New England Patriots: 5 observations from mauling of Miami Dolphins

The New England Patriots erased their horrors in Miami with a 43-0 mauling of the Dolphins Sunday afternoon down in the heat of South Beach.

The New England Patriots entered Sunday’s Week 2 matchup with the Miami Dolphins as 19-point favorites.  They ended up mauling their AFC East rivals in shutout fashion 43-0 and proved that the only thing that would stop the on this day were themselves.

In fact, it was the Patriots who kept Miami in the game in the first half.  After taking a 7-0 lead on their first drive, Tom Brady and company struggled a little bit to put some points on the board.

Thanks to a missed field goal and extra point by Stephen Gostkowski, the defending Super Bowl champions only had a 13-0 lead going into halftime, following Antonio Brown’s first touchdown in a New England Patriots uniform.

As it turned out, those 13 points were all the team needed as the defense really came to play.  They were all over Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Dolphins’ offense was pretty nonexistence.  As the team opened up the flood gates in the second half by scoring 30 points, 60 minutes of football was the emphasis given what happened last year in Miami and no real football fan can blame Bill Belichick for stepping on pedal and not taking his foot off.

That explains why Tom Brady was still in the game throwing with under five minutes left with his team already up 37-0.

"“Obviously, Miami was ready to go and they gave us some problems early but we were able to work through that and played 60 minutes and finished the game,” Belichick said following the game.  “I’m proud of our team for doing that.  It’s Game 2 – (we have a) long way to go, so we have a lot of work to do.  We’ll just get back at it and start getting ready for the Jets.”"

Despite the great performance all the way around, the Belichick’s boys didn’t escape the game without some issues, mostly along the offensive line in the name of injuries.  Besides that, hard to see any team stopping them when everything is clicking.

Here are five observations from the 43-0 mauling of the Miami Dolphins.