Rivalry renewed with Pats facing Fins
Flores proving to be strongest branch of Belichick coaching tree
The recipe for rivalry is simple.
Add two teams, mix enough familiarity to breed contempt, a history of inflicting competitive pain, a pinch of healthy hate, the promise of playing again and …
Bam! Rivalry.
Except over the past dozen years, rivalry has been virtually impossible to cook up in Foxboro. The Pats have often been too dominant, too respectful publicly, too unbothered to validate anyone as an equal. There have been challengers, sure, but none positioned to provoke and push them annually quite like a rival should.
That is, except the team visiting Sunday.
To review, the Dolphins have split their season series with the Patriots every year since 2016. In 2019, Miami toppled their NFL’s longest dynasty by winning at Gillette Stadium as 17-point underdogs in the regular-season finale. That afternoon, the ‘Fins proved league castoffs and practice-squad players could make the Pats bleed, and denied the greatest coach and quarterback a first-round playoff bye.
Leading the charge? Former Patriots assistant Brian Flores, then a first-year head coach. Six days later, the Titans tossed dirt on the Pats’ graves in the Wild Card round. Tom Brady moved on. Bill Belichick started over.
Last year, Miami knocked the new Patriots out cold with a 22-12 win in December that kept Belichick out of the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
The Dolphins are also responsible for the most shocking defeat of Belichick’s career, the Miami Miracle of 2018. At earlier heights of his power and success, Belichick also failed to sweep the Dolphins during Super Bowl runs of 2001, 2004 and 2014; a divisional thorn in his side.
Miami shares more heated history with New England than the Bills, who have gone 7-35 against the Patriots since Belichick took over, and the Jets, who haven’t beaten the
Pats since the Obama administration. This is the backdrop of Sunday’s season opener.
Considering past and present, the Dolphins are now the most consistent and immediate obstacle in their path, an ascending divisional foe also led by a young quarterback.
Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa are entering their first NFL seasons as full-time starters after playing at Alabama. Tagovailoa’s newest wideout, first-round rookie Jaylen Waddle, was open in the draft process about preferring Jones to Tagovailoa, having been teammates with both of them in college. It wasn’t the last time the two quarterbacks will be compared.
If Jones out-performs Tagovailoa as a pro, the Pats should continue to contend for division titles and perhaps Super Bowls. If Tagovailoa outshines his old backup, trouble with Miami will again undercut their greater goals. The future of the Patriots and the Dolphins belongs to them.
For now, oddsmakers view their teams as equals, both 30to-1 shots to win the Super Bowl. The Pats are slated as 3-point home favorites Sunday, meaning if the game was played at a neutral site, it would be a pick ’em. Now, the healthy hate. Prodigal Patriots linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who returned to New England after a 1-year stint in Miami, doesn’t sound too fond of Flores. In March, he was asked to compare playing under Flores as a head coach versus an assistant.
“No comment,” Van Noy sneered.
Was it strange for him facing the Patriots after three and a half seasons in New England?
“Um, I mean … (laughs), yeah, I mean, I know everything they do down there (in Miami),” Van Noy said. “It’s gonna be good.”
Van Noy had reason to be upset. After signing a freeagent contract that made him richer than he had ever been, Van Noy was voted a team captain and fought through injury to play in 14 games. Miami cut him anyway.
Other former Pats stayed with Flores this season, including captain and linebacker Elandon Roberts and defensive back Eric Rowe. A few more joined him in free agency: defensive tackle Adam Butler and cornerback Jason McCourty, who both played for New England last year. While setting an NFL record for free-agent spending, the Pats didn’t show much interest in retaining either this offseason.
Think they’ll be motivated Sunday?
As for Miami’s coaching staff, Flores helped unleash a more aggressive version of the Patriots defense in 2018 that helped catapult them to a sixth Super Bowl. He blitzed on 31% of all snaps, eighthmost in the NFL, a significant jump from the 21% that dropped them to 26th the year before under Matt Patricia. Flores has since taken that aggression to South Florida, where he’s also laid a Patriotlike foundation to build his new defense: sound tackling, few penalties and unpredictable game plans.
“We’ve seen all the games that we’ve played against them since they’ve been down there in Miami. I would say no two (defenses) are the same, which is not surprising,” Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said Monday. “And I would anticipate that, you know, we opened with them last year. There were some things we saw last year that we didn’t know we would see, and I would expect that to be the same this year.”
And next year, and the year after that and so long as Flores and Belichick are coaching against one another. Because that’s the beauty of divisional rivalries in the NFL; two kickoffs every regular season guaranteed to draw out the best and worst of both teams.
Of course, Sunday represents just one game. A lot could happen, and so might a little. But if their season opener settles nothing, the Pats’ next meeting with Miami certainly should.
They’ll meet again for yet another regular-season finale on Jan. 9.