Unconventional Preview: Preparing for another strange finale between Patriots and Dolphins
Top seed in AFC playoffs is at stake entering the final weekend — just like last year.
COMMENTARYWelcome to Season 5, Episode 16 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious-but-lighthearted, occasionally nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup that runs right here every weekend.
Is it me, or does it seem like the Patriots close out the season with the Dolphins every year now? They don’t, of course — it’s happened six times since Bill Belichick arrived in 2000 — but the weird late-season history between the AFC East opponents kind of makes it seem that way.
The Dolphins have actually defeated the Patriots in three of those finales, including last season’s mess in which the Patriots came out with a curious tactical approach — they played Tom Brady yet ran the ball on 16 of the first 18 plays in a 20-10 loss — that ultimately cost them home-field advantage.
With home-field advantage still at stake Sunday and the Matt McGloin-led Raiders playing later in the day, common sense suggests that the Patriots will play this game as straight-up as possible. Last year’s half-hearted approach was so bizarre: When they did start throwing, Brady took some brutal hits from the ticked-off Dolphins. It was one of the strangest strategic approaches — probably the strangest — I can recall from a Bill Belichick-coached Patriots team.
It won’t happen again, especially since the playoff-bound 10-5 Dolphins aren’t playing out the string. This one matters, for both sides. Maybe that means an end to the late-season Patriots-Dolphins weirdness. But I doubt it.
Kick it off, Gostkowski, and let’s get this thing started …
THREE PLAYERS I’LL BE WATCHING NOT NAMED TOM BRADY
Jay Ajayi: Because I don’t care about your fantasy football team but you definitely care about mine, a brief and true story: I drafted Arian Foster in the three leagues I play in. Right, this season. All of them. All three. I’m not saying it was a poor pick, even if he was an injury-plagued 30-year-old past-his-prime running back with shot hamstrings, but I must acknowledge that he rushed for three fewer yards than Tom Brady this season (58-55). I’m also pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve had a draft choice retire in October. Those who are much smarter than me — that could be you, but I still don’t want to hear about your team — presumably passed on Foster and struck gold with Ajayi, a hard-running second-year back from Boise State who has picked up 1,213 yards and eight touchdowns. The kind of season Foster used to produce, in other words.
Jarvis Landry: The Dolphins are without starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill — journeyman Matt Moore gets the start — so this isn’t a perfect opportunity to determine how much the Patriots’ pass defense has genuinely improved. But it’s still a decent one because of the Dolphins’ talented group of receivers, beginning with the dynamic Landry, who has 85 catches for 1,060 yards this season. Ten of those catches and 135 of those yards came in the Patriots’ 30-23 win in Week 2. The Patriots’ defensive backs are playing better now: They seemed to morph suddenly into a swarming, aggressive group during the win over the Ravens three weeks ago, and they haven’t let up since. Slowing Landry would be the biggest reason yet to believe it’s sustainable right through February.
Matt Lengel: It’s not so much that we’ll be watching Lengel, the 26-year-old tight end who is the last vestige of Northeastern’s defunct program. It’s that his touchdown catch last week — a play that put a smile on his face that is yet to wane — got me wondering who the most surprising or obscure player is to catch a touchdown pass from Brady during his 17-year career. Here’s are the four finalists as far as I can tell: Lengel; Tom Ashworth (played 37 games at tackle from 2002-05, catching a 1-yard TD pass against the Bucs in ’05); Cam Cleeland (a tight end via the Saints who had 16 catches for the ’02 Patriots); and Brian Tyms (five catches for the 2014 Patriots, now plays for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL). I think Lengel is the pick for now. Here’s to his quest to catch a second TD pass from Brady — or as many as Donald Hayes, Brandon Tate, and Sam Aiken had.
GRIEVANCE OF THE WEEK
I have no problem with Giants receiver Victor Cruz suggesting this week that the Patriots would prefer to avoid running into his team in the Super Bowl, given that the Giants have … well, you know. There’s history there.
“They don’t want to see us, ” said Cruz to the New York Daily News. “I’m sure if you ask them [they’d say] they’d play anybody, they don’t care. I’m sure they don’t want to see us. That’s for sure.”
Cruz plays for the Giants. He was a contributor to their Super Bowl XLVI victory to cap the 2011 season (coincidentally, also the franchise’s most recent playoff game). He should think that way.
My theoretical grievance is with anyone around here who thinks that way. If the Patriots do end up facing the Giants in Houston on Feb. 5 — and that’s obviously several important Saturdays and Sundays from now — it should be considered a good thing.
First, these aren’t the same Giants. The heroes have turned to benign ghosts. Eli Manning is still slinking around, but Tom Coughlin is gone, replaced by a walkie-talkie loving extra from “Dukes of Hazzard,” and their best player from Super Bowl XLII has found his true calling as a morning talk show gabber.
There’s no true vengeance possible for the loss to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, which cost the Patriots a perfect season. But this — winning a fifth Super Bowl against the franchise that denied them twice before and played the sniveling attaboy-Roger role in Deflategate — would be as close to delivering delicious comeuppance as they can ever get.
Roger Goodell, handing over the Lombardi Trophy to Tom Brady while the Giants retreat to the locker room in disappointment? Sign me up for that scene.
PREDICTION, OR WHEN DID MATT MOORE JUMP AHEAD OF DON STROCK ON THE DOLPHINS QB’ DEPTH CHART?
If you think I have any idea what to expect from a Patriots-Dolphins regular-season finale, you must have skipped the 1,000 or so words that came before these. It’s a successful visit to Hard Rock Stadium if the Patriots can do two things: 1) Win, by any method and margin. 2) Stay healthy. And given that the Raiders are without Derek Carr, the latter is more important than the former. Patriots 29, Dolphins 28.
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