Brady, Moss outlast Dolphins in Gillette

Dolphins, 17 @ Patriots, 27

Good game today by both teams. The Dolphins took a little longer than I had expected to get going on the Wildcat but it was effective on that first drive, and after that the Pats did a pretty good job containing it. Moss erupted with a huge game, and Brady looked very poised and probably the most comfortable I have seen him all season. He finished 25/37 for 332, 1 TD and 1 int. He passed Drew Bledsoe for most 300 yard games in New England franchise history.

Moss finished with 6 catches for 147 yards and that awesome 71 yard TD catch where he stiff armed Vontae Davis and took it the rest of the way. This was following the ridiculous highlight 1 handed catch on the fade down the sidelines, setting up Maroney for the 1 yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Maroney also ran hard, breaking some big runs, which is an excellent sign for the Pats. I also noticed that the defense looked very good again. The corners, Butler, Springs, and Bodden looked really good in coverage. The safeties Meriweather, and rookie Pat Chung delivered some awesome hits all game. Chung took down Henne for a big sack in one of the best blitzes I have seen all season, and he also lit up Henne again real bad, but got flagged and will probably see a fine for leading with his helmet.

Keys to the game:

STOP THE WILDCAT

Other than those two long touchdown drives Miami had they weren’t able to get much going. The front 7 did a nice job stopping the run. Pat White was actually more effective than I thought he would be because he is really quick and tough to tackle. It is a good thing for opponents that he sucks at passing. Miami finished with just 201 yards passing, a lot of which game on that meaningless last drive. Goes to show you the Pats secondary has improved a lot. Also goes to show you that the Dolphins don’t have many good receivers to work with in addition to their running game.

SHUT UP PORTER

Porter should keep his mouth shut from now on. First of all, don’t give the Patriots any bulletin board material, and secondly, if you can’t even make a tackle, you might want to keep your mouth shut. As I said before, Porter can only rush the passer. Vollmer and the rest of the oline kept him away from Brady all game. The only stat Porter put up was 1 QB hit. 0 tackles, 0 sacks, 0 forced fumbles, 0 pass deflections.

PLAY EVERY PLAY

I thought New England did a great job today on special teams kicking it away from Ginn. Actually Gostkowski was awesome booting the ball out of the ball of the end zone on most of the kickoffs. The offense was very efficient, not allowing a punt return for the Dolphins. Ginn is much more of a weapon on special teams and they executed well taking him out of the game.

Week 9 Preview

Dolphins (3-4) @ Patriots (5-2)

The Patriots are returning back to the NFL after beating up two terrible teams followed by a bye week. The Dolphins are a very tough all around team. They have a very solid defense, good pass rush, very dangerous special teams with Ted Ginn Jr. returning kicks, good young QB in Chad Henne and of course, the Wildcat formation led by RB’s Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. The last meeting between these two was a very exciting shootout in Miami that the Patriots won 48-28. That was the first of the two games last year, the first one was in Foxboro where the Dolphins debuted the Wildcat formation and the Patriots were totally unprepared. Ronnie Brown was involved in 5 touchdowns that game, whether it was rushing, throwing or catching touchdowns. New England is going to need to stop that effectively in order to win this game. Don’t let the Dolphins 3-4 record fool you, this team is real tough and real talented and always plays the Patriots really hard.

Keys to the game:

STOP THE WILDCAT

This is the only real key to winning this game. Remember Miami is the inventor of the Wildcat formation. All the other teams that have their variations aren’t nearly as good as the Dolphins (Univ. of Texas and the Wildhorn, Denver Broncos and the Wild Horses, and the Eagles with the Michael Vick one. They all suck except for Miami’s). The Dolphins can’t really stretch the field too well. Although Henne is a better downfield passer than Pennington, the Dolphins are pretty thin at WR with Bess, Camarillo, and Ginn who has stone hands. If they can keep the run game with Brown and Williams in check, it will help neutralize the options of the Wildcat. They will also try some trick plays out of this formation so every defensive player must stick to his assignment and stay disciplined.

SHUT UP PORTER

This is a personal key to the game for me. I hate Joey Porter. He is one of the biggest pieces of sh*t in football. He talks sh*t about the Patriots, Brady, Belichick, and he never shuts up. All Porter can do is pass rush and get after the QB. Sebastian Vollmer (accidently mentioned as Billy Vollmer in previous articles, sorry Seb) will be given the duty of putting Porter on his ass and keeping him away from Brady. I wouldn’t worry about Porter defending WRs or doing anything other than rushing the passer. But he is very good at it. Just keep Porter away from Brady, I don’t wanna see him near Brady at any given point in the game.

PLAY EVERY PLAY

Miami can win games without doing anything on offense. As mentioned above, they have a great defense and special teams. Ginn Jr. returned kicks of 100, and 101 yards for TD’s as the Dolphins scored 30 on the Jets and won 30-25. But the Jets outgained the Dolphins 378 to 104 in total yards! The Patriots have to play hard every play in this one because the Dolphins can score from anywhere at any time.
This should be a good game. If the Patriots can stay disciplined on defense the Dolphins probably won’t be able to get the ball into the endzone. New England’s offense is too powerful to be contained by Miami so if they can keep moving the ball they should be able to win this game. But don’t expect anything to come easy.