5 Final Thoughts Before The Patriots Face The Dolphins

[PatsFans.com Article]

5 Final Thoughts Before The Patriots Face The Dolphins

Ian Logue

With the Patriots preparing for another key division game tonight against the Dolphins, here are some final thoughts before New England attempts to get their 11th win of the season.

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[maineman209]

Last game, the 'Fins defense certainly had difficulty containing Lewis, and they gave up big plays to Cooks (37), Gronk (21), Dorsett (39) and Burkhead (22), in addition to being victimized by timely and well-executed razzle-dazzle (Ebner's fateful 14-yd run off the fake punt, and Cook's 11-yard run).

Aside from Lewis and those big plays, they held Burkhead and White to a 2.73 ypa on the ground. They also held Burkhead, White, Lewis, Allen and Amendola to a combined 6 of 12 receiving for a whopping 23 yards - 15 of which came on one catch by Amendola. The 'Fins D ended up with 7 TFLs.

It will be interesting to see how well McD and Brady have anticipated/prepared to counter Miami's likely defensive adjustments (with the absence of Gronk). With Hogan possibly returning, even for limited snaps, the Pats offense has enough weapons to reconfigure successfully, I think.

On the other side of the ball, it's difficult to know how much the absence of Van Noy and Trey Flowers will affect the Pats D against Cutler and Kenyon Drake. There are still a lot of schemes and games that Patricia can run with the healthy personnel that the 'Fins haven't seen yet. Rowe's return could play an unexpected role.

 

[Gwedd]

These division games are almost always dogfights, even when the opponent is in the bottom tier of the league. It's because there aren't any more secrets between us and Miami, Buffalo and the JEST. The teams see eachother twice a year and after awhile, they get to know everyone's tendencies. Thus it's hard to add new wrinkles, but when they do, such as Miami's use of the wildcat formation to beat New England a few years back, well, those games stand out because someone found some new way to attack their opponent.

I fully expect the Pats to win tonight, but it might be closer than most folks are thinking.