Last modified: Sunday, October 5, 2008 11:52 AM EDT Matt Cassel and the Patriots will take on the 49ers this afternoon. (Staff photo by KEITH NORDSTROM) Patriots go west BY MARK FARINELLA SUN CHRONICLE STAFF FOXBORO - The Patriots said farewell to New England for 10 days on Friday afternoon. That's not unusual in itself; four times since 2001, the Patriots have packed up their worldly belongings and set up camp in New Orleans, Houston, St. Augustine, Fla., and Scottsdale, Ariz., for similar periods of time. But the difference this time around? Instead of playing the most meaningful football game in the known universe at the end of that lengthy stay in another city, these Patriots will be squeezing in two games of lesser import, starting with today's game at the recently renamed Candlestick Park against the 2-2 San Francisco 49ers (4:15 p.m.; Ch. 4, 12). Following the game against the resurgent Niners, the Patriots will use San Jose State University as their home base to prepare for their Sunday Night Football meeting with the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium on Oct. 12. The Arizona Cardinals recently did the same thing in preparing for two back-to-back games on the East Coast. How well the Patriots' odyssey goes will likely determine whether they do the same thing for their second two-game West Coast swing of the season, Dec. 7 and 14 at Seattle and Oakland respectively. Patriots' coach Bill Belichick repeatedly sidestepped the issue of the 10-day road trip last week, claiming that his focus was solely upon the San Francisco game. But that didn't stop him from waxing nostalgically about Candlestick, one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL and a place where the Patriots haven't played since 1995. "It will certainly bring back some memories for me going back to Candlestick," Belichick said Friday. "It has been a while since I've been out there. I think it was when we were at the Jets, we opened with them. But before that it seemed like we were out there every year with the Giants playing them or at least every other year one way or another. "We don't have too many games on grass ... this is one of them," he added. "We are going back to 'old school,' kind of - old stadium, grass, 49ers - a little different flavor to it this weekend." In fact, adapting to the grass surface of Candlestick may be one of the toughest challenges for the Patriots, a challenge that will be revisited the following Sunday in San Diego. Twelve of the Patriots' 16 games this year will take place on a FieldTurf surface or something similar, and the next grass experience after these two weekends will be Nov. 23 at Miami. "It used to be you practice on grass and you would have a game every once in a while on turf," Belichick said. "Now it seems like everyone practices on turf, the games are on turf and every once in a while you have one on grass. But we are on the grass just about every day unless we are inside the bubble. "We get plenty of playing time on grass," he said. "Our players are comfortable with that. We've had over 50 practices on it. I think that's a minor adjustment but something we are comfortable with. I think it would be different if everyone of our practices was on turf and all of our games were on turf. I think it affects the kickers a little bit. It's a little different plant and contact point with Stephen Gostkowski, not so much the punters but with the kickers. It's a little adjustment, but again these are all experienced guys. They have been through it before." Of greater concern is whether the 49ers have been inspired by what they saw in the films of the Miami loss to try different formations or gimmick plays against the Patriots, such as Ronnie Brown's shotgun-quarterback efforts that were so successful in the Dolphins' 38-13 victory. "After a game like Miami," Belichick said, "I think you'd better prepare for it and make sure you have it covered in case someone this week, next week or any week pulls it out. It's giving the other team an incentive to say, 'let's see if they've got this figured out yet, see if they got it stopped.' So we need to work on it whether they've shown it or not." San Francisco coach Mike Nolan, in his conference call to the New England media last week, seemed to indicate that he doesn't believe the Patriots will be fooled again by the same sort of formation. "I'm not going to reveal any game plan, obviously," Nolan said, "but I just know I'd probably look at it more in the case that I know New England will be well prepared, as they are in most games. I'm sure Coach Belichick was disappointed in the performance and he certainly has the attention of his players. It will be a different game at our place. As we all know, every game is, so we'll see how the game goes." The six successful plays run out of that formation by Miami have certainly resonated in Foxboro. Friday, before departing for the West Coast, defensive coordinator Dean Pees fell on his sword to the media about the Dolphins' success at pulling the wool over his eyes two weeks ago. "I give Miami a lot of credit for having a little bit of a scheme to come in and give us a different look," Pees said. "It's my job, though, as a coordinator to do a better job of getting the adjustments to our guys quicker. We finally got it adjusted but I needed to do a better job of getting it quicker. "I take responsibility for that and then the players, when we did get it adjusted, need to do a better job of tackling it," he continued. "We gave up a couple of plays that we had it stopped we just didn't tackle. That was not the case early on. They caught us." Another aspect of today's game that will play an important role in its outcome is the continued maturation of Patriots' quarterback Matt Cassel, starting for the third time since Tom Brady was lost for the season with a severely injured left knee. Nolan, who is monitoring the progress of his own inexperienced quarterback (former Patriots' practice-squadder J.T. O'Sullivan), is well acquainted with the challenge that poses to a team. "It's just been 21/2 short weeks that he's played and that doesn't even include the bye week," Nolan said of Cassel. "But I think structurally, they do the same things. He's obviously been in the system; he knows it. They may have done a few less things than what their entire offense entails, as far as the couple games he played in, but he looks like a very confident player." Nolan said it's not surprising that Cassel resembles Brady somewhat in terms of stature and playing style. "I don't want to say they're the same, but they do resemble the guys they play behind from a technical standpoint and things like that," he said. "It's difficult sometimes to play a quarterback when you don't know all that much about him because he hasn't started that much. But as you'll all reflect, I'm sure, Tom Brady, when he got the job, there wasn't a whole lot known about him, either." MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.