Brady, Moss outlast Dolphins in Gillette

Dolphins, 17 @ Patriots, 27

Good game today by both teams. The Dolphins took a little longer than I had expected to get going on the Wildcat but it was effective on that first drive, and after that the Pats did a pretty good job containing it. Moss erupted with a huge game, and Brady looked very poised and probably the most comfortable I have seen him all season. He finished 25/37 for 332, 1 TD and 1 int. He passed Drew Bledsoe for most 300 yard games in New England franchise history.

Moss finished with 6 catches for 147 yards and that awesome 71 yard TD catch where he stiff armed Vontae Davis and took it the rest of the way. This was following the ridiculous highlight 1 handed catch on the fade down the sidelines, setting up Maroney for the 1 yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Maroney also ran hard, breaking some big runs, which is an excellent sign for the Pats. I also noticed that the defense looked very good again. The corners, Butler, Springs, and Bodden looked really good in coverage. The safeties Meriweather, and rookie Pat Chung delivered some awesome hits all game. Chung took down Henne for a big sack in one of the best blitzes I have seen all season, and he also lit up Henne again real bad, but got flagged and will probably see a fine for leading with his helmet.

Keys to the game:

STOP THE WILDCAT

Other than those two long touchdown drives Miami had they weren’t able to get much going. The front 7 did a nice job stopping the run. Pat White was actually more effective than I thought he would be because he is really quick and tough to tackle. It is a good thing for opponents that he sucks at passing. Miami finished with just 201 yards passing, a lot of which game on that meaningless last drive. Goes to show you the Pats secondary has improved a lot. Also goes to show you that the Dolphins don’t have many good receivers to work with in addition to their running game.

SHUT UP PORTER

Porter should keep his mouth shut from now on. First of all, don’t give the Patriots any bulletin board material, and secondly, if you can’t even make a tackle, you might want to keep your mouth shut. As I said before, Porter can only rush the passer. Vollmer and the rest of the oline kept him away from Brady all game. The only stat Porter put up was 1 QB hit. 0 tackles, 0 sacks, 0 forced fumbles, 0 pass deflections.

PLAY EVERY PLAY

I thought New England did a great job today on special teams kicking it away from Ginn. Actually Gostkowski was awesome booting the ball out of the ball of the end zone on most of the kickoffs. The offense was very efficient, not allowing a punt return for the Dolphins. Ginn is much more of a weapon on special teams and they executed well taking him out of the game.