Unbalanced Patriots are easy prey for Dolphins

3 words. Brady, Welker, Moss.

 

Eh, I'm not willing to count them out just yet - sure their D may suck but Brady/Welker/Moss is still a formidable trio, and god forbid we give Brady the amount of time to throw that Sanchez had last week. I expect this to be another frustratingly close game, just hoping we come out with the W at the end of the night.

 

Miami didn't pound the Bills though....

 

I think more importantly, especially for our defense is Gronkowski and Hernandez..

 

The exact 3 reasons why I'm never that confident against the Pats...despite the Phins usually playing them tough.

 

I'm rewatching the Pats/Bills game and the first thing that strikes me is we are going to have big problems covering their TE Hernandez. Given our propensity to let TE's do whatever the hell they want, that's going to be a nightmare.

If we insist on not letting our CB's change sides, Moss will embarrass Jason Allen and it will cost us the game. Bank on that. And I'm still not sure who's going to cover Welker, dont tell me Sean Smith can do that. Sapp? We better find that pass rush again and quick.

 

Combined for 0 points in the 2nd half of the Jets game. The same Jets D that Henne torched on Sunday. Just sayin.

 

It should be a good game, and I think a lot of people are reading way too much into the first three weeks. Brady can throw, so can Henne. Moss and Marshall are both excellent. The Bills scored 10 on us, 30 on NE...but NE also put up big numbers and we didn't. What does it all mean?

Two good offenses are going to battle it out, and hopefully our D outshines theirs.

 

Was going to add them as well but anything over 7 letters i struggle with. Didnt want to mention the dreaded TE position. Im hoping the way we handled Keller in the 2nd half we can apply the same shut down packages. Pats still give me nightmares with their passing game. Im confident we can handle the rest.

 

Very scary in comparison.

 

I certainly hope we beat the Pats, but I don't believe in our secondary and I think Brady is going to torch it on Monday.

 

Davis and Bell would start in your secondary.

 

You'd think so but they are tricky this year. You don't know what to expect.

On defense, so far through three weeks, they've had issues in the secondary in more ways than one. Their open field tackling has been horrid because they are taking such poor angles. They are not sticking to their assignments either, they are not executing. They have two young cornerbacks that are having the same issues Miami had last season. They have Brandon Meriweather, who should be stepping his game up and being a leader on that team, but he's taken a step back again. He has not looked good. They've got Patrick Chung, who I think doesn't play the ball well in the air.

Against the offense, it will be a tough task IMO. A whole lot of nickel packages will be ran by the Dolphins. I think the best way to slow down Wes Welker is to put either Vontae Davis on him or maybe Tyrone Culver. Randy Moss, if covered by Jason Allen, might be an issue. He's always a threat deep though, especially from the Twins set they like to run. If you watched them against the Jets, you see a whole lot of bunch formations, 2x2, 2x1 sets, a ton of two TE's, Aaron Hernandez split out wide - which will be an issue for this team - and a lot of single back. Aaron Hernandez is going to be tough as hell.

I think the best thing you can tell this defense is to stick to your assignments and make sure the first guy who gets their hands on Hernandez brings him down. If Hernandez gets in the open field, he's going to pose a lot of problems because hes got good open field vision IMO. He's not extremely quick nor is he straight line fast IMO but he's got enough of everything to be a problem for this team. That means Yeremiah Bell will have to step up.

Since we will be in nickel a lot I assume, we're probably going to see Cover 2 to try and do something against the short routes that NE likes to run. Nolan runs Cover 2 out of the nickel package quite a bit from what I've seen over the last two years. The Jets tried to play man against bunch formations, which is a no-no IMO, and they got picked apart at times. They thought they could blitz Brady and make him incomplete the passes but that didn't work out too well. It did work at times but I thought they were at their best when they went to Man-Free and some Cover 6.

 

Spot on Alen, the problem with playing tons of nickel is:

Odrick
McDaniel

Are both out, leaving Ryan, Dotson and Rose to fill in.

We have gone from a deep 5 man rotation on the Dline to a bare cupboard stocked with cans missing labels.

I think we will see Q and Ikaika at DE a lot on MNF.

