Dolphins make big statement with win over Patriots 24-20
What I liked
– Ryan Tannehill – You can’t summarize Tannehill’s performance much better than how Bill Cowher did in the CBS post game: “We’re seeing Tannehill grow up right before our eyes.” Tannehill led the Dolphins on a TD drive in the final 2 minutes of the 1st half and to the game winning drive with just over 4 minutes left in the game. He made big throws and didn’t whither under the pressure. He finished the day with a 120.4 QB Rating, completing 25 of 37 for 312 yards and 3 TDs and 0 INTs. He’s now thrown 8 TDs in his last 3 games and has 23 TDs on the season vs. 14 INTs. He’s becoming exactly what we all hoped he would become because he’s getting help from his teammates.
– Michael Thomas – Who? Thomas was signed off of the 49ers practice squad on Tuesday and made some of the biggest plays in the game. His INT of Tom Brady with 2 seconds left, sealed the win. He also made a great play just a few plays earlier on a would-be touchdown in the end zone. Pretty amazing that in his first game he picked off Tom Brady to seal the win, huh?
– Mike Wallace – Wallace has been coming on strong and actually showed some fight for the football on Sunday. He finished with 6 catches for 105 yards and a TD.
– Brian Hartline – Always reliable, picked up a number of big catches in the 2nd half.
– Rishard Matthews – He always seems to make the big play when it’s needed. He caught 5 passes for 64 yards and has made everyone forget about the loss of Brandon Gibson.
– Charles Clay – He only had 1 catch for 6 yards, but it was arguably the biggest catch of the day. I’ll say again that I hated the call by Sherman on 4th and 5, but Tannehill threw around the defender and Clay made a great run after the catch. Big Play Clay strikes again!
– Dolphins D-Line – They didn’t get a lot of sacks in this game, but they harassed Tom Brady, especially in the 4th quarter. It seemed like he was knocked down on every play. Great job by the guys up front.
– Joe Philbin – He had his team prepared and he showed some guts going for it on 4th and 5 late in the game. It was the right call, as I mentioned above and it ultimately won the Dolphins the game. I also liked that he got rid of those stupid ass post game cue cards. Check out the post game speech here. (continued on page 3, CLICK HERE)
