Patriots vs Lions Preview: Patriots seeking 13th straight winning season

November 11th, 2014
by Dakota Antelman

A week of transactions and roster drama will culminate in a Patriots face off with the Detroit Lions at 1pm on Sunday.

After last week’s Jonas Gray excellence, this week’s LeGarret Blount signing as well as the Patriots sudden distancing themselves from the rest of the NFL, the themes evident in this game are vast and plentiful. Furthermore, this game pits two teams going in opposite directions against each other.

 The Lions are coming off a painful loss to the Cardinals last week in which they only scored six points. 

New England however, sits first overall in the AFC with an 8-2 record and has a two game lead on the Broncos in the AFC standings. They are only a few good wins away from clinching their division and one win away from clenching their 13th straight winning season. Needless to say, the Patriots have won their last six games by virtue of the fluidity of their attack.

"We always try to stay balanced," said Tom Brady, who saw his running backs pick up the slack for him when he threw for just 257 yards last Sunday. "You never go in saying we're going to run it this much or throw it this much. You try to get the runs on your terms, and if they're going to load up and stop it, you've got to throw it, but if they're not going to respect the running game, you've got to keep giving it to him."

Jonas Gray blew the Colts away last week with four touchdown runs and over 200 yards of total offence. He was featured as the cover boy for this week’s edition of the magazine “Sports Illustrated” and predicted to dominate vs. the Lions if given starting snaps once again. During the week however the Patriots brought in recently dropped Steelers running back LeGarrett Blount.

Blount, a player with both running back and kick return abilities will likely be utilized in the former of those two positions vs the Lions and not the latter.  That is because earlier this week, Patriots coach Bill Belichick insisted that Blount would have to earn his playing time in a tight system.

"When he gets an opportunity, [it's] how much he can take advantage of it, how much he can be productive and what he can do with those opportunities [that] will determine how many more there are,” Bilichick said. “It's totally up to him”

Beyond the running back battle, the Patriots and Lions game will feature a fierce clash at the line of scrimmage. 304 pound defensive tackle, Ndamukong Suh, will test a Patriots offensive line that has been lights out in recent weeks. Suh has 4.5 sacks this season and has made 23 total tackles.

The Patriots and their offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels recognize the threat though and have been preparing relentlessly this week.

"He’s an extremely disruptive player in any alignment that they put him in,” McDaniels said of Suh. “He’s a great football player. He plays the run well, creates a lot of problems in pass protection. He penetrates. He can handle double-teams and beat single blocks and moves with the other defensive linemen very well.”

To counteract what pressure, Suh manages to put on Brady, the Patriots will have to work in short run plays and screen passes that have been used only sparingly during this six game win streak. On top of plentiful targets to dominant players like tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receiver Julian Edelman, the Patriots could start dumping short passes off to running back, Shane Vereen in this game.

Vereen who has caught 35 passes for 305 yards this season, understands the need for quick hitting plays early.

“It’s just about getting the ball rolling,” he said after Friday’s practice. “Hopefully we'll be able to keep doing what we've been doing in recent weeks but also just get the ball going downfield early.”

Finally, the Patriots are in for a tense matchup in the secondary as the highly touted wide receiver Calvin Johnson will happily exploit any miscues the Patriots make. Johnson already has over 500 receiving yards this season and will likely be shadowed closely by Patriots corner Darelle Revis.

Earlier this week Revis praised Johnson as a “man amongst boys.”

“I have a lot of respect for him,” Revis said. “I feel like our defense has a lot of respect for him. He has a lot of respect around the league as well.”

The Patriots will be looking to extend their winning streak to seven games Sunday but will have a wholly capable Lions team standing in their way. They recognize the threat and as they have on countless occasions this season, done their homework and adapted accordingly so as to give them the best chance to win.

"We’re going to need to play a good, complementary game all the way across the board; there’s no real weak points, a lot of things we have to deal with," Belichick​ said. "It’s a team we don’t know very well, so we’re going to have to really work hard this week to get on top of them, get familiar with them, but they present a lot of problems."