New England Patriots’ Tom Brady Is Injured?

Brady rose – slowly – but the hits kept coming from the host Miami Dolphins, who beat New England 20-10 on Sunday and prevented the Patriots from clinching the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs. With so much talk regarding his play and his future as the franchise’s signal-caller, the Texas A&M product outdueled Brady by connecting on 66 percent of his passes, going 25-for-38 for 350 yards, a pair of touchdowns and no interceptions to earn a quarterback rating of 112.8. He was sacked twice and took some hits to his legs and back.

Looking forward to our present day on January 3, 2016, the Miami Dolphins played against the New England Patriots once again but this time, it wasn’t the blowout that we first originally watched.

It felt as though the Patriots tried to shorten the game by limiting Brady’s throws in the first half and thereby limiting the opportunities for him to get injured. It was hard to tell if Brady’s performance was hampered by the injury because the Pats used a scaled-back passing plan, but Brady was in obvious pain after the game. With New England’s offense struggling to get going, punter Matt Darr did a great job of pinning them deep into their own territory. I wouldn’t say that that has no value.

“We have a lot of work to do”, he said. “That was a problem across the board”. The Patriots have lost four of their final six games after starting 10-0. He was not intercepted and was sacked just once. DeVante Parker who was the recipient of one of Tannehill’s touchdown passes had five receptions for 106 yards. That included a 46-yarder that led to Cameron’s score. “Hopefully, we’ve learned some lessons over the past couple of weeks, and we can play more Patriot-like football”. They will play one of three teams, the Bengals, Chiefs or Texans. Believe me, I’ll be doing everything I can to be out there. He’s just scratching the surface.

The Dolphins (6-10), who missed the playoffs for the seventh consecutive year, will now embark on their latest coaching search.

Don’t let this loss fool you, this was a game that the Patriots needed to win. New England had just four plays go for at least 10 yards. That capped an impressive eight-play, 64-yard drive that took just 80 seconds.

The Pats tied it in the second quarter on Stephen Gostkowski’s 34-yard field goal. Everyone, obviously, remembers all the accusations made by the Colt’s on the balls be underinflated, and what not and that’s how the Patriots won that playoff game past year. “We’ll see how much we’re able to improve going forward”, Belichick said after saying a lack of consistency was a major problem in Miami.

Do you have to hit the reset button heading into the playoffs, is that the message you gave the team?

NOTES: The Dolphins and Dennis Hickey, their general manager the past two years, parted ways. Interim head coach Dan Campbell said he wanted to taste victory one more time and the Dolphins did just that today. Sure, health is a major factor for the Patriots, but the performance of the five guys tasked with protecting Tom Terrific will be the true determining factor as to whether they go to the Super Bowl or not. Julian Edelman and Sebastian Vollmer on offense, as well as Dont’a Hightower and Chandler Jones on defense, are all expected to return for the postseason.