A New England Patriots Blog

Sure, the Dolphins are 0-6. Their designated starting quarterback, veteran Trent Green, is officially done for the year after yet another head-scrambling concussion. So how can Miami possibly expect to compete with undefeated New England Sunday?

Tom Brady is a cover boy again. Surprised? Neither are the Dolphins.

They can’t. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try.

Just look at past experience. No defense gets under Tom Brady’s skin more than Miami’s. They spoiled the team’s glory run down the stretch in 2005. They knocked Tommy boy around like a rag doll last year, to the point that it was the Pats who were hardly even competitive. Even Bill Belichick was scratching his head over his team’s struggles with the perennially lowly ‘Fins after the debacle in Miami last year.

Add unseasonable heat - in all seasons - to the equation, and you’ve got a sudden set of question marks that just make things a bigger question.

That being said, New England clearly should dominate this game exactly as they have all six others they’ve played this year. They’ll have a distinct advantage on all defensive sets, using experience linebackers again up-and-coming runner Ronnie Brown and a struggling Miami offensive line. They should be able to frustrate fill-in quarterback Cleo Lemon, a signal caller who is bound to get pasted by Miami fans who are still clamoring for Cleveland rookie Brady Quinn (you’ll remember his awkward departure from the green room in last spring’s NFL draft after being passed over by Miami … for receiver Ted Ginn. Now Cleveland doesn’t need him and Miami has no one to throw the ball. Interesting how that one is working out, isn’t it?). That matchup could get awful ugly.

Then there’s the New England offense, which currently looks unstoppable. Miami is sure to blitz the hell out of New England, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be as effective as it has in the past, when defensive end Jason Taylor and linebacker Zach Thomas have spent so much time in Brady’s face mask that he’s smelled their breath for a week. This year the Patriot offensive line has improved from sturdy to dominant. And Brady suddenly has former Dolphin Wes Welker, the ultimate receiving safety valve when the blitz comes hard.

Of course, none of this ensures that any of these things will happen. And whenever a team looks like it has a whitewashing level of dominance entering a game, something usually slips.

That may happen again Sunday, but this year it’s incredibly unlikely that enough will slip to make a difference. Or so it seems.

– Cameron Smith

How good are the Patriots? Good enough that media outlets far and wide, well beyond the normal scope of Pats-centric coverage in New England, are weighing in on Brady’s bunch and their chance of running the table. As each week goes on without a New England loss, it’s likely that the attention will only increase. Or at least continue.

Randy Moss is happy and winning, so everyone just hold your breath.

So, with that we’ll clue in to more than just the usual suspects, if you will. Still, that’s always a good place to start:

BOSTON GLOBE

QB receives more support this season — Bob Ryan drops a doozie on paper, talking about, fairly predictably, the sudden explosion of the Pats passing attack. Another nice effort from the city’s best columnist. No surprise there.

Moss has praise for Belichick — The Globe’s go-to guys on the Pats beat, Mike Reiss and Chris Gasper, come through with a strong piece about the respect Randy Moss has for his new coach, a revelation which only became more striking after Terrell Owens’ comments regarding Wade Phillips later in the week.

Stallworth’s love of music is no bum rap — Donte’ Stallworth is finally synching up with the emerging New England offense, and Gasper ties together his love of catching footballs and rap music. A nice feature on an underrated performer thus far.

BOSTON HERALD

Moss loves his new job — Can you tell that Karen Guregian is starting to get really comfortable with the Pats beat? The one-time Herald columnist nails a feature about Moss, tying his quotes and performance in with that of another Beantown favorite: Manny Ramirez.

Pats still in running — Guregian writes a nifty slide piece about how the team has prospered despite a sudden rash of injuries to runners, and how they’ll try to keep winning regardless.

Motivation not hard to find — Jeff Horrigan takes a turn writing a Pats feature, weighing in on Bill Belichick’s ability to motivate his team, even against a winless foe.

WASHINGTON POST

Pats poised to be perfect — Veteran columnist and PTI host Michael Wilbon jumps on the undefeated bandwagon, coming to the conclusion that the Pats are just too good to be stopped after watching the Dallas dismantling in person.

