— I have to get one thing out of the way, and that is any notion that the Patriots weren’t really trying to win, which is lunacy. Why else would Pat Chung, Devin McCourty and Rob Ninkovich (to name a few) have nutted up to get back in the lineup? You can argue the game plan all day. But this wasn’t telling Matt Cassel to throw the ball into a Minuteman’s tricorn hat in 2005 so you could face Jacksonville. This was the bad kind of straight-up failure. Not the good, master-plan kind.
— Though I’ll concede it kind of looked like it was intentional when Josh McDaniels turned off his Microsoft Surface and pulled out the yellowed, parchment scrolls containing the 1920 Decatur Staleys offense and went with that.
— I do question the wisdom of taking the best passer and clutch performer of all time and turning him into a leather helmet-era handoff monkey. Though part of that was dictated by Miami. Repeatedly the Pats came out in two-tight end sets, and the Dolphins stayed in their base nickel defense. They basically dared the Patriots to run the ball. And just like with the Jets the week before, the Patriots couldn’t, even with the size/schematic advantage. And that, more than anything, is what has me a-scared.
— I want to be kind because the Pats haven’t just hit the bottom of the offensive line depth chart, they’ve torn up the tiles, ripped out the plywood and joists and drilled into the subfloor all the way to the LaAdrian Waddle. So there’s only so much you can ask. That said, they simply can’t push the line of scrimmage back, and the pass blocking has all the effectiveness of an invisible fence if you don’t put the collar on your dog.
— Eventually of course the Pats did start putting the ball in the air. By my reckoning, the first pass from Tom Brady that actually crossed the line in the air was the incompletion intended for Danny Amendola with 8:30 to go in the half. I thought they might stop the game and give the ball a card to commemorate the occasion, like the one the Navy gave my dad the first time he crossed the equator, but it wasn’t meant to be. Anyhoo … by the time the offense really needed to throw it, Miami was able to bring pressure with only three or four rushers and drop the rest into coverage. It was a numbers game the Patriots simply couldn’t win.