The Patriots held on to beat the Dolphins in Miami on Sunday, traveling back to New England with a 33-27 victory in their bag to improve to 1-1 on the season. Sure, it wasn’t the prettiest victory, but it was a gritty one that Mike Vrabel and company should be happy about.
Let’s get into the lessons learned from the AFC East contest.
Drake Maye is trending up…
The Patriots being a good team is largely dependent on their second-year quarterback taking the next step in his development this season. We will have to wait to if it lasts,
but Drake Maye undoubtably took a big step forward on Sunday in Miami. He had command of the pocket, delivered numerous great throws, and did not miss any reads or passes badly. It was a really solid game from a guy who needed one after an inconsistent season opener last week.
In fact, his 19-of-23, 230-yard, two-touchdown-plus-one-rushing-touchdown performance in Miami might have been the best game of his young career.
His third-quarter pass Rhamondre Stevenson that turned a 3rd-and-3 into a 55-yard gain, meanwhile, might have been the best play of his career so far. Maye stepped up through contact and delivered a perfect strike in stride.
“Just trusting him,” Maye said about the play after the game. “We throw those kind of routes all the time in practice. We work on them. I’ve thrown them to him after practice, working on them, catching them over the shoulder. I thought I overthrew it at first, and he made a great play.”
If he can continue to string plays like this one together and build on the win over Miami, Maye is going to put himself in the top tier of quarterbacks very soon. That is a vastly different outlook than the doom-and-gloom following his Week 1 performance.
…and so are the rookie O-linemen
The Patriots are starting two rookies on the left side of the offensive line, with Will Campbell at left tackle and Jared Wilson at left guard. They looked fantastic on Sunday. Between the two of them, they allowed a single quarterback pressure on Sunday, while the Patriots ran consistently and relatively successfully behind them as well.
There was quite a bit of pushback against the Campbell pick at No. 3 overall in New England, but he has done nothing but show that he belongs at left tackle and has been solid in both games so far this season. Wilson struggled last week, but he took a step forward against the Dolphins — a promising sign.
The two youngsters should only continue to get better as the season goes on and with more experience. And if they do, the Patriots might just have found their LT-LG combo of the future.
The free agents are worth every penny
The Patriots went out and spent $104 million on Milton Williams in free agency this offseason. Why? For him to be a game wrecker in big moments, and he did just that on Sunday. After being near the top of the league in pressures generated last week, he ended the game against the Dolphins with a fourth down sack of Tua Tagovailoa with under a minute left in the fourth quarter.
Williams has consistently been in the opposing team’s backfield in the first two games, and finally cashed in with his first sack of the game Sunday in the biggest moment of the season so far.
“It felt great,” Williams said after the game.
“Me and Harold [Landry] made a good call on that one, because it was starting to chip on that side. We made a call to run a game, and shoot, I got off the ball and executed when they need to be executed. Back end held up, made them hold the ball and that’s all I’m asking for. You make them one time and I’m trying my best to get back there and affect the game.”
Landry, another high-priced free agency pickup, had 2.5 sacks last week, and added another quarterback takedown on Sunday. He had a hard time winning 1-on-1s most of the day, but came through at the end of the game, when the Patriots needed a big play, just like Williams’.
This is why you go out and spend that money, and the Patriots got what they paid for on Sunday.
New England’s defense has seen better days
While it did have some positive moments, the Patriots defense as a whole continued to struggle against Miami: the unit gave up 358 yards on 52 plays for an average of 6.9 yards per play. There were some positive developments compared to last week, but one big issue remained: New England had a rough time defending the so-called “X-plays.”
Miami had five such explosive plays on Sunday, adding to the nine the Las Vegas Raiders had in Week 1. The Dolphins completed four passes of 20-plus yards, and had one run of 10-plus yards.
Yes, the Patriots are missing their best player and have multiple guys playing together for the first time, but the unit simply has to be better than it has so far.
TreVeyon Henderson is fight through rookie growing pains
There are plenty of reasons to be excited about second-round draft pick TreVeyon Henderson, but he had some rough plays on Sunday. He was flagged for holding on three separate occasions, and despite being billed as the best blocker in the 2025 running back class also got beat as a pass protector on more than one occasion.
The young back did have a nice reception on a wheel route, but he only touched the ball five times on Sunday for a total gain of 40 yards.
Rhamondre Stevenson still has the juice
The rushing numbers might not have been gaudy from Rhamondre Stevenson, who only finished with 54 yards on the ground. However, he looked good running the ball on Sunday and also showed some real juice in the passing game, punctuated by his career-long reception from Maye.
It looks like it might take TreVeyon Henderson a little longer to get truly comfortable at the position and in the NFL, but if the Patriots can get this level of play from Stevenson, then there is no rush for the rookie. The vet, after all, was a weapon in the run and pass game on Sunday.
Morgan Moses has a rough day
The Patriots offensive line played quite well on Sunday, outside of right tackle Morgan Moses, who finished the day with three false start penalties and also got beat pretty cleanly on the third down pass from Drake Maye to Rhamondre Stevenson; Drake stepping through the pressure to deliver a strike is what saved the play from turning into a disaster.
Moses was spotted wearing a walking boot in the locker room after the game, and that could certainly explain some of the struggles that he had. Still, he was apparently healthy enough to play and ended up on the field for all 60 offensive snaps.
“I just got to be better, mentally,” Moses said after the game. “Whether the front’s moving up front, I have to hone in and just be better.”
Robert Spillane is in a funk
When the Patriots started free agency, the first guy they went after was Spillane, the former undrafted linebacker who played for Mike Vrabel in Tennessee. Lass Vegas fans were adamant that the Patriots had a steal with Spillane, and Patriots fans were optimistic about their linebacker corps greatly improving this season.
Unfortunately, through two games that hasn’t been the case.
Spillane has been below-average at best in coverage, and missed several tackles in open space. The Patriots love his leadership off the field, and there is definitive value in that for a young and rebuilding team. His play on the field, however, is going to have to improve significantly if he is going to live up to the three-year, $33 million contract that the Patriots gave him in March.
The kicker question remains
The Patriots drafted a kicker for the third time in the last six years back in April, and the early returns are again anything but promising. Andy Borregales missed his first two extra points of the day, and the Patriots were chasing those two points all game. He did make all three of his other kicks, including a 53-yarder late in the fourth quarter to extend the lead to six points and force the Dolphins to have to score a touchdown on their final drive. Before that drive, however, he made another error, sending his kickoff short of the landing zone to give Miami the ball at its own 40.
You have to imagine that the leash is going to be awfully short moving forward.
Another winnable game awaits
Next weekend, the Patriots will host Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Gillette Stadium. They got beaten pretty good by the Seahawks on Sunday, who were playing the dreaded 1 p.m. East Coast game for a West Coast team and still, *ahem* coasted to victory.
The Steelers defensive line should pose a bigger challenge than the Dolphins’ did, but the Steelers have a lot less explosion from their receiving corps, outside of DK Metcalf. It is a game that the Patriots can win, if they play the way they played on Sunday.
“We got to move on quickly in this league and get ready for Pittsburgh coming here next week,” said defensive tackle Milton Williams. “But this is a good win for us, good division win. We’re back at .500, and let’s keep building on it.”