Pats may be scary good, but running the table is out of the question — Meanwhile, fellow Post columnist Leonard Shapiro says that as good as New England may be, there’s no way they’re running the table.

As major writers across the country are starting to realize, Dr. Watson is just another one of Tom Brady’s arsenal of targets.

LA TIMES

A year to revere for Patriots - Sam Farmer weighs in on the team’s early dominance and Tom Brady’s continued surge while watching from the left coast.

– Cameron Smith, Herald and Globe photos

Who knew Wes Welker, the Tom Brady-annointed labrador of Patriot receivers, had such a big wow factor.

Wes Welker’s feet hardly touched the ground Sunday.

Not only did Welker carve up the Dallas secondary for two touchdowns Sunday, he also pulled down a stunning 11 catches for 124 yards, both career highs to go with his first two-touchdown, single-game effort. While Randy Moss fought off double teams to pull down New England’s first touchdown (two more later scores went by the wayside due to penalty calls), Welker made the Cowboys pay for leaving themselves exposed over the middle to crossing routes from the slot position.

It was exactly the type of performance Bill Belichick and his coaching staff envisioned out of the Texas Tech grad when they signed him away from the divison-rival Dolphins in the offseason. While Moss stretched the field and Donte’ Stallworth provided a dash of pizazz on the flank with screen passes and bump-off deep routes, Welker served as Brady’s security blanket, a younger and faster incarnation of the role played by PUP-listed veteran Troy Brown for ages.

In fact, the Pats got even more than that out of their slot receiver. Welker also returned kickoffs on Sunday, tag-teaming with regular return man Ellis Hobbs to give the Pats special teams unit even more oomph. By game’s end, the veteran had two returns for 55 yards, his best returning performance of the year and a mark that gave Belichick plenty to reflect positively on.

Of course, Hobbs remains the return unit’s biggest star, a credential punctuated by his 108-yard touchdown return against the Jets in the season opener. Hobbs now leads the team with a return average near 30 yards on a total of 15 bring backs.

But, according to Christopher Gasper of the Globe, that doesn’t mean that Belichick won’t keep using Welker to bring back kicks, something former Billy B colleague Nick Saban - now of the Alabama Crimson Tide, of course - did with Welker to the tune of 3,858 yards in past seasons.

The question becomes whether the returning duties will slow down Welker’s otherworldly productivity on out routes. That’s a good question in itself, but it doesn’t seem to be worrying Belichick or Brady, as you can tell from their quotes in Gasper’s article.

And after his performance Sunday in Dallas, there doesn’t seem to be much reason why it should worry anyone else, either.

– Cameron Smith, AP photo

At least when it comes to drama with the Pats. All those lingering questions about New England holding on for a win? Yeah, they disappeared in the fourth, when Randy Moss scored again but had the points erased because of a near-phantom push off.

Randy Moss and Donte’ Stallworth? They were just part of a crew of Patriots who trashed the Dallas secondary yesterday afternoon. Wes Welker might ring a bell, too.

In the end, the game’s fourth quarter served as strong reassurance of two things: 1) The Patriots offense really is as dominant as it has appeared throughout the season. Tom Brady threw a monstrous five touchdown passes - FIVE!! - and actually threw a sixth to Moss before both were taken away, as mentioned above. Not that Brady would care, of course. He and his teammates were too busy beating a fellow undefeated team.

That’s what the New England defense was doing, too, in the classic “bend, but don’t break” fashion of more famous Patriots stops in recent years. The Pats gave up another field goal, but Junior Seau picked off the first pass on Tony Romo’s final drive to put a ribbon on the New England win.

In fact, that pick was not only pre-ordained by CBS commentator Phil Simms, it was also highlighted by another insightful comment from the former Giants quarterback (shocker, I know). Simms was talking about New England’s rejuvenated approach in 2007, and chalked some of the team’s early success to the organizational realization during the offseason that certain teams are just going to score points against you, no matter how good a performance you throw at them. It’s absolutely the truth. The Pats D can keep shutting down receivers of T.O.’s ilk over the middle. They can keep stuffing running backs at the line of scrimmage and reading prescribed passing routes before they happen.

