Patriots: 3 easy matchups to exploit vs Dolphins in Week 1
1. Jakobi Meyers vs Dolphins Secondary
Woah, wait?! Doesn’t Miami have one of the best secondaries in the NFL? Why yes, yes they do. But the Patriots also have many more weapons to utilize and throw off Brian Flores’ defense.
And that’s going to give Jakobi Meyers a significant opportunity to take advantage. He didn’t log a reception in last year’s Week 1 matchup, but his coming out party continued late in the year when he hauled in seven receptions for 111 yards in the Week 15 loss to Miami. He was able to do that as the defense’s main focus due to the lack of weapons in New England last year.
Now, he’ll be alongside Nelson Agholor (hopefully he can play), Kendrick Bourne, Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry with a quarterback in Jones that is coming off a year in which he slaughtered defenses vertically. Xavien Howard and Byron Jones can only cover so many receivers. Perhaps some mismatches against safeties Eric Rowe and Jason McCourty could help Meyers have a productive afternoon?
If not, maybe Meyers opens up the field for the aforementioned names now that Miami knows what he’s capable of. Either way, he’ll be impacting the game whether he’s prominent in the box score or not, but we’d like to think he will be thanks to his breakout 2020 campaign and fresh new start with other threatening options opening up the field.
Perhaps early on we find out if Meyers is the Pats’ true No. 1 wideout.
