Patriots Gridiron News: Just blame Bill Belichick for Dolphins debacle

While New England Patriots players and fans are still in shock over what happened down in Miami, Bill Belichick is owning up and taking some of the blame.

The Miami “Miracle” or just a New England Patriots meltdown?  Well, fans of the team on the losing end of the 34-33 Dolphins last-second victory on Sunday will call it the latter and the coach is to blame.

That’s right.  Here we are once again, blaming a loss on a personnel decision by Bill Belichick.  It comes with the “In Bill We Trust” mantra.  Trust him when things go great, blame him when things go bad.

When an opposing player is allowed to score a last-second 69-yard touchdown on a lateral, the players lack of execution and tackling should be the number one focus, however, when the last player who could’ve made a play is a big tight end who isn’t moving well, then that decision to even have him in the game has fingers pointing at Belichick.

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Rob Gronkowski owned up to his lack of being in the right position on that play and on Monday, Belichick took some blame.

"“We have to do a better job of that,” Belichick said in his conference call.  “It starts with me.  We’ve got to play better situational football.  We’ll work to try to achieve that.”"

Even if Bill Belichick truly believed Ryan Tannenhill could pull off a 70-yard Hail Mary, Gronkowski really shouldn’t have been in on that play.  Yes, much of this is second-guessing after the fact, but either Josh Gordon or Cordarrelle Patterson could’ve served that position and had the athleticism and speed to prevent Kenyan Drake from reaching the end zone.

The Malcolm Butler decision, fourth-and-2, the game plan in the final game in 2015 against these same Dolphins, and now the Miami “Miracle…well meltdown will go down as Belichick’s biggest goof ups.

So, in hindsight would Belichick would’ve done things differently like say… have Devin McCourty out there instead of Gronk?

"“Well, I think there’s a lot of things that could’ve been better on that play,” Belichick admitted.  “I think there were a lot of things that could’ve been better in the entire game.  I think the game was about a lot more than that play, but certainly that play wasn’t a good one for us.”"

Yes, that last play certainly took some of the focus off Tom Brady and his end of the first half blunder in which he took a last second sack in the red zone.  It also took some of the attention off Stephen Gostkowski missing an extra point and a field goal.  Well, since they lost by just a point, Gostkowski is taking a lot of the blame.

On team’s run defense

Another area of concern in that game was the team’s lack of run defense.

Not only did the New England Patriots allow old man Frank Gore to look like a younger version of himself, they got burned by former Patriots special teamer Brandon Bolden, who burned them for a 54-yard touchdown and later barreled over them for a second touchdown.

In all, it wasn’t a great defensive effort on the ground and is the main reason the Dolphins were even in position for a last-second miracle play.

Appearing on Ordway, Merloni & Fauria Monday, Bill Belichick voiced his concern about the run defense.

"“A lot of the runs were big play runs, so that was really the issue,” he said, as transcribed by WEEI.  “They hit some big play runs and we have to eliminate those.  It’s one thing to give up four, five, eight yards, but if you start giving up 50-yarders, that is a serious problem.  We have to get that fixed.”"

With a 15th ranked run defense, the New England Patriots haven’t been awful, but in their losses, it is typically the running game that burns them.  Is it a personnel thing?  Not really.  It’s usually a result of either miss tackles or a player shooting up the wrong gap.  Some of it is due to scheme, as the team is sometimes caught playing nickel on running downs.

Now it’s up to Bill Belichick to fix that and also keep his team focused after a stunning result once again down in South Beach.