There's going to need to be some big improvements to this defense and offense when we play Denver, or this could be a long day on Saturday.
1) Cover The Deep Ball
Cover the deep ball. It sounds so simple when you say it, doesn't it? Yet almost every game, this New England defense allows at least 2 deep balls to be caught, even if the Receiver is covered well. It just seems that this defense doesn't make plays on the ball, but rather on the player after the ball is caught. Now, hopefully moving McCourty to Safety to utilize his ability to read plays will help with this problem. We'll see on Sunday, but the D can NOT allow Tebow to throw the ball all day.
2) Win The Turnover Battle
The past 3 playoff games the Patriots have played in (Super Bowl 42, 2009 Wild Card against Baltimore, 2010 Divisional against the NYJ), New England has done a bad job of winning the turnover battle. In fact, in those 3 games, Tom Brady had a mere 5 TDs and 4 INTs. That's terrible. We all know Brady should be putting up 3 TDs and maybe a pick in a regular game. And the defense needs to get turnovers too. If the D can get turnovers as easily as they did last time (4 fumble recoveries I believe), it should be a good game, and if Brady can stop forcing the ball into places he shouldn't be, NE should handily beat the Broncos at Gillette.
3) Score Early and Often
In the past several games of the regular season, this New England offense has been horrible early in the game, often going 3-and-out. They fell behind by 17 against Miami and fell behind 21 points against Buffalo. Both the Offense and Defense need to get scores and stops in the first quarter against Denver and they should be alright.
4) Get Pressure On Tebow Without Excessive Blitzing
The last time New England played Denver, they did a great job of blitzing a linebacker or two, instead of blitzing everyone (which is the mistake Pittsburgh made). They blitzed Ninkovich and Fletcher very well last time, and both got to Tebow a couple times to apply pressure, even if they didn't get a sack. If you can put pressure on Tebow and wrap up your tackles when you go to take Tebow down, you can force him into making bad throws or make him throw it away. That could be a major factor against Denver, and help NE get their first playoff win since January, 2008.
5) Use The Run To Set Up The Pass
Stevan Ridley. Danny Woodhead. BenJarvis Green-Ellis. Those are the 3 men that need to play well on sunday, other than the Offensive line. Denver S Brian Dawkins is likely to not play Sunday. New England has to run the ball well early on. That could set up great play action opportunities, which Tom Brady and Wes Welker thrive off of. And with Denver down a safety, I'm assuming the replacement will jump on the first sight of a run, allowing the deep ball to be wide open all day. If New England can run well and take some of the playoff pressure off of Tom Brady, New England has a great shot at beating this Denver team that seems to be on fire coming into Foxborough. Copyright Nicholas Reguin, January 13, 2012.
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