A mere 1,064 days passed between when the Patriots last scored over 30 points and Sunday’s messy thriller in Miami.
Seriously. Remember when Bailey Zappe led that 38-16 win at Cleveland on October 16, 2022? A week after they beat the Dan Campbell-Jared Goff Lions 29-0. That was the last time. Heady times!
Of course, a week later, Mac Jones returned to start against the Bears on a Monday night, got booed off the field, replaced by Zappe and the Patriots lost to the worst team in the league, 33-14.
I don’t think the 2025 edition is headed that way, but it is worth noting that everything in the NFL is temporary. Drake Maye in Week 1 had the happiest feet in town. Week 2, he operated like a brain surgeon in a 33-27 victory at Hard Rock Stadium. All fixed. Probably not.
But TRACTION! They got some traction! And Mike Vrabel noted right out of the chutes on Monday morning that his team needed that.
“You get into these back and forths and you have to just believe you’re gonna make enough plays in the end to win and we did that,” Vrabel said on WEEI’s Greg Hill Show. “That was good to see. We needed to see it. Our players needed to see it and feel it and be in there and say, ‘We can have a couple of bad plays, somebody’s gonna make a play.’ Which we did. Numerous times. So we answered back.”
Too often over the half-decade swoon, the Patriots have been dumbstruck when adversity hits. Poop play begat poop play until it was an avalanche and we were left waiting for poor David Andrews to come out rosy-cheeked, sweaty and trying to explain the inexplicable from the podium.
They were bad. Really bad. And they were more than complicit in their own demise week after week.
They had ample opportunity to come undone Sunday. But – as Vrabel said – they repeatedly climbed out of holes big and small they’d dug for themselves.
Let’s catalog them, shall we?
First quarter, first drive, first-and-10 at the 50 turned into third-and-13 at the 47 after a sack. They picked up 10 on a screen, converted on fourth down and capped the drive with a touchdown.
First quarter, second drive, second-and-7 turns into second-and-12 at the 33 after a false start. They convert that third down and three more, the last on a perfect throw and circus catch.
Miami shreds the defense on the next drive and makes it 12-7 thanks to two missed PATs. The Patriots get bailed out of a second-and-25 by some bad Miami football thanks to an illegal hold. They end up with a 15-play drive ending with a confidence boosting 22-yard field goal for their rookie kicker.
Miami shreds them again to make it 15-14 at the half and then – on the first drive of the second half – convert a third-and-13 for 47 yards. But the Patriots escape allowing just a field goal.
Still, down 17-15? After dominating the Dolphins so badly? Followed by a gross possession pockmarked by two penalties that left them kicking from the back of their end zone? Then another Miami field goal drive to make it 20-17 after a failed challenge and another explosive play on third down?
That would normally be a bad team’s cue to say, “We ain’t got it…”
But a (perhaps) watershed moment for Drake Maye with a third-and-3 completion for 55 yards to Rhamondre Stevenson on a third-and-3 (after a second-and-12) led to a go-ahead score.
But the next time the Patriots get it, early in the fourth, they get back to the tomfolleery with a false start, a loss of 6 yards on a screen, an illegal shift and a bad snap followed by a 74-yard punt return touchdown off a fourth-and-25 punt.
They didn’t even get a chance to suck on the misery, though. Antonio Gibson returning the lead with a kickoff return touchdown.
It’s 30-27, late in the fourth and the Patriots get what should be a game-sealing pick. But they throw incomplete on second down, burn 20 seconds on the drive and put the ball on the foot of Andy Borregales who has to be taking the field wondering if this will be his last kick as a Patriot. He makes the 53-yarder and it’s 33-27.
YAY! Not yay. Borregales kicks it short of the landing zone. They have two of the fastest players in the league. Miami calls on one of them – De’Von Achane – and he goes to the house with an apparent 56-yard catch-and-run. ‘Cept he stepped out of bounds.
And the Patriots survive with back-to-back sacks to close out the sad-sack Fins.
Miami played bad football, no doubt. BUT!! But. The Patriots took advantage of it. And in their journey to the bottom of the league, they have too often been unable to either force bad football or take advantage of it.
Sunday, they did.
They weathered the bad tackling, the explosive plays, the silly penalties, the momentum swings and the chip-shot PAT misses because they actually were not struck dumb. They responded.
The Patriots aren’t going to go from bad to capital G Good. The process requires stops at “not as bad as some teams” and “annoying enough to make good teams sweat a little.” Then comes mediocre.
They took a step in Miami. They got some traction. They have Pittsburgh on Sunday then the moribund Panthers. If the Patriots are who we think they should be, Sunday should be a fair fight and the Panthers should be given the business.
Everything is temporary. But the early signs of life have been spotted.