by Dakota Antelman
The Patriots will be looking to wrap up the AFC East Sunday vs the Dolphins. A win for New England will clench the division for the 12thtime in 14 seasons while a loss for the Dolphins will potentially eliminate them from the playoffs once again.
Needless to say, the near annual nature of their winning the division, does not make the accomplishment any less appealing as it often predates postseason success.
“It means a lot but obviously not focusing on that, it's more about winning and seeing what happens after that,” Patriots linemen Sebastian Vollmer said to ESPN’s Mike Reiss earlier this week.
One theme that rings loudly in the minds of Patriots fans going into this game is the Week One loss the Dolphins handed the Patriots back in September. The game did not go well for the Patriots as a weak running game and a mediocre start to the season for Brady immediately created much of the worry and questioning that was present for the first four weeks of the year.
However, since these two teams met in Week One, the Patriots have climbed to a sustained position where they have rained touchdowns and stunning losses down upon opponents, effectively erasing the pain of that rough Week One loss. For New England the result of that game is not as much a cause of worry but rather a reason to work even harder in practice.
“Obviously [we have] moved on from that, but there is some stuff that we're goanna try to do better, you know stuff that didn't go well, we'll work on that. Overall, we'll have to play better than we did. Loosing is not acceptable.”
Among the units that have been called upon to improve considerably on their effort last time they faced Miami is the offence as a whole. The Miami defense has given the Patriots trouble in the past. Their run game is prepared while Tom Brady is focused on dumping short passes and not tempting the secondary with deep balls.
In general though, Bilichick has been preaching about giving full effort on all sides of the ball all week.
"We need to talk about how to play offense, defense and special teams against the Dolphins a lot better than we did the last time we played them, which wouldn't take much," he said. "That's what we'll be talking about this week: what to do and how to do it.”
The Patriots defense will have to contend with a mobile quarterback in Miami’s Ryan Tannihill and a varied run game that has hit it off this year with wide receiver Mike Wallace.
Good news for New England though is that Wallace in particular has struggled to catch passes when matched up against physical corners like Brandon Browner or Darelle Revis so far this season. Also, as with almost every matchup between New England and Miami, interceptions could be favored to decide the game.
Many comparisons have been drawn this week between the Week One incarnation of the Patriots that lost to Miami and the Week 15 version that will try to beat them. But according to the team, those comparisons are meaningless.
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