Game recap: Patriots beat themselves against rising Dolphins

Every reasonable Patriots fan fears three things: Commissioner Roger Goodell stealing their draft picks, ESPN showing endless Super Bowl 42 replays, and playing the Dolphins in Miami. 

Despite their incredible success over the last two decades, New England has consistently been subpar playing in Miami. Since 2013, the Patriots have only won there twice (2016 and 2019).

Today’s performance did not break that trend. The Dolphins crushed the Patriots by a score of 20 to 7. 

First Quarter

The first offensive drive for New England was one of their two most successful of the whole day. Matt Patricia, who technically is not the offensive coordinator, was willing to throw on first down. The running game, led by Damien Harris and Rhomondre Stevenson, consistently moved the ball downfield. 

Mac Jones distributed the ball fairly evenly on this drive, showing trust in his teammates. Jakobi Meyers, Hunter Henry, and DeVante Parker were all targeted for passes in the opening possession. 

However, the opening drive ended in disaster for New England when an underthrown ball to new addition DeVante Parker was tipped by Miami’s cornerback Xavien Howard. Safety Jevon Holland caught the ball and returned it for about thirty yards. 

When leaving the field, Jones was furious and seemed to believe that Parker was held by Howard as he ran his route. Replays show that this hold was pretty blatant. 

Nevertheless, the Patriots offense never returned to this form. Seemingly, the Patriots offense was much more comfortable using their “First 15” or scripted plays than they were improvising. The new-look offensive scheme appeared quite sloppy and inconsistent for the rest of the game. 

Second Quarter

The Dolphins scored a field goal on their first possession. Aside from two self-inflicted penalties, the Patriots defense held their own. Of the defensive ends, Dietrich Wise was remarkable. He forced Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to fumble and had a few crucial tackles.

Of the defensive backs, Kyle Dugger stood out as a leader. At one point, he stopped Miami’s star wide receiver Tyreek Hill dead in his tracks on back to back plays. While this play shown below is from the beginning of the third quarter, it shows the force Dugger was playing with. 

Generally, the Patriots devoted a lot of their defensive focus on their secondary. For most of the time, they had six defensive backs on the field. This helped mitigate the effects of the Dolphins’ super fast receivers. The Dolphins were limited to one offensive touchdown for the entire game. 

However, the Dolphins did score a defensive touchdown as well. Halfway through the second quarter, safety Brandon Jones got around tackle Trent Brown and landed a devastating blow on Mac Jones. Jones fumbled the ball and linebacker Melvin Ingram picked it up for a touchdown. 

At the very end of the half, starting safety Adrian Phillips left the game with a rib injury. In the play immediately following, Tagovailoa intelligently spotted the confused replacement safety and tossed a quick pass to wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. Waddle broke a few tackles and scored Miami’s aforementioned touchdown with twenty-four seconds left on the clock. 

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick opted to kneel to end the half instead of taking another try on offense with the remaining seconds. 

Third Quarter

Despite being down by seventeen, the Patriots offense had their best drive to start the third quarter. Jones was able to involve nearly everyone in his offense. Harris, Meyers, Stevenson, Parker, and Jonnu Smith were all part of the effort in moving the ball downfield. 

Much like at the beginning of a game, teams will often script a few plays for the beginning of the third quarter as well, if they saw match-ups and opportunities from the first half. I suspect some of these scripted plays helped the Patriots gain offensive momentum once again. 

The Patriots were helped by Miami’s own Week 1 sloppiness. A “too many men on the field” and another needless defensive hold by Xavien Howard gave the Patriots extra yards when they desperately needed them. 

The Patriots scored on an out-route to wide receiver Ty Montgomery on their fifteenth play of a nearly nine minute drive. Montgomery tripped himself after catching and had to roll into the endzone for New England’s only score. 

Fourth Quarter

The Patriots offensive woes continued in the fourth quarter. After their touchdown, the Patriots only had three more offensive possessions. In those possessions, punted, turned the ball over on downs, and then fumbled.

Notably, last year’s second most used receiver, Kendrick Bourne, had been entirely missing from the game. His absence from the game despite his clear talent was eerily reminiscent of legendary Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler being mysteriously held out of Super Bowl 52. 

Bourne had a bad pre-season on the field. Off the field, he made headlines when getting involved in a kerfuffle with the Carolina Panthers at a joint training camp. Receiver Nelson Agholor took his spot in the starting line-up. Ty Montgomery also passed Bourne on the depth chart.  

On his first and only target, Bourne caught a 41 yard deep ball from Mac Jones. This was New England’s long play of the game. Bourne’s ability to make explosive plays was clearly missed. On many of Jones’s attempts to throw more than twenty yards deep, the ball appeared short of where it needed to be. 

In the end, the Patriots final drive mirrored their first drive as both ended with costly turnovers. Agholor fumbled the ball on a vital third down and New England never got the ball back. 

Tagovailoa showed some obvious flaws towards the very end of the game. Linebacker Juwan Bentley caught Tagovailoa spending too much time in the backfield and sacked him for a loss of twelve yards. Cornerback Myles Bryant dropped an interception that was headed straight to safety Devin McCourty. 

Projection for Week Two

Next week, the Patriots play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh. Out of the last five regular season match-ups between the Patriots and the Steelers, four of the games have been held in Pittsburgh. 

The Steelers just beat the Cincinnati Bengals on the road, but they needed five turnovers, a blocked extra point, and a missed field goal to secure their victory. Even with their massive turnover advantage, Pittsburgh only won by three and they needed every second of overtime to do so. 

I predict that neither New England’s offense nor Pittsburgh’s offense will look formidable in Week 2. However, center David Andrews says if the Patriots can “keep [themselves] from losing,” they will be much more competitive against the Steelers.