Bedard: Dolphins punched the Patriots in the mouth and New England didn't have a counter

FOXBOROUGH — Matthew Judon came to the podium, after yet another familiar 24-17 loss to the Dolphins, in which they trailed 10-0 and 17-3 before getting close a few times in the second half, with a message on his mind.

“I know it looks bad, but we’re not a bad team," he said before taking questions. “I don't think we're going to hang our heads. ... We’re going to get our corrections corrected. ... We got to just play how we played in the second half from the first play. ... We need to come with some juice. We can’t wait till we down 17, 13, to make a comeback. You can’t come out here and have slow starts. It's too hard in this league."

Judon is a very wise veteran. He's seen a lot in Baltimore and now New England. He's absolutely correct about a couple of things. First, the Patriots can't keep coming out like this, especially against good teams. Trailing 26-0 to the Eagles and Dolphins at home is no way to go through life, son. But it's familiar for this team at home.

Look at some of the losses in the last three years:

2023
Eagles ... 16-0, lost 25-20
Dolphins ... 17-3, lost 24-17

Combined 33-3 in two of two losses

2022
Bengals ... 22-0, lost 22-18
at Raiders .... 17-3, lost 30-24
Bills ... 24-7, lost 24-10
Bears ... 10-0, lost 33-14
at Dolphins ... 17-0, lost 20-7

Combined 90-10 deficit in five of their nine losses.

2021
at Bills (playoff) ... 24-0, lost 47-17
at Miami ... 17-0, lost 33-24
Bills ... 20-7, lost 33-21
at Colts ... 20-0, lost 27-17
Saints ... 21-3, lost 28-13

Combined 102-10 in five of eight losses.

Right now, Mac Jones is 16-18 in his career as a starter, including the playoff loss. In 12 of those defeats, the Patriots fell behind by a combined score of 225-23.

"It’s hard to play catchup in this league when you’re playing good teams, good defenses," said captain David Andrews. "It’s not how you want to play the game, playing from behind. It’s hard, very hard.

"We’ve all got to play better. It’s a team game. I appreciate everyone’s effort and things like that, but it’s not good enough. We’ve all got to be better. We’ve all got to strive for perfection. Perfection is an endless chase and you never catch it, but you’ve got to strive for it each week. We’re not doing that right now. We’re not doing it consistently enough. We’ve just got to be better, and it starts with us. The things we can control, we’ve got to control those and stop beating ourselves.”

The loss dropped New England 0-2 for the first time since 2001. (C.J. Mosely does play a lot like Mo Lewis, just saying...)

But the last time the Patriots started 0-2 with both losses coming at home was ... 1975 with Chuck Fairbanks on the sidelines of Schaefer Stadium. They lost 7-0 to the Oilers, and 22-14 to Don Shula's Dolphins. Sounds familiar with the lack of offensive output. Wonder if the faithful were having the same critiques of QB Neil Graff and his weapons (Sam Cunningham, Leon McQuay, Mack Herron, Allen Carter, Daryl Stingley, Randy Vataha and Russ Francis)? Obviously should have played Steve Grogan more.

Here's the other thing Judon was right about after the game: the 2023 Patriots are not a bad team.

They're not.

They're just not a good team, either. Like 2020, 2021 and 2022. Patriots are now a combined 25-28 since Brady departed.

The good-try, good-effort ending should not mask what really happened on the field Sunday night.

Mike McDaniel outcoached Bill Belichick (again), Steve Belichick and Jerod Mayo.

Vic Fangio outcoached Bill O'Brien.

Tua Tagovailoa, with two No. 1 receivers and a real running game behind a banged-up offensive line, outplayed Mac Jones and his zero No. 1 receivers, zero running game and banged up offensive line. Tagovailoa improved to 5-0 against the Patriots and 23-13 as a starter. Jones dropped to 16-18 as a starter.

Basically, the Dolphins — the freaking Dolphins with their smart-aleck coach in the tight pants and glasses — punched Bill Belichick's Patriots in the mouth on offense and defense, and they were stunned for a while.

Miami, with a makeshift offensive line and the same personnel largely from last season, had three drives of at least 75 yards on four first-half possessions. They averaged 6.9 yards per play in the first half, and passed for 9.1 yards per attempt. That's absurd. They rushed for 4 yards per attempt.

That would be McDaniel kicking the rear end of Belichick and the Patriots' defense, despite not having his starting left tackle or guard (to add insult to injury, Isaiah Wynn was the left guard).

The Patriots' offense, meanwhile, averaged 3.6 yards per play, 5.3 yards per pass attempt and 2.3 yards per rush in the first half, while Jones was under assault. That was the same Dolphins defense that allowed 433 total yards and 233 rushing yards to the soft-serve Chargers the week before. And Miami didn't have its best pass rusher in Jaelan Phillips.

A week before, the Chargers just mauled the Dolphins up front and imposed their will. These Patriots do all sorts of finesse gun-run stuff and bubble screens like Alabama is playing Troy.

Who the hell are these guys?

Football is power game. At it's essence, it's seeing the guy in front of you and either winning or losing your battle. The Patriots got beat across the board, outside Brenden Schooler's cool field-goal block (Tommy Point to Joe Judge!). Sometimes they chose not to fight.

The encapsulation of this, to this point, soft Patriots team - especially on offense - was Xavien Howard's interception of Jones when Howard completely owned DeVante Parker.

Howard and Parker used to be teammates. This was not surprising for the team that gladly traded Parker in the division to the Patriots for essentially nothing.

No pass breakup. No reception. No fight. Beaten 1-on-1.

Just like the rest of the Patriots on this night.

If that doesn't change, starting with Sunday against the Jets, the season is over before it began. Just like so many other games the last three seasons.

"We have more life in us, and we don’t know what can happen from here, but something’s got to happen. Something’s got to give," Judon said. "We’re not just going to be a pedestrian team that lets people score on us and we don’t score. We’re going to bow up. We’re going to have a backbone.”

Showing any backbone, unlike Sunday night, would be a good place to start.