The New England Patriots came away from their second game of the season without quarterback Tom Brady with another victory – they beat the Miami Dolphins 31-24 on Sunday.
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Now Brissett, the only player in this year’s draft without an agent, will make an unexpected start against one of the toughest defenses in the NFL.
It was an eventful Week 2 for the Patriots against the division foe Dolphins, in which New England held on for a 31-24 win despite the rarest of situations in these parts: tumult at quarterback. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was able to return the next game after suffering an AC joint injury against the Cincinnati Bengals, but every injury is dependent on how quickly the individual’s body is able to heal.
Garoppolo was injured when he was hit making a throw and taken to the ground by Dolphins linebacker Kiko Alonso with 4:02 left in the first half.
Sunday, in what was supposed to be his role of cheering Jimmy Garoppolo on the New England Patriots sidelines, he threw his first nine National Football League passes and still hasn’t been guilty of a pick.
Garoppolo landed on his right shoulder, stayed down for a while, then left the game and never returned. With the Patriots playing their next game Thursday night against Houston, it’s possible he won’t be ready for that game, either. Not because New England muscled its way down the field, forced the Dolphins to use their three times-outs and ran the clock to 58 seconds before missing a 39-yard field goal.
Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount ran for 123 yards and a touchdown against the Dolphins, including a 26-yard run early in the fourth quarter as he hurdled Dolphins cornerback Byron Maxwell. Adjusting week to week – keeping Martellus Bennett in to block nearly exclusively last week in Arizona because of the way they rush the passer, then unleashing him as a five-catch, 114-yard receiving threat this week against Miami.
“I was more so anxious if (Garoppolo) was going to be OK or not”, running back LeGarrette Blount said.
HOUSTON – Carried by another stifling defensive performance, one aided by a staunch commitment to running the football, Houston extended its regular-season winning streak to five games.
“I felt prepared and did enough for us to secure the win”. With Jimmy Garoppolo doing everything in his power to get his own banner draped from the stadium’s lighthouse – he’d already thrown three touchdown passes and had driven the Patriots into position to score a fourth TD that would have made it 28-0 – a full-fledged laugher was unfolding in front of another sellout crowd in Foxboro. “We’ve got to play better”. Mariota dropped the pass over linebacker Tahir Whitehead to Johnson just before safety Rafael Bush could get to the veteran receiver to potentially break up the pass. They had a chance to tie in the closing seconds before Ryan Tannehill was intercepted in the end zone.
Still, head coach Bill Belichick said the team has a lot to work on. The Patriots are not accustomed to unusual days at quarterback, but they had one here on Sunday.
“I wasn’t even thinking about that”, Edelman said. I hate to say it, but we can’t be an “almost” team.
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In the meantime the Patriots have been the most impressive team through the NFL’s first two weeks, they have been a machine-like offense and defensively, they have caused turnovers and wrecked havoc on passing games with an impressive pass rush. After last week’s upset victory over Arizona, New England seemed to ride that momentum into this game against the Dolphins. But officials ruled Cooper went out of bounds before making the catch, negating the play.
