With a wobble, Brady and Patriots head into the playoffs

The good news was that the stars and starters were standing there by choice. Coach Bill Belichick has shown over the years he can prepare his team for any situations. He touched the ball on five of New England’s first six offensive plays, but he picked up only one first down on those plays.

Miami’s leading rushers were Lamar Miller (19 rushes for 60 yards) and Tannehill (3 rushes for 17 yards), and the job that Damien Williams (3 rushes for 11 yards) did also helped stun the Patriots.

The idea that the Patriots offense wasn’t going to try until the rushing game picked up two first downs checks out.

“I’m pretty sore”, Brady said, “but I’ll be all right”. After establishing the run in the first half, the Patriots attempted to utilize play-action passes to generate more explosive plays down the field but coverage by Neville Hewitt Tony Lippett and others prevented them from doing so.

This team played scared down the stretch, and boy did they ever coach scared.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to establish a running game, but calling only seven passing plays in the first half was awfully extreme. Particularly on the offensive side of scrimmage.

But none of those players can protect Brady. And Amendola was back in there after a knee injury forced him out a week earlier. By the end of the game they were resigned to the fact that they let home field advantage slip away.

The Patriots know they’ll have Brady for the playoffs.

Secondly they had a scary moment in Sunday’s game when Brady was knocked down. Over the past two weeks, the Patriots are just 5-24 on third down. If a better rotation is implemented, the Pats could take some of the pressure off of Tom Brady.

– Have to start with the near-miss on Brady, who I expect will be in a walking boot this week and not practice, and could be MIA until next week. He threw an accurate deep ball on more than one occasion. Gronkowski, meanwhile, wasn’t targeted at all.

Now the preparation will need to track the health status of the New England players during the bye.

Brady, again, denied that notion. “I’ll be anxious to see it”.

Although Tom Brady was roughed up on Sunday, he was still in good spirits. New England’s running game gained only 2.6 yards per rush on 27 attempts.

One can’t simply sweep that under the locker-room rug, especially when quarterback Tom Brady often says that the real football season begins after Thanksgiving and that’s when teams want to be playing their best. The Patriots finished the regular season 12-4. The Patriots have lost four of their final six games after starting 10-0.

But fear not, Pats fans.