It wasn’t pretty, but the New England Patriots left Miami as winners and now sit at 5-3 for the season.
The team of head coach Mike Vrabel started slowly, and played some uninspired football in all three phases to start their Week 8 contest versus the Dolphins. Coming out of the half, however, they showed some much-needed urgency and scored 21 unanswered points to help secure a 24-19 victory.
Let’s get into our lessons learned from the game.
Mental toughness is on display
Over the first 30 minutes on Sunday, the Patriots played arguably
their worst half of football this season. Coming out of a mini-bye and against a one-win team, they went into the locker room down by 10 points, trailing 13-3. They then came out and scored three touchdowns before giving up a late score to the Dolphins the last time they had the ball.
The turnaround obviously changed the game, but it is also an indication of the mental toughness of this team.
They have consistently risen to the challenge and fought back, even when they have been struggling. With so many starters out, and another going down in this game — TE Hunter Henry — the Patriots never quit and did what they needed to do to come out of there with a win. It may not have been pretty, but a win is a win, and this was a huge one for the Patriots.
Drake Maye balls out in the second half
As poor as Drake Maye and the offense looked in the first two quarters, they, and he, played that well in the second half. The deep pass is still there, with a beautiful touchdown to Kyle Williams, and he also delivered a good throw off a fake pitch down the sideline to DeMario Douglas for another score.
Maye’s move at the goal line to score a touchdown, meanwhile, was just slick. When he is feeling it, he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He certainly felt it over the last 30 minutes on Sunday.
No receivers, his favorite target goes out early in the game, the team is playing bad football, and he comes out of the half and leads the team to victory. When he is playing the way he was in the second half on Sunday, the Patriots can win any game anywhere under any circumstance.
Cory Durden steps up
Cory Durden stepped and played fantastic on Sunday. Not only did he have 1.5 sacks, but he was also a force in the run game as well. The Patriots have two very good defensive linemen already in Christian Barmore and Milton Williams, but are in need of someone else to help out. Durden did just that on Sunday.
He’s far from a perfect player, but he has shown the potential to do what he did against Miami. If he does on a consistent basis, that would be a huge boost for the Patriots defensive line.
Gabe Jacas is becoming a problem
Speaking of helping the Patriots defense, Gabe Jacas is consistently putting together solid games. He has been very good against both the run and the pass this year, and he added another 1.5 sacks on Sunday. He’s now up to three quarterback takedowns on the season, and is becoming a problem that other teams are going to have to answer for every weekend.
My favorite play of his was when he was in the backfield getting held, and helped force a loss anyway. He ended up leaving the game with a knee injury, so we’ll have to see how healthy he is. Overall, though, he has looked very good this year and has been a real help for a Patriots defense that had significant questions on the edge entering the season.
Unheralded stars lead the Patriots to victory
With so many skill players on the offense out, the Patriots needed some guys to step up. A few of them did, in different ways.
Drake Maye’s target with the most catches ended up being Efton Chism, who redeemed himself after his first-half fumble. The Patriots also got big plays from both Kyle Williams and DeMario Douglas, who both had touchdowns of 40-plus yards on the day.
Rhamondre Stevenson, however, ended up being the most reliable player on offense. He ran hard, as he always does, caught all three of his targets, and even closed out the game with a third-down carry for a first down. The Patriots need more of their players to get healthy, but in the second half on Sunday, they saw enough of their role players step up so that Stevenson and Maye could lead the offense to victory.
The Patriots need some competition for Andy Borregales
The Patriots have had a history of fantastic kickers. They had Adam Vinatieri and Stephen Gostkowski, who, when you combine their play, were top-tier players at the position for over 20 years. Even Nick Folk looked very good following in Gostkowski’s shoes for a couple of seasons.
Now, they have a guy who currently isn’t good enough. Andy Borregales is too inconsistent to be the kicker on a team that has deep playoff aspirations: through eight games, he has missed an extra point and three field goals, including a 40-yarder on Sunday.
Having a kicker like him is a recipe for disaster that could rear its ugly head at some point late in the season. Of course, he did manage to get out of a similar funk last year. If he can’t break it this time around, however, the team should explore brining someone in on the practice squad to serve as emergency depth.
It might be time to move on from Morgan Moses
The Patriots love what they have gotten from Morgan Moses over the last year and a half. He’s been a real leader in the locker room and a mentor for their young offensive linemen, including back-to-back first-round draft picks Will Campbell and Caleb Lomu. However, it looks like it might be time to hand over the job to Lomu.
Moses just doesn’t appear to have the athleticism to play the position at a consistent level anymore. This might be because of the injury that he’s been dealing with, but it doesn’t matter. As much as you want to give the veterans a chance to play through their struggles, it seems that Lomu is better at the right tackle spot right now than Moses. It might be time let the kid take over.
More injury concerns
It feels like the Patriots have suffered injuries to every starting unit on the field this year, and they had two more noteworthy ones on Sunday. Tight end Hunter Henry and edge Gabe Jacas both left the game with injuries.
Henry had a foot injury, and for Jacas it was a knee. The former tried to come back, but was unable to, while Jacas did not return at all. Dre’Mont Jones was also slow to get off the field at one point, and it feels like he’s constantly a little banged up and playing through something.
There’s a realistic chance that Mack Hollins will be coming off injured reserve soon, and we don’t know how serious the injuries are to Jacas and Henry. Unfortunately, questions like these have become a weekly problem for the Patriots.
A refereeing clown show
It seems like every week we see a fair share of questionable refereeing decisions, and this Sunday was no different. Now, that did not come unexpected, since the crew that worked the Patriots game was pulled off of Sunday Night Football game because of apparent poor performance.
It showed: ruling the Kyle Williams touchdown incomplete on the field made zero sense; there is simply no way that the ref standing there could think it was anything other than a touchdown.
It felt like they missed a bunch of other calls as well, including on an unnecessary roughness call against Christian Elliss and the fourth down to DeMario Douglas. The latter, like Williams’ touchdown, was corrected upon review.
Still, all things considered the refs on Sunday were probably a half-step better than replacement refs. Something needs to change.
20 points is the secret next week
The Patriots have the Packers traveling to them next weekend for a 4:25 p.m. ET matchup at Gillette Stadium. The Packers, who have a mini-bye after beating the Panthers on Thursday, are a solid football team, even though they are currently in last place in a highly competitive NFC North.
Their offense has the potential to come alive at any moment, and the defense has played well in the last few weeks. For the Patriots to win, the key number will be 20.
The Packers have given up less than 20 points in all of their wins this season, and are 0-3 when they give up 20-plus. If the Patriots offense can get going, they should be able to top 20 points, and, hopefully the Packers will stay true to form.
