Caroline Perry
Managing Executive Editor
After a rough start to the season, the Patriots bounced back and took a swift victory, destroying the Miami Dolphins 38-7 on Sunday, September 30. This easy win in week four has restored order in the AFC East, and has brought a realization upon Patriots fans that the GOAT is alive, and well.
The Dolphins are still light years away from the Patriots, and their stats do much of the talking. Sunday was the Dolphins’ ninth double-digit road loss in the Adam Gase era. But that doesn’t come close to explaining how awful they have been away from home. They are 7-12 in such games, including the playoffs. They have now lost games by 40, 32, 31 and 24 points on the road with Gase as the coach. Their average margin of defeat? 9.4 points. Compare that to their 12-6 home record under Gase. They have scored 22 more points than their opponents in games at Hard Rock Stadium. But if you can’t perform well in away games, then you aren’t much of a contender to begin with.
When the Dolphins receiver, Kenny Stills, who had three catches for 40 yards, was asked what happened, he replied, “We got beat today. But I think a lot of the things that happened out there, we’re hurting ourselves.” And yes, there were some issues. Like two turnovers. Like 10 penalties for 89 yards, many of which came on third down. Like third-down execution.”
These mistakes will get you beat by bad teams, but against the Patriots, it will just embarrass you. New England was on track to have the biggest beatdown in the series’ 53-year history until running back Frank Gore caught a garbage time touchdown with 2:42 left. Those were the only points the Dolphins managed to score all game.
When quarterback Ryan Tannehill was asked about the Dolphins’ trend of getting smoked on the road, he replied, “I don’t know what the answer to that is specifically. Nothing was executed the way we wanted to offensively today and when you don’t do that, when you never get anything going, you play a good team on the road, that’s what’s going to happen.”
This major loss not only revealed the gap that still remains between the Patriots (2-2) and Dolphins (3-1), but is also one that could reverberate for weeks to come, because an already injured Dolphins roster got a lot more banged up when cornerback Bobby McCain was knocked out of the game with a knee injury.
But who really cares. The Patriots are back and ready to take away some wins, paving their way to victory once again.
Caroline Perry can be contacted at
cperry@kscequinox.com
