patriots

Good stuff here from the Herald with a little overview of the defensive tweaks we’ve seen in the first two preseason games. Some great quotes from Willie McGinest too:

“What that 4-3 allows is for the linebackers to make more plays. They can run sideline to sideline. This is how Ray Lewis has made a living with those big aggressive D-linemen up front,” McGinest said, referring to the Ravens great. “If you have Vince (Wilfork) and Albert (Haynesworth) causing chaos up front, those linebackers are going to be running free. So watch out for Mayo. Watch out for (Gary) Guyton. Once those linemen make contact, (the linebackers) are gone. So they’re going to be making a lot of plays.”

“There’s a lot more (in his playbook),” McGinest said. “The thing with Belichick is he always has a lot of defenses. Maybe he’s showed a couple blitzes, but there’s 15 or 25 more blitzes that haven’t been shown, or variations of those blitzes. But these guys have to practice what they’re going to do. A lot of these guys are new to the team. They had no mini-camps. You can talk about it and do it in practice, but unless you do it when the lights are on, it doesn’t really matter.”