Battle of the Blitz: Jones, Belichick Talk Patriots' Potential Problems with Dolphins' Pass Rush
After a one-year absence, The New England Patriots are once again bound for the postseason. The Pats have returned to the playoffs via a familiar formula: great coaching along with smart, complementary football on both sides of the ball. This combination has helped them remain among the AFC’s best teams heading into the 2021 postseason.
While their defense has been the primary catalyst for their success, New England’s offense has shown marked improvement from the start of the season.
Steering New England’s offensive ship is rookie quarterback Mac Jones. The 23-year-old has completed just under 70 percent of his passes on the season. As a result, he has been the ideal steward of New England’s timing-based passing game, predicated on vertical routes and completions from quick, accurate throws.
Through his first NFL season, Jones’ stellar performance has placed him near the top of his peers in contending for Offensive Rookie of the Year. Still, his 2021 campaign has not been perfect. As is usual for all young quarterbacks, there have been some growing pains, most of which Jones has handled well. However, his struggles in dealing with defensive back blitzes from opposing defenses could be a concern against the New England’s Week Eighteen opponent, the Miami Dolphins.
Though Miami’s defensive backfield has not been overly active in the pass rush, it is likely that Dolphins’ coach Brian Flores and Miami’s defensive brain trust will attempt to dial-up some strategically placed blitzes from the second and third level of the defense in hopes of confusing Jones. Some of the Pats’ recent opponents, such the Atlanta Falcons and Tennessee Titans have had some success against New England in that regard.
Flores and the Dolphins are known to blitz as much as any team in the league. Typically, they find their way to the quarterback. Miami has 45 sacks in 2021, led defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah with nine and rookie linebacker Jaelan Phillips with 8.5. Should Miami choose to deploy members of its secondary when blitzing, safeties Brandon Jones, Eric Rowe, Nik Needham or Jevon Holland could get home from the third level, while the others tighten their coverage throughout the field. In any case, Miami’s defenders should be expected to turn up the pressure on Jones, by challenging the Patriots offensive line.
No one knows that better than Mac Jones. When asked on Wednesday about the unique challenges presented by the Dolphins’ defense, Jones responded with effusive praise and evident respect.
“They’ve done a really good job getting after the quarterback, creating negative plays, obviously, with sacks,” Jones told reporters. “They’ve done really good there and have given quarterbacks they play against a lot of different looks, so we just have to be ready, follow what we know, and follow our rules. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Like you said, they’ve done a really good job, so we’ve just got to be ready.”
Admittedly, Jones needs to enhance his setting of the protection. However, to place the blame for some of his difficulties with the blitz squarely on his shoulders is unfair. The Pats offensive line has also had its share of problems with pass-blocking breakdowns. Still, the team has shown notable improvement in the area with each passing week. On Wednesday, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick sounded optimistic about their ability to play through the difficulty.
“Overall, I wouldn’t say it’s been a major problem this year,” Belichick said. “I think we’ve handled that pretty well, but there’s always room for improvement and every game’s different, so how it matches up this week and, again, as I said, these guys do a little more odd pressuring than some of the teams… we’ve really been four-man line teams here for the last, I don’t know, six, seven, eight weeks, whatever it’s been. It’s been a lot. So now we’re into a little bit of a different look here and we’ll have to make sure we’re straight on all that too.”
Whether it be with Jones, or with the offensive line, New England will be hard at work this week to correct their occasional deficiencies with handling the blitz, especially from the defensive backfield. Still, even if the Pats are successful making the necessary improvements, Miami’s defense is stout at all three levels. Thus, they can present numerous challenges for which the Patriots must be ready to face.
“They can bring pressure, but they can also not bring pressure,” Belichick told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ve played games against them where the game was almost exclusively three-man rush and we’ve played games and seen games, like the Baltimore game this year, where they bring in max pressure in the ballpark of, call it, 20 times.”
“They’ve added more variety to their defensive play calling: more zone, more blitz-zone, some safety blitz pressure that they’ve added. They’re a game plan-team and you have to be ready for a lot of things. We’ll just have to see what we get, but I think it’d be a mistake for us to sit here and practice every snap of max pressure or every snap of three-man rush. It could be any of those and it could come in different quantities, depending on how much success they’re having with it too. We’ll have to be ready for all of that.”
The Patriots and Dolphins are set for an 4:25pm kickoff on Sunday afternoon, January 9, from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
