Where’s the Panic Button?

The Patriots have hit the quarter pole on the 2014-15 NFL season and I can’t imagine a worse start for this team. Though 0-4, not 2-2, would obviously be the worst case scenario, it was never a real possibility for this team coached by Bill Belichick and quarterbacked by Tom Brady to lose four straight games to the likes of the Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs. Most football analysts looked at the Patriots’ first four games on the schedule and expected them to be 4-0 or at the very least 3-1. Instead they are 2-2 with embarrassing losses to the Dolphins and Chiefs and a poor performance that barely resulted in a win against the Raiders. It’s time to face the very real fact that this current Patriots team is not good. At all.

I honestly didn’t think the Patriots would look worse this season than they did in the second half against Miami when they were outscored 20-0. I was wrong, because just three weeks later the Patriots looked much worse for their entire game against the Chiefs. They gave up 303 yards to the Chiefs in just the first half while managing just 290 yards of offense in the entire game themselves. I’ll let that stat settle in for a second. It’s hard to look any worse than the Patriots did on Monday Night. However, I’m not one to overreact to one horrendous performance, but I am willing to make judgments about a team a quarter of the way through the season. Through four games, the Patriots are a bad football team. Here’s why:

Pass Offense – D-

The Passing game has been the worst part of the Patriots game this season and the worst we’ve seen of Brady in his career. He has completed 81 of his 137 passing attempts for 791 yards. That leaves him with a completion percentage of 59.1% and a yards per game of 197.75. In his career his lowest season completion percentage was 60.2% in 2003 and his yards per game this season would be his second worst, behind only his 189.5 in 2001, his first year as a starter in the NFL. Of course the Patriots won Super Bowls both those years, but with much better defenses, which I’ll get to later.

The offensive line has also been awful in the passing game, allowing 10 sacks through four games, putting them on pace to give up 40 on the season. That would be tied for the second worst in the Brady-Belichick era behind the 41 they allowed in 2001. Simply put, the pass offense has been just about as bad as we’ve ever seen it with Tom Brady under center.

Running Game – C-

The ground game for the Patriots hasn’t been much better either. They’ve amassed just 390 yards rushing through four games leaving them ranked 26th in the league with 97.5 yards per game. Their 3.71 yards per carry ranks them slightly higher at 21st, but still not good. Needless to say, the offense is in terrible shape and it’s hard not to come back to the offensive line for a lot of the blame. Brady hasn’t been sharp in the passing game and the Patriots lack a true go-to guy in the ground game, but the offensive line has still been the worst part of the offense. We’ve now seen eight different offensive linemen with Sebastian Vollmer being the only guy who’s played the entirety of all four games in the same position. The rest has been mixing and matching, and the Patriots still haven’t found a combination that works. Overall, they have the lowest yards per play on offense of any team in the NFL.

Run Defense – D

The Pats have given up 398 yards on the ground in their two losses for an average of 199 yards per game. I don’t think I need to explain how terrible that is. On Monday night against the Chiefs they gave up almost six yards per carry to the combination of Jamaal Charles and Knile Davis. While they looked great at stopping the run in their other two games, it’s hard to give too much credit for stopping Matt Asiata and an aging Darren McFadden. When was the last time you heard an announcer call Vince Wilfork’s name? Or the last time you saw him blow up a play in the backfield? It may be time to acknowledge that he’s over the hill and move on. He’s been little more than a 325-pound cone this season.

Pass Defense – B

The Patriots’ pass defense has been the best part of this mediocre team so far this season, but being the skinniest kid at fat camp isn’t exactly a feat. A lot of their success statistically comes because Ryan Tannehill and Alex Smith barely felt the need to throw the ball with their running backs shredding the Pats’ defense. Their 188.5 yards allowed through the air per game ranks them 3rd in the league, 6 interceptions have them tied for second, and their nine sacks have them tied for ninth, however that doesn’t tell the whole story. Four of those interceptions and six of those sacks came against Matt Cassel. As long as Teddy Bridgewater stays healthy in Minnesota, Cassel is unlikely to ever be named an NFL starter again.

