Facing what many consider to be one of the best defensive front sevens in the NFL without their franchise quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, and their top wide receiver, DeVante Parker; the Miami Dolphins surprised the Buccaneers with a pass heavy attack in the first quarter to take a 10-7 lead after 15:00 of play.
Unfortunately for the Fins, it’s not how you start, but how you finish, and if anybody knows how to finish in this league, it’s Tom Brady, who was without Rob Gronkowski for the second consecutive game.
The Dolphins offense threw a dozen passes, in their first 16 plays of the game.
“Yeah, we kind of streamlined it a little bit. As an offense, we felt like that was the best thing to do. Yeah, that was a little bit of a change. Along with some of the things on the offensive line,” said Head Coach, Brian Flores at the end of the game.
After capping off an 8 play, 70-yard drive with a 23-yard field goal, Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay offense quickly answered back with an 8 play, 80-yard drive of their own, that culminated with a 10-yard touchdown pass to running back, Giovanni Bernard, for a 7-3 Buccaneer lead.
Miami did not back down, and marched down the field, 75 yards on 8-plays, once more and took a 10-7 lead after Miles Gaskin caught a 24-yard touchdown pass from Jacoby Brissett, who finished the afternoon with 27 completions on 39 pass attempts for 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
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To deal with the strength of the Buccaneer defense, adjustments were made to the struggling offensive line.
“We just felt that was the best move, to move [tackle] Austin [Jackson] inside, put [tackle] Liam [Eichenberg] outside. I thought they both had a good week of practice in there, With Austin [Jackson] inside and Liam [Eichenberg] outside. Might have to look at the film and see what that really looked like. But my initial look at it, it looked like it was ok. But I’ve definitely got to watch the film and take a look. I thought we did some good things offensively. So, hopefully, [there are] some things to build on there. But as a team, we have a lot of things we need to improve on,” added Flores.
The second quarter belonged to the home team, as the Bucs scored 17 unanswered points, including a pair of touchdown passes to Dolphins killer, Antonio Brown. The Miami Norland High School alumnus first caught a short pass and took it all the way for 62 yards, to give Tampa Bay a 17-10 lead; and with less than two minutes to play in the first half, he caught a 4-yard pass, and the Buccaneers led 24-10 at the half.
“It is a great opportunity when the general believes in you, and we don’t take that for granted,” said Brown, who finished the afternoon with 7 catches for 124 yards and two touchdowns; and became the fasted player in NFL history to reach 900 catches, surpassing the previous mark, set by Hall of Fame receiver, Marvin Harrison.
“That is something I am very grateful for, but you know, I couldn’t do it by myself. I’ve been able to play with some great quarterbacks – Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady. It’s a blessing to play with guys like that and be able to get the ball and be on that trajectory,” said Brown.
Miami’s defense held Brady and the Bucs offense to a three-and-out on the opening drive of the second half.
Jacoby Brissett, who was battling a hamstring injury that he suffered in the first half, then led the Dolphins offense on an 11 play, 87-yard scoring drive that ended with Miles Gaskin’s second touchdown grab of the day, this time from 1-yard out.
“Sometimes guys just get the hot hand. Whoever it is, Malcolm (Brown), Salvon (Ahmed) or myself. It just kinda turned out to be me today,” added Gaskin who ran 5 times for 25 yards; and caught 10 passes for 74 yards and two scores.
“I thought he did a great job today and his role is obviously expanding. You see him catching balls down the field. He made a lot of plays for us. Just have to find ways to continue to give him the ball. I thought he did a great job,” said Brissett.
As alluded to earlier, it’s how you finish, not how you start, and boy did Tom Brady finish.
The future Hall of Fame quarterback, who has tortured the Dolphins for two decades as the quarterback of the New England Patriots and now the Buccaneers, connected twice with receiver Mike Evans, on touchdowns passes of 34 and 22 yards in the final quarter to put the game away for good.
Leonard Fournette also ran for a score, for a 21-point fourth quarter for the Bucs.
Incredibly, Brady, who in his career against Miami is 24-12, with 8,596 yards passing and 72 touchdowns, accomplished something he had never done against the Fins – throw for 400+ yards (411) and five touchdowns.
The Dolphins (-170) travel next week to London to “host” the winless Jacksonville Jaguars (+145). If you look at the NFL point spreads the Dolphins are the early 3-point favorites.
It will be the first week that Tagovailoa will be eligible to be activated from IR, however, when asked about his availability for their second intrastate rivalry game, coach Flores did promise anything, “Tua is doing everything he can to get back. Like I have said in previous media sessions, he threw Wednesday. He threw Friday. He’s making progress. Let’s see what he looks like after we activate him and practice him this week. We’ll see what the week of practice looks like. Obviously, he’s still dealing with the fracture of the ribs. So, that will definitely be something from a pain-tolerance standpoint he’d have to deal with. So, we’ll just see how he does with that and just take it one day at a time.”