 

Yep. I wrote it in the Club Level, that Tony McDaniel will be missed. One thing he does a great job of d oing is getting his hands up. I thought Odrick may be back? Moses played some end week two I think. Also, you can go to a 3-3-5 look, which we've done before, and do some blitzes.

 

Add in Hernandez and Gronkowski...

 

3 words. Dansby, Wake, Davis.

 

I thought we learned after week 3 that no game is a gimme. They still have to go out and defend Hernandez (really just another slot receiver with the physique of a TE). Still gotta stop Moss and Welker.

Oh yeah, John Bonamego is still in charge of our ST unit. And, **** ****, Dan Henning is still in charge of ruining drives. Nolan still kinda gets a pass though.

 

True, I happen to think our current strength with that group would be an unusually deep crop of DE/OLB types, we have 4 guys who can play DE/OLB who all were Top 80 picks.well..aside from Wake of course..

So put Starks and Soliai at DT with Baker and Dotson as backups and just rotate in the 4 DE/OLB types Wake/Ike/Misi/Q along with Langford.

I think we will see more of a pure Nolan Defense this time around Alen, lots of movement and shifting with player flexibility..at least I hope so.

Still waiting for Nolan to break out the Eagle formation.

 

Injury updates.

http://www.rtsports.com/football-news/1000062789

 

Holy smokes, it's alen1!

 

Talk of Belichick, Saban, or Urban Meyer summons him from his tape reviewing dungeon..

 

Eleven private messages and two emails will do me in.

Good to read your posts, honestly. I enjoy your opinion.

 

Whose side are you on?

 

This Jets fan is rooting for a tie But if I had to pick someone to root for, it would be Miami. So does this mean you will be rooting for the Jets over Buffalo?

What is the line on this game?

 

One more thing - NE moved the ball at will against the Jets in the first half. NE, for whatever reason, got away from what they were doing in the first half and tried hitting home runs on every play in the second half. Brady had a miserable second half. I credit a bad game plan and execution on NE's part more than I credit the Jets defense. If they run the same offense they did against you as they did in the first half against the Jets, you are going to have your hands full. Their defense may suck, but they can throw up 30+ points an anyone when things are clicking. Their passing game can be scary good.

 

Ideally? I'd like a comet to wipe out the Jets Training Facility while the cast of the Jersey shore are visiting.

But thats not happening anytime soon so I'm rooting for Buffalo

 

Sorry, mutually exclusive.

The line is 94 points scored. Seeing as the Pats couldn't stop a highly disciplined pop-warner squad from running/passing, and our defense doesn't know what a TE is how to cover it. Henne and gang's talents will overcome Dan Henning's best efforts.

 

Glad you aren't on the coaching staff.

 

Mark Sanchez loves you <3

 

Pats are favored by 1. Just looked it up. Wow.

 

He also loves Justin Bieber!

 

That's basically what I saw when I was watching. They still have plenty of offense, their d is not at all what it was.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm happy as heck we got Vontae and avoided Darius Butler.

 

That's just goofy.

 

Nah, it's fine, we play better as the under dog.

 

I agree with you Padre and I like the underdog role, however this is not the Patriots from 2007 or earlier. To be underdogs to them in our stadium is downright disrespectful.

I need a booky, Take the Dolphins and the point!

 

I think most people are who watched tape on the two coming out. Vontae Davis had technique issues, didn't go every down I thought and was undisciplined but he was tough, he could play the run and he was on an island a lot at Illinois. Once he would be coached, some felt (including myself) that he had the ability to be a top cornerback if he put it together. One issue that a lot of people, including myself, got caught up is the pre-draft rumours. Read to much into the "Vontae Davis is egotistical, uncoachable, etc".

At the same time, Darius Butler was playing pretty well in UCONN but I thought had similar issues, except he was not physical nor was he a quality player against the run. One could argue he might have been a better cover corner than Vontae coming out, though that is debatable IMO, and I think that's what drew New England to him. I can't remember whose quote I read but it was from a Patriots personnel man. He discussed what he looks first and foremost in a cornerback and he said speed and his ability as a cover corner. Then after that, it was ball skills and then the physicality. Kind of surprised me, honestly.