mgteich

I include nickel back in the five, since the position gets so many reps. I expect two of the five to be Hobbs, Gay and Sanders.

After that, there are question marks.

SAMUEL I sure hope he's ready to start.
WILSON Is he ready? If not, I would start Gay at free safety.
MERIWEATHER Where is he ready to play? Is he ready for many reps?
I'd prefer him at nickel.

If Samuel and Wilson aren't ready, we're screwed. I really don't think Meriweather is ready to start at free safety, but he may need to, unless we are planning to start Mitchell.

James would be our nickel, if Meriweather starts. Andrews would be our dime back.

Are we sure we wanted to cut Hawkins and Wesley? Perhaps Wilson and Samuel are ready to play.

RayClay

I'd say Gay starts at CB. Don't want Asante to pull something, let him work his way in. Actually, can James play nickel? They kept him for some reason.

We kept a lot of safeties. If we have to use Meriweather and Sanders, can Andrews, Mitchell or Baker play a few snaps? If not, why not?

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BelichickFan

No we aren't.

Worst case, Hobbs and Gay at CB, Sanders and Meriweather at S with James as #5. It's the Jets. They aren't a prolific downfield team. In fact I'll say we're OK against the Chargers like that too but with Samuel certainly ready by then it's not an issue.

mgteich

OK, I agree with regard to the jets game. They ARE the jets. With regard to the San Diego game, pass the Kool-aid.

BelichickFan

No kool aid - except for Maroney.

They're a Tomlinson-Gates led team taking some shots downfield. We're going to do fairly well with Thomas on Gates a lot. Slow down Tomlinson the best we can.

You're talking about DBs here - Samuel will be starting with Hobbs against Vincent Jackson and probably Craig Davis. Since when are they Harrison and Wayne ? I'm not saying we'll win. I'm not saying we'll stop them. But our front seven is the key there not the back four.

mgteich

And the front seven is missing Seymour.

A few days ago, we were expected to win a closely fought game against SD. Since then we have lost Seymour and Harrison. We still believe that we will a closely fought game. We should feel that way. We are patriot fans.

Wotan_the_Wanderer

Well, it's precisely because it's the Jets that I personally don't take this game as a gimme. And though I expect the Pats to win by a decent margin, one of the keys to the game is the ability to stop the slot WR. Be it Gay (if Asante suits up and starts) or James defending the slot, the DBs need to show up and play well and the safeties need to be where they're suppose to be rather than showing up two steps too late in coverage. But the flip side is, I really don't think the Jets can run against this D so Pennington's going to take some licks.

BelichickFan

I was responding to a thread entitled :

"Who Are Our Starting 5 DB's Against the Jets?" and I extrapolated that out one week to the Chargers.

I have no concerns, NONE, about our DBs against the Chargers; barring injury. The rest of the game is a separate issue.

BelichickFan

Just like the playoff game last year, it's not even a consideration to me that we'll lose. Not being a fanboy, I'm not saying that about the following week against SD. But last year in the playoffs I wasn't even nervous - we were clearly the more talented team and I knew we'd win easily barring a slew of nutty plays. Same this week.

mgteich

fair enough

You said the following regarding San Diego ( I agree).

I'm not saying we'll stop them. But our front seven is the key there not the back four.