The Phinsider
The Miami Dolphins host the New England Patriots this afternoon, with both teams looking to put Week 1 losses behind them and start a push for the playoffs in 2025. Both teams had flaws exposed during their respective season debuts, leaving many questions to be answered starting this week.
Who are the 2025 Patriots? To get a better idea, I turned to Taylor Kyles from SB Nation’s Patriots team site, Pats Pulpit. You can check out my side of the discussion, giving him some insight into the Dolphins, on their site.
It’s tough to give Mike Vrabel too much credit after an opening day loss, but this Patriots team is vastly more functional and better coached. Vrabel’s hands-on approach may seem like a gimmick, but he wants things done to his standard and puts his fingerprint on the entire team.
The Patriots just show they can get off to a faster start and finish strong, but last week’s loss felt less like a poorly prepared team (their defense was dominant for most of the game) and more like one in the infancy of its development.
Drake Maye was more good than bad in the opener, but summer struggles with accuracy and early-game nerves reared their ugly heads. While Maye settled into Josh McDaniels’ offense after a rough first quarter, bad misses were a common theme throughout.
The sophomore quarterback is also still growing as a leader, which is to be expected. He’s a young pup surrounded by veterans, but the Patriots have provided him much better structure than last season.
For Patriots fans to be secure with Maye he really just needs to continue at his current trajectory, take to coaching, play a 60 minute game more consistently, and tighten up the accuracy.
The Dolphins’ downfield in-breakers always give the Patriots trouble, and the Raiders had multiple big plays off similar routes in Week 1. Defensive backs were put in tough positions on some bad blitz calls, but struggles in off coverage and poor tackling also contributed to Las Vegas’ offensive explosion.
While softer coverage proved to be a liability, particularly in single-high coverages, New England dominated in its staple Cover 1, even without Christian Gonzalez. The All-Pro’s absence will be felt more this week, and I worry about anyone not named Marcus Jones against Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle’s speed.
