O’sullivan

FOXBORO — If the Patriots are to beat San Francisco tomorrow afternoon, defensive coordinator Dean Pees said that New England needs to limit the big plays that the 49ers are capable of producing.

The 49ers are second in the NFL behind Dallas in plays of 20 yards or more.

“A lot of times offenses say they don’t have a lot of calls for third-and-14 but it seems like [San Francisco offensive coordinator Mike Martz] does and he does a good job of converting them,” Pees said. “The first thing we have to do on defense is we have to get them in those situations. That is the number-one thing. Then the second thing is we have to do a good job of changing things up, like most people want to do, and get off the field on third down, which we have not done a good enough job on this year and that’s our challenge, we have to get off the field on third down.”

How are the 49ers able to create so many big plays?

“I think (it has) just been the case of (being) opportunistic more than anything else,” San Francisco coach Mike Nolan said. “Our offensive players, in particular our quarterback and a couple of wide receivers, obviously have not played together in the past, so when you put the whole picture together on offense we’re working for continuity and we’ve had it this far in the season.

“Knock on wood, hopefully that continues and as we play more games hopefully we just get better and better. But the explosive plays, the plays over 20 yards that you speak of, I think are just a result of guys doing their job.”

Patriots defensive back Ellis Hobbs said that the Patriots are going to do everything they can to limit San Francisco’s big plays tomorrow.

Hobbs said that the defensive backs will have to stay with their man a little longer than normal so that the defensive linemen and linebackers will hopefully get to San Francisco quarterback J.T. O’Sullivan.

Call for defense

The Patriots had a lot of mistakes to correct, defensively, in their subpar performance against Miami.

They are champing at the bit to get out on the field tomorrow and show the coaching staff, and their fans, that they have corrected those mistakes, Hobbs said.

“You get sick and tired of making the same corrections over and over again,” Hobbs said. “Obviously we are doing it for a reason because they were mistakes but it’s almost like you want to go out there now. You’ve been told how to do it, you’ve been coached how to do it, you’ve done it in practice and now you want to see if it works in the game.

“I think we are just excited to get that taste out of our mouths from the Miami game, which we put behind us but we ended on that note going into the bye week and we are all looking forward to going out there and playing a good game.”

A special-teams star

Hobbs, who set the Patriots record for most kickoff return yards in a game (237) against the Dolphins in Week Three, is averaging 36.0 yards per kickoff return (10 returns for 360 yards) this season, which ranks first in the NFL among players with two or more returns.

He gives a lot of credit to his teammates for his success.

“First and foremost it’s an 11-man job,” Hobbs said. “You definitely need all 11 guys clicking on the same page, starting with the ball-handling by me catching the ball and making sure everything times up right. Those guys up front continue to block and not necessarily create holes or anything like that, but just sticking to the man long enough so that I can make a maneuver off of them instead of both of the people. Right now I think we are doing a great job and we just have to keep it rolling.”

roblee@projo.com