Patriots Can Try To Slow Calvin Johnson By Changing Looks, Studying Cardinals

The New England Patriots’ secondary faces one of its toughest tasks to date on Sunday.

The Patriots will welcome the Detroit Lions to Gillette Stadium, and that means they’ll be looking for a way to shut down wide receiver Calvin Johnson.

Regarded as one of the NFL’s best wideouts, Johnson can be a headache for defenses. However, it’s not impossible to slow Johnson and the Lions’ high-powered offense. In fact, the Arizona Cardinals used a pretty solid game plan to bottle up Johnson and the Lions last week.

Ex-NFL linebacker Matt Chatham wrote on FootballByFootball.com that the Patriots’ game plan should involve borrowing a page from the Cardinals’ playbook and changing up looks against Johnson.