Image courtesy of Mark Stockwell/Boston Globe

When Miami visits Gillette Stadium on Sunday night for a huge early season AFC East matchup, Patriots defenders will have their hands full with a number of speedy guys that can change a game in an instant.

Whether it’s Tua, Tyreek or Jaylen, New England’s defense will need to be locked in for 60 minutes in order to try and slow down this high octane offense.

While the team has obviously watched as much film as humanly possible and studied hundreds upon hundreds of plays the Dolphins run under head coach Mike McDaniel, there’s also a balance that defenders need to find when it comes to the preparation. At some point, there can almost be too much studying. That’s not to say that film work isn’t crucial, but at some point, instincts and general knowledge from previous games needs to play a big role as well. Otherwise, overthinking may lead to mistakes and mistakes lead to points, which could lead to a loss.

“You can overthink, yes, over prepare? I don’t think so,” Dietrich Wise said on Wednesday. “You can definitely be prepared for the game, but once the game comes, you’ve got to learn how to relax your mind and remove your mind from the game. Just go off what you were doing in practice, what you’ve been doing all week in your film studies and that kind of stuff. You can over think. Paralysis by analysis, there can be that effect.”

While Wise’s job will be to try and contain Tua, it’s guys like Myles Bryant who will be running around trying to keep up with Hill and Waddle.

“I think there are moments – and this is any game – where you can watch too much film,” Myles Bryant said at his locker on Friday when I asked him about over thinking and over preparing for a team like Miami. “You start to overthink and you’re like, ‘alright, they can run this out of this,’ but, I think the best thing film does is just prepare you to allow you to anticipate certain things. Whereas, now, if you watch too much, you’re like ‘alright, I’ve seen this before, I think it’s this,’ but it ends up being something else. I think there’s definitely moments where you can watch too much.”

So, on Saturday night, what does a guy in Bryant’s role do in terms of studying? Is the hay already in the barn?

“Little bit of both,” he added. “For the most part, if you’re still leaning stuff – learning concepts they do and different variations they do – you can still watch some film that night before. It’s kind of…some people might say it’s too late, but I feel like there’s still things you can pick up on the night before. Watching guys you go against, see how they operate and see certain things they do.

“I think there’s a fine line and there’s a balance, but everybody’s different.”