The New England Patriots dismantled the recently hot Dolphins on Thursday night, winning 36-7 in a game that was never really in doubt. Tom Brady threw for 356 yards and four touchdowns, tight end Rob Gronkowski had 113 yards receiving and a touchdown, and the Patriots defense picked off Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill twice.

Forget the numbers, though. It was the way the Patriots beat the Dolphins on Thursday night that should have everyone else in the NFL worried. The Patriots are playing in a different way than any other team in the league, and I’m not sure how teams are supposed to prepare for it.

NFL teams work really hard every year to, as they put it, “establish an identity.” The belief is that you rally the team around a certain philosophy and style of play. The team believes in that style, whatever it is, and can count on it. “We’re a power running team,” you’ll hear in interviews. “We pound the rock. That’s who we are.”

The reason teams do this is because the NFL is hard. Building one system of play, perfecting one style, is incredibly difficult. So teams focus on finding a system that works for them, practicing it, getting it to a place they believe in, and then building the team’s identity around that system.

The Patriots don’t have a system. They don’t have one style. They have gotten so good on the offensive side of the football that they can play a different style every week. They craft a new identity, custom built by Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels every seven days, to take advantage of their opponents’ weaknesses. (This isn’t to say anything about their improving defense.)

On offense, the Patriots aren’t one type of team. They’re many different types of teams, all rolled up into one malleable juggernaut. They can change for every game, but not only every game, for every quarter. They can change at halftime. They can change from play to play.

If you’re an NFL defense, how are you supposed to prepare for that?

Let’s look at last night’s game against the Dolphins. The game began with the Patriots establishing an identity they’ve used before (notably last year twice against the Colts) of the power running team. The team’s tight ends tucked in as extra lineman, and Tom Brady handed the ball off to LeGarrette Blount to pound the ball up the field, four and five yards at a time.

They did that until the defense started to creep up, then the Patriots released Gronkowski off the line on a play-action pass, and boom, the Patriots were up 7-0.

The Dolphins adjusted, though. On the next two drives, they did well against Blount, stuffing the line and denying the Patriots’ power running attack. For a lesser team, this might have stalled the offense indefinitely. If the Patriots only had one identity, that’d be it. The game would turn into a slow slog with the Patriots trying, again and again, to get Blount going up the middle.

The Patriots don’t have one identity, though. And with Blount getting bottled up, they changed it. Mid-stream. Right in the middle of the game. They brought Dion Lewis into the backfield, and started finding him on short screens and shallow routes. Then he did this.

https://vine.co/v/eYYjL6xI6LZ

At halftime, the Patriots were up 19-0, but following a disappointing third quarter that saw them score only three points, they switched it up again. With the Dolphins still committed to stopping Blount up the middle and wary of Lewis splitting out of the backfield, the Patriots opened it up, splitting Gronkowski out wide with Brandon LaFell, Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola.

What had been a power running game, then a shifty passing game built around getting a dynamic playmaker into open space, was now a spread-out air attack. Edelman and Amendola ran hitching crossing routes and pick routes and all the annoying things that drive defenses crazy. Gronkowski looked for match-ups with linebackers and took advantage of them. LaFell went deep, stretching the field. (And if he ever remembers how to catch, man.)

The funny thing is that I’m speaking in general trends here, but these different systems of attack can happen not only in entire quarters but play to play. They can happen on one play. The Patriots can line up as a power run team, audible, push Gronkowski wide, drop Brady back to shotgun, and all of a sudden the opposing defense isn’t playing the ’05 Steelers, they’re playing the ’99 Rams.

Again, what are you supposed to do with that?

Most teams have one style to their offense, one way of playing that they work incredibly hard to perfect. The Patriots have many different styles, and can change that style game to game, half to half, play to play. They change their system every week to flummox their opponents, and if that isn’t enough, they can bring in weird lineups with ineligible receivers like they did last year against the Ravens.

I don’t know if the Patriots can go undefeated this year. I don’t know if they’ll repeat as Super Bowl champions. There are a lot of good teams out there. But the Patriots have evolved past the “system,” and that should be scary to the rest of the NFL.