For a Patriots defense that had had so many positive moments over the last two months, Monday represented a low point.
New England yielded 27 points in the loss, the most in a game since the first month of the year when the Patriots allowed an average of 32 points per game. Miami running back Kenyan Drake had 25 carries for 114 yards, while the Dolphins had four different receivers with 40 yards or more receiving. And Jay Cutler went 25-for-38 for 263 yards with three touchdowns and no picks, all while picking up his first career W at the expense of Bill Belichick.
Quite a difference in the shutdown performance that the New England defense flashed in much of the contest against the Dolphins two weeks ago, a game where the Patriots were able to make some big plays at the end of the first half and silence the Miami offense down the stretch for a 35-17 win.
What was the difference this time around, Devin McCourty?
“They won. They out-executed us today, from the beginning to end,” said the veteran safety, who provided one of the lone bright spots with an early sack of Cutler. “We got some things going at periods of the game, but overall they just out-executed us from the beginning all the way to the end, really in every phase of the game.”
Last time, the Patriots were able to generate good pressure on Matt Moore, sacking him a season-high seven times. This time? They only got to Cutler twice. Part of that was because there was no Trey Flowers (team-high six sacks) in the lineup for New England. But according to Miami head coach Adam Gase, the Dolphins did some shuffling as well.
“They do a lot of different stuff,” Gase said of the Patriots defense. “That’s why we were kind of changed some personnel groupings out, tried to see if we can add an extra guy in protection every once in a while, just keep them guessing as far as what we were trying to do. It didn’t always work, but we were just trying to keep them a little bit off balance and see if we could give (Cutler) enough time to make the throws.”
The Patriots were able to hold the Dolphins out of the end zone through the first quarter-plus, as a pair of early stops forced Miami to settle for field goals while the New England offense came through with a second-quarter score of its own.
That’s when Drake took over. The back was adept at gashing the Patriots on the ground (a game-high 114 yards, and a whopping 4.6 yards per carry), as well as through the air (five catches for a team-high 79 yards). For Miami, five of the nine longest plays of the night came via Drake, who had runs of 31 and 26 yards. His prettiest move of the night came when he flashed a devastating spin at the expense of Patrick Chung.
Hey, what just happened! "Whoop," says Chris Berman! @KDx32 #kenyandrake #NEvsMIA #JayCutler #TomBrady pic.twitter.com/SVB1occ2Q9
— Matthew Ronn (@mattysoul) December 12, 2017