I’m very fortunate in that, at absolutely no point in my life, did I ever think I had the slightest clue what I was doing or what was going on. If I were living in London AF 632, I’d proudly be a Delta or an Epsilon and not think twice about it.
So, I’m able to roll into this huge Patriots win in Miami with the same kind of good-natured idiocy that has served me so well over these past four decades. This was as close to a must-win Week 2 game as it got, for both sides, and here the Patriots sit at 2nd
place in the AFC East with the ship as righted as can be expected for this early in the year. I’ll take it.
1. This is the kind of early-season game that Bill Belichick used to dream of: a divisional road win where a lot went wrong, there are plenty of areas for improvement, and whoever puts together the bad play game tape is going to be living off of takeout from one of the many fine establishments along Route 1 in Foxboro for the next few days. But enough also went right and the team showed enough grit to get it done and build some momentum.
2. I said last week that how the Patriots responded to a very lackluster Raiders game was going to say a lot about them and where their head is at, and it’s tough not to be happy overall with what we saw yesterday. The Patriots haven’t won in Miami since 2019 and the Dolphins needed this one way more than New England did. But they made plays when they needed to make them and more importantly, closed the game out rather than pissing it away.
3. I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first so we can all maximize our time basking in the Victory Monday creaminess.
4. This was a wildly sloppy game from both teams in terms of penalties. Veterans and rookies alike drawing flags and short-circuiting drives. Offsides negating turnovers. False starts setting the offense back before a drive even starts. Unnecessary holding calls. It’s the main thing that made the 2024 Patriots so difficult to watch and there are still remnants of that here for sure.
5. I don’t know what to make of this defense, which looks solid at times and completely lost at times. They have nine sacks through two games, which should make me happy — but if you had to ask me right now what my confidence level is for this unit to get off the field on third and 45, I’d say 53 percent. Maybe the return of Christian Gonzalez will allow for some shuffling around and they’ll start to gel more. But a lot of the defensive positives from yesterday’s game was more bad plays by Miami.
6. Credit where credit is due, Andy Borregales absolutely nailed a 53-yarder that the Patriots absolutely had to have. He misses there and Miami gets the ball on the 42-yard line only needing two first downs to get into scoring range. But the reason the Patriots needed to have that field goal is because Borregales missed two extra points in a row and the outcome won’t always be as rosy. I have no idea why kickers are so hard to draft. It must be a big stage/mental toughness thing that just isn’t as prevalent in college. After all, if a kicker misses in college, he’ll always have tons of sexy co-eds there to console him. Because if 90s movies taught me anything, there’s no player on the team the ladies love more than the kicker.
7. It didn’t help watching Joey Slye, Nick Folk, and Parker Romo all going perfect for their respective teams yesterday.
8. This could apply to the special teams as a whole. The Antonio Gibson return made up for what was a lackluster day overall from what used to be a consistent strength of this team. I wouldn’t call it a bad day overall, but in a season in which field position is likely to be wildly important, I’d like to see more consistency.
9. OK, enough of that. Let’s get to the good stuff.
10. I only have two criticisms of Drake Maye, and they’re both barely even worth mentioning. One, he slightly overthrew Austin Hooper on the 22-yard pass that set up New England’s opening drive TD. Hooper was wide open there, and if Maye had hit him in stride, he likely walks into the end zone there. And two, Maye led Mack Hollins a little too far on his last drive of the game when the Patriots opted to throw coming out of the two minute warning instead of running out the clock. But other than that, Maye had arguably his best day as a pro. He only ran with the ball when it made the most sense. He looked calm and poised going through his progressions. And his pocket presence, awareness, touch, and accuracy on that 55-yard play to Rhamondre Stevenson is the kind of highlight we could easily have seen on any Patriots game from 2001-19.
11. 23 passing attempts, 29 rushing attempts, for 230 and 122 yards, respectively. Nine Patriots caught at least one pass. Mondre looked as good as he has ever looked and Henderson showed his backfield explosiveness. Outside of his early false start (which was highly questionable, in my opinion, he was just pointing to the protection scheme), it was easy to forget that Will Campbell even existed. Tough to ask for much more out of an early-season, still-developing offense than that.
12. I have, on several occasions, relayed my roommate’s sheer joy over this team having both a player named Boutte and a player named Mapu — one of the many reasons why I married her. So that Kayshon Boutte and Marte Mapu both had big moments that helped this win set up an absolute barrage of potty humor that I’ll spare you all for now. But if it keeps up, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to contain myself.
13. But while I’m on the subject of Boutte, that was probably my favorite play of the day. It was an absolute dime of a throw, to a receiver that was very well covered, but Maye had enough faith in the one-on-one to make the throw anyway and he put it low enough to where it would fall incomplete if Boutte couldn‘t break away. And he couldn’t break away. But Boutte still managed to make the one-handed catch. It’s an example of two phenomenal talents putting their skills to use in unison that I haven’t been able to talk about in regards to this offense since before there was a 2 in the 10s column of the calendar date.
14. Although my true highlight of the day? Those wonderful, blissful few minutes when the commentators cut out altogether and all I could hear was the sound of the crowd, the players calling their assignments, and the milksack thud of colliding helmets. Note to every network out there: no need to apologize for silencing your talking heads.
15. I think the time of this game where I was most scared came following the Gibson kickoff return to put the Patriots up 29-27. Borregales came out to kick the extra point to make it a three-point lead, and I couldn’t watch.
16. I’d be curious to see an alternate reality in which De’Von Achane doesn’t step out of bounds and Drake Maye comes back onto the field needing a drive. Does he do it? The fact that I’m even asking that question instead of saying “well that’s that” is a nice change of pace from last year.
17. Of course, that also creates a scenario where Maye gets them into a field goal range. So let’s just all agree that Achane stepping out was just what the doctor ordered.
18. Speaking of doctors — I mean this with all sincerity. Tua might have permanently screwed up some wires. This is the second straight week where he has made some terrible reads or throws to the wrong player. He also wasn’t making all that much sense during his postgame presser. You’re never going to tell an elite athlete in his 20s that he isn’t invincible. But I really, really hope Tua’s story has a happy ending.
19. I’ll tell you whose story isn’t going to have a happy ending: Mike McDaniel. If he lasts the season I’ll be amazed. Hell, he might not even make it to October; the Fins have the Bills on Thursday at Buffalo, and I can’t see Miami righting the ship there. Which is a shame, as I always found the idea of an NFL head coach who looks like he’d be much more comfortable trying to get the bouncer’s attention after the rest of his group was let into the club while he was left ouside to be hysterical.
20. I had the Patriots at 1-1 through two weeks, and that’s right where they’re at. I have absolutely no clue what to make of the Steelers team on deck, but I’ll worry about that later on this week. Going to take some more time to enjoy this one.
I’ll say this about the most recent iterations of the Patriots — they’re not uninteresting. And the entire AFC seems to be in total, utter chaos right now. Everybody buckle up.