But against certain teams - Dallas, Indianapolis, maybe Pittsburgh - they’re still going to give up 20, 25 points. It’s going to happen.

That’s why Brady and the team’s explosive offense is so impressive. Tom Terrific completed all the big passes he needed to. Was he as perfect as he’s been earlier this year? No. But prior games were being played against a defense full of Pro Bowlers either.

In the end, that’s what makes this week’s victory so impressive. The Patriots won when they were tested. Finally. And they did it with less than maximum drama, which in this case just makes the victory even more impressive.

– Cameron Smith

Was anyone else incredibly relieved when the Patriots D finally just stopped Dallas’ offense? Thought so.

Tom Brady’s composure on the Pats’ first possession of the third quarter may end up playing a big role in the trajectory of the game.

After the Cowboys opened the quarter with a touchdown drive, sending New England to its first deficit of the season during the second half of a game, the Pats followed with a block in the back on a kickoff and seemed to be nearing a prepice that, should they slip off of, could create a huge hole in the fourth quarter.

Instead, Tom Brady marched the Pats down the field, albeit with the loss of a key component in Sammy Morris, and punched the ball in with the first touchdown pass that Kyle Brady has caught in two seasons. The best part of the series-clinching toss? The receiving Brady was wide open because the Dallas goal line defense was too preoccupied with linebacker/fullback/tight end phenom Mike Vrabel to put anybody on Brady, leaving him wide open in the back of the end zone.

But as has seemed to be the case throughout much of this game, even the good news came with an asterisk. When Tom Brady sent a deep bomb to Randy Moss nearing the end of the quarter, Moss pulled down what looked like one of the most graceful and acrobatic catches in football this year, if not ever. But in review after a Dallas challenge, the points were pulled off the board because Moss lost control as he hit the ground, and the Pats had to settle for a field goal.

In most weeks that might not be such a big deal, but against a Dallas team that seems firmly confident they can compete with New England, it could spell trouble in the later stages of the game. Asante Samuel and Ellis Hobbs have looked much better in tight coverage of Terrell Owens and the rest of his receiving posse, but they’ll have to push their effort if they’re going to keep holding them off.

We’re about to find out if that can happen, minus Morris and Maroney and all.

– Cameron Smith

Well, that’s why it’s a full game, isn’t it.

After a dominant first quarter, the Pats defense showed a few signs of being malleable, which they haven’t been nearly at all this year. The New England offense actually sputtered a bit. And Tom Brady, yes that Tom Brady, even made a couple mistakes.

In fact, if you take away Brady’s fumlerooskie after being sacked, New England is in a much more dominant position than they actually are at the moment. Instead, with the strip and its subsequent touchdown return factored in, Dallas is right back on top of New England. And Romo looks confident.

Crap.

While the Dallas defense’s rising awareness of New England’s passing routes might be one concern, the bigger one seems to be the Cowboys’ sudden ability to drive the ball down the field. Dallas’ offensive success was meager in the first quarter. To put it mildly. Now it’s booming all of a sudden.

So what happened? Romo is starting to recognize the receiver who is facing off with Ellis Hobbs and hit him for short routes. As second-tier guys like Patrick Crayton start grabbing balls, that opens things up for the Dallas running game, particularly Marion Barber III, the former Minnesota teammate of the inactive Laurence Maroney. And while Sammy Morris keeps chewing up yards, does anyone else get the feeling that missing Maroney may finally haunt the Pats in Week 6?

Yeah, we thought so. We’ll see if that feeling in the pit of our stomach is eating at us even worse come the third of fourth quarter.

– Cameron Smith

Well, that went about as good as we could have hoped, didn’t it?

Dallas has had a really hard time keeping up with Wes Welker in the early going.

The Patriots jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, then built on it by the end of the period. Tom Brady is finding Wes Welker all over the slot, Dante Stallworth seems to be finding seams and looks like he’s on the verge of breaking one open and Sammy Morris is running the ball with authority. Again.

And then that Randy Moss guy scored a touchdown, too. Forgot about that.

