Typically, New England Patriots players and coaches publicly downplay the impact of weather on games.
Snow, rain, cold, wind, hurricane, typhoon, earthquake — doesn’t matter. The conditions are out of their control, they’ll say, and both teams have to play in them, anyway.
It was notable, then, to hear veteran safety and longtime co-captain Devin McCourty’s explanation for New England’s long-standing struggles in Miami, where they’ll take on the Dolphins this Sunday in their regular-season finale.
When you’re playing in South Florida, climate matters.
“I know one thing, it’s hard to go from this weather to 80 degrees,” McCourty said earlier this week. “It’s always a little bit of a shock in pregame. … I think it’s going to be tough, like every other year we’ve gone down there in December and January, where we’ll have to adjust and figure out how it feels to be out there running in the sun and all that. And then we’ll have to just execute and try to win the game.”
Winning in Miami is a goal that’s eluded even some of the greatest Patriots teams. And it’s been especially difficult to accomplish at this time of year.
Since 2013, the Patriots are 2-6 in games played at the Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium, a winning percentage of .250. In games played at all other venues during that span, they’re 101-35 (.743).
Of those six losses, five came in either December or January. They spanned four different Miami regimes (Joe Philbin, interim coach Dan Campbell, Adam Gase, Brian Flores), featured three different Dolphins quarterbacks (Ryan Tannehill, Jay Cutler, Tua Tagovailoa) and had few connecting threads outside of the setting.
The Miami Miracle game is on that list. So is the notoriously ugly Week 17 defeat from 2015 that forced New England to travel to Denver for the AFC Championship, and the Monday night loss to Cutler from 2017, during which the Patriots went 0-for-11 on third down while Rob Gronkowski served a one-game suspension. Last year, they allowed 250 rushing yards to Salvon Ahmed, Matt Breida and Patrick Laird in a 22-12 decision that eliminated them from playoff contention.
Miami has been a nightmare spot for the Patriots since the earliest days of the Bill Belichick era, but they’ve been far more competitive when that trip falls earlier in the season. Since 2000, when visiting the Dolphins in September, October or November, the Patriots are 7-4, with three of those losses coming in Belichick’s first three seasons. When going down there in December or January, they’re 2-8.
The Patriots held two of their three practices this week inside the Socios.com Field House, with most players wearing sweatshirts and long pants, seemingly to simulate the Miami heat.
“I think obviously, the change in the weather plays a part,” McCourty said Friday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “It’s the same thing people talk about when people have to come play us in December and January and how much of a struggle that can be.
“But for me, overall, it’s just executing and playing. It’s a division opponent that I would say overall plays us better at home than they play us when they’re away. But I don’t think it’s some Houdini magic or this big thing about we can’t win down there. We’ve gone down there and won in December. But we do have some losses down there.”
The Patriots will have to contend with more than just warmth this Sunday. Under Flores, a longtime Patriots assistant who was their defensive play-caller in 2018, the Dolphins have given them problems both home and away.
New England routed Miami 43-0 in Flores’ second game as head coach, but the Patriots have dropped three of their last four meetings, including a 17-16 loss at Gillette Stadium in the 2021 season opener. Flores’ Dolphins also stunned the heavily favored Patriots at Gillette in the 2019 finale, costing the Pats a first-round playoff bye and triggering an early end to Tom Brady’s tenure.
McCourty said facing a Flores-coached opponent is “almost like us playing us.” This week, Belichick pointed out how some of Miami’s frequently used blitz packages resemble ones Flores dialed up for New England in Super Bowl LIII.
“I would say it’s always a battle (against Miami),” McCourty said. “I mean, even in ’19 when they came here, they had guys on IR, they had guys who really hadn’t played all year who came and competed hard, and they ended up beating us and really changed our postseason by us losing that game. …
“Even though the offense and defense and all that is not exactly the same, I just think the mentalities are very similar because of Flo and the guys they have down in Miami, what they teach and all of that. It’s always a competitive game when we play them down there, and it just is what it is. I would say it doesn’t always go as we planned, and we’ve just got to find a way to win.”
The Patriots already clinched a playoff spot but remain alive for an AFC East title, which they would earn with a win and a Buffalo Bills loss to the New York Jets. Lose, and they could fall as low as the No. 7 seed, which would set up a dangerous first-round matchup with the Tennessee Titans or Kansas City Chiefs.
The Dolphins, who won seven straight before being blown out by Tennessee last week, have been mathematically eliminated but surely would love to make their division rival’s playoff path more difficult, as they did two years ago.
“I always say, when you play a division opponent at the end of the year, whether they’re in the playoffs, not in the playoffs, it’s a battle,” McCourty said. “And it’s always been tough (playing the Dolphins).”
