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Starting a football conversation on what we might expect to see in Buffalo this weekend. Remember the lesson last week was "you are never as bad as it seems" . Well this week we need to apply the corollary, "Things are never as good as they appear".
The Bills are a very good team. Talent wise they are as good as anyone, especially on the D and OLine. They also will have a significant home field advantage, while the Pats will be on their FOURTH away game in just 6 starts.
1. There was a nice MMQB article from another thread which got me thinking about match ups. If I were the Bills DC, the most obvious match up advantage would be Darrius on Wendell. Darrius is a lot bigger and stronger than Geno Atkins, who quickness advantage was matched by Wendell on Sunday night. Coming off a Defensive player of the week award, Darius presents a huge problem for ANY OL, let alone the undersized Wendell.
The obvious solution would be to double Darius on most plays both in the passing and running games. But that's a difficult scheming problem because of how good the rest of the Buffalo DL is. Whether Kyle Williams plays this week could be big for both teams.
2. The Brandon Spikes over-hype. Disclaimer, I was never a big Brandon Spikes fan, even when he was here. While I LOVED his physicality, and could live with his limitations in the passing game; I always felt he guessed far to much in attacking the LOS and for every time he blew up a play in the backfield, there were 2 decent gains because we didn't have any backside support because he had over committed.
That said, Spikes is everything you want in a rush ILB, and I have no idea if he still is guessing all the time. It could be he's improved that aspect of his game. At any rate, given the noise factor, the Pats won't have the luxury of changing things on the LOS as much as they would at home, and you can be certain they are going to want to be balanced, So I would hope that the Pats will continue their success in rushing on has become passing downs, and sticking with the run even when it doesn't yield consistent results.
An unnoticed stat in the Bengal game was that (IIRC) the Pats had 11 rushes that gained less than 2yds. So they had to show a lot of persistence in the run game in order get the positive results. They will need to show the same kind of persistence in Buffalo. And we as fans will need to show a certain amount of patience to Josh.
3. MMQB made an interesting point in talking about the probability of the Bills likely being in press man coverage against the Pats. I wonder if this might be the time to see the Pats go back to some of the patterns from circa 2011. A lot short of picks and option routes, surrounded by shots down the seam in play action. BTW- it will be interesting to see how the Bills choose to defends Tim Wright.
4. On offense the Bills have a number of good playmakers with Watkins and CJSpiller heading the list. But remember, while Watkins IS a great prospect and having a fine rookie year, he still isn't close to being the threat AJ Green was. He could be at that level down the road, but not next week.
Still the success of the Pats D will likely depend on who is available. Sure its nice to have Browner back. But I think we will see him being used as a situational DB in certain match ups. I doubt very much he will come in as a starting CB. McCourty didn't leave the sideline Sunday night, and Revis actually returned late, so I'm hopeful both will be able to play, but I doubt we will know before Sunday.
Kyle Orton is a decent NFL starter (Think Brian Hoyer) ,who got better as that game went along. Like vs Cinci, he won't easy to get to as he has a fine OL to protect him. Ideally I'd like to play either press man or a TIGHT match up zone as my main strategy. I want to force Orton to consistently throw into tight windows. I don't want to give him any of the easy short throws you often see against some zone coverages. I also want him to begin to question what he is seeing from early on. So lots of disguised coverages.
My overall concept would be to try and shut down Spiller and Watkins and force Orton to be the guy who has to beat you. Points will likely be at a premium Sunday, so keeping them off the board early will be critical. If they do move the ball, I don't want it to be in big chunks
5, Hopefully Chandler Jone will be healthier this week and we can develop more pressure. I doubt we see Easley this week, though what little pressure we got last week seemed to be generated up the middle. e How the Pats choose to use Jamie Collins will also be of interest. Of course whether Hightower is available could affect his role as well
6. I'm not one of those fans who demand the defense be uber aggressive all the time. Although it's often very painful to watch, bend but don't beak CAN be very effective. However THIS week, for a number of reasons, I'd like to see us become more aggressive than we were on Sunday night
OK. that's enough to get this started. Let's talk about some of the match ups we are likely to see both good and and how we can best take advantage of the good match ups and protect against the bad ones.