And those offensive accomplishments shouldn’t overshadow what the defense has done, thoroughly frustrating the elusive Tony Romo and Dallas offense into mistakes and questionable decisions.

In fact, for all the hype about Brady and Romo, it may be the New England linebackers who have the biggest say in what happens in the rest of this game. If they can keep getting pressure on Romo, who has already seen the business from a blitzing Rodney Harrison and co., the game could go swimmingly for New England.

But it’s early for that, even if the first quarter returns are about as strong as could be hoped for.

– Cameron Smith

Whenever a team is undefeated, it’s bound to get plenty of attention. The Patriots are no exception, particularly with abundant built-in storylines of a trap game (before a presumptive, and eventually accurate, undefeated face-off with Dallas) and crossover between teams (i.e. the Romeo Crennel angle) of last week’s tilt with the Browns. So, who wrote the best stories? We’re here to tell you.

His career is starting to look like Joe Montana’s. Admit it, you’ve thought it. John Tomase just wrote it down on paper.

BOSTON GLOBE

With 4 catches, TD, Stallworth gets into act — After an outstanding game - finally - you knew this story was coming. Dante Stallworth’s emergence may have been the most compelling underlying theme from the game, and the Globe’s Jim McCabe nails it in his day-after-game introspective.

Catch him if you can — Whenever Charlie Pierce writes anything - anything - we take notice. And he wrote elegantly about Bill Belichick and his drive to win at all cost, in this case in the form of a mock letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell. Brilliance, as always.

It’s Junior achievement day — You can’t have a Quick Hits list without at least a mention of a story by the prolific Mike Reiss. This week, Reiss found his pieces tastiest when opining about linebackers, particularly the emergence of Junior Seau. A strong effort from the Globe’s go-to guy.

BOSTON HERALD

Tattoo’s message lost in translation — She may not be as good on football X’s and O’s as some of her colleagues - John Tomase and the since departed Albert Breer most notably - but Karen Guregian is still a terrific reporter, and she’s the one who finally gets to the bottom of Asante Samuel’s garish “Get Rich” tattoo. Evidently it’s a reference to a Gnarls Barkley song. Who knew? Guregian.

Asante Samuel may have been shook up on this play, but he was on the money all game, and Karen Guregian was on him all week.

Brady hard to stop in Montana-like start — Plenty of people have been thinking it, but evidently Tomase is the only one with the guts to write it: Tom Brady is starting to look a bit like vintage Joe Montana, isn’t he? It’s scary. And if it keeps going this way, Brady may be on his way to another ring and, possibly, a regular season MVP.

Samuel picks up where he left off — Maybe the trick is just to have Guregian shadow Samuel, huh? Karen scores her second big hit of the week with a day-after-win piece on how Samuel is already back in spectacular form.

– Cameron Smith

Look, even the Crisco Lineman Battle needs a bye week. It got one last week. But after some serious R & R, the greased up throwdown is back for a very big week as the undefeated Pats prepare to take on fellow 5-0 Dallas.

Dan Koppen may be the key to the integrity of the Patriot offensive line, but can he handle a greased up Marcus Spears?

Any time a team is undefeated, it’s a pretty safe bet that its offensive and defensive lines are doing their job pretty well. That’s certainly the case in both New England and Dallas, with the Pats running game humming and Cowboys finding ways to bring pressure on both the defensive and offensive sides of the ball.

So, why take second-tier rushers into a steel cage when you can bring the big dogs? Why use reserves when you can have Pats center Dan Koppen try to hold off Marcus Spears?

Let’s start the analysis with Spears’ bona fides. The third-year defensive end has upheld the sterling reputation he brought from LSU, proving that he can get to almost any quarterback and create havoc throughout a game. Despite missing parts of training camp with an injured knee (for the second straight year) last fall, Spears returned with a vengeance, started all 16 games and put together a sterling first full season. He had 48 tackles on the season - 31 solo stops - and one sack to go with three tackles for loss and a handful of quarterback pressure.

Spears is big. The former LSU champ stands 6-foot-4 and weighs in at a beefy 305 pounds. He’s quick, with good footwork and an ability to chase down almost any opponent. Want proof? In Vince Young’s first start, Spears was the player who led his team’s defensive line in tackles. End of story.

