The Sports Xchange

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The New England Patriots might have provided the rest of Buffalo’s opponents with the blueprint for playing defense against quarterback Tyrod Taylor.

As they say, once the tape gets out, it gets tougher for unknown players to maintain whatever early success they may enjoy because there’s no longer the element of surprise.

“Sure, every time it’s on tape, unless you correct it, you are going to get it over and over,” head coach Rex Ryan said.

Now, it’s on Taylor, Ryan, and offensive coordinator Greg Roman to counterpunch what the Patriots did during last week’s 40-32 loss.

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick saw Taylor, in his first career NFL start, escaping pressure the week before against Indianapolis and presenting a dual threat to the Colts defense with his supreme athleticism, so naturally, Belichick had the antidote.

Belichick had his ends set the edges to keep Taylor in the middle of the field, while the tackles and whatever blitzers he sent came up the middle to collapse the pocket.

The result was that Taylor held the ball too long and got sacked, eight times in all, or he rushed throws, three of which were picked off.

“They changed up some of their scheming, but for the most part it was a lot of things we had seen on film,” Taylor said of the Patriots’ plan. “The execution just wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be early on in the game.

“We have to clean that up and learn from it, but at the same time we did some things that we can take from this game. It wasn’t a winning performance in all phases, but it starts of course with me and we have to clean it up and get better.”

One thing Ryan saw when he watched the tape was that Taylor had opportunities to step up into the pocket, but didn’t take them.

“Sometimes, I think you got to step up into the pocket, too,” said Ryan, who understood that it was tough for Taylor to get outside the pocket.

“If I look at anything with Tyrod, I’d like to see him step back, you know, set up, and then step up in the pocket a little more. But hey, to their credit, I mean they were buzzing, they had eight sacks. They were clearly doing something right.”

It won’t get any easier against a stout Miami defense led by defensive linemen Ndamukong Suh, Cameron Wake, and Olivier Vernon. The Dolphins’ talented front four has come under fire for a sluggish start, particularly Suh, the highest-paid defensive player in the league.

After losing to Jacksonville, and narrowly beating Washington, the Dolphins come back to Miami to open their home schedule in an ornery mood.

“Of course teams are gonna look at that game plan and see if they can use some of the things that New England did,” Taylor said. “But like I said, I think that game really came down to execution, or the lack of execution, on my behalf and just going out there and not making enough plays.”

–Left guard Richie Incognito will return to play in Miami for the first time since the Dolphins released him in the middle of the 2013 season in the wake of the bullying scandal involving another ex-Dolphin, Jonathan Martin. Incognito really doesn’t want to look back to the darkest period of his career, but he knows it will be tough to avoid, particularly this week.

“I would hope that we could move past all this, but I definitely understand that it’s still going to be prevalent, probably through the end of this year,” Incognito said. “Probably the Monday Night Football guys will be bringing it up five years from now, so we’ll see.”

That said, Incognito still has plenty of friends on the Dolphins’ roster, and he’s looking forward to playing against them. “I think it’s one of those things in professional sports where you cross paths with one of your old teams, and you want to give it to them,” he said. “You want to play well and you want to come away with a win. Especially since I’m so close with some of those guys and have been competing with them for so long. It’s like a brotherly love. You want to kick your brother’s butt in anything you do. So it’s going to be fun to go down and compete with them. I’m personally motivated for every single game I play in. I’m juiced up, I’m amped up for every single game. This one just has a little more meaning. There’s obviously bigger things at play here. But for me it’s just focusing, going down there and playing physical, playing tough football.”

Notes: Left tackle has started in 43 straight games for the Bills at that position. … Wide receiver Robert Woods leads the Bills with three third-down receptions for 29 yards. … Quarterback Tyrod Taylor ranks last in the league in third-down passer rating at a gruesome 23.3. He’s 5-of-10 for 46 yards with two interceptions in those situations. … Linebacker Tony Steward, who has been sidelined by a knee injury, practiced for the first time Wednesday and he may be ready to play Sunday. … Free safety Aaron Williams sat out practice with a neck injury and it is highly unlikely that he will play Sunday.