Foxboro Forum

Ronnie Brown rushes for 113 yards and 4 TDs and passes for 1 TD.

The Dolphins offense had struggled running the ball in the first 2 games of the season but had no problem today.  Ronnie Brown ran for over 100 yards and 4 TDs and Ricky Williams ran for 98 yards and put up another 21 receiving.  On top of a great running performance - Chad Pennington performed better than he has in years - he looked Tom Brady like.  Pennington completed 17 of 20 passes for 226 yards and Ronnie Brown completed one 16 yard pass for a TD.

While the Miami offense was firing on all cylinders the New England offense was sputtering.  Matt Cassel completed 19 of 31 passes for 131 yards and the running game barely got going - the Pats ran 20 times for a total of 79 yards.  The Patriots put up 216 yards against the Dolphins’ 461 yards.

Last weeks win was complete team effort and this weeks loss was also a team effort - or lack of.  The offense couldn’t get anything going and the defense was fooled time and again by Miami’s gadget plays.  In the past the Patriots might get fooled by ‘trick’ plays like the Dolphins ran but would rarely get caught again.  Not so today.  The Dolphins ran a play with Ronnie Brown behind center 6 times and recorded 4 touchdowns.  The Patriot defense just looked completely unprepared for that play and the rest of the game.

This is only one game so it might be early to start drawing conclusions but it seems like with Matt Cassel leading the offense the defense is under greater pressure and a more varied attack.  In most Pats games in the recent past the Patriots would take an early lead and put pressure on the opponent to score points.  The quickest way to score for most teams is the pass so the Patriots defense would benefit from the offense forcing an opponent to limit their play calling.  That isn’t happening this year.  The Patriots offense starts much slower and allows the other team to set their own pace.  The Pats defense seems to be struggling when opponents aren’t forced to be one-dimensional.

With this loss the Patriots end their regular-season winning record - which is at 21 games.  Interestingly enough - the last loss was against the Dolphins on December 10, 2006.  In that game the Pats struggled on both sides of the ball - giving up 21 points and scoring 0 (zero) while Brady got sacked 4 times.