Luckily, the Pats player tapped for the chore of stopping Spears is no rookie himself. Koppen has led New England’s offensive line through much of its renaissance, starting a whopping 46 consecutive games between 2003 and 2005. He was one of the main road graders for Corey Dillon’s record-setting 2004 season, and has taken leadership of one of the most consistent units in professional football.

That being said, Koppen has a distinct size advantage in this one. Not only does Spears have a good 2 inches on his offensive blocker, he also has a full 10 pounds. And those 10 pounds are significant, as Spears has a tendency to play with the force of a 320 or 325-pound pass rusher rather than a 305 run stopper. It’s uncanny.

Now, with the grease piled on, who would be more elusive? It’s a legitimate question worth pondering. While Koppen makes his living by being deceptively sturdy, Spears does so by mixing stand-up stopping with slippery moves on the edge.

Marcus Spears is large, in-charge and a serious threat on the field. And that’s before you cover him in Crisco.

The more you think about it, the more Spears starts to sound unstoppable with the Crisco advantage. And while it hurts us to say it, we really can’t see Koppen holding him back forever.

So, with much regret, we have to announce this week’s Crisco Lineman Battle Champion as … Dallas defensive end Marcus Spears.

Yeah, yeah, we hear the boos, but you have to admit, Spears has a unique blend of talents that only look better when grease is added to the equation. The man is huge, mobile and a deadly hitter. He proved it in college and is starting to in the pros as well. Just watch Sunday.

Will a New England lineman get back in the win column of the Crisco Battle next week? Is there hope for Koppen’s fellow linemates or their defensive counterparts against the Dolphins … in Miami?

We’ll find out next Wednesday.

– Cameron Smith

And not by a little bit. As Rodney Harrison works his way through the week’s practices, it’s becoming clear how much better he makes the entire New England defense.

Rodney Harrison is back, and that makes the Pats a whole lot better.

No one here is going to defend Harrison’s use of Human Growth Hormone. What he did was clearly wrong, regardless of whether he was acquiring it to recover from an injury, get a bigger hat size so Tedy Bruschi would finally stop calling him mini-cabeza or just to get buff to impress the ladies. He just shouldn’t have dipped into the cesspool of performance enhancing drugs. And he definitely shouldn’t have done it so clumsily, using his own name to order through an online service based out of upstate New York. Clearly, Harrison never heard of Eliott Spitzer.

But now that he’s done his time, Harrison is back. For that matter, not only is he back, he suddenly has a reason to return with a vengeance, a factor which has transformed him from a dominant DB to an almost unstoppable one in the past.

Harrison is that guy. The type A personality who goes off at the drop of a hat, yet only when it’s fortuitous for him to do so. The team leader who you would never want near a tank in the military. The playmaker who looks like the guy who hits the clubs after big wins, but turns out to head straight home to his family’s house in the ‘burbs.

But Harrison always needs an agenda to get him juiced up. It’s in his blood. That’s where the current HGH controversy actually helps him, and New England in the process. While he might be a bit rusty for the first quarter or so, Harrison now has people to prove wrong. Again. And while he’s made it clear that he won’t talk at length about the suspension now that it’s over, he’s almost certainly creating a mental rolodex of names, people who have brought it up, a group of personal Harrison dissidents that he can use as ammunition for his personal tackling powder keg.

What Harrison brings to the defense is undeniable. He’s athletic enough to cover more ground, providing a valuable buffer in both the run and pass game. His sheer presence allows other defensive backs to thrive. Just look at Asante Samuel’s performance. While he was close to gathering in a pair of picks last week in his first start of the season, he couldn’t ever quite finish the deal. With Harrison back behind him, Samuel will have a better safety net behind him, and impetus to try and jump more routes in the process.

Of course, the Samuel example is just the start of a snowball of advances the unit is likely to make with Harrison back on board. But that’s the point. His influence is almost too large to measure, the Tom Brady of the defense in both his understanding of the team’s systems and his role in building pride and performance.

And that’s precisely why the undefeated Pats just got a lot better without even playing another game.

– Cameron Smith