The New England Patriots remained unbeaten after dominating the Miami Dolphins on Thursday Night Football, 36-7. Tom Brady threw for 350-plus yards and four touchdowns while LeGarrette Blount added 72 yards rushing on the ground.
Dolphins vs. Patriots 2015 final score: New England still unbeaten after 36-7 win
The Patriots dominated the Dolphins from start to finish on Thursday.
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Rob Gronkowski had 100-plus receiving yards and a touchdown, and Dion Lewis continued his career resurgence with over 100 yards in total, with 93 receiving yards and 19 rushing yards.
For the Dolphins, it was a very disappointing game, especially coming off the 44 points they hung on the Houston Texans in their last game. As an interim head coach, Dan Campbell has sustained his first loss and is now 2-1 as coach of the Dolphins.
It was an impressively bad first half for the Dolphins. Ryan Tannehill completed 9 of 15 passes for 81 yards and an interception while being sacked twice for a loss of 14 yards. The running game was non-existent, with Lamar Miller putting up just 10 yards on five carries. Meanwhile, Brady had 213 yards and a pair of touchdowns for the Patriots.
New England got on the board first when Brady found tight end Rob Gronkowski for a 47-yard touchdown on their opening drive. Their next points came after an errant snap forced Tannehill to recover a fumble in the end zone, resulting in a safety. A Stephen Gostkowski field goal and a 16-yard touchdown pass to Dion Lewis gave the Patriots the 19-0 lead they took into halftime.
Miami got things started off on the right foot in the second half, with a seven-play, 80-yard scoring drive that ended in a 1-yard Lamar Miller touchdown, but they didn’t do anything from there. The Patriots put up a couple more touchdowns and a field goal to close out the game without issue.
Three things we learned from Thursday’s game
Gronkowski is great and LaFell can block
Rob Gronkowski, if you didn’t know, is a pretty good tight end. He’s arguably the best tight end in the NFL and it’s easy to see why. He’s a massive target for Brady, he’s sure-handed, he’s hard to bring down and his routes are perfect. He also has the benefit of playing with some really great players around him, as you can see in the GIF below:
Gronkowski might have been able to get that touchdown without the huge block laid out by Brandon LaFell, but it sure was a good block. LaFell, No. 19 in the GIF, runs a good route and the man covering him is out of the play. He then hustles back and makes the block on the only guy with a hope of catching Gronkowski, and the Patriots got their first points of the game.
You should always try and catch the snap
Football is all about execution. A lot of little things combine to make a play, and a lot of those things can often be overlooked by viewers. It’s not often that those little things are overlooked by the players getting paid a lot of money not to overlook them. But ... it does happen.
That’s a snap going right by Tannehill, before he freaks out, turns around and chases it down. He recovered it in the end zone and rolled out of bounds, so the Patriots were credited with a safety. Tannehill was not pleased, and his expression was priceless once he saw the snap fly right past him. Campbell has the Dolphins looking better than they ever did under Joe Philbin but this one ... this one is not one for the highlight reel.
Other tight ends are good, too!
Gronkowski isn’t the only good tight end playing on Thursday. The Dolphins have a pretty good guy themselves in Jordan Cameron. The Dolphins didn’t show much life in the first half, but on the first drive of the second half, Tannehill found himself scrambling out of the pocket and looking for someone deep. He found Cameron big time:
This was a brilliant throw and a good catch, a connection the Dolphins need to see a lot more if they’re going to have sustained success this season. Cameron picked up 29 yards on that pass.
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