Patriots – Dolphins MNF Key Matchups:Thoughts from Inside the Enemy Camp

[DKphin]

Patriots Running Game: The Pats running game last season was much improved last season with BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Danny Woodhead mixing things up quite a bit. The Patriots have brought in Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen. Miami is strong against the run with Paul Solai in the middle with both Randy Starks and Kendall Langford on the ends. Karlos Dansby is very good against the run and makes plenty of stops.
I don’t think the Pats will rush Green-Ellis much in this one, just enough to keep the Fins honest. Their best bet is to run Woodhead on traps and delays right at Cameron Wake. Wake is a beast off the edge and his aggressiveness is what the Pats will target, trying to catch Wake up field and have Woodhead break one.
Patriots Passing Game: The Pats passing game hasn’t been a well-oiled machine during the pre-season. It has had spurts but overall, the timing has been off. Chad Ochocinco has had his problems being assimilated in the passing game and has struggled.
Tom Brady has plenty of weapons to throw the ball to, Ocho, Wes Welker and Deion Branch all will put pressure on Miami with Welker having an outstanding pre-season, he seems poised to have a big season. Welker claims to be in the best shape and 100% back from his injury.
The Dolphins can bring pressure from Wake and Koa Misi from the edge and the Patriots OL struggled all pre-season to keep the QBs upright. The big key here will be Matt Light and Logan Mankins giving Brady time to throw. The Dolphins secondary improved a lot last year. Vontae Davis and Sean Smith are fine corners and still improving. Expect them to take on Welker and Ochocinco to take away the underneath routes.
The big key to watch are the Patriots tight ends, both Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez provide match-up nightmares for defensive coordinators. Gronkowski showed all summer he was near impossible to cover. With the Dolphins looking to disrupt the Patriots timing, the tight ends are poised to have big games. Brady will throw the tight end screen and the RB screens to Woodhead to keep the Fins honest.
Dolphins Running Game: Gone are Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams and Miami has brought in Reggie Bush and a rookie Daniel Thomas to handle the running game. The Fins also brought in Marc Colombo at RT and drafted Mike Pouncey at C.
But so far, the running game has struggled. The Patriots were vulnerable to the running game last year, but with Albert Haynesworth and Vince Wilfork in the middle backed by run stuffing MLB Brandon Spikes now healthy, teams are going to have a much harder time running on this defense.
I would expect Miami to try to run with Bush on the edge and make the Pats big bodies wilt in the South Florida heat. Don’t be shocked to see them go no-huddle either to keep the Patriots defense from substituting. But I expect the Pats to negate Miami’s running game.
Dolphins Passing Game: The Dolphins struggled in the passing game a year ago, Henne’s confidence was shaken and he made bad mistakes at key times that hurt the team. Miami is not without weapons in the passing game, Brandon Marshall (who’s given the Patriots fits) Davone Bess, Brian Hartline and TE Anthony Fasano all are talented and give Henne plenty of options.
The Patriots, literally were terrible against the pass last season, especially on third down. To combat this, Bill Belichick has totally revamped the pass rush. He brought in Haynesworth and Andre Carter from Washington,and Shaun Ellis from the Jets. Carter has looked outstanding in limited play thus far during the summer bringing pressure off the edge. The Pats also brought in sub-package edge rusher Mark Anderson in. They are now attacking much more and it should aid the pass rush as well.
With a healthy Leigh Bodden back at CB, this should help the pass defense immensely. Bodden and Devin McCourty give the Pats a great tandem and in sub-packages they’ve been sliding Bodden over to the nickel or ‘star’ slot. Kyle Arrington and rookie Ras-I Dowling should see some snaps. But the big question is at Safety where the team released both James Sanders and Brandon Meriweather. They are expecting Pat Chung to really step up this season and I expect Josh Barrett to get the other starting spot.
For the Dolphins, I expect them and every other team to do the same thing, attack the middle of the field. That is the Patriots biggest weakness in my opinion and an area that they’ve struggled in. Look for Henne to test the middle with both Marshall from the outside and Bess, who out of the slot is outstanding. Bess in particular will provide the matchup nightmare that Welker does in the NE offense. Until the Pats can shut down the middle, look for lots of teams to go there. Another area to watch is Bush on screens and into the flat. With the Pats new scheme of attacking, it will lend itself to this kind of play and Bush in open space is dangerous. The Pats may place someone to spy on Bush in obvious passing downs.
Special Teams: This facet of the game was a total nightmare for Sparano last season in Miami but the Fins do have a very good returner in Bess. P Brandon Fields is excellent as is K Dan Carpenter.
The Pats welcome back K Stephen Gostkowski from a second half injury last year and P Zoltan Mesko had a fantastic camp. The punt return duties should fall to Julian Edelman (Mr. August according to Mike Felger) but he finished behind only Devin Hester last season.
The Pats coverage units were very inconsistent this summer and wear bear watching in this one. It will be interesting to see if teams kick the ball out of the endzone or force opponents to run it out this year.
“X”-Factors: New seasons bring changes and both teams have plenty. Some things to watch, is Henne’s confidence. If they start slowly, will he melt or battle back. They will certainly try to get him in an early rhythm with short easy passes.
For the Patriots, gone are eight players who either started or played a lot of minutes from the defense. The new look defense has all yet to play together, will they be able to shut the Fins down? Will Chad Ochocinco get in tune with Brady and become a viable threat to the offense? Stay tuned…
Conclusions: The Patriots have revamped their defense and it speaks volumes about Bill Belichick. He doesn’t have a problem with cutting away draft picks, even high ones that he selected. It’s all about the performance on the field, not where you were selected in the draft.
I think they will try to come after Henne and force him into making mistakes. The Pats saving grace last season was turnovers with 38 for the defense. They can’t reasonably expect that number again, but with an improved pass rush, they can force the issue much more this season. Expect Carter to be a disruptor in the backfield. That being said, I would expect Bush and Bess to have some big plays during the game.
On offense, the Patriots will run at Cameron Wake and try to keep him guessing. Expect more of Woodhead than Green-Ellis. The passing game will have to stay short at first until they get people involved. Protecting Brady will be key, but I think both Hernandez and Gronkowski will have huge impacts in this game. Brady tosses a couple of red-zone touchdowns to Gronk and the Patriots will win the opener 28-14.