While the lack of yards allowed has been impressive this season, the completion percentages against haven’t been. Derek Carr completed 65% of his passes and Smith completed 77% of his throws, including three touchdown passes. With Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Matt Stafford and Jay Cutler still on the schedule, Carr and Smith are two of the worst passers the Patriots will face this season. However, the pass defense will get a huge lift when Brandon Browner returns from suspension this week.

Looking Forward

The worst part of the Patriots’ awful start is that it came during four of their easiest games of the season. The Pats are 2-2 against four teams that are all unlikely to make the playoffs. Going forward they have five divisional games, which are always tough games, and seven more against playoff-caliber teams of which six are very likely to make the playoffs. Their opponent this week will be the Cincinnati Bengals, the best team in football at the moment, and then they have two divisional games before an absolutely brutal six-game stretch against the Bears, Broncos, Colts, Lions, Packers and Chargers. If the Patriots don’t show vast improvements, going 9-7 this season will be a tall task.

My Prediction: The outlook this week against the Bengals is bleak. The Bengals defense has been dominant in their three games this season and they’ve had an extra bye week to study film on the Pats. They’re giving up just 11 points per game this season against some good offenses. They’re likely to be in Brady’s face all day and the running backs will have a tough time finding room against Cincinnati’s talented front seven. Offensively, Giovanni Bernard has been one of the best running backs in the league this season and will carve up the Pats just like Knowshon Moreno, Knile Davis and Jamaal Charles did. AJ Green is one of the best receivers in the league and will give an unimpressive Darelle Revis all he can handle in the passing game. The only thing working in the Patriots’ favor this week is their home-field advantage. The Bengals have been the best team in football this season and I don’t see a way the Patriots can improve enough in every area of the game in six days to beat them. For the first time since i started writing this blog, I’m picking the Patriots’ opponent: I’ve got the Bengals 24-14 in this one.

Offensive Woes

On Sunday the New England Patriots hosted the Oakland Raiders in Foxboro for their home opener. The team had struggled through their first two games, losing in Miami before a strong defensive effort lifted them over the Vikings in Minnesota. After the Vikings game, Tom Brady was visibly upset with the way his offense had played, and rightfully so. In the week leading up to the Oakland game, the players and coaches assured us that they were practicing better, and that the offense was starting to come together. The timing couldn’t have been better because the Raiders were allowing 200 yards rushing per game and didn’t have the secondary to cover all of Brady’s weapons. This game was such a mismatch that I predicted the Pats to score 41 points. What I forgot was how atrocious this team’s offensive line is.

Before I get in to just how bad this offensive line is, I would like to point out that the Pats did beat the Raiders by a score of 16-9. However, they needed a holding penalty to negate a potential game-tying touchdown and an interception on a deflected ball inside their own 10 with less than a minute to go to eek this one out. That’s not exactly the way a supposed Super Bowl Contender should play in their home opener against the Oakland Raiders.

Now, about that offensive line. Brady was sacked twice on Sunday and hit six other times, often quite violently. The worst part was that only one of those hits came as the result of a blitz. In fact, five of the six sacks the O-Line has allowed have come against just three or four pass rushers. That means they out number the pass rushers and are still getting gashed. ProFootballFocus.com ranks every offensive lineman by position in the league and this is what they found: Of 68 tackles that have played at least one snap this season, Sebastian Vollmer ranks 25th and Nate Solder ranks 65th. Among 70 guards, Marcus Cannon ranks 52nd and Jordan Devey comes in at 68th. Dan Connolly ranks 37th of 46 centers. That leaves Vollmer as the only guy in the top half of the players at his position and Devey and Solder rank third to last at their positions (Side note: When broken into rankings for just pass blocking, Vollmer falls out of the top half). It doesn’t get much worse than that for a five-man unit.

Brady is 37 years old and certainly not getting any younger. He’s about as elusive as a sloth at this point and needs protection around him. He won’t be able to stay upright if guys like Justin Tuck keep blowing by Solder like a turnstile and drilling him. Some have been saying, “as long as the Patriots keep winning, the O-Line will figure it out eventually.” However, I don’t think Brady has “eventually” in him before the amount of hits he’s taking cost him an injury. When you have an aging superstar at quarterback, you’re supposed to protect him, not get him killed.

