After both teams lost in the NFL’s opening week, it’s safe to say the Dolphins and Patriots didn’t start the season off the way they envisioned.
In Week 1, head coach Mike Vrabel’s Patriots fell to the Raiders in a 20-13 loss at home that had too many common threads with their back-to-back four-win seasons over the last two years. Although he’s a proven head coach, Vrabel wasn’t going to fix all New England’s problems overnight, and the second-half offense, coupled with a boom-or-bust defense that allowed nine explosive pass plays, wasn’t the winning formula that Vrabel outlined for his team.
When he was hired, Vrabel preached taking advantage of bad football. Once the season grew closer, taking advantage of bad football was joined by winning the second half. Last Sunday, the Patriots did neither, and that was a tough pill to swallow following an offseason filled with such optimism due to the coaching hires and personnel upgrades.
As for Miami, the Colts stunned the Dolphins in a 33-8 win in Indianapolis last week, the most lopsided margin of victory in the NFL in Week 1. The Pats division rivals are in year four under head coach Mike McDaniel, whose offensive prowess is widely respected across the league, but it’s gut-check time for McDaniel’s regime after missing the playoffs a year ago and failing to win a postseason game in his first two seasons. If the Dolphins go backward again this season, they could be asking some tough questions down in South Beach.
That said, Tua Tagavailoa and the Dolphins could be coming off a 70-0 loss in Week 1, and Patriots fans would still be uneasy about Sunday’s game. Tua is a perfect 7-0 in his career against New England, dating back to the last chapter of the Bill Belichick era. The Pats haven’t won at Hard Rock Stadium since 2019, when old friend Brian Flores was the Dolphins head coach and Tom Brady was under center for New England.
Along with the recent Dolphins dominance over the Patriots, Week 1s in the NFL are notoriously fluky. Miami’s loss came in a game where they turned the ball over three times, only had seven offensive possessions, and possessed the ball for just 21 minutes. Due to the turnovers and Indy dominating time of possession, the Dolphins offense all-22 was only 27 minutes long. That might be a little inside baseball, but take my word for it, that’s very short. When you turn on their tape on offense, in particular, you still see an ever-manipulative Tua throwing to a skill group with tremendous speed and creative scheming by McDaniel.
Given how one-sided this matchup has been of late, you cannot simply say “just do what the Colts did” to get a win in Miami. One loss against a different team isn’t a good indicator of how this matchup will be played, with the Pats and Vrabel’s recent film vs. the Dolphins being far more telling. So, in this week’s preview, we’ll focus mostly on recent Pats-Dolphins clashes and Vrabel’s history vs. McDaniel.
Let’s get into the schematic chess match of Sunday’s trip to Hard Rock Stadium to face the Dolphins with kickoff shortly after 1 p.m. ET.
Patriots Offense vs. Dolphins Defense: Maye’s Second Matchup vs. DC Anthony Weaver
Although the Patriots are running a different offense under Josh McDaniels, the Dolphins retained coordinator Anthony Weaver for a second season as their defensive play-caller.
In his first season as Miami’s defensive coordinator, the Dolphins defense finished 22nd in DVOA. However, the second-year quarterback didn’t play well in the lone matchup between Maye and the Dolphins defense last season. Maye generated -0.21 expected points added per play with four sacks, two turnovers, and a 43.7 QBR in a 34-15 loss in Miami. Weaver stressed Maye and the Pats O-Line with schemed pressure, which Miami used at the third-highest rate in the NFL a year ago (7.9%).
Before being hired in Miami, Weaver spent three seasons with the Ravens as a defensive assistant. Baltimore is known for spinning the pressure dial using creepers or simulated pressures, creating a blitz feel without sending extra rushers. Creepers are when a coverage player blitzes, like a slot corner, while the defense drops a typical pass-rusher off the line of scrimmage to replace the blitzer in coverage. Simulated pressures, on the other hand, are when the defense threatens all-out pressure, leaving the offensive line to sort out who is rushing and who is dropping into coverage. The Dolphins generate unblocked blitzers at the highest rate in the NFL since the start of the 2024 season (9.6%).
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