As last night's Thursday Night Football match-up featured my Miami
Dolphins, I was indeed one of the many awake at 3am GMT watching New England
categorically dispatch Dan Campbell's exciting new Miami team, and despite the
fact I am not an expert in American Football, I believe I can offer a few of my
insights into why the Pats won and why the Dolphins lost, and what this result
means for the rest of the season.
1. Tom Brady is as good as ever and the Patriots are a very strong
team
Tom Terrific is looking as formidable as he ever has. Last night he
bolstered his already phenomenal stats by passing for 364 yards with 4 TDs and
no interceptions. That takes his number after 7 games to 2,410 passing yards
with 20 TDs and just 1 interception. Even by Brady's standards, he is having a
fantastic season. This is made even more impressive by the fact that he is 38
years old, but he is showing no signs of slowing up, with Brady himself
recently stating in an interview that he hopes to play for another 10 years.
Perhaps this is a little optimistic but with Brady in this sort of form,
retirement may not be for some time yet. Another thing to consider is also that
New England have one of the most inexperienced offensive lines in the league,
which considering Brady's age, would appear to be a major issue as he cannot be
allowed to take too many hits. However the legendary New England quarterback
has solved this issue by getting the ball to his wide receivers in roughly 2.5
seconds on average, the fastest of any quarterback in the league. All of this
has come in a season following Deflategate, which has been perhaps the biggest
challenge in Tom's illustrious career. Many thought that this controversy would
harm Brady and knock his confidence however all it has done is made him want to
prove himself even more, leading to what many are calling "Tom Brady's
revenge tour" which so far has rolled into 7 matches and come out with 7
wins. With Tom in this form, WR Edelman playing fantastic, TE Rob Gronkowski
dominating the league, and a very strong defence, all coordinated and pulled
together by top head coach Bill Belichick, the Pats are on course for a very
successful season and certainly another Super Bowl challenge.
2. Miami are not quite elite yet and may struggle for the rest of this season
Fins' fans have been in dreamland for the last two weeks since Dan
Campbell coached his first game in Tennessee against the Titans which Miami won 38-10 . Since then Miami have also played the Houston Texans at home winning 44-26,
after scoring 41 unanswered points in the first half and these are just some of
the incredible stats from those two victories:
41 points per game on average
18 points against per game on average
9.3 yards per pass on average
6.6 yards per rush on average
10 sacks
& Ryan Tannehill completed 25 consecutive passes, an NFL record.
With these two wins and some great performances from the likes of Lamar Miller, Jarvis Landry, Cameron Wake, Rishard Matthews and most importantly Ryan Tannehill, the Dolphins looked like a new team that could seriously pose a play-off challenge, like many experts said they would in pre season. However, New England was their first big challenge and they were played out of the game. In the first half, the offence was uncoordinated (even giving up a safety) and ineffective , with the strong defensive performance keeping them in the game. At the start of the second half the Dolphins offence began with a strong touchdown drive however after that the offence went back to being futile. And as the defence succumb to the constant pressure, the score got away from the Dolphins and the game became essentially a practice match for the Patriots. The main reasons for the Dolphins poor performance was their inability to stop the run and their repeated use of the outside running game which the Pats are very good at defending against.
And the Dolphins may continue to struggle as they lost WR Devante Parker, OT Ju'Wuan James and star LE Cameron Wake. Wake is especially a big loss as he is essential to the pass rushing game, and will miss the rest of the season with an Achilles tear. This will make the 3-4 Dolphins' rest of the season even more of a struggle, especially if they want to reach the play-offs.
Thanks for reading,
The next post will be on football (soccer)
James
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