WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — During most regular-season weeks, earlier than the Patriots take one follow snap or sit for a single press convention, they convene in a windowless auditorium inside Gillette Stadium.
Bill Belichick stands on the entrance of the room and presents information on the following opponent, utilizing visible aids to cowl the top coach’s influences, participant tendencies and, sometimes, franchise historical past. Before this assembly, he’ll have already introduced to his assistants, explaining precisely how he desires the Patriots to play that Sunday.
The bedrock of that plan is Belichick’s imaginative and prescient for the way the sport ought to “declare,” be it a man-to-man protection and out of doors working sport or a ground-and-pound contest or a shootout.
How Sunday’s sport in Miami will declare is anybody’s guess.
In his press conferences this week, Belichick has spent extra time addressing the uncertainty surrounding the Patriots’ than anything.
“That’s the $64,000 question on everything,” Belichick mentioned of what to anticipate. “Opening day is opening day. Nobody is really showing much in preseason. The cards will be on the table on Sunday.”
What will first-year Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel function together with his new offense?
“Well, honestly, that’s a hard question to answer. We haven’t really seen them play yet,” Belichick mentioned Tuesday. “It’s preseason.”
However the sport declares, it’s clear the stakes of the Patriots’ opener have risen increased than regular. Sunday shall be a division sport. The Dolphins are a fellow Wild Card contender. By the tip of the season, the Pats may even see Sunday’s consequence as a playoff tiebreaker.
Remember Week 1 final yr?
Stakes also needs to clarify why the Pats, losers of three straight to the Dolphins and 4 of their final 5 in Miami, practiced on soccer fields at a Division II college all week. The Patriots want each edge they will manufacture this season with a roster expertise stage round league common. Stakes could even clarify why they signed former Dolphins working again/huge receiver Lynn Bowden Jr. to their follow squad barely per week earlier than the opener. What secrets and techniques has Bowden spilled?
In the higher scheme of issues, Week 1 has by no means meant much less within the NFL. The 2022 common season shall be tied for the longest in league historical past, each kickoff mattering a fraction lower than it did throughout the previous 14 and 16-game eras. Even then, season openers had been extra about sensation than substance.
Half of the Patriots’ six Super Bowl groups misplaced their season openers. The final title workforce began 1-2. Week 1 is concurrently essentially the most anticipated and least related and predictable slate of the NFL season.
“We’ll see what happens first game. That’ll declare a lot more going into the second game, that’ll declare a lot more going into the third game and then there’ll be a point that we get a pretty good feel for what the other team’s going to do and probably what you’re going to do, too,” Belichick mentioned.
The Patriots don’t sound too impressed by Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa
“I think sometimes Game 1, there’s a lot of emotional stuff,” Pats quarterback Mac Jones mentioned this week. “You want to focus more on the details of the plays and everything like that and let the emotions come and go. … Energy and all that will be there. At the end of the day, it’s just the start of something.”
Sunday, in fact, shall be one other season opener. And but it could be crucial opener of the Belichick period.
If the Patriots’ “something” is a shock marketing campaign this season, Week 1 in Miami provides no higher place to begin.
But in the event that they fall to 0-1, the Patriots not have the best quarterback of all time as a security internet. Or an all-time protection. Or the knowledge that pervades their program that all the things will work out, beginning with Belichick’s Wednesday morning conferences.
Uncertainty, as a substitute, surrounds them. Buy-in to the brand new offense, the younger secondary and remade teaching employees will all be at stake beginning Sunday.
But think about in the event that they beat Miami. Imagine in the event that they vanquish previous demons, get a leg up on a division opponent and affirm their very own course of, whereas the remainder of the soccer world doubts them.
Just think about. Envision it. The Patriots are.
“I think anything you do, you try to be positive and optimistic and just figure out the solution to the issue. That’s what every good problem solver does. There’s an issue or something that doesn’t make sense, they find a way to fix it. That’s kind of what we’re doing,” Jones mentioned. “I feel really good with where we’re at.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com