http://patspub.patsfans.com/2011/09/08/patriots-dolphins-mnf-key-matchups/

 

[nerfball]

well, Im actually surprised he didn't just write "LOL, cake walk!" and leave it there.

 

[DKphin]

well, Im actually surprised he didn't just write "LOL, cake walk!" and leave it there.

Having seen the ineptitude of the FO and coaching staffs over the last 11 years, I don't think the Pat's fans have much respect for this organization. Hopefully, Monday nite we can start to change that.

 

[Fin Thirteen]

The Pats won't score 28 against us. They might win, but I'm predicting 20-17, something like that.

 

[SCLSU Mud Dogs]

Sorry, but against the Patriots defense we will score more than two touchdowns the entire game. I'm telling you, this new offensive scheme will really make a difference.

 

[phintim]

Well they have continuity on their side and we do not with a new offensive coordinator etc so edge to the Pats right there. It will be interesting to see if Henne can jump start where he left off in the 3rd preseason game and if we can get any type of running game going with this offensive line and limited running back attach IMO. On defense we are solid but without the ground and pound theme of the offense in the past expect the defense to be on the field longer which could hurt their stats. Think Marnio gunning the ball downfield and everyone complaining about the defense back then when it was really as much a result of Marino quick scoring exposing all weaknesses on the defense.
Gotta hope Bush is a durable scatback this season and DT can pull through on the ham string thing. DT did not look that bad catching the ball out of the backfield.
The red zone is going to be another area of interest as we could not throw it in last year and we did not run it in often with the ground and pound so how can it happen more often this year with a weaker running game attack. More pressure on Henne but we do have 5-6 recievers with enough talent to make it happen if it can happen.

 

[Fin Thirteen]

Sorry, but against the Patriots defense we will score more than two touchdowns the entire game. I'm telling you, this new offensive scheme will really make a difference.

I hope you're right. I just think it'll take a couple of games for us to click offensively.