As easy as it is to blame Bill Belichick for trading Logan Mankins (and I do), Mankins isn’t coming back. So how do the Pats fix this? They started on Sunday by benching Devey, moving Connolly to guard and putting rookie Brian Stork in at center. Stork looked good there for the remainder of the game, so I’d expect him to stay at center this week. That only solves two positions though, and, as I pointed out above, all five guys have been awful. For the other three guys, it’s a matter of stepping up their game. Solder and Vollmer are better than they’ve played this season, and we know that from past experience. Neither are old enough to be over the hill, so they just need to figure it out. If they don’t, however, the Pats are in a whole lot of trouble.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Patriots will travel to Kansas City to play the Chiefs on Monday Night Football. Arrowhead Stadium is always loud, but you can bet that the primetime crowd will be as raucous as ever. The noise makes running the up-tempo offense a lot more difficult because communication at the line of scrimmage has to be done with hand signals. Though the Chiefs aren’t a juggernaut, they’re significantly better than the Vikings and Raiders and handed a beat down to the Dolphins last week, so they’re still the best opponent the Pats have faced thus far in the season.

Offensively, they rely heavily on the run game. Usually the grunt work goes to Jamaal Charles, but he is still recovering from a high ankle sprain and is questionable for Monday night’s game, though most believe he’ll be in the lineup. If he can’t go, they’ll give the ball to Knile Davis, his backup, who has racked up a respectable 214 yards and three touchdowns on 55 carries in Charles’ absence this season. Regardless of who the running back is, the Chiefs will test the Pats’ run defense that looked so bad in week one.

They don’t have too many weapons in the passing game and shouldn’t be too much of a test for the Patriots’ secondary. However, Alex Smith is a good game manager and doesn’t often turn the ball over, so interceptions will be hard to come by. The good thing about playing against Smith is that the Patriots defense can be as aggressive as they want, because he almost never takes shots down the field. He sticks to handing the ball off and making the safe throws.

Defensively the Chiefs boast a great defensive line that will test the Patriots porous offensive line yet again. Dontari Poe is one of the best defensive tackles in the league at getting after the quarterback. The scariest matchup, however, is Tamba Hali going against Solder. Hali has two sacks already this season and is an extremely dangerous edge rusher. Belichick will have to think about giving Solder help with tight ends and running backs, because if he can’t stop Tuck on his own, he’ll get shredded by Hali. Eric Berry at safety and Sean Smith at cornerback make for a solid secondary for the Chiefs as well, but nothing else will matter for the offense if the line can’t hold.

My Prediction: If the Patriots are going to win this game, they’ll have to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. If they can slow down the Chiefs running game and get a lead, Alex Smith will be forced to throw the ball more than he likes to, which would likely lead to mistakes. This matchup makes me nervous not just because the offensive line could cost them the game (they definitely could) but also because I’m not sold on the Patriots defense. The Raiders moved the ball a little too easily last week and Smith and Charles/Davis are a lot better than Derek Carr and Darren McFadden. Still, I think the Patriots are a more talented team and I have hope that Stork and Connolly can sure up the interior of the line a little bit. I’ll take the Pats in a close one, 23-21. Though I wouldn’t be shocked if they lost by a similar score.

Back to Basics

On Sunday the Patriots took the field in Minnesota and played 56 minutes of solid football. I say 56 minutes because the opening drive of the game saw the Vikings marching down the field, throwing to wide-open receivers and scoring a touchdown. It was a nightmare start for the Pats who desperately needed to bounce back from a loss in Miami in week one. The nightmare was compounded when the Patriots went three-and-out and punted. However, Devon McCourty recorded an interception on the Vikings’ next possession and returned it 60 yards before stepping out of bounds just before the goal line. From that point forward it was smooth sailing for the Patriots.

