New England Patriots

Dolphins plan to stop Gronk: 'Put the whole secondary on him'

Published Oct. 27, 2015 11:08 a.m. ET

foxsports

For the second consecutive week, the Miami Dolphins will be tasked with stopping one of the most dominant players in the league. Last week, the Dolphins were posed with slowing down J.J. Watt. This week, their challenge comes on the other side of the ball in Rob Gronkowski.

Prior to the Dolphins' game against the Houston Texans, head coach Dan Campbell joked that he was going to put the entire offensive line on Watt. Unsurprisingly, he's taking a similar approach this week with Gronkowski, according to CBS Miami.

“I mean the guy is an animal and he can do everything. You put him out there and he’s a mismatch one-on-one, route running, big body, excellent hands. You put him in, he can block the point of attack. He can pass protect. I guess you could hand him the ball if you wanted to and have him run it as running back. But there again, kind of like what we did with J.J. Watt last week – we put all five linemen on him [Joking]. We’ll probably put the whole secondary on him and go from there.”

Gronkowski had a phenomenal game against the New York Jets last week after a few pedestrian outings, catching 11 passes for 108 yards and a touchdown. What's most impressive about that stat line is that it came against one of the best defenses in the league.

Fortunately, Campbell is prepared to slow down Gronk, just as he was with Watt.

"You can’t just -- and that goes for that offense and Tom Brady -- you can’t just give them the same look the whole time," Campbell said. "Now, you got to do what you do best. But you can’t just sit there where he knows every time exactly what you’re in. But we have some guys on this team that can plan man to man pretty good. We’ll have other answers schematically as well."

To make matters worse, Campbell and the Dolphins need to game plan for Brady and Gronkowski on a short week as their meeting comes on Thursday night.