Stopping Tua’s Attack

The Dolphins recent dominance over the Patriots was a popular talking point as the week kicked off on Wednesday. Tua’s 6-0 career record against the Pats, coupled with four-straight losses in Miami illustrate how hard it’s been for the Pats to get wins over their divisional rival.

A big part of those losses has been Tua’s uncanny accuracy and anticipation that can make the Miami offense seem indefensible at times. Veteran cornerback Jonathan Jones has seen plenty of touch matchups over the course of his career, but no experience makes dealing with an explosive attack like Miami’s any easier.

“They do a good job of like, dressing it up. And so they’re trying up to the last minute to get you to see it at the last minute, and then, at the end of the day, you got to match speed with speed and physicality,” said Jones. “Just be physical. Try to reroute the receivers, get them off their spot in time to put some pressure on them.”

The presnap window dressing was a recurring theme during defensive player interviews and Mike McDaniels uses plenty of tricks to disguise from his true intentions.

“A big thing is just reading your keys and playing your keys because a lot of times they’ll dress things up just to get to what they’re going to do anyway,” said White. “A lot of times it’s the same thing, but they just want to disguise you from what it’s going to be in the end. So just not letting all that distract you from what the final picture is and what they’re really trying to do is big.

Getting the requisite quick pressure on Tua will be up to players like White, who leads the Patriots with 41 pressures and is tied with Deatrich Wise for the team lead in sacks with five.

“From a D-line perspective, it’s hard to get to the quarterback,” said White. “So if you really make a route concept that’s 30 yards down the field in two and a half seconds, that’s a hard thing to do to get to a quarterback in two and a half seconds, especially when there are double teams, max protection, play action, things like that. So we just have to be better with our rush and better our discipline and everything like that, so it opens up some more opportunities.”

White said it’s easy to overthink things against an offense that throws so much at a defense, at the end of the day it’s about winning matchups by beating the man lined up across from you.

“We gotta make sure we read our keys and be the be the aggressor this week,” summed up Jahlani Tavai.