MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — A Picasso, that was not.
Missed kicks, stupid penalties, a defense getting ripped through again thanks to questionable coaching, and a punt return given up for a touchdown, the Patriots were far, far, far from perfect on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium — and they had to survive a harried final flurry by the Dolphins that included them missing a potential game-winning touchdown by a matter of inches — but New England did just enough to emerge with a very important first of the season, 33-27 over Miami.
"It's proof of what the work you put in can result in," said quarterback Drake Maye. "It's proof of why you work so hard, why you have extra meetings, why you get treatment on time, why you do the little things. At least you have proof now of a good turnout and come up in the win column. I think that's why and just proud of these guys."
By the way, Maye was sensational in this game, completing 83% of his passes and adding another 31 yards on the ground. About the only plate talk I want to hear this week is how many Mike Onwenu consumed on the way home after playing in that ridiculous heat.
The Patriots don't even come close to winning this game if Maye wasn't cool, calm and collected as he operated this offense like a veteran.
"I thought he was, you know, really good last week in a lot of ways. I felt like there was a lot of things we could have done to help him," said Hunter Henry. "But, I mean, obviously, like you said, I mean, it was just poised, you know, firing on all cylinders, ready to go from the jump, I feel like he was making plays, extending plays. He's a really, really special talent. It was fun to see him get out there and really get in a groove. Because, I mean, we see that all the time, but it was fun to see that in a game."
Said Stefon Diggs: "I feel like he made a jump from last week, just settling in."
It was also great to see the Patriots make some plays at the end of the game to get off the field. Marte Mapu getting what should have been a game-sealing interception. Harold Landry posting a sack, and Milton Williams finishing off the game with one of his own. For the game, PFF had Williams and K'Lavon Chaisson with five pressures each, Christian Barmore had three and Landry added two to produce 15 of New England's 18 pressures. That's a lot of money paying off.
"I mean, the whole game they did a good job of making sure that getting the ball out of Tua’s hands quick and we just kept going," Williams said. "We were talking about on the sidelines, just keep rushing, keep rushing and just executing. I always talk about just executing and playing hard. Me and Harold made a good call on that one, because it was starting to chip on that side. We made a call to run a game, and shoot, I got off the ball and executed when they need to be executed. Back end held up, made them hold the ball and that’s all I'm asking for. You make them one time and I'm trying my best to get back there and affect the game."
The Patriots' offensive line seemed to have a hell of a game, as they got some push up front in the running game (122 yards, 4.2 average) and PFF had the Patriots only allowing three pressure and only one (Morgan Moses) was on the offensive line.
All of that was needed to eek out a win over a sloppy Miami team that shot itself in the foot a few more times than New England. The Dolphins' postgame press conferences were littered with finger-pointing over some terrible late-game operational issues.
"That was really frustrating," said Tua Tagovailoa. "It was frustrating with the communication, with the guys inside the huddle and then what the personnel is, then the play for those guys. Do we have too many guys in, why do we have another guy running in. Just the whole operation of that was not up to standard, was not up to par and I’ve got to do a better job with our guys in that sense."
“Just lack of execution," said Jaylen Waddle. "Comes down to last plays. Pretty much got what we wanted and penalties and communication ultimately killed us and going against a team like New England who are not going to beat themselves, you can’t have that.”
Most of the fingers seemed to be pointed at Mike McDaniel, who pointed his at others.
"Yeah, I think that ultimately, I look at absolutely everything falling on me. That's the responsibility of a head coach that you go into knowing that," he said. "That being said, I'm very frustrated with the collective – basically, (there were) coaches and players that did not execute communication in a very dire period of the game. With the game on the line, our communication and our substitution was not up to par, and ultimately I hold all responsibility for all things. I will make sure that things that should already be ironed out moving forward, we will not fall victim to the same thing again, (and) we’ll put the appropriate emphasis on that because it was not acceptable. We had the opportunity to win the game and we robbed it from ourselves.
"That's kind of where the frustration lies for me is it wasn't deciding that cost us, or a late play call, which that happens at times. But this was not one of those times. I got the play call in, but I need to do a better job supervising the orchestration within our multiple personnel groups. To win games, you have to win the game and not lose the game, honestly. And that is how you lose the game. You're moving the ball down the field, you're first-and-10 and then you find yourself at second-and-20. That was critical."
Well, if you thought the Patriots were having issues ... yikes.
In any event, the Patriots got the victory and you'll certainly take the production from the offense and Maye (seven possessions, five potential scoring drives, two punts), but Vrabel and his coaches have A LOT to clean up.
Patriots had 12 penalties for 75 yards, most of them of the dumb pre-snap variety. That just can't happen, and we thought those would have been cleaned up by now.
The defense was getting run through at times again as they gave up four more pass plays over 20 yards, and another two that were 18 yards, and an 18-yard run. At halftime, the Dolphins only had the ball for 7.5 minutes and they had 165 yards - that's 22 yards per minute. By the end of the game, the Dolphins had 6.9 yards per play - but it was well over that for much of the game.
I think there needs to be some serious introspection from the coaches on their plans in this game. Last week it was getting ripped apart with to many risky blitzes. This week, it was deciding to play way too much man coverage against the speedy Dolphins and the Patriots got torched.
"l have to do better," Vrabel said. "We won't be the only team that they get explosive plays against, and we'll just have to continue to be better. I know that. I understand that. There were times where we did, where we took away those throwing lanes, and there were times that we certainly didn't. I told you that we had to be willing to give up some of those plays outside the numbers. They hit a couple off us, they hit a couple of those sevens and those corners. So I told the team that going in we were going to make them hit them. They probably hit too many, but again we'll be OK."
They were for this week, but playing defense like the Patriots have the first two weeks — they are currently 27th in the league in yards allowed per play after the 1 p.m. — is no way to win in the National Football League.
But it was good enough on Sunday, and that's what's important - for now.