Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Another year, another embarrassment
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — HELL — That’s the dateline, right?
That’s where the Miami Dolphins itinerary annually ends. Fly to New England. Bus to Foxborough. Exit at Gillette Stadium. Descend to purgatory.
When Sunday’s embarrassment was over, Dolphins players stood at their lockers with disappointed faces and said they couldn’t believe what just happened. But we could. Anyone who has watched the Dolphins flail on this field against
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick for nearly two decades shouldn’t be overly surprised by the Patriots’ 38-7 win.
It’s why, for all the publicservice warnings, no serious Dolphins fan got too full of feel-good about that 3-0 start. All you had to do was look at the schedule and see this game looming to see where they stood. And they stood Sunday where they always seem to, which is on 100 yards of hell.
“I didn’t see this coming,” Dolphins coach Adam Gase
said. “I didn’t think that we would get out-physicaled. That surprised me.”
It wasn’t just the physical line play that disappeared under New England muscle.
Gone was the entire offense as quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s unit didn’t score a point or have a series of more than five, measly plays before punting, fumbling or getting intercepted.
“We didn’t come out and start the game like we wanted, we didn’t convert on third down, we didn’t take care of the football, we didn’t gain yardage, we didn’t do anything that we wanted,” Tannehill said.
That about sums up the offense, right?
Which leads to the defense. Who’s to blame for the Patriots dissecting the previously stout Dolphins run defense for 40 carries and 175 yards?
“Ourselves,” defensive end Cameron Wake said.
You’d like to say everyone was as accountable and professional as Wake and Tannehill, because then this team would have the mature mindset needed to win consistently. But, alas, that’s another crack Patriots games tend to bring out. The immaturity. The frustration.
Guard Jesse Davis was asked how he thought the offensive line played. Third-year tackle Laremy Tunsil stepped over from a neighboring locker with an interesting thought on a day the Patriots destroyed the Dolphins offense.
“That’s a crazy-ass question, a dumb-ass question,” Tunsil said, repeating that and other profanity-laced thoughts.
So, yeah, I guess the winning streak’s over?
A lot of people will say you’ll see what kind of team the Dolphins are coming up now that they’ve been hit with adversity. And that’s true, to a point. But you saw what kind of a team they became Sunday when hit with adversity, too. Let’s not dismiss this view.
Their little receivers that tore up bad defenses got pressed at the line and couldn’t get open. Their running game went nowhere and they gave up on it. Running back Kenyan Drake had all of three carries. Tackle Ja’Wuan James was benched and it wasn’t clear if it was from poor play or injury.
“I think they were just frustrated and I would be frustrated, too,” New England linebacker Kyle Van Noy said of the Dolphins.
The Dolphins defense had a good, goal-line stand and interception of Brady in the first quarter. And then it went kaput. The Patriots put up 21 points in the second quarter. South Florida prep products Sony Michel (American Heritage Plantation) ran for 112 yards and James White (St. Thomas Aquinas) caught eight passes for 68 yards.
The Patriots had their own issues coming into this game, too. They were 1-2. Boston was on high alert. Some people thought the dynasty was dead.
And then Sunday happened.
“We performed better, yeah,” Belichick said.
What did you think he’d say? This was as routine as a surgeon washing his hands, the way he viewed this work. Brady is 16-0 against the Dolphins in Gillette Stadium. That’s a full season of undefeated.
Is this the outlier to the Dolphins season, the bad game every team has in a long season?
Or was that 3-0 start against marginal teams a mirage?
We’ll see soon enough. But the injuries are mounting.
It wasn’t just receiver DeVante Parker and safety Reshad Jones who were hurt again and didn’t play. Cornerback Bobby McCain left with a knee injury and center Daniel Kilgore left with an arm injury.
“Tough day, but we’ll get back to work,” said Danny Amendola, the former Patriot turned Dolphin who had two catches for 21 yards.
This was Amendola’s first trip to Foxborough as a Dolphin. Now he knows what it looks like on the other side. It looks and feels like football hell, courtesy of Belichick and Brady.
There’s no shame in losing to the Patriots in New England. Most teams do. But to put up this feeble a fight? Belichick once offered a line the Dolphins need to follow right now as their schedule shows.
On to Cincinnati.