FOXBOROUGH - Start spreading the news: The Patriots offense is not limited in any way from a game planning standpoint by having Matt Cassel at quarterback instead of Tom Brady.
That point has been made over the last two weeks, as the Patriots increasingly have turned to the spread set, putting Cassel in the shotgun and either emptying the backfield to go with five players lined up as wide receivers or leaving just one alongside him in the backfield while having four receivers.
The result has been back-to-the-future football for the Patriots, who have put together two straight games with more than 500 yards of offense and gotten back-to-back 400-yard passing performances by Cassel.
It looked as if offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels dusted off the Patriots' 2007 game plan for Sunday's 48-28 victory over the Miami Dolphins. Cassel cut up the Dolphins defense while operating primarily out of the spread, completing 30 of 43 passes for a career-high 415 yards and three touchdowns (with one interception) and ran for another score out of the shotgun.
The Patriots ran 52 of their 72 snaps (including plays negated by penalties) out of three- and four-wide receiver sets. That caught the Dolphins by surprise.
"We figured they would come out and run the ball a little bit," said Dolphins safety Yeremiah Bell. "They had been in the spread last week so we figured they'd get in the spread some. [But] they made a habit of it. That was their game plan, to come out in empty [sets] and spread us out and throw the little short underneath passes, and Matt did a good job."
In the first meeting with Miami in Week 3, Cassel's second start, he passed for just 131 yards. On Sunday, he had more than that with 12:23 left in the first half, as he was 13 of 19 for 150 yards at that point.
"He, obviously, stat-wise, has been doing a great job," said running back Sammy Morris. "Whether it's his numbers or in our wins and losses column, he's doing a great job. I think he's kind of grown right in front of our eyes, right before everybody. He just looks like a completely different guy than when he first took over."
Cassel looks different, but the Patriots now look the same. They're able to be the fully-operational game-plan-specific offense that they're designed to be.
They came out in the spread against Buffalo, but ultimately won that game by switching to more of a grind-it-out approach. They were forced to go to the spread out of desperation in a 34-31 loss to the Jets Nov. 13, when they rallied from a 24-6 deficit to force overtime behind a 30-of-51, 400-yard, three-TD effort from Cassel. It was their chosen method of attack against Miami.
