The offense wasn't good enough: No running game. Not enough protection for Chad Henne. Not enough drives ending in touchdowns rather than field goals.
The defense was terrible. Really, really, bad.
Tom Brady passed for 517 yards and the Patriots rolled up a total of 622 yards. If this defense doesn't get better, and quickly, this is going to be a long season.
New England had Aaron Hernandez go for 103 yards on seven catches. Wes Welker caught eight passes for 160 yards, which included a 99-yard touchdown catch.
The Patriots used the no-huddle and it caught the Dolphins unprepared physically. Ultimately, the Patriots wore down the Miami defense.
"We practiced it a ton," coach Tony Sparano said of the no-huddle. "They made too many big plays. We said it during the week, big plays are going to kill you. Some of their scores made it look kind of easy."
One word of advice: Bring back Will Allen. Miami's corners were terrible tonight. They were either cramped. Or unable to play physical enough to stay with New England tight ends.
Yes, that was progress we saw from Chad Henne. He completed 30 of 49 passes for 416 yards. He moved the Dolphins up and down the field between the 10 yard lines. But he couldn't convert inside the 10. Twice, he threw third or fouth-down passes from inside the 2 yard line that fell incomplete. One led to a field goal. One led to the Dolphins turning the ball over on downs.
Good. Just not good enough this night.
You guys blog on here like Tom Brady was some Rookie QB coming in. HE was the MVP last year, he is the best QB in the league, he has been playing with his current team and the players on it forever!
Dan is right on, how in the hell is it the offenses fault? We will see how many teams run on Haynesworth and Wilfork in the middle. Sapp, and Carroll sucked and couldn't cover their own mouth with both hands.
Smith and Davis cramped up so understand that also.
But here is the big point. Remember when Armando was covering practice and he talked about the Dolphins Defense not practicing at a high speed, walking around, and taking practice slow???? That is were they got beat and the coaching failed them. By practicing like it doesn't mean anything they played and got into their sets the same way!
Armando, is wrong in that the Henne played great, so what if he had two incomplete passes at the goalline, it is tight down there and we always tried to force the play to Marshall instead of Bess or Fasano over the middle!
Posted by: 1980 Phin Four Life | September 13, 2011 at 07:27 AM
Coaching failed them in the fact that New Englands TE's not once were hand checked, pushed, held, hell anything off the OL. Miami just let them have a free run into their route and not once laid a hand on them. You can NOT let them get into their route with even touching them.
Posted by: 1980 Phin Four Life | September 13, 2011 at 07:30 AM
Mccreet, I said the same thing last night. Polite converted 41 of 43 1 yd runs in his career with us and if he was there he would have punched it for the TD. Can anyone tell me how Hillard is better then Polite and what benefit we got from keeping him over Polite?
Posted by: 1980 Phin Four Life | September 13, 2011 at 07:33 AM
Could've used Ronnie Brown in a few situations last night. Should've made an effort to sign him. What was up with 4th and a half yard and throwing a 25 yard pass? Are the Pats really that good that it seemed their receivers always had a yard or two of seperation from the DB's? Our receivers were blanketed like the Pat's DB's were connected to them at the hip. And they used our heat and humidity against us with the no-huddle AND making substitutions on offense. I hate getting beat by midgets like Woodhead or whatever his name is, and Welker.
Posted by: melfins | September 13, 2011 at 08:56 AM
Yep it was all Henne's fault again...you people are IDIOTS!!!!! It couldn't have been the defense that couldn't stop anything...yep definitely Henne's fault
Posted by: Egreen | September 13, 2011 at 09:11 AM
HENNE LOOKED PRETTY GOOD, THAT DEFENSE WAS AWFUL, THEY LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE NOT INTERESTED AND LAZY WHAT IS UP WITH THAT TONY ? YOU HAVE TO CUT SOMEONE FROM THAT GROUP TO SEND A MESSAGE AND YOU NEED TO GET YOUR TEAM IN BETTER SHAPE PHYSICALLY, AND REALLY I LIKE NOLAN BUT HOW IN THE HELL DOES ANY ONE CONNECT ON A 99 YARD PASS OVER THE TOP , WHAT KIND OF D WAS THAT WHERE WAS THE SAFETY , YOU CAN'T BRING EVERYONE AND NOT GET THERE MIKE
Posted by: scott from delaware | September 13, 2011 at 09:22 AM
Tony Soprano was quite a cheerleader for the three minutes he had a lead. Note to coach. This isn't high school football. We don't need the theatrics. When your team scores, act like it's happened before.
Posted by: McGuiggen | September 13, 2011 at 10:40 AM
"You guys blog on here like Tom Brady was some Rookie QB coming in. HE was the MVP last year, he is the best QB in the league, he has been playing with his current team and the players on it forever!"
-- Yeah that's it, let's give the defense an excuse that "Oh, Tom Brady was MVP so of course it's expected that he's going to bend us over and ream us." That's loser talk. Let's ignore the fact that he plays in our division and we've played him several times and have tons of game film to watch and that other teams have beaten the Patriots.
You want to be a winner? Then you've got to beat a winner. Otherwise, GTFO the field.
Posted by: Empty SunLife Stadium | September 13, 2011 at 12:01 PM
Obviously the D and O line was manhandled. Atrocious.
What there has been little commentary on, however, is another thing: I get absolutely scared every time we kick the ball. Our special teams has apparently not fixed that embarrassment. The other team is on the verge of breaking on every single time. Why can't we cover kicks??
Posted by: Fins 38 Patsies 9 | September 13, 2011 at 05:39 PM
I ran two returns back for TDs this weekend.....how did my old team do? Oh, snap!
Posted by: Ted Ginn, Jr. | September 13, 2011 at 07:36 PM