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New England Patriots Links 9/12/12 - Pats Prepare For Steelers as Cardinals Come to Town

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More tight ends in some game-plans, means a little less of Wes.

Bill Belichick moves on to preparing for the Arizona Cardinals.

Good football team, does a lot of things well, has some really outstanding players, very dangerous in the kicking game. We’ve have to make a quick turnaround here and really have a good week of preparation for the Cardinals. They’re a hard team to prepare for scheme-wise, they do a lot of different things. I don’t know if I’ve seen as many personnel groups and formations from a team as what these guys have shown. They really put every combination together, really that’s conceivable. Of course they run all the blitz packages that we’ve seen in Pittsburgh and that’s a multitude of them. It’s going to be a tough week. They’ve won eight of their last 10 games. They got off to a slow start last year, 1-6 and then won most all their games at the end of the year and beat Seattle. This is a team that’s I’m sure gaining confidence every week and they played very well over the last 10 games or so.

Josh McDaniels offers some thoughts on what challenges the Cardinals defense will present.

Well, I had an opportunity to coach against the Cardinals twice last year. Coach [Cardinals Defensive Coordinator Ray] Horton has done a good job of implementing the system that he had at Pittsburgh for a long time. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same, but there are a lot of similarities to it. They’re a team that plays a lot of linebackers from their base defense. They give you a lot of different looks. They’re a team that I would say has an extensive pressure package. They do a great job of trying to disrupt the passing game with pressure and also at the same time do a good job of affecting the running game, at the same time with those same pressures. They’re an aggressive defense, a lot of good players. I think they’re a fast team. They have a lot of good team speed on defense. They have guys that make plays at all three levels. Certainly, over the last 10 games they’re 8-2 and have done a good job of really settling into what they want to do and they’re playing well.

Matt Patricia addresses the difficulty of having to prepare for two quarterbacks.

I think in general just trying to prepare for Arizona as a whole, with as many skill players and the quality offensive scheme that they have as far as the blocking and the run game. Obviously Larry Fitzgerald is a fantastic player for them who does numerous things [in] multiple roles and is a real significant player in their offense. Early Doucet and [Andre] Roberts, all of those guys including the running backs and the quarterbacks, do a great job with the system that’s in place, so I think really they’ll just be able to keep moving no matter what the situation may be out there and be able to run their offense the way they want to run it. We definitely have our work cut out for us here.

I think both of them are obviously both very talented players and have done a lot for them out there through the preseason. They fit well into what they’re trying to do from a system standpoint. We’ll certainly have to be prepared and have our work cut out for both.

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