Team effort wins the day for New England Patriots
I have no idea who this Heath Evans guy is, but, wow, thanks, stranger! Holy cow. 17 carries for 84 yards, most of them in the first half when the Pats desperately everything they got, plus a successful two-point conversion. Ben Watson’s game-winning catch in end zone would have been the catch of the game had it not been for Tim Dwight’s 59-yard grab-and-run on the preceeding play. The Patriots were right to go for the touchdown instead, since the Dolphins had three timeouts and the two-minute warning on their side.
Patriots’ secondary looked at least superficially better than has in other games, but that was partly because the Dolphins offense just isn’t that good. Eugene Wilson’s wiffed tackle on Wes Welker on the Dolphins’ last drive of the game was awful.
Tedy Bruschi was inconsistent, he made a bunch of plays but also blew a couple (has CBS color commentator Phil Simms really never seen Bruschi do the hurdling blitz?).
But like the headline here says, it was a team effort that won the day for the Patriots, they all fought and battled and just about everybody chipped in with a play here or there.
From here? Who knows? Next week it’s at home against the New Orleans Saints, followed by a road game against Kansas City Chiefs. If they come out of that with a 6-5 record they’ll be in position for a season-ending run, but the window of opportunity is starting to close. Patriots need to take the quality and consistency of play to a higher level for good things to happen at the end of this season.
Update: Last week’s warning shot was Troy Brown’s complaint that the Patriots weren’t playing with passion, this week’s come from Ted Johnson, now analyst with Channel 4. On the station’s post-game show somebody (Neumeier?) asked if the Bill Belichick was close to “losing” his team after last week’s loss to the Colts, and Johnson answered in the affirmative. Wow. Was he just taking a wild guess, like ESPN’s Tom Jackson did with his infamous “the Patriots hate their coach” remark back in 2003, or was he basing it on something more substantial? I have to think the latter, considering how close Johnson reasonably is to a lot of the team’s players.
