Patriots In Miami to Prepare for Week One matchup with the Dolphins

By: Steve Atkinson

It is officially week one of the NFL season. The Patriots have traveled to Miami on Tuesday ahead of their game against the Dolphins on Sunday. If you listen to certain media this is a panic move by Bill Belichick flying to Miami to get acclimated to the weather. He usually does this in December when the team is on the west coast and is playing west coast teams in back-to-back weeks. However, for the first game of the season? It is unusual but maybe he wants the team to bond this week ahead of their game on Sunday.

The Dolphins have a whole new coaching staff with Mike McDaniel has a first-year head coach. The Patriots also have a new coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge. Working with the Kyle Shanahan offense wasn’t a success in training camp. I really hope they do what Mac Jones does best on Sunday which is five wide and giving him the ability to change the play at the line of scrimmage. At the end of the day offensive play calling falls on Belichick if it fails having Matt Patricia and Joe Judge coach the offense.

Usually, September is an extension of the preseason. However, not this year or since Tom Brady went to Tampa for that matter.  When you had Brady the first four games didn’t really matter because he would always bail you out when the wins were needed the most at the end of the season. Mac Jones isn’t there yet, but he could be in the next few years. It is very important the Patriots get off to a good start on Sunday. Because if they don’t Monday won’t be pretty on Sports Talk radio in Boston.

The Patriots have the better head coach and quarterback. With that they should beat the Dolphins on Sunday. Mike McDaniel is the complete opposite of Bill Belichick in his press conferences. Below is a transcript of an answer about the Patriots flying to Miami and facing Bill Belichick.

“Yeah, I mean, can there be a larger disparity in career win-loss total? (laughter) No, it would be a bigger deal I think if Coach Belichick and I were on the field, maybe doing like an Oklahoma drill, but I don’t foresee that happening. I don’t think the fans would really pay for that. We do our best. I know one thing that coaches in the National Football League – especially experienced NFL head coaches, especially arguably the best coach of all time, Bill Belichick, he’s going to be prepared. So you know that as a head coach, you better prepare your team and leave no stone unturned. Otherwise, you’ll end up kind of coaching with regret after the fact. Luckily, the schedule came out a long time ago, so I digested that and knew what Week 1 was, and luckily it’s the Miami Dolphins versus New England Patriots and not a one-on-one square-off between head coaches.”

When you hear the audio of the above quote from Mike McDaniel he sounds over his head and in awe of facing Bill Belichick. Belichick has a different mindset and luckily Matt Patricia or Joe Judge aren’t the head coaches either because Patricia, or Judge couldn’t talk to the media properly has head coaches. They were way over their heads. So could McDaniel. Belichick will put Mac Jones in the best spot to win on Sunday not Patricia or Judge. Like I said if the offense fails it falls on Belichick. Here is a transcript of a Bill Belichick answer about how the Dolphins have matched up against them in the past

“Their structure is very similar to ours. I think we can look at most of their defenses and put it exactly into our terminology, ‘here’s what that call is’. Which is not normally the case, but again, because of the familiarity, I’m sure Josh can do the same thing with our defense. There’s just more familiarity there, but I think the Dolphins have built the team to be a strong front. They have a lot of big, physical guys up front that are hard to block, especially in the running game. They’re one of the teams that plays one of the highest percentages in man-to-man coverage in the league. Certainly not all man, but they play a high percentage of it, higher than most, and they blitz particularly their secondary players, but in general, blitz more than most teams do, so they pressure the quarterback. I think their DB’s blitz probably more than any team in the league and they pressure the quarterback a lot. That doesn’t mean every pressure is an incompletion or interception, there are completions there, but in general they get free guys or get players attacking the quarterback and that’s the start of disruptive plays. I’d say those are characteristics of what Josh is trying to do.”

Very monotone Bill Belichick no jokes just straight to the point. You even get a mumble here or there.