The Pats did exactly what they needed to do in this game to win. Offensively they committed to the running game, handing it off 36 times for 150 yards. Comparatively, Tom Brady dropped back to pass just 22 times, completing 15 for 149 yards and a touchdown. I’m not sure Brady read my post last week, but he certainly took my advice. He went to his go-to guy, Julian Edelman seven times resulting in six completions for 81 yards and a score. He didn’t over-target Rob Gronkowski, going 4-for-6 when targeting Gronk for 32 yards. I’d still like to see him look at Aaron Dobson, Tim Wright and Danny Amendola more often though. Most importantly of all, however, the offensive line held steady, allowing just one sack and leading the way for a solid ground game.

Defensively the Patriots were dominant. Chandler Jones looked like a beast in the game with six tackles, two assists, two sacks and a blocked field goal, which he then scooped up and ran back for a touchdown. He was the spearhead of a pass rush that sacked Matt Cassel a whopping six times in the game. Logan Ryan also looked good in the game, spending most of it matched up with Cordarrelle Patterson and winning the matchup with an interception and two swatted balls. His interception was one of four for the Pats, the others coming from Dominique Easley on a deflection, McCourty, and Darelle Revis, his first interception with the Patriots. Revis did what he does best on Sunday: he matched up with Greg Jennings all game and held him to just one catch for four yards on four targets. The Pats held the Vikings to just 217 yards of total offense, and only 54 on the ground: a drastic improvement from last week. They were also great on third down, allowing just four conversions on 11 tries.

Though the game was a great rebound for the Patriots, they still have a lot of work to do. Defensively they were solid, and aside from the opening drive, they were perfect. The same can’t be said for the offense. They were given great field position all game due to turnovers and great punt returning from Edelman, but were unable to turn that field position into touchdowns for the most part. It sounds picky in such a blowout of a game, but 292 yards of total offense isn’t great. Worst of all the offense was just 5-for-14 on third down. If the Patriots want to beat better teams than the Vikings, it will take a better effort when it comes to moving the chains in key third down situations. They will also have to be more disciplined going forward. 24 penalties over two games is far too many.

Oakland Raiders

On Sunday the Oakland Raiders will come to town for the Patriots’ home opener this season. There really isn’t too much to say about the raiders other than they’re pretty bad. I believe in Bill Belichick’s determination to take no teams lightly, but inevitably the NFL will have a few teams every year that just don’t demand the respect that the rest of the league does. Oakland is one of those teams. They have a porous defense and no offensive weapons. The Patriots outmatch the Raiders at almost every position on both sides of the ball.

Offensively the Raiders will start a second-round draft-pick, Derek Carr, at quarterback. Though he has been a more solid quarterback through two games than many people expected, he is still nothing to be feared. He ranks 34th of 35 QBs this season when facing a blitz (five or more pass rushers) so look for the Patriots to throw some exotic blitzes at the rookie. Carr’s top weapon in the passing game is probably James Jones, a castaway from Green Bay, who was third or fourth on the Packers’ depth chart last season. At running back the Raiders will roll out two guys that are far past their prime: Maurice Jones-Drew and Darren McFadden. Though Carr is unlikely to throw four interceptions on Sunday, the offense is likely to look just as inept as the Vikings did last Sunday.

I’m not sure where to start defensively with the Raiders. On paper, they don’t have a chance of stopping Brady and the Pats’ offense. They’re outmatched in the running game and they won’t be able to match up with the Pats’ weapons in the passing game. Last week they gave up 30 points to a Houston Texans’ offense led by Ryan Fitzpatrick. Brady mentioned in his post-game press conference on Sunday that he thinks the offense has been out of sync so far this season. If they can’t get in sync at home against the Raiders, they never will.

My Prediction: I, like everyone else, am expecting this to be a blowout. No, I’m not worried about this being a trap game. The Raiders aren’t good enough to make this a trap game. The Patriots are 14-point favorites in this game, and I find that generous in Oakland’s favor. The Patriots are dominant at home, especially against weak opponents. Don’t be surprised if this game turns into a 50-point affair like the one against the Titans in 2009. I’ve got the Patriots 41-10.

