We talked last week about how Isaiah Stanback did a bang-up job preparing the Patriots defense for the Dolphins' option game, playing Pat White and Ronnie Brown for the scout team. We got this week's practice hero earlier, straight from Bill Belichick: rookie QB Brian Hoyer.

Hoyer, of course, is playing the role of Peyton Manning.

"I’ll say that right up front, he’s done a real good job running the Colts offense for our defense, running the scout team," said Belichick. "He’s run the plays and made the decisions in giving our defense the looks that probably are most similar to what Manning would do. So he’s done a nice job of that."

Perhaps the most challenging part, for Hoyer, was finding a way to give the defense the looks they need to prepare for Manning's at-the-line adjustments. Belichick emphasized today, and has all week, that it's rare that Manning will leave the Colts in a bad play for the defense he's facing.

So the scout-team QB has be able, somehow, to make like an audibling Hall-of-Famer.

"In our terminology, yes," Belichick said. "(Manning) doesn’t run a lot of bad plays, so if it’s a bad play, a bad defense, then he’s gonna go to something else. That’s pretty much what Brian’s done for us. Whatever plays we have called, if our defense happens to be in a look that we probably wouldn’t keep him in that, that Peyton wouldn’t run that play against, and then we have to go to something else.

"We don’t know what it’s going to be, of course, but it’s the process, the flexibility they have at the line of scrimmage, that was well-simulated."