New England Patriots football is finally back and which also means I’m back with my gameplan articles (CHECK OUT LAST SEASON’S HERE). The first game of the season is always pretty ugly and there are plenty of unknown elements that cannot be predicted. That’s what makes it fun and scary.
Missed tackles, blown assignments, and just a general lack of rhythm tend to always be present in week one, and often into weeks two and three as well.
Complicating matters is how the Patriots love to experiment in the early part of the season. Throwing random guys into random roles to see how they do and if they flash any potential.
So what we’re left with is hoping the Pats can hang on to the ball and stay frosty no matter how up and down their performance is.
Here’s the gameplan…
Offensive Gameplan
Let’s start at the areas of uncertainty headed into this first game. The biggest one is along the interior of the offensive line where Bryan Stork will be out with a concussion. So what does that leave the Pats with? Maybe Mason-Wendell-Jackson. Maybe Kline-Wendell-Jackson. Or maybe, as Greg Bedard said on Felger and Mazz Wendell-Andrews-Jackson. Any way you slice it, there’s at least one rookie in there and very possibly two and that’s a major area of concern. Personally I’d go the veteran route with Kline and Wendell.
Second comes the weaponry and what combination they’ll go with. LaFell is out, so that means you’re looking at Dobson or Amendola starting with Edelman. I’d expect a rotation of the two. Mostly I just want to see them unleash the Twin Towers of Gronk and Chandler, because that should give the Steelers a ton of problems.
This isn’t the Steel Curtain anymore, their pass defense has been getting lit up since last year.
Then we look in the backfield, where they’ll likely give Brandon Bolden some action to start but expect Dion Lewis to be the guy who gets a lot of touches early on. Or could they unleash Travaris Cadet, who is fully healthy but played zero preseason games. He’s unique, more of a receiver than running back and I think the Pats have something special planned with him. Might be a week or two too early for Cadet, but he’ll have a big game in September.
The Pats liked to spread out LeBeau Steeler defense, will anything change now on either end? Because the Pats have pretty much had their way with the Steelers defense almost every time Brady’s faced them.
With the release of Jonas Gray and no LeGarrette Blount, it’s a good bet the Pats are going to throw the ball 50 times in this one. The quick throws should limit the pressure put on the interior offensive line, so expect Edelman and Amendola to play a big part in those throws. Pass protection from the inexperienced running backs will be a big factor.
Defensive Gameplan
Oh, am I excited to see this defense take the field! It’s just become more and more clear with each week how many different things this defense can merge into. Their front seven is dripping with athleticism and nearly impossible to decode at the line of scrimmage. Who’s two-gapping? Who’s blitzing? Who’s dropping? Who knows. And each player presents a unique problem whether you’ve got to block them or outrun them.
So the big question here in week one is predicting what they WILL do. Antonio Brown has to be the first focus and with Matavis Bryant out, there should be extra man power to deal with him. But you’d think Malcolm Butler with occasional safety help makes the most sense.
This is a good game to get a sense of the man/zone balance the Patriots will play this season. Expect some of the Nick Saban-esque zone on early downs, man on third down unless it’s long.
The biggest thing for this defense is winning one-on-one matchups. That’s what the Patriots defense hasn’t been able to consistently do since 2007, but now they have the pieces where they better start doing it. They have the size guys to eat up two blocks, but that puts the pressure on players like Easley/Hightower/Collins/Chandler/etc. to beat their single blocker. That’s what makes a great team pass rush.
Expect a healthy rotation of all four defensive tackles and don’t be surprised to see Ninkovich come off the field in passing situations for a front like Sheard-Easley-Chandler-Hightower, with Mayo and Collins at the linebacker spots.
Most critical to the defense is tackling. They haven’t been doing a lot of it before now but if they can consistently wrap and tackle they’ll force mistakes.
Five Points of Emphasis
1. Play clean – Making tackles and not turning the ball over is usually 75 percent of winning but in week one it’s closer to 90 percent. There will be ugly plays. Brady’s gonna get sacked. Roethlisberger will hit a long pass. None of it will matter if they just don’t make the last critical mistake.
2. Get Gronk’d – We can talk for hours about all the different things the Patriots might try to do, but the only one that really matters is getting Rob Gronkowski involved. He’s the best offensive player on the team now and getting the ball in his hands as much as possible will only help open up all other avenues of attack. Most interesting will be to see how Scott Chandler compliments Gronk and stresses the defensive coverages.
3. Disguise > Blitzing – Belichick is never a big blitzer, in fact they’ve been blitzing less and less since 2010 and that’s a good thing. The ideal is to win with four rushers and if you can do that consistently, you’ve got a great defense. One of the holdovers from the old 3-4 scheme they used to use more frequently, is the ability to disguise which linebacker is blitzing. The same principal is true and applies to not only the three linebackers, but the two defensive ends as well and sometimes even a defensive tackle. Send Hightower, Mayo, Ninkovich, Collins, Chandler, Sheard, Flowers, Easley after Roethlisberger at random times. Never let the Steelers get a bead on who the main rushers all. Keep them guessing and take advantage of the overall athleticism on the defense.
4. Contain and Tackle Roethlisberger – We’ve heard it plenty of times from Belichick that you must keep Roethlisberger contained in the pocket and then you must finish him off when you get hands on him. This isn’t easy of course but explosive plays happen when Ben is able to get out of the pocket and create after initial contact.
5. Win – With ten days before the next game in Buffalo and a late bye, getting a win and then a couple extra days off should do a lot of good for this team on a number of levels. The roster can then also be re-jiggered a bit as their current personnel seems directly aimed at Pittsburgh. Conference victories are always valuable in the grand scheme of things and knocking of a respectable Steelers team is just the sort of win that will put Deflategate and (unfortunately) the Super Bowl win truly behind the Patriots and focus them on 2015.