all 10 of these things, though, or even just most of them, they'll have put themselves in a good position to pull off an upset that will have us all grinning for a month.***
This is a long post so I'll just get right to it.
When the Dolphins are on offense:
1. Attack the perimeter.
This was also my key thought when I was breaking down the first Patriots game last year, and many of the reasons for that thought haven't changed. The strength of the Patriots defense, then as now, is up the middle. Moving Vince Wilfork is like trying to move a dead rhinoceros, and I think you can make a case that Jerod Mayo is the 2nd best 3-4 inside linebacker in the NFL after Patrick Willis. Last year, Tully Banta Cain and Rob Ninkovitch did a very poor job setting the edge in the run game and I thought that outside runs would prove effective relative to inside runs because our weakness is the middle of our offensive line. Sure enough, the Dolphins tried this fairly often in the early part of the game and had success until turnovers and the runaway nature of the game put a stop to it.
In this game, I also like the outside running game and would also advise a heavy dose of wide receiver screens, especially early. Players like Wilfork, Haynesworth and Shaun Ellis have the ability to wreak havoc when they're fresh and healthy, but Haynesworth and Wilfork have a tendency to wear down and Ellis is 34 years old. Making them chase plays on the perimeter will not only test their conditioning but also might blunt their aggressiveness as pass rushers as the game goes on.
2. Exploit how they play Reggie Bush.
It remains to be seen whether teams are going to chose to play Reggie Bush as a wide receiver or a running back. Either choice on the defenses' part has advantages and disadvantages that provide opportunities for us to counter with. One formation and personnel grouping I think would be effective is 20 personnel (two running backs, no tight ends, three WRs), in shotgun with the backs (Bush and Thomas/Johnson) on either side of Henne. The formation would look like the one found at this link (not my image):
http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/image...ultipart.28889.0_display_image.jpg?1256783298
In the NFL, this personnel and formation is usually a sign the offense is going max protect, typically on third and long, but the key here would be Henne's freedom to send either Bush or Thomas/Johnson in motion to different parts of the formation depending on the defensive personnel and alignment and choose a play to attack what they're showing.
For instance, if the defense came out in nickel (two linebackers, five DBs), that would be a sign that a linebacker would be matched in man to man coverage on Reggie Bush. So what you do is send Bush in motion and then have him run an isolation route on that linebacker, which should be an easy win. If the defense comes out in dime (one linebacker, six DBs), showing a man to man matchup on Bush with a corner, what you do then is motion Thomas/Johnson out as a receiver. The linebacker follows him, leaving four defensive linemen and a corner in the box to defend a run up the middle with Bush. If the defense responds by dropping a safety into the box or in coverage on Thomas/Johnson, then you have a single high safety and man to man matchups with Marshall, Bess and Hartline/Gates across the board and can attack that.
This is just an idea. I'm sure the Dolphins have their own plans. But a scheme like this (especially run hurry up/no huddle) could help get the most out of Bush's ability.
3. Don't get TOO aggressive.
One of the main things the Dolphins identified as a problem with their offense last year was it's predictability. In that case, it was predictable conservatism. Avoidance of the middle of the field, an unwillingness to challenge deep, an over-reliance on max protection, etc etc. This year, we've been almost completely the opposite, but there's been a one-note quality to our aggressiveness that -- though it's worked so far -- can be exploited by smart coaches and players.
For instance, in nearly every instance that we've faced a single high safety with man coverage across the board this preseason, Henne has audibled to a pass play where everyone went deep. Tampa recognized this and switched to a cover 2 look at one point, which Henne recognized and made a nice throw to hit Fasano over the middle.
That play worked, but these kinds of predictable responses to certain coverages can get you killed if you're not careful. Henne needs to recognize how and when defenses are going to respond to his audibles and have a plan to counter them. For instance, seeing man free and then dummy audibling (assuming a run play had already been called). Then, if the defense switches into a soft cover 2 to counter an all verticals play, you've burned them with a run. It's important to keep them guessing. Just one successful dummy audible can really put a defense on their heels.
4. Who's in the Patriots' secondary?
With the release of Brandon Merriweather and James Sanders and the continuing, though predictable, injury to Ras I Dowling, the Patriots are a confusing team in the secondary. Outside of outstanding rookie (and newly elected team captain) Devin McCourty, players like Leigh Bodden, Kyle Arrington and James Ihedigbo are nothing more than JAGs, but it's hard for me to figuring out who's playing where. The presumed starting free safety in New England, I believe, is Josh Barrett, a 6'2, 225 pounder out of ASU who was a seventh round pick of the Broncos four years ago. He spent time on the Broncos' practice squad and on IR with a shoulder injury before being released by Denver and didn't have a tackle this preseason until the finale against the Giants.
Can this guy play at all? Who knows? Belichick apparently likes him, but the guy certainly needs to be tested, and it's hard not to look at their situation as a whole and see opportunities. Remember, the Patriots were one of the very worst teams against the pass in the NFL last year, and that's with getting to play us and the Jets twice.