Note: Just after I posted this, a quote from Tom Brady: “Those guys [Edelman and Gronkowski] have seen the majority of the throws, and I’ve got to do a better job of finding the other guys. There’s a lot of good routes, they’re big targets, guys are working really hard to get open, so hopefully it shows up this week in our pass game. We’re going to work hard on it this week to see if we can all be on the same page more often.” (I swear he’s reading this blog).

Rough Start

It had been 11 years since Patriots’ fans watched their team lose a season opener. It was 2003 and Drew Bledsoe and the Buffalo Bills decimated the Patriots, 31-0. It was so long ago that Tom Brady is the only player still on the Patriots’ roster that was there. While Sunday’s 33-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins doesn’t look as bad on paper, it certainly felt just as bad. The first half was fine, as the Patriots’ took a 20-10 lead into the locker room. Two guys returning from injury, Shane Vereen and Rob Gronkowski, each found the end zone and the re-vamped Patriots’ defense came up with a couple turnovers that led to points. If it hadn’t been for a blocked punt that gave the Dolphins the ball in the red zone, the score could have been 20-3. All was going just fine until the teams took the field for the second half.

The dolphins marched into the red zone on their first possession but settled for a field goal, making it a one-possession game. On the ensuing possession, Tom Brady was strip sacked and Ryan Tannehill found Mike Wallace for the game-tying touchdown three plays later. The Pats got the ball back and were punting just one minute later after going three and out. The Patriots would pick up just one first down in their next four possessions, punting all four times. Their next first down came at the 2-minute warning, when they were down by 10 and out of timeouts. Though the run-defense was atrocious in this game, I have a hard time blaming them when the offense moved the chains just one time from the start of the second half until the two-minute warning. In fact, the Dolphins scored two of their three touchdowns directly off of turnovers that resulted in field position inside the Patriots’ 35. So I’m going to go ahead and put this loss on the offense.

There are only two games in my memory that I’ve seen Brady look as bad as he did in the second half on Sunday. The first was the aforementioned season-opener in Buffalo when he was in his third season as a starter. The second was in November of 2010 when the Patriots travelled to Cleveland and got shellacked by the lowly Browns, 34-14. With a quarterback as good as Brady, there is a short list of horrific games and Sunday’s game easily cracks the top three. While a lot of his shortcomings can be blamed on the offensive line (trust me, I’ll get to that), plenty of it was on him.

I find his biggest flaw to be his trust issues. His inability to see past the jersey number of his receivers and just throw to the open man has really hurt his game last season and again on Sunday. Last year I understand that he had a lot of rookies who often dropped the ball, but that doesn’t mean he should be forcing the ball into double coverage to a rusty Gronk. Three times on Sunday Brady locked in on Gronk and threw incompletions into double coverage when he had open receivers elsewhere on the field. Brady completed just four of 11 throws to Gronkowski and five of ten to Kenbrell Thompkins. Meanwhile, newcomer Tim Wright caught every ball thrown his way, including one quite athletic catch, yet Brady gave him just three looks. Amendola was open and ignored on multiple occasions.

What perplexes me most was Brady’s reluctance to go to Julian Edelman in the second half. Edelman is by far the best receiver on the Patriots’ roster and had a great first half on Sunday. He secured six of eight targets and one of those incompletions was a terrible overthrow by Brady. Yet he had exactly zero receptions in the second half and was inexplicably ignored by Brady. Edelman is fully ready to take over Wes Welker’s role as Brady’s go-to guy in mid-range third down situations, Brady just needs to give him the opportunity.

If Brady is going to turn things around he’ll need some help from his offensive line. Football games are won and lost in the trenches, and this game was quite obviously lost up front for the Patriots. Brady was dealing with pressure in his face all day and ended up being hit 26 times in the game. The line wasn’t much better at run blocking as none of the Patriots’ running backs had any space to run. The last thing the Patriots need is to regret trading Logan Mankins. I’m not sure Mankins would’ve been the difference on Sunday given the universal porousness of the line, but he certainly couldn’t have made it any worse.

