Patriots’ Way? More like Cam’s Drive. New look for New England, same result for Miami
Tom Brady did it with his arm.
Cam Newton uses his legs.
But no matter the body part, the result Sunday was the same as 15 of the previous 18 Dolphins trips to Foxboro:
A Miami loss, due to greatness by an MVP quarterback.
On Sunday, it was Newton who tormented the Dolphins, rushing for 75 yards — most by a quarterback in Patriots history — and two touchdowns in New England’s 21-11 season-opening victory.
The only time the Dolphins laid a finger on Newton in his Patriots debut?
When Christian Wilkins and Raekwon Davis pushed and grabbed at his shoulder pads after the game, breaking Newton’s chain in the process. A heated Newton was convinced Sunday it was no accident.
“They were reaching for my chain, and I think that got up under my skin,” Newton said.
He added: “I play with a competitive edge and I expect the other team to play with a competitive edge as well. And at the end of the day, anything outside of that, it’s all about respect. I don’t disrespect nobody, and I wouldn’t want anybody to disrespect me.
Put some respect all over Newton’s name. He was fabulous in his first game in 367 days, looking fully healed after a foot injury spoiled his 2019 season.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, however, was far from.
He threw three interceptions — including one in the end zone with the Dolphins down 10 in the final minutes of regulation.
And already, just one week into the season, people are calling for Tua Tagovailoa. CBS’ Boomer Esiason raised the possibility of a quarterback change at halftime.
“You can’t do that and win games in the National Football League,” Fitzpatrick said, acknowledging the obvious.
Added Brian Flores, who lost for the 12th time in his 17 games as Dolphins coach: “We had some spurts there where we were moving the ball, but obviously with the turnovers, those are huge.”
None led to Patriots points, amazingly enough. While the Dolphins’ defense was abused for 217 yards, Wilkins and Jerome Baker made enough plays to keep Miami in the game.
The Patriots traveled inside the Dolphins’ 40 on six of their nine possessions, but managed only three scores.
Situational football is usually the strength of a Bill Belichick-coached team, and but they were a mess in that regard until late in the game.
The Patriots led 14-3 and were on the verge of blowing the Dolphins out in the waning moments of the third quarter when Baker had his best play of a what on paper was a career afternoon.
He stripped Patriots receiver N’Keal Harry just shy of the goal line, and the fumbled ball went out of bounds in the end zone. The Dolphins took possession and took on new life.
They converted the gift into a quick touchdown — running back Jordan Howard powering in from one yard out — and for a moment, it looked like they might escape an empty Gillette Stadium with a win.
But on the Patriots’ first play of the next drive, all the good work was undone by the Dolphins’ compounding blunders.
Not only did they allow Julian Edelman to break contain on an end-around — Edelman scampered for 23 yards — but Baker then hit the Patriots’ receiver after he slipped out of bounds. Nine plays (including four Newton runs) later, the Patriots got that touchdown back, and the Dolphins’ hopes were basically dead.
Baker had two dead-ball penalties on that one drive, both costly.
“The penalties are unacceptable, especially on my end,” said Baker, who had a career-high 16 tackles including a sack. “The late hit, I lost track of the sideline. That’s unacceptable. The last play or whatever on Cam (Newton), there was just a lot of commotion. I was trying to get up. But my penalties are definitely unacceptable.”
That presumably can be cleaned up. And Fitzpatrick will bounce back, as he has done after a clunker throughout his 16-year career.
But the Dolphins’ inability to stop the run in general, and running quarterbacks in particular, has been a years-long issue — one that probably won’t disappear with Josh Allen and the Bills coming to town Sunday.
“I thought overall the tackling couple have been better, the conditioning could have been better,” Flores said. “We’re not going to make any excuses on whether we had preseason games or didn’t. They didn’t have any preseason games either. All things we can improve on. We can improve the tackling, we can improve the run defense, we can improve the conditioning. We’ll work on those things over the course of the week. We have a tough opponent next week and we’ll back to it.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 3:49 PM.
