FOXBORO -- When the Patriots take on the Cowboys on Sunday, they'll square off with a coordinator Rod Marinelli and one of his defenses for the first time since playing the Bears in 2010. In that game Tom Brady threw for 369 yards and two touchdowns and the Patriots won, 36-7.
Though they had success that day five years ago, on Tuesday, Josh McDaniels discussed some of the elements that make Marinelli's 4-3 units effective.
"Certainly Rod, they’ve got a very good philosophy that they’ve played good defense under for a long time wherever he’s been," McDaniels said. "They are very well coached, you can tell that at all three levels. There are very few mistakes you see them make. They aren’t going to give you many easy plays. They play fast, they play aggressive. Sometimes people say it’s simple. They don’t play a lot of different exotic things, but there are some exotic things in there. There is no question about that."
McDaniels added: "The thing that’s always struck me about Coach Marinelli’s defenses is how fast and aggressive they play and that comes because they’re sure of what they are doing and they’re confident in their assignments. Any time you play a team like that you’re going to have to do a good job of preparation, you’re going to have to be on top of your game plan and understand exactly how you are going to have to play them in order to handle them."
The Cowboys will deploy their front-four in a variety of ways, but in how they defend in the secondary, and in how they try to rush the passer, they continue to do the things that Marinelli has done for years.
"One thing about Rod, I don’t think you’re going to see much different," Bill Belichick said on Wednesday. "I think he’ll be the first to tell you that he believes in what he’s doing, he’s not going to change a lot. He’s had a lot of success -- probably no reason to change it. Will there be a couple of game plan things for us, I’m sure obviously there will. But overall they believe in what they’re doing, they do it well, they’ve had a lot of success with it.
"I mean, I can’t imagine him putting in a new defense this week. That would be so out of character for them. They don’t need to do that. I don’t think they believe in that. But they have a lot of variety in what they do in terms of the front. They don’t run a million different coverages, but they run them well. They’re sound, they make you beat them. They don’t give you a lot of easy plays. You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to block them, you’ve got to get open, you’ve got to protect, you’ve got to have enough to beat the scheme, and they play hard and they know what they’re doing. That’s what it’s always been. I can’t imagine it’s going to be much different than that."
New England Patriots
Another characteristic of Marinelli's defenses? He continuously throws fresh bodies onto the field, rotating through at all levels.
"They play a lot of players," McDaniels said. "That’s one of things that you see. You’ve got a lot of the guys on the front who play. They play a number of linebackers. They play a number of secondary players. They’ll play base defense, nickel defense, dime defense -- I mean, they play a lot of different combinations -- so our players are busy really trying to familiarize themselves with a lot of different names and traits and watching these guys and studying them and making sure that we know who’s who when we are in there because ultimately every week is a matchup game and this week will be no different.
"They’re very well coached, they are very well coordinated, they do a lot of moving in the front, they do some things that are disruptive, and their linebackers are very disruptive. It’s a fast team -- you’re not really going to outrun them. They have great players in the secondary. They are very willing to play man coverage. They are aggressive at the line of scrimmage. This is going to be a big test for us obviously in a place where we haven’t played before against a group that as we said we are going to try to get familiar with quickly on the road in a hostile environment."