Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dolphins vs. Patriots
Dave Hyde: Will nightmare of Belichick-Brady ever end?
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady arrive to newly renovated Hard Rock Stadium for another Monday night game that looks like a repeat of the past four decades: The 10-2 Patriots rounding into Super Bowl form and the 5-7 Dolphins pretending the season is still alive.
“They’re an outstanding team,” Belichick says of the Dolphins. “Just great. Distinguished. Preeminent. Impressive.”
When a reporter says Belichick used those exact adjectives to describe the same, struggling Dolphins the previous nine years, the 88-year-old coach doesn’t stop. “They’re special,” he says. “Superior.” Asked what he hopes to still get out of coaching when he’s already won 12 Super Bowls, been AFC East Champion 34 of the past 36 years and AARP Man of the Year for the past decade, Belichick mumbles, “Right now, I’m hoping for a good practice.”
Told there were no more practices until the Dolphins game, he mumbles in a way veteran Belichick observers say was a wry shot at the Dolphins: “I’m hoping for a good practice.”
Belichick has made few concessions to time beyond hearing aids, a specially designed hoodie to fit an oxygen tank and power naps during daily news conferences. He doesn’t even open his eyes when asked to describe the game of Brady, 63, the only active player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“He’s good,” Belichick says. “But we’ve got lots of good players.”
Belichick declines to answer if he could name the 14 Dolphins coaches he’s helped get fired over nearly four decades. He does,
however, perk up when asked if he was surprised by Jarvis Landry Jr.’s off-season comment that the Dolphins would sweep the Patriots, because, “they’re not our grand-daddy anymore.”
“I’ve lived long enough to see Halley’s Comet twice and hear two Landrys talk about sweeping us now,” Belichick says. “It’s hard to be surprised by that kind of stuff anymore.”
Second-year Dolphins coach Ryan Tannehill says he has bigger problems than Jarvis Jr.’s months-ago comments, like the “manner our offensive line is playing right now.” The Dolphins have rebuilt the offensive line each of the past 31 off-seasons.
“We’re just trying to find a rhythm, and now we’ve got these guys coming into town,” Tannehill says. “We saw what they did to us a couple weeks ago up there.”
The Dolphins lost then for the 28th straight time in Foxboro, 35-17. They do, however, have a .500 record at home against the Patriots, giving hope this could be a, “springboard game to the final three games, because we’re not out of it yet,” Tannehill says. “And we know this team well.”
That’s in part because they’re division rivals and, in part, because four former Dolphins play for the Patriots. That continues a strange trend dating back to Wes Welker and Larry Izzo. The Patriots even started Dolphin cuts Chris Hogan and Trevor Reilly in 2017 and beat them handily.
“Until No. 12 over there starts acting his age, they’re
“They’re an outstanding team,” Belichick says of the Dolphins. “Just great.”
a handful,” Tannehill says.
Brady has thrown 37 touchdowns against two interceptions, and credits his alkaline-heavy diet and daily 25 cups of water as outlined in the 11th edition of his “TB12 Diet” book.
The new edition has a chapter on, “The Power of Prunes.” Brady also admits he lowers the water intake the night before games,“to reduce trips to the bathroom so I can rest my legs.”
Brady once said he wanted to play to 45, but now says he has no age limits as long as his eyesight holds up.
“We have a sign on the wall that says, ‘Doing the right thing for the team when it may not be the right thing for you,’ ” Brady says.
“It’s just putting everything aside and ignoring the noise and all the positive things that people say about you, all the negative things people say about you and just believing in yourself and not making excuses.”
Told he said the same thing in 2017 before a Dolphins game, Brady smiles, “We do what we do.”
“We do our job,” Belichick says.
“We do our job well,” Brady adds.
“And we keep doing it,” Belichick says.
Dolphins fans ask: Will it ever end?