Patriots Week 4

It was a tale of two halves, which is not an uncommon theme for the Patriots on the road over the past two seasons.  This time though the results were different.  The achilles heel of the Patriots as of late has been their inability to win on the road (1-7 since last season heading into this game), as well as their frustrating trend of crumbling in the second half.  It happened far too often last season and reared it's ugly head again in Week 2 against the Jets.  But not this week.

The Patriots headed to South Beach for a Monday Night encounter with the divisional rival Dolphins as expected underdogs.  Their recent struggles on the road, particularly in Miami, combined with the fact that nobody thought the young New England secondary could contain superstar WR Brandon Marshall, led many to believe that Miami would prevail in a battle of offensive firepower.  Coach Belichick even went as far as to post an article from a Patriot's owned magazine showing that "experts" all picked Miami to win the game.

Through the first half of the game it appeared they may be right, at least in terms of a Miami victory.  Neither team played particularly well, as the Patriots struggled to move the ball on offense.  Meanwhile, the Dolphins moved the ball with relative ease, but suffered some key mistakes that halted some of their drives.  The result was a 7-6 halftime lead for the Dolphins.

That would all change in the second half.

I'm not sure what the coaching staff said to it's players in the Patriots locker room during halftime, but whatever it was, we saw a completely different team the rest of the way.  Evidence of this was clear right away, as Brandon Tate returned the opening kick-off for a TD.  The first of many big plays made by the Patriots Special Teams unit, which ultimately was the biggest deciding factor in the game.

Note: when your opponent fires their special teams coach right after the game, you know you did something right on your end.

With momentum back on their side, the Patriots refused to let up.  There would be no second half meltdown this time.  The defense stepped up to stop the Dolphins next drive, forcing them to punt.  That's when Patrick Chung (the unofficial player of the game - at least in my mind), made his presence felt by blocking the punt, allowing the Patriots to recover the ball with good field position and led to another quick TD.

Chung wasn't done there.  In the 4th quarter he helped seal the victory by blocking a FG attempt, which was recovered by Kyle Arrington for a TD.  Then he later intercepted a pass that he ran back for another TD.  A defense that desperately needed some playmakers appears to have found one.

The Patriots became the first team in NFL history to score a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown, a kickoff return for a touchdown, a blocked field goal for a touchdown and return an interception for a touchdown in the same game.  Now that's getting it done with an all around game!

An offense led by Tom Brady, with weapons like Randy Moss and Wes Welker at his disposal, is supposed to be required to put up big numbers in order for the team to win this lopsided of a score.  Yet this 41-14 victory required very little from its stars.  Welker led the receivers with a modest, yet unspectacular, 70 yard performance.  Moss was held without a catch for the first time in his Patriots career.  He was only targeted once all game, on a play where Brady took a page out of the book of former Dolphins star Dan Marino by faking a spike to stop the clock and instead lobbing a pass to Moss in the endzone.  Unfortunately, Vontae Davis, who did a great job shadowing Moss all day, didn't bite on the fake and the pass fell incomplete.

On this night the high powered offense wasn't needed, as the defense and special teams did enough on their own to crush the Dolphins spirits.  Chad Henne seemed capable of getting the ball to Devone Bess anytime he wanted in the first half, but after throwing his third interception of the game, he was pulled in the 4th quarter with the game already out of hand.

Brandon Marshall was supposed to be a matchup nightmare for the young Patriots corners, but he was shut out in the first half and finished with a modest 5 catches for 50 yards.  Not exactly the beastly performance Miami was expecting.

The supposedly formidable Dolphins running game was hardly a factor either.  Ricky Williams managed a few nice runs, but only received 8 carries in the game due to the Dolphins needing to play catch up in the second half.  Ronnie Brown was much more effective in the passing game as a receiver than he was running the football.  The Wild Cat, which did so much damage against the Patriots when it was originally unveiled a couple years ago, was hardly used and ineffective in the game.

While one game is clearly a small sample size, this game is an encouraging outlook for the rest of the season.  In one game the Patriots were able to prove that they are capable of overcoming nearly all of the major issues they have been plagued with - their road woes, second half meltdowns and defensive issues being the most notable.  While that's not to say that these issues won't pop up again as the season continues, but the team at least has proven to themselves what they are capable of doing.  It's up to them now to keep it up.