The Bills are a very good team. Talent wise they are as good as anyone, especially on the D and OLine. They also will have a significant home field advantage, while the Pats will be on their FOURTH away game in just 6 starts.
1. There was a nice MMQB article from another thread which got me thinking about match ups. If I were the Bills DC, the most obvious match up advantage would be Darrius on Wendell. Darrius is a lot bigger and stronger than Geno Atkins, who quickness advantage was matched by Wendell on Sunday night. Coming off a Defensive player of the week award, Darius presents a huge problem for ANY OL, let alone the undersized Wendell.
The obvious solution would be to double Darius on most plays both in the passing and running games. But that's a difficult scheming problem because of how good the rest of the Buffalo DL is. Whether Kyle Williams plays this week could be big for both teams.
2. The Brandon Spikes over-hype. Disclaimer, I was never a big Brandon Spikes fan, even when he was here. While I LOVED his physicality, and could live with his limitations in the passing game; I always felt he guessed far to much in attacking the LOS and for every time he blew up a play in the backfield, there were 2 decent gains because we didn't have any backside support because he had over committed.
That said, Spikes is everything you want in a rush ILB, and I have no idea if he still is guessing all the time. It could be he's improved that aspect of his game. At any rate, given the noise factor, the Pats won't have the luxury of changing things on the LOS as much as they would at home, and you can be certain they are going to want to be balanced, So I would hope that the Pats will continue their success in rushing on has become passing downs, and sticking with the run even when it doesn't yield consistent results.
An unnoticed stat in the Bengal game was that (IIRC) the Pats had 11 rushes that gained less than 2yds. So they had to show a lot of persistence in the run game in order get the positive results. They will need to show the same kind of persistence in Buffalo. And we as fans will need to show a certain amount of patience to Josh.
3. MMQB made an interesting point in talking about the probability of the Bills likely being in press man coverage against the Pats. I wonder if this might be the time to see the Pats go back to some of the patterns from circa 2011. A lot short of picks and option routes, surrounded by shots down the seam in play action. BTW- it will be interesting to see how the Bills choose to defends Tim Wright.
4. On offense the Bills have a number of good playmakers with Watkins and CJSpiller heading the list. But remember, while Watkins IS a great prospect and having a fine rookie year, he still isn't close to being the threat AJ Green was. He could be at that level down the road, but not next week.
Still the success of the Pats D will likely depend on who is available. Sure its nice to have Browner back. But I think we will see him being used as a situational DB in certain match ups. I doubt very much he will come in as a starting CB. McCourty didn't leave the sideline Sunday night, and Revis actually returned late, so I'm hopeful both will be able to play, but I doubt we will know before Sunday.
Kyle Orton is a decent NFL starter (Think Brian Hoyer) ,who got better as that game went along. Like vs Cinci, he won't easy to get to as he has a fine OL to protect him. Ideally I'd like to play either press man or a TIGHT match up zone as my main strategy. I want to force Orton to consistently throw into tight windows. I don't want to give him any of the easy short throws you often see against some zone coverages. I also want him to begin to question what he is seeing from early on. So lots of disguised coverages.
My overall concept would be to try and shut down Spiller and Watkins and force Orton to be the guy who has to beat you. Points will likely be at a premium Sunday, so keeping them off the board early will be critical. If they do move the ball, I don't want it to be in big chunks
5, Hopefully Chandler Jone will be healthier this week and we can develop more pressure. I doubt we see Easley this week, though what little pressure we got last week seemed to be generated up the middle. e How the Pats choose to use Jamie Collins will also be of interest. Of course whether Hightower is available could affect his role as well
6. I'm not one of those fans who demand the defense be uber aggressive all the time. Although it's often very painful to watch, bend but don't beak CAN be very effective. However THIS week, for a number of reasons, I'd like to see us become more aggressive than we were on Sunday night
OK. that's enough to get this started. Let's talk about some of the match ups we are likely to see both good and and how we can best take advantage of the good match ups and protect against the bad ones.
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