New England Patriots beat Miami Dolphins. Barely.
It’s quite possible, even probable, that the best unit on the field when New England Patriots took on visiting Miami Dolphins was Miami’s defense.
While the Patriots won, 20-10, most of their points came after turnovers that put the Dolphins in desperately poor field position. Miami’s first drive ended with a lost fumble on the Dolphin’s 37 yard line. New England took advantage by scoring a field goal. Miami’s third possession ended with an interception by cornerback Asante Samuel who took the ball to Miami’s 10 yard line. From there, the Patriots scored on a 10 yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tom Brady to wide receiver Troy Brown. Miami’s penultimate drive resulted in another interception by Samuel, but even though New England took over at Miami’s 24 yard line, it was only with the help of a very iffy defensive pass-interference that the Patriots were able to score on a 1 yard touchdown pass from Brady to fullback Heath Evans.
The Patriots did score one more field goal, in the first quarter, after Miami had a field-goal attempt blocked. New England managed 56 yards on 15 plays, including a fourth-down conversion caught by wide receiver Rece Caldwell, before having to kick the ball.
All other New England drives ended with a punt, including one that started on the New England 46 yard line after Miami’s punter was sacked by defensive tackle Mike Wright.
Miami’s best field position was New England’s 37 yard line and came after runningback Kevin Faulk fumbled a punt return (which should mean that Faulk has one more fumble left in him for this season). Unlike the Patriots, Miami failed to take advantage of its luck and had to punt.
Overall, the game went down almost exactly as New England’s head coach Bill Belichick had predicted all week long in his sermons about Miami’s strong and fast receivers who can both block on the edges and make big plays, about Miami’s big cornerbacks who excell in man coverage and who can also tackle runningbacks in the open field, about Miami’s front seven and all the difficulties it creates for opposing offenses, about speedy return man and wide receiver Wes Welker who is outstanding at returning both punts and kick-offs because of his combination of speed and quickness.
Nobody who had listened to any of Belichick’s press conferences during the week running up to the game could have been surprised, but clearly media didn’t heed his warnings the way he felt it should have: During the final press conference before the game he gently chided the reporters for not asking more questions about the Dolphins.
The one unit that struggled the most with Miami was New England’s offensive line. It was close to manhandled by the Dolphins. There were times when left tackle Matt Light, center Dan Koppen, right-tackle Ryan O’Callaghan were beaten badly individually, and there were times when the entire unit was made ineffective by Miami’s big interior defensive linemen and the speedy, hard-hitting ends and backers around them.
New England managed 81 yards on 34 carries, with runningback Corey Dillon the one player who managed to have some success with 10 carries for 45 yards.
It was a similar story throwing the ball. Brady went 16 of 29 for 140 yards. Newcomers Caldwell and Doug Gabriel combined for 3 catches and 12 yards, while Brown was the leader with 58 yards and 5 catches, including the touchdown. Rookie tight-end David Thomas snagged a pretty spectacular catch over the middle for 11 yards. Tight-end Ben Watson, who’s run-blocking has improved considerably over the last two games, showed once again why he is a very good but not great player when he fell to the ground after catching a pass with nobody between him and the endzone in the fourth quarter. He finished with 4 catches for 33 yards.
New England’s defense played a terrific game. While yielding short gains on quick passes, it bottled up the running game and didn’t allow the Dolphins to go vertical with any consistent success. The Dolphins did make two great plays back-to-back: A 25 yard pass over the middle to that pesky Welker followed by a fullback dive over the right side of the offensive line by Ronnie Brown for a touchdown. The left side of New England’s defensive line was completely blown up on the latter play. That was a darn good goal line play by the Dolphins.
New England’s safety Rodney Harrison forced the fumble on Miami’s first drive and it was recovered by inside linebacker Tedy Bruschi. Samuel’s first interception was a thing of scheming beauty, with Miami’s quarterback Joey Harrington (playing instead of beat-up starter Daunte Culpepper) not seeing the cornerback move in for the kill. Samuel’s second interception was a thing of athletic beauty, with Samuel throwing his arm back and snagging a deflected pass out of the air.
While the defense in general played a great game defensive end Richard Seymour had another off-game, probably his worst performance of the year. It’s one thing that he’s not at his usual Pro Bowl level, or at the level of nose tackle Vince Wilfork or defensive end Ty Warren, both very good players, but he’s not even on par with Wright at this point. Maybe Seymour is hurt, maybe he’s still pouting over Deion Branch’s departure, maybe he’s just in a trough, but there’s definitely something that’s not right. It’s a good thing the Patriots have great depth at defensive line.
Michael Gee tries to assess how strong the Patriots are right now:
The Pats are a most creditable 4-1. The statistics and the evidence of our own eyes, however, record New England has having played one outstanding game (Cincinnati), one poor one (Denver), and three middling contests against less than middling opponents (Buffalo, the Jets, Miami). The Pats won those last three, but is that a testament to veteran poise and opportunism, or mere proof of the August theory the AFC East would kind of suck this year?
Beats me.
Me too.
Troy Brown is the best football player New England has, and maybe the best the franchise has ever had. Ron Borges has an article on Brown that is much like Brown himself: Efficient. Sample (but do read the whole thing):
It is very likely no other player who ended up as his team’s all-time leading receiver, as Brown will become after five more catches, ever has done so many things with so unselfish an attitude. But occasionally — and yesterday was one of those occasions — he is given the chance to remind people what his real calling is.
For all his versatility, Brown is as reliable a third-down receiver as the Patriots ever have had and the league ever has seen. When it is third and 7, as it was in the second quarter, he got 8. Not 6. Eight. Eight on a route he had to adjust twice to find enough room to get the yardage his team wanted and the open space Tom Brady needed.
Yes, yes, Troy Brown is my favorite Patriot.
