CFZ Thoughts/Opinions about the Patriots!

[40yrpatsfan]

Both teams have struggled with a rash of OL injuries, which are the hardest to deal with. In NE's case, they also had to open against Philly then Miami, and also they had a lot of acclimating to do with a new OC, several new receivers, and other injuries to starting WR's and CB's. Lot of adversity, but the OL starters returned last week and things looked better, though hard to tell cause the game was played in a monsoon.

The Patriots won the SB in 2014-16-18, then were 12-4 but faded at the end in Brady's last year with us, then had 3 straight years around .500. But Belichick's been slowly building things back and they have a helluva roster this year. They've been flying under the radar because last year the offense sucked under Matt Patricia (a rare Belichick mistake with his coaching staff), plus the Bills-Dolphins-Jets occupy all the news.

With fewer injuries they could easily be 3-0. The defense is disruptive, and the offense has enough talent to win even without star WR's. They're for real, though the schedule is daunting with you guys, the Bills x 2, Miami again, KC, the Chargers (plus others like Indy-NO-Pitt that won't be easy).

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Very similar opponent as the NY Jets, but better offensively and better coached. No doubt this is going to be a tough, physical game that is going to look ugly at times. Last time they played, Cowboys won an overtime thriller.

Offense

-Matthew Judon is an elite pass rusher who had 15.5 sacks last season. They like to move him around for the best matchup. Uche is also very good as he registered 11.5 sacks last season. Patriots have a lot of strong players inside who will occupy blockers. Barmore is the player to watch in the interior, gets a a lot of pressures and hits on the QB. If there is a weakness within the OL, Bellicheck is going to exploit it.
-It's going to be very difficult consistently running the football, but they have to stick with it, to avoid all the exotic looks they will give the Cowboys against the pass. Stay out of those 3rd and longs.
-Christian Gonzalez, their #1 pick travels against the opponents best receiver, expect him on Lamb the entire game in press coverage, with help over the top. Lamb had a field day against the Patriots the last time, expect Bellichek to scheme him out this week. The other receivers are going to need to step up, especially the TE's.
-Cannot commit a ton of self induced penalties as the Patriots never beat themselves and take advantage of mistakes.

Defense

-The Patriots are going to try to run the football early and often, until the Cowboys can prove they can stop them. Last time they had great success on the ground, this cannot happen again. Defense has to stay away from being over aggressive as they will exploit cut back lanes if players leave their gap. Stevenson is a quality back and we all know Zeke is going to be motivated against his former team. Make them 1 dimensional and the Patriot offense is in big trouble.
-Their offensive line is very average, just like the Jets, but Mac Jones does an excellent job under pressure inside the pocket. Expect to see them use a quick passing attack, along with a high level screen game.
-Patriots lack elite speed at the receiver position, where they do the most damage throwing to their 2 quality TE's over the middle. Henry/Gesicki are real good receiving TE's.

Special Teams

-Patriots drafted the kicker that Bones Fassell targeted in Chad Ryland. Excellent looking young kicker with range.
-Bellichek came into this league as a special teams coach and knows the importance, Cowboys need to win this battle.

this feels like a one score game. any game against bilicheck is going to be tricky and difficult. he doesn't lose big often and waits for you to make mistakes. they maybe 1-2, but lost close games and kept Dolphins in check until late. I think their weakness is their QB and he is trying to help him out a lot. he is not very mobile, which is an area our defense struggles against this running QBs, so we should see better results in pass rush. I don't know much about their team speed, but we have been suspect in containing runs to the outside and that's what happened last week. they will definitley try to exploit that. this game is going to test our run defense discipline as last game we just were not disciplined and got caught several times.

this is one of those games the coach has to manage tightly, as they will try and frustrate us. and we just have to be patient. minimize mistakes and take shots at times and convert a couple of them. Gallup seems to have woken up last week and hope cook does too. he doesn't seem to feel the offense as yet based on his two games. I look for offense to have a couple of new wrinkles in there and probably see some 3 TE sets, lots of two TE sets and a few 4 WR sets. Dak has to be very patient with the offense and what Patriots are going to give him.

hopefully we have resolved out redzone issues specially inside the 10. with martin and Biadasz back, we should have little more success. they probably can't drop 7 into coverage taking all the passing lanes away. I hope MM comes up with better play designs inside the redzone, as the past couple of weeks the play design and play call inside redzone has not been good and then the execution has sucked too. if we figure out the redzone issues, this offense is very capable of putting up points.

 

[Cowboyny]

this feels like a one score game. any game against bilicheck is going to be tricky and difficult. he doesn't lose big often and waits for you to make mistakes. they maybe 1-2, but lost close games and kept Dolphins in check until late. I think their weakness is their QB and he is trying to help him out a lot. he is not very mobile, which is an area our defense struggles against this running QBs, so we should see better results in pass rush. I don't know much about their team speed, but we have been suspect in containing runs to the outside and that's what happened last week. they will definitley try to exploit that. this game is going to test our run defense discipline as last game we just were not disciplined and got caught several times.

this is one of those games the coach has to manage tightly, as they will try and frustrate us. and we just have to be patient. minimize mistakes and take shots at times and convert a couple of them. Gallup seems to have woken up last week and hope cook does too. he doesn't seem to feel the offense as yet based on his two games. I look for offense to have a couple of new wrinkles in there and probably see some 3 TE sets, lots of two TE sets and a few 4 WR sets. Dak has to be very patient with the offense and what Patriots are going to give him.

hopefully we have resolved out redzone issues specially inside the 10. with martin and Biadasz back, we should have little more success. they probably can't drop 7 into coverage taking all the passing lanes away. I hope MM comes up with better play designs inside the redzone, as the past couple of weeks the play design and play call inside redzone has not been good and then the execution has sucked too. if we figure out the redzone issues, this offense is very capable of putting up points.

Cowboys are going to have to play cleaner and execute on both side of the football. Key to me is winning the early downs.