5. Reacting to changes.
No one knows exactly what kind of defense the Patriots will be running on Monday night. Will they really switch to the 4-3 full time? Are they going to stick with the more conservative scheme they ran last year or be more aggressive with pressure? No one really knows. It will be up to the Dolphins to recognize what they're doing early on and react to it. Expect the Patriots to test Mike Pouncey with Steelers-style double A gap blitzes. The Patriots fooled Henne twice with zone blitzes and dropping linebackers in the first game. I'm sure they'll surprise us with something early on, and the key will be in not allowing those surprises to become turnovers.
When the Dolphins are on defense.
1. Contain Hernandez and Welker.
Outside of pressuring Brady (which I'll get to in #2), this is basically the whole game defensively for the Dolphins (and certainly easier said than done). The Patriots are primarily a passing team, and these days their passing game runs through Welker (of course) and Aaron Hernandez (who led NFL in receptions this preseason). Trying to stop Welker has been a problem for defenses for years, of course. Benny Sapp did an okay job in the first game last year but I've long been an advocate of putting your very best corner on Welker at all times. Otherwise you're in the position of him being too quick for your slot corner and too smart for bracketed zone coverage. A healthy Will Allen would have been a great matchup here for the Dolphins, but unfortunately a healthy Will Allen doesn't exist. Nolan Carroll looked pretty poor in preseason so I would do whatever I could to keep him off the field and expose him to the Patriots' smart receivers.
As for Hernandez, I think the key is to treat him like a big wide receiver (like an overgrown Anquan Boldin). Meaning, you treat him like a WR in terms of your personnel, and then make an effort to put a big body on him in man coverage. For many teams, this means a safety. But fortunately for us, we have an corner on our team who in many ways in perfectly designed to cover the 6'2, 245 pound Hernandez, and that's 6'4, 215 pound Sean Smith. Blessed with long arms and more physical in man coverage than is assumed by many because he's not a physical tackler, Smith is an extraordinarily blessed athlete who Hernandez won't be able to push around or use his quick feet to run away from. There are ways to keep Hernandez away from Smith by formation, and indeed the Patriots make an effort to match him up on linebackers whenever possible (fortunately, we have two of the top coverage inside LBs in football in Burnett and Dansby), but although putting one corner on one player all game isn't the Dolphins' style, I think we should make an effort to put Smith on Hernandez whenever possible.
2. Exploit the focus on Wake.
It now looks like rookie Nate Solder will be starting at right tackle for the Patriots on Monday, and that's news that should be music to the ears of Dolphins fans. A former tight end who has rare quickness and feet for someone who stands 6'8, Solder is nonetheless raw and underdeveloped physically from a strength standpoint and a technique standpoint. His tendency to get too tall in his stance and his lack of base strength, in particular, makes him highly vulnerable to players who can get under his pads and play with leverage and/or speed players who can get low in their pass rush.
Sound like anyone familiar?
Yeah, it does to the Patriots, too. And trust me, they'll be focusing on Wake the way a fat kid focuses on a funnel cake.
This kind of attention, though, makes you weak in other ways. So while Brady is sliding his protection to Wake's side, or the Pats are aligning tight ends and running backs by formation to help stop him, they'll be leaving themselves open to blitzes to the other side.
Nolan, of course, knows this, and in my opinion spent the Tampa Bay game preparing for ways to exploit this predictability. Does everyone remember how we dropped Wake into coverage like 8 or 10 times in the first half against the Bucs? Well, I said so at the time in the GM_Davenport chat -- and am even more sure of now -- that we were doing this not just to give Wake some film of his coverage to work on, but dry running a series of blitzes they're planning on running (or faking, to make Brady think we're going to run them and think twice before sliding the protection) on Monday.
The situation is like a boxer who's got a swollen left eye he can barely see out of. Sure, you want to attack from his left, but the smart fighter knows he's going to be protecting that eye and attacks his right, too.
3. Conditioning on the defensive line.
The key to stopping a spread passing attack like the one the Patriots run is a deep rotation of pass rushing defensive linemen. The problem for defenses is that the Patriots have a quick tempo and when Brady gets on a roll completing passes, it's hard to get fresh linemen into the game. To that end, our conditioning up front will be key. Odrick had inexhaustible stamina in college and I would expect him to play a lot in four man front looks. But one thing's for sure, incompletions will be gold for us.
4. Don't get too pass happy.
Another short note. But it's important for the guys on defense to realize that the Patriots have a good run blocking offensive line, including perhaps the best LG in football in Logan Mankins. They also invested two high picks on running backs. They like to run the football out of the same formations they pass from, so maintaining good rush lanes is important. Their backs are not particularly talented runners, in my opinion, but as complementary pieces they have opportunities out there to gain yardage.
5. Watch for Woodhead and Ridley out of the backfield.
An extension of #4, but it's important not to lose these guys when they're out on routes. Both are gifted pass receivers, as Dansby found out last year when Woodhead burned him for a touchdown. Ridley (a rookie from LSU) showed some advanced ability as a receiver out of the backfield in preseason.
***I'm not big on predictions, so I won't make one here. These are just what I think will be the major factors in the game. If the Dolphins can do all 10 of these things, though, or even just most of them, they'll have put themselves in a good position to pull off an upset that will have us all grinning for a month.***
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