Pull out all the stops
Defense does its part to put the brakes on skid
FOXBORO — The Patriots profess to care little about trends and stats and history, as they’re forever forging ahead into next week.
Yet they clearly were aware of what three straight losses would mean.
The last time the Pats dropped three in a row . . .
“2002,” safety Duron Harmon quickly responded.
There was blame to be passed around for the two-game skid. It was hideous football on both sides. But the defense in particular was a mess. The Pats forced one punt in two combined first halves against Jacksonville and Detroit. They were blown off the line of scrimmage with astonishing regularity, sinking toward the bottom of the NFL in run defense and third-down defense.
And yesterday, somehow, the Pats were damn near perfect.
Reinvigorated by the returns of defensive end Trey Flowers and safety Patrick Chung, and perhaps re-energized by the Gillette Stadium crowd, the Patriots pasted the Dolphins, 38-7, and once again established themselves as the favorite in the pedestrian AFC East.
“I thought we got what we needed from our team today,” said Pats coach Bill Belichick. It was a shutout until Miami cobbled together a 75-yard scoring drive in garbage time, which unofficially lasted the entire second half.
“If we do what we’re supposed to do, we’ll always put ourselves in a good (position) to win,” Harmon said. “(I’m) not taking away from Miami. They’re a good football team, a great football team, undefeated coming in, but if we do what we’re supposed, control the game how we’re supposed to control it, play the game how we want to play it, play on our terms, I always like our chances to win.”
It’s impossible to explain the 180-degree turnaround, from dismal to dominant. But a few Patriots tried.
Everything started up front on the early downs. The Pats had been gashed on the ground through three weeks, surrendering 5.2 yards per carry on first down to running backs and quarterbacks. A four-man front of Flowers with fellow defensive linemen Malcom Brown, Danny Shelton and Lawrence Guy reversed that trend yesterday.
As Flowers said, the goal was to limit Miami’s options on the later downs. Job well done.
“Just get them behind the sticks, get them in a situation where they’re one dimensional and you know what they’re going to do,” Flowers said. “Get them in a backed-up situation where they have to make the obvious pass.”
Quarterback Ryan Tannehill began the game with a 22-yard completion to receiver Kenny Stills. There was little else from there by the Miami offense. The rest of its first downs in the opening half: three yards, zero yards, zero yards, three yards, zero yards, minus-14 yards (a fumble recovered by linebacker Kyle Van Noy), minus-12 yards (unsportsmanlike conduct penalty), zero yards.
Harmon specifically pointed to the performance of the Pats defense on second down, when Miami had to abandon its hopes of running the ball.
“You look at the games, at certain points we weren’t even letting the Jaguars or the Lions get into third down,” Harmon explained. “We were just giving it all back to them on second-and-long.”
With some assists from the Dolphins, who were flagged 10 times, the Pats dominated second down. The pass rush was able to let loose in long-yardage situations.
“Oh, that felt really good,” said defensive lineman Adam Butler, who discarded Miami center Travis Swanson for a sack of Tannehill in the early third quarter.
Cornerback Stephon Gilmore summed it up simply: “We played the game on our terms.”
The Dolphins faced near-impossible scenarios on third down. In the first half alone, Miami was in third-and-12, third-and-10, thirdand-10, third-and-13, third-and-8 and third-and-24.
It was hopeless as the Pats secondary smothered Miami’s receivers. Old friend Danny Amendola caught two passes. Jack-of-all-trades Albert Wilson averaged 4.8 yards per reception. Jakeem Grant, one of the NFL’s fastest players, was a noshow. And running back Kenyan Drake, who burned the Pats for 197 yards from scrimmage the last time these teams met, had a grand total of 16.
Across the locker room, Patriots defenders noted that this was a particularly sharp week of practice leading up to the game.
“I couldn’t point out any differences (from previous weeks), but we had to work a little harder, focus a little more,” Flowers said.
Facing the prospect of starting 1-3, the Pats responded in the best possible way.
“You don’t want to lose two games in a row, and you damn sure don’t want to lose three games in a row,” Harmon said. “But everybody did what we usually do. I’d tell you this: Nobody went to panic. We just knew that we had to play better in certain situations. And if we did that, we’d be better.”