There's been a clear pattern to the way the Pats' pass defense has been going. First they concentrated on hitting--preventing the long breakaway plays that plagued them last year. Now they're tightening up the coverage.
I like the look of this secondary. Darius Butler and Leigh Bodden are their long-term cornerbacks, with Jonathan Wilhite and Terrence Wheatley providing depth. Shawn Springs is a veteran who can play as the dime back or cover veteran WR's who have, like Springs, lost a step. You have to figure Springs will be gone next year. Brandon McGowan's been a revelation at safety. Still, I think that the long-term safety combination will be Brandon Meriweather, moving over to free safety, with Patrick Chung stepping up as the strong safety. James Sanders is a capable safety but is going to be depth in this crew. Remember, in the championship seasons, the Pats' #8 defensive back was Je'Rod Cherry--who had been a starting free safety for the Saints. This backfield is starting to look like that one.
The Dolphins game will be a test of their ability to hit and play man coverage. Against the Dolphins, you can't leave safeties back. They have to be up near the line to stop the Wildcat. That requires the corners to jam the wide receivers and play bump-and-run man coverage. We'll see if the Patriots corners are up to the task, and whether Meriweather and McGowan can make the hits they have to make on the Miami backs.
You make a valid point. BB has worked hard to retool this team and keep winning during the refit. While it might not happen this year, this defense is going to be very good. With all the draft picks set for next year, you can just imagine the young, fast, hard hitting defense for next year. I like the fact that Vollmer, Chung, Butler, and now Tate are starting to play and contribute. That is a good sign and if Brace begins to play this year, I will consider the draft to be on it's way to being succesful. No patch job here, a strong turnover from the great years to more, hopefully, great years.
LMAO you think the pats secondary will have a true test againt the phins? its gonna be a scrimage game for them man, and im a phins fan! the only way we win this game is if we have long clock draining drives with the run, cause we will never be able to out shoot brady, moss and welker.
To paraphrase Jim Mora: "Dolphins? Don't talk about Dolphins! Are you kidding me? Dolphins?!"
No disrespect to Miami, but what is that game going to tell us about the pass defense? You don't think Indianapolis and New Orleans later in November will be the real test? So far the only skilled passing offenses the Pats have faced are ATL and BAL. ATL is a balanced offense that started out trying to run the ball, but then the Pats got a quick lead and that made the Falcons completely one-dimensional, and when the defense knew what was coming they were able to slow them down. That is certainly an improvement over recent years, where even when they knew the other team was in passing situations they could not get off the field. On the other hand, the Ravens moved almost at will down the field passing, and while the last second drop did NOT cost BAL the game, as many fans have suggested (it was not an end-zone drop: the receiver was wrapped up on the 4-yard line with very little time remaining and there is no guarantee that BAL would have been able to score from there before time expired), they certainly would have had a chance to win because the defense could not stop them on the final drive.
So success against one good passing offense when the deck was stacked in our favor early, and then a poor showing against another when the game was a close one. Better than last year? Sure. Able to keep us in the games in Indianapolis and New Orleans? I hope so, but I will believe it when I see it. Absolutely crucial to both is going to be the pass rush. We can't get pressure with just the down linemen, so we will have to blitz liberally this year in both games. In recent years BB has been reluctant to do so because we did not have the personnel to stay in coverage long enough for the blitz to get to the QB. But I think we CAN stay with anyone other than Wayne for 3-4 seconds this year, so let's see Peyton and Brees get hit a LOT in these games and let the chips fall where they may.
Now if you listen to what the first poster is saying he is right about the Dolphins game being an indicator to how are secondary has evolved in one respect. Teams in order to stop the wildcat must have safeties that can creat pressure at the line of scrimmage to not let Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams get to the second level. In that respect he is 100 percent correct as for pure coverage skills that ofcourse isn't going to be much of an indicator against this team but I think the original poster was trying to imply that the safeties are important in stopping the running game.
OK, in that light you are right, it makes more sense. But still, it would be a shock if the wildcat was successful this week against NE. The Pats lost when Miami sprung the new offense on them in game 1 last season and they had never seen it before. Kudos to Dolphins for game-planning a win. But NE shut it down enough in game 2 last year to win by 3 touchdowns.
Plus, around the league defenses have seen it enough now that there is a good plan to defend it - play the run. The WC ball-carrier is not a QB in most cases, so you know they are going to run 90-95% of the time, and you let the RB try the passing game if they want to. They are not QBs, so as more and more teams adjust to this gimmick, the success rate of WC passes will decrease rapidly. Eventually the # interceptions will overtake and far exceed the # TDs, making it a bad option. Unless you have a QB running the WC (Vick, Pat White) teams no longer fear a RB passing. It will still work as a trick play from time to time (e.g., Addai this past week), but RBs passing is not a recipe for offensive success, especially when teams are no longer surprised by it.
So yes, at least one safety will be playing the run exclusively on WC plays this week, leaving the remaining DBs to cover. So from that perspective (man coverage that needs to be tight enough on the WRs and TE that they are not so far open a RB can pass to them successfully) the Miami game will be a test of a sort. They will basically be playing WC plays a man short in the defensive backfield, and they need to show they can handle this. If they can't, ID and NO will exploit the heck out of that weakness...
I think the biggest problem for NE this week is not the WC, but Brady. He traditionally was terrible against Miami BEFORE the knee injury. This year he has been average overall, with good spurts and bad spurts. Facing a Miami team that knows how to make him look bad...
If the Dolphins torch the Patriots' secondary, you guys have major problems! Chad Henne is good, but he doesn't have even one great receiver to throw to. Camarillo, Ginn, Bess, and Hartline are serviceable and make plays now and then, but they are not half as good as your top two receivers.
Story of this game really is a great passing offense vs. a young, struggling secondary and a great running offense vs. a not-so-great run defense. Who will win? Like so many times, I think it still comes down to who has less turnovers.
Unfortunately, I can see this game being much like the Colts game in Week 2. The Dolphins control the clock and get long drives and run the ball well, but our pass defense is helpless against Brady and it doesn't matter that they only have the ball for 20 minutes.
I disagree on two counts. One, as lousy as he is, Matt Light is better than an untested rookie against Taylor, so I think the Pats' passing offense will not be as successful as you expect, despite a secondary that will be hard pressed to stay with Moss and Welker all day. Brady will be rushed and forced to go with check-downs across the middle because Morris and Taylor are both out, and BJGE is the only RB left who might be able to pound it up the middle enough to slow the pass-rush a little.
On the other hand, I think that despite the Jarvis Green injury, NE will stop the MIA rush most of the day. They will, as usual, allow a few long runs that will make the numbers look better for MIA than they really are, but overall they will stop MIA from scoring. The pass D is top5 in the league, so MIA will only have moderate success passing, mostly with TE dump-offs. And even that will not be as successfull as in the past 2-3 years because Mayo-Guyton are 10x faster than the LBs NE has had against the Dolphins in recent years.
I see this game being 31-14 NE, but I also see Miami winning the game in Miami 20-17 after NE comes out of the IND-NYJ-NO gauntlet a little beat up.
