Bruschi’s Breakdown: New England Patriots must match wits with Peyton Manning – ESPN Boston

You have to match wits with the mind that a quarterback like Manning has, to be able to take control at the line of scrimmage like he does. If you give him the answers to the equation pre-snap, and you just stand there, he will switch the play to the best possible play that has the highest possible percentage of being successful against that defense. For example, if you have only six men in the box – because Peyton has you spread out with those Colts-like formations – he’s going to run the ball. In this case, that means Willis McGahee is going to get the handoff. Once that gets established, you might see a defense bring a safety down to help that, as the Steelers did in the season opener with Troy Polamalu. When that happens, Manning switches to a pass play. With the passing game – one-deep, a two-shell look with two safeties high – there are certain answers to those types of defenses that Manning knows. With two-deep, try to attack the middle of the field in that Cover 2. In Cover 3, attack the outsides. It’s things like that, reading your leverage pre-snap. You can’t give Manning that because he’ll tell his receiver what to play. If it’s obvious man coverage, he’ll run that tear screen that Pierre Garcon ran, that Reggie Wayne ran, and now Demaryius Thomas is running. So you just can’t show him the same thing every time.