FOXBOROUGH - That was a little harder than the Patriots would have hoped, but this team continues to write its wonderful, unlikely tale, eventually putting the finishing touches on a remarkable season-long turnaround by beating the Dolphins, 38-10. It was the Pats’ 14th win of the year. Next up, the Chargers (UPDATE: Sunday night at 8 PM) in round one of the playoffs.
“I think we’ve come a long way,” Drake Maye reflected. “It takes everybody. It took everybody in that locker room. This was one of the goals: to host a home playoff game. This is what we wanted. Win or go home... stay playing like us. We built this identity and played to it, and I think good things have happened.”
“I’m just proud of this team,” Rhamondre Stevenson (131 yards, 3 TDs) said. “I'm proud of how we fight, proud of how relentless we are ... I'm excited for the postseason.”
“I’m just happy the way we handled business this season,” Jaylinn Hawkins said. “The way we came together, the way we grew together. Obviously, that’s a big accomplishment, and now we’re on to the postseason. ... Grateful for it.”
If you are a believer in momentum and want your team to be playing its best football, this was not it, at least not in the first half. There was slop in all three phases for the Pats, including a blocked field goal that made jailbreaks look organized. But true to form, this team responded - it's been rare when they haven’t - and the final quarter turned into a party. There were MVP chants for Maye, even when the scoreboard asked fans for quiet because the offense was operating, a full-throated singalong to 'Your Love’ by the Outfield, and some other stuff over the PA that, quite frankly, was unrecognizable to my old ears.
The game sure didn’t start out that way, at least offensively. The Patriots ripped the sharply dressed but ill-performing Fins defense, amassing 154 yards on their first two drives, both resulting in touchdowns. They averaged 10.8 yards per rush, getting explosives from Stevenson (56 yarder) and TreVeyon Henderson (13).
But Josh McDaniels called three straight pass plays on their next possession - all incomplete - and the offense never quite found its rhythm until the opening series of the second half.
“I got to find a way to get the ball in people's hands to make some plays and not have three incompletions,” Maye said.
He would do that to begin the third quarter, wisely finding a trailing Hunter Henry for 29 yards on first down, settling the offense in. The series was