The folks in New England are aflutter with confusion because they don't know about their quarterback situation now and they still don't know how it is the Dolphins ran for 216 yards Sunday -- most of those coming out of the gadget "Wildcat" formation.
And it is a gadget formation. Aside from getting Ronnie Brown lined up in shotgun to take the direct snap, or hand off or pass, Wildcat also does some unorthodox things up front.
Consider that on every Wildcat formation, left tackle Jake Long lined up on the right side and outside of Vernon Carey. In other words, the line going right to left was Long, Carey, Ikechuku Ndukwe, Samson Satele and Justin Smiley, who is then flanked by a tight end, typically Anthony Fasano.
That is called an unbalanced line and, believe it or not, the Dolphins used it at times last year. It just wasn't as successful as it was Sunday when Miami scored four of its five TDs out of the package.
"They ran some unbalanced formation that it didn't seem that we had any answers for," defensive end Richard Seymour said. "You have to give them a lot of credit. They made the plays that they needed to make. We were a step behind and a step late all day. It felt like we were just reacting to what they were doing and didn't really have any answers."
There were no answers to be found by the Patriots because both Long and Carey had excellent days blocking. On the 62-yard Ronnie Brown TD run, Long and Carey both wiped out a defender while Smiley pulled and also laid a great block on somebody.
Brown was not touched much of the day until he got into the secondary.
"It was something that we didn't use on a consistent basis," quarterback Chad Pennington said. "It's a different look, it really is."
No lie.
[Update: Tony Sparano said Monday the Dolphins have only "scratched the surface" with the package and that even when it was orginally discussed there were other people in mind to be used in the package. So expect to see more of Wildcat and expect to see different things in it.]
Comments