 

[Mr. Magoo]

I think a lot of Patriots fans and observers are overestimating how big an impact Gronkowski and Hernandez will have on this game. The Dolphins will treat Hernandez like a receiver (which is what he is), and it wouldn't shock me to see Sean Smith walked over to cover him. Hernandez presents a unique matchup problem because of his size and quickness, but Smith is the kind of unique athlete who in my view is basically designed to neutralize a player like Hernandez. As for Gronkowski, both Dansby and Burnett are exceptional coverage linebackers and Dansby, in particularly, matches up with Gronkowski physically very well. He won't be able to dominate Karlos physically and he won't be able to run away from him, whereas against most inside linebackers in the NFL he can do one or the other.

If I'm New England, my target is Nolan Carroll. I would come out in a 3WR set, with Woodhead and Hernandez the other two players. Then you send out Hernandez and one of the WRs to Sean Smith's side of the field. If the Dolphins chose to cover Hernandez with Carroll (assuming the Dolphins responded to the personnel grouping with a dime defense), then Hernandez becomes your target. If Smith covers Hernandez and Carroll is matched up on Branch, Ochocinco or Welker, then that other player becomes your target.

If I were the Dolphins, I would respond to this by playing as much nickel defense as possible and covering Hernandez with Smith and and doubling the WR either with Sapp and a safety or either Dansby or Burnett and a safety and try to keep Carroll off the field. But that's just me. The Patriots don't have a quick strike player in the WR corps anymore (no Moss or Brandon Tate), so I would expect a lot of single high safety looks from the Dolphins with Bell able to come into the box and help double players or blitz or to pick up man coverage on someone if they blitz.

In macro terms, I understand why people expect Gronk and Hernandez to have big years. They present problems for most teams in the league in how you chose to defend them because most teams don't have someone they can matchup on them one on one and feel good about it. But the fact is the Dolphins defense is uniquely positioned to defend a lot of the things a spread passing attack team like the Patriots does well because of our athletes. I would expect our weakness to be against power running teams (like Houston or the Jets). Tom Brady is a great player and that offense can be a juggernaut, but in my view the Dolphins have a lot of answers in their personnel and Mike Nolan's schemes.

 

[uscalum]

how can you talk about the Dolphins passing game and not include #22?

 

[Fin Thirteen]

In macro terms, I understand why people expect Gronk and Hernandez to have big years. They present problems for most teams in the league in how you chose to defend them because most teams don't have someone they can matchup on them one on one and feel good about it. But the fact is the Dolphins defense is uniquely positioned to defend a lot of the things a spread passing attack team like the Patriots does well because of our athletes. I would expect our weakness to be against power running teams (like Houston or the Jets). Tom Brady is a great player and that offense can be a juggernaut, but in my view the Dolphins have a lot of answers in their personnel and Mike Nolan's schemes.

I agree with this but I think they'll get a lot of mileage out of Woodhead.

 

[Mr. Magoo]

I agree with this but I think they'll get a lot of mileage out of Woodhead.

I agree. But I'm more confident about our ability to stop the run against a small back like Woodhead than against a bigger back like Foster. In terms of the passing game... yeah, Woodhead will get his. He shook Dansby one on one in the first game last year and caught a touchdown.

 

[Rick Cartman]

I agree. But I'm more confident about our ability to stop the run against a small back like Woodhead than against a bigger back like Foster. In terms of the passing game... yeah, Woodhead will get his. He shook Dansby one on one in the first game last year and caught a touchdown.

I know you were just using him as an example, but i thought foster was going to be out for a few weeks?

 

[finfan54]

they dont have a clue. really, its just a peek from the outside and they bring up last year.

living in the past is something BB will refuse to do. He will bring heat but I think we have a quick hit pass game planned early.

 

[Mr. Magoo]

I know you were just using him as an example, but i thought foster was going to be out for a few weeks?

It remains to be seen. I haven't even seen him ruled out for this week. And even if he's not there, Ben Tate has some serious talent.

 

[Phanatical]

A pretty nice writeup from a Pats fan. I don't see how he justifies the score.

I believe the game will depend mostly on the Dolphins minimizing stupid mistakes. If they can avoid turnovers, and play smart football, i think they have better athletes and will win the game.