Minnesota

Now we turn our attention to Minnesota and the Patriots’ week two matchup with Matt Cassel and the Vikings. The Vikings stomped on the St. Louis Rams on Sunday, which isn’t saying much given that the Rams are without a starting quarterback and generally lack talent on offense, but it’s not like the Dolphins are a juggernaut either. The Patriots’ will once again have their hands full with the Vikings’ pass rush, as their head coach, Mike Zimmer, is a specialist in frustrating quarterbacks. He did it to the Patriots last season as the Cincinnati Bengals’ defensive coordinator and will do it again on Sunday. Luckily their secondary is not very talented and the Patriots should be able to create mismatches all over the field. The Patriots will need to establish a running game and make quick passes to throw the Vikings’ pass rush off their game and they should be fine. I can tell you, however, that if Brady drops back to pass 56 times again, he’s going to get pummeled, just like last week.

Defensively the Patriots have two focuses: Adrian Peterson and Cordarrelle Patterson. While guys like Greg Jennings and Kyle Rudolph are certainly not slobs, Peterson and Patterson drive the offense. This will certainly be a test for the Patriots who gave up 191 rushing yards to the Dolphins. Peterson is still the best running back in this league and Patterson, though a wide receiver, ran for 102 yards on Sunday, including a 67-yard touchdown. Vince Wilfork and Joe Vellano will have to step up their game and control the line of scrimmage for the Patriots’ defense. Too many times on Sunday the Dolphins’ running backs were able to travel six or seven yards before feeling any contact. The linebackers will also have to do a better job of shaking blocks and making solid tackles. If the Patriots allow that kind of space for a runner like Peterson, they will be in for an extremely long afternoon.

In the passing game I would like to see Revis get matched up with Patterson and simply eliminate him from the game. His reputation as the best shutdown corner in the game is something that many are doubting he still has and it would be nice to see him give it a shot. With games on the schedule against the likes of AJ Green (Bengals), Brandon Marshall (Bears), Demaryius Thomas (Broncos) and Calvin Johnson (Lions) it would be nice to know that Revis still has that shutdown quality before he takes on that kind of talent.

My Prediction: I’m really nervous about this game to be honest. It’s a sad day to be nervous about Matt Cassel and the Vikings, but the Patriots did almost nothing to inspire confidence. I can see this game going one of two ways. The first is the one Patriots’ fans fear. The offensive line can’t hold up, Brady really is over the hill, and Peterson runs all over the defense as the Patriots get chased out of Minnesota with an 0-2 record. However, I think the more likely outcome is that the Patriots bounce back and put together a much better effort. It was just a few weeks ago that I was writing about this team as a Super Bowl contender, and, on paper, I still believe they are. They have always struggled winning games in Miami and I would like to chalk that season-opener up as a fluke. This team is better than they showed last week and Brady is a lot better than he played. Hopefully the return of Aaron Dobson and Josh Kline can spark the offense to be a bit more consistent. I like the Patriots in a close one 28-24.

Patriots-Dolphins Preview

It’s finally here. After a summer of horrid baseball being played in Fenway Park, Bostonians can finally tune out the lowly Red Sox and turn all their attention to the New England Patriots. The NFL season kicks off on Thursday night featuring a matchup between the defending Super Bowl Champions and the Green Bay Packers. The game promises to be a great one between two powerhouses in the NFC, but I’m here to talk Pats.

On Sunday at 1:00 pm the Patriots will take the field in Miami to play the Dolphins in their season opener. The division rivals will square off in the sweltering South Florida heat (temperatures are expected to reach 90) with many question marks on both teams. For the Dolphins, the questions start and end with Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill is entering his third season in the NFL and is looking to prove that he is the quarterback of the future for the Dolphins. He showed great improvement from his rookie campaign to last season, doubling his touchdown total (from 12 in 2012 to 24 in 2013) and throwing for over 600 more yards. It’s still unclear whether the converted wide-receiver has what it takes to be a winning quarterback in this league, but if he can continue his upward statistical trend, it is likely that his team will improve around him.

