Meet The Opponent: Miami Dolphins

This Week’s Game
New England at Miami

FOXBORO, MA — This week’s match-up against the Miami Dolphins isn’t expected to get any easier for New England as the Miami defense thus far has become one of the stingiest in the NFL. The Dolphins have yielded a mere 19 points in thier first three games, and during that span they have only given up one touchdown. Not exactly a team that will be easy for New England to break out of their 0-3 start against.

But despite their 0-3 start, New England has only lost their first three games by an average of four points, and all three teams that they have faced have a combined record of 9-0. The Dolphins come into this game after having beaten a very good Baltimore Ravens team last week 19-6, and held the Ravens to only two field goals after Baltimore put up 39 points just one week earlier. Needless to say, Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe and the rest of the New England offense will have their work cut out for them against a very tough Dolphins defense, which, according to head coach Bill Belichick, has made a habit of giving their offense great opportunities.

“Defensively they’re very physical on their front seven,” said Belichick on Wednesday. “They’ve caused a lot of turnovers and made a lot of big plays on defense.”

“I think this is a physcial team. Miami has made a commitment to running the ball. They’ve got a couple good blocking tight ends, a couple of good blocking fullbacks, a runner that runs hard. They’ve made some big plays in the passing game to compliment that but they really want to run the ball and you can see that in the way they go about it.”

This week’s game is extremely important for New England. At 0-3 they’re in desperate need of a win and have an extremely tough schedule ahead of them. They face five division opponents in their next six weeks, and looking ahead the Patriots first opponent on the schedule who is currently under .500 is the Cincinnati Bengals (0-2), who New England will won’t play host to until November 19th. A win against the Dolphins puts them back at 1-1 within the division and will give them some momentum heading into Denver next week.

Meanwhile Belichick seems to have something up his sleeve for this week. The Patriots head coach said on Wednesday that he feels New England may have a couple of favorable macth-ups that he’ll try and exploit against Miami. He also said that he feels confident that they can keep the Dolphins off balance.

“I think that we have a couple of areas where we want to attack them and where we think we have some favorable match-ups and we’ll try to exploit those,” said Belichick. “There’s no question about it Miami’s a good defensive football team they’re good across the board. They’re strong inside, they can rush the passer, they can cover well, they have a middle linebacker [Zach Thomas] who makes a lot of plays. But I think that we’ll find a way to keep them of balance and to improve and perform better ourselves from where we’ve been the last couple of weeks. I think we’ve shown some signs and made some progress, but it hasn’t been enough to put a ‘W’ up there. I’m expecting this week that we’ll be able to make a little bit more improvement and we’ll be able to capitalize on that.”

Miami decided to name quarterback Jay Fielder as their starter this season, and so far he’s been a success for the Dolphins. Through three games he’s 38-of-71 passing for 469 yards, 3-touchdowns, and 2-interceptions. One big key according to Belichick is the fact that Fielder simply makes good decisions with the football, and takes advantage of the opportunities he has when they’re presented to him.

I think he’s a very opportunistic quarterback,” said Belichick. “He’s smart, he’s got good quickness, he’s pretty mobile in the pocket. He’s not mobile like [Daunte] Culpepper but athletic enough to get out of trouble and stay on his feet and keep the play alive.”

“It seems like he has good command of the offense, he knows what they’re doing and makes good decisions with the ball (or let me put it another way, he doesn’t make a lot of bad decisions with the ball in terms of turning it over and putting it in bad places). I think he does a good job of running the offense, managing the team, and again not hurting the offense. Really Miami has thrived on defensive turnovers, good play on special teams, and taking advantage of their chances on offense when they’ve had them, and he’s done a good job of that.”

As for the Patriots so far this season runningback Kevin Faulk has been a pleasant surprise and has rushed for 183 yards on 44 carries, including an 80yd performance last Sunday against the Vikings. He’ll have a tough time this week against a very good Miami defensive front which also features Zach Thomas at middle linebacker. Faulk will have to continue to show no fear running up the middle to try and keep the Dolphins from continually coming after Drew Bledsoe who has already been sacked 15 times this season. Faulk has been used as a runningback, on kick-returns, and has also caught 18 passes for 116 yards receiving. Belichick is pleased by what he’s seen from Faulk thus far, and he’s hoping that the team can find a healthy balance for him.

“I think Kevin’s been productive,” said Belichick. “We expected Kevin to be productive. Again Kevin can produce and has produced in several different areas as returnerer, as a receiver, as a runner. He’s a versatile player. It’s a question of how much can you use him to keep that production level high. We’re trying to find that balance.”

“I think that probably in the first three games [his use on the field] was maximized last week in total rushing, receiving, and returning with the number of plays that he was in.”

The second-year back from LSU will have his work cut out for him on Sunday, and New England will be putting a big load on the little back to try and become more successful scoring points this week.

THE LAST TIME:

The Dolphins outscored the Patriots in the second half 17-7 in their second meeting last season en-route to a 27-17 victory at Pro Player Stadium. Bledsoe had his worst game since 1993 after being sacked five times and throwing 5 interceptions. New England went into the locker room tied 10-10 at half-time but was unable to stop Miami in the second half.

WELCOME TO MIAMI

The Dolphins hold a 25-7 series advantage when playing at home agains the Patriots. New England has had better success at Foxboro Stadium holding a 19-15 advantage.

SENSE OF URGENCY

BILL BELICHICK ON THEIR CURRENT SITUATION:

“We put ourselves in a hole here at the start of the season, and I think we all know that there’s a point in time where if you get in too deep it’s hard to get out,” said Belichick Wednesday. “We’re probably getting fairly close to that point. You get to a point where pretty much everything has to go right for you when you’re in such a deep hole and sometimes it just doesn’t happen. There’s no margin for error, and if you make one mistake or one game doesn’t go your way, or if another team that you need help from and don’t get it, then that’s it.”

“I think our team understands the urgency of all the games. We’ve put ourselves in a tough spot and we need to pull ourselves out of it and we need to do it pretty soon.”

About Ian Logue

Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.

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