It’s all new, mysterious for Dolphins, Patriots
Welcome to the new. The new NFL season is upon us and what you’re about to see Sunday, if you tune in to the Dolphins game at the New England Patriots, is two new teams so radically changed in the past nine months since they last met, it will be hard to tell who’s who and what’s what.
Miami’s new team comes to the game with a makeover so drastic it includes $250 million in new free agents and 10 rookie draft picks who made the team’s cuts.
New England’s new team is without its old quarterback
Tom Brady. And it’s without familiar veterans such as Kyle Van Noy, Ted Karras and Elandon Roberts, all three of whom are on the new Dolphins. The Patriots also are new to the fact they’re starting a season lacking the familiar assurance they’re a championship contender, something they have been since 2001.
All of this is so new, most of this game’s main characters spent the past week of preparation wondering aloud what they were about to see beginning with the 1 p.m. kickoff.
New England coach Bill Bel
ichick, famously able to predict what his opponent is likely to do, apparently isn’t sure what either team is likely to do.
“I don’t know,” he said. “[There will be] some similarities, but also a lot of new players, new year, new season.”
The Dolphins are in the same situation. The offense that will open the game Sunday could have as many as seven new starters from the unit that scored 27 points in a victory over New England last December. The defense matches that number with seven new starters of its own.
“We’ve got a ton of new faces,” Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said. “We’ve definitely been harping on this just being a new year. [It’s] a completely different team for us, a completely different team for them. I don’t know that we can draw a whole lot on that.
“The other aspect we haven’t talked about is no fans, fake crowd noise and how that’s going to play into it. There’s some unknowns going into this game that haven’t existed in the past that both teams will have to deal with and feel out.”
Here’s your story line: Two strangers meet in Foxoborough, Massachusetts. We’ll see what happens next.
NFL coaches and players typically hate this kind of stuff. Perhaps because they rarely have to deal with it. Usually teams turn over the roster at around a 20 to 30 percent clip.
Usually a couple of assistants on the coaching staff come or go.
But the Dolphins, for example, have 26 new players on their 53-man roster — a 49 percent turnover from last year.
And the coaching staff has a new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator, new defensive backs coach, new quarterback coach, new linebackers coach, new outside linebackers coach, new wide receivers coach, new offensive line coach, new assistant offensive line coach, new assistant defensive line coach, and new assistant defensive backs coach.
Second-year head coach Brian Flores has 11 new assistants on his staff one year after he pieced together his first staff.
New.
And, yes, new can be good, especially if the old included a 5-11 record, which is what the Dolphins posted last season. But good or bad, new brings uncertainty.
So ask Jerome Baker, one of four holdovers from last year’s starting defense, what the 2020 Dolphins defense is going to be and the answer escapes him as if it were a fleet running back.
“Realistically, that’s hard,” Baker said. “That’s really hard because nobody really knows what’s going to happen for sure. The one thing I do know is we definitely take pride in different things — batting the ball down, interceptions, sacks. Just the regular — every defense has those goals.
“We have our goals and we truly strive for that every day. Our goals are not just on Sundays, but actually during practice. That’s the one thing we definitely strive for.”
All this sounds like an uncertainty sandwich held together by the fact there was no preseason to gauge either team. But these guys, unsure what they’re about to see, are competitors.
And the uncertainty presents an opportunity to take advantage of an unsure opponent.
“I think there is uncertainty for everyone,” Flores said. “The thing I like about it is, you go back to your rules, your reads, your fundamentals, your techniques. You see how far you’ve come along from that standpoint. I think at the end of the day, in football, there is a lot of different schemes, concepts, defensive structures and eventually you’ll see something that you haven’t seen before and you’ll have to rely on your rules and your keys.
“If you do that, you should be OK. That part of it I like. That unknown is something that a lot of players, they need to feel that. I think coaches need to feel that also and how we respond to that will help us moving forward.”
Amid all the looming uncertainty, the Dolphins should be able to count on some things from Belichick. His defense, different as it is from past championship units, will try to eliminate certain players from Miami’s game plan.
So count on Belichick trying to cancel receiver DeVante Parker. Because in last year’s finale Parker caught eight passes for 137 yards.
Count on Belichick to be aware of tight end Mike Gesicki inside the 20-yard line, because the Miami tight end caught three touchdown passes in the final two games last year — including the game-winner against the Patriots.
The teams are familiar with each other’s defenses because they are mirror images of each other. And Belichick is aware of Chan Gailey’s offense, because he has faced the Miami offensive coordinator many times before.
Beyond that? How is Cam Newton going to play as New England’s new quarterback? How is Miami’s new offensive line is going to perform, how quickly are the Patriots’ inexperienced linebackers going to recognize plays?
All that is important. But also merely the stuff of speculation now.
“Yeah, the first few plays and stuff — the first few series — you see what they’re showing and stuff like that; so you tell your coach what you’re seeing out there and then we’ll take adjustments, maybe at halftime,” Dolphins running back Jordan Howard said. “Sometimes when you come out of halftime, they’ll bring you something new because they make adjustments as well.
“[It’s] just constant communication with your coach and telling him what you’re seeing and stuff like that, so he can relay it to who he needs to relay it to, so we can make the proper adjustments.”
Welcome to the new.