Making his life difficult will be newcomer Darelle Revis, as we will get our first look at the shutdown corner in a meaningful game for the Patriots. Revis is likely to cover the Dolphins’ number-one target, Mike Wallace, who has struggled in his time with Miami. Revis’ skill set and Wallace’s lack of ability to connect with Tannehill leads me to believe that Revis will have no trouble keeping Wallace in check. That will leave Tannehill looking for his dependable second wide-out, Brian Hartline. Hartline is a decent option in the passing game, but if Revis can truly keep Wallace off the stat-line, the rest of the Patriots defense should have no trouble stopping Hartline and tight end Charles Clay. On top of a lack of options, Tannehill is dealing with a newly re-built offensive line and is likely to be dealing with Chandler Jones in his face all afternoon. If the Dolphins are going to have success against the Pats it’s going to have to be in the running game.

It will be Knowshon Moreno’s debut with the Dolphins, though he is likely to be a backup to Lamar Miller. Moreno gashed the Patriots for 224 yards last November as a member of the Denver Broncos, but he won’t have the benefit of Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, Wes Welker and Julius Thomas distracting the Patriots defense this time around. Miller has never been anything more than an average running back in his career and I don’t see a way in which the Patriots’ defense, with a healthy Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo, gets gashed in the running game. In short, this should be a nice warm-up game for the Pats’ D as there really aren’t too many threats on the Dolphins offense.

On the other side of the ball, the Patriots have more to worry about. Their biggest question mark by far is the offensive line. Since trading Logan Mankins last week, the Pats are now without their star left guard. Sebastian Vollmer has been practicing at left guard while Marcus Cannon has filled Vollmer’s role at right tackle. While Vollmer is an outstanding offensive lineman, left guard is a vastly different position from right tackle. It will be interesting to see how the shuffled unit performs, especially against a defensive unit in Miami that is quite proficient when it comes to getting after the quarterback.

Another question mark on the offensive side of the ball is at running back. The Patriots don’t have a clear-cut starter at running back, and will likely take the “running back by committee” approach that Bill Belichick has come to adopt in recent years. My guess is that Shane Vereen will get the most snaps of the bunch, as he is the greatest weapon in the passing game and seemingly one of Tom Brady’s favorite targets. Of course, if Stevan Ridley can prove that he can hold on to the ball (don’t hold your breath) he could go back to being the feature back that he was in 2012. One interesting character in the backfield is the rookie out of Wisconsin, James White. Belichick and Brady seem to love the kid, singing his praises and giving him a lot of touches in preseason. Though Belichick has shown faith in the youngster, he didn’t exactly put up great numbers in preseason. Of course a lot of that had to do with the offensive line, which run-blocked quite terribly in their four meaningless contests this August. The one thing that White did excel at was pass protection, a trait that kept Kevin Faulk in the Patriots organization for as long as he did.

Despite these question marks, Brady has the weapons around him in the passing game to move the ball down the field. That statement is doubly true if Rob Gronkowski is on the field and 100%. He is obviously the most dangerous player on the field when he is out there, and all indications are that he will be. Aside from Gronkowski, Tim Wright, product of the Mankins trade, is a pass-catching tight end that promises to make an immediate impact in the Patriots’ offense. Rounding out the passing options for Brady are the ever-reliable Julian Edelman, second-year receivers Aaron Dobson and Kenbrell Thompkins, a healthy Danny Amendola, newcomer Brandon LaFell, and the targets out of the backfield Vereen and White.

My Prediction: I’m equally excited about the Patriots re-vamped defense and as I am nervous about the shuffled offensive line. However, we are talking about Tom Brady and the Patriots against Ryan Tannehill and the Dolphins. There is an overwhelming disparity in talent between these two teams, and I expect the result to reflect that. The warm weather shouldn’t be an issue given the 90+ degrees it’s been in Foxborough this week. Even if the offensive line is porous, I can’t see any way the Dolphins put up more than 14 points on offense given the strength of the Patriots’ defense. For all of those reasons, I’m taking the Pats 27-13. Now let’s get this season going.