FOXBORO -- Playing the New England Patriots must be a little like playing whack-a-mole. You focus your attention on one area and, boom!, another problem pops up somewhere else.
The poor Miami Dolphins can certainly attest to that.
They watched the Pats hand the ball off only five times last Sunday against the Jets, so they might have thought, hmm, we can focus on stopping the pass. And then LeGarrette Blount bulled through them for eight yards on the game's first snap, the first of 23 running plays that gave New England the sort of multifaceted attack it hadn't showed very much this year.
They'd seen the Patriots surrender 248 yards per game through the air so far this year, ranking a pedestrian 18th in the 32-team league, so they might have thought, hmm, we can throw on these guys. And then Ryan Tannehill was picked by Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon, was sacked five times, and was able to throw for only 202 yards until the Pats had built a 29-point lead.
And since they were stingy against the pass, it stands to reason they were not as stout against the run, right? Well, they held the Dolphins to 15 total rushing yards.
Nor does any of this mean the Pats abandoned what's worked for them all year. It was another routine day at the office for Tom Brady (26-of-38, 356 yards, 4 TDs), Julian Edelman (7 catches, 81 yards, 2 TDs), Rob Gronkowski (6 catches, 113 yards, 1 TD), et al, as the Pats rolled to their sixth consecutive game with 30 or more points. (Beyond that, they've now scored in 27 straight quarters; the only quarter in which they didn't score this year was the very first, on Opening Night against Pittsburgh.)
And when you add it all up, you have a 36-7 New England victory that takes the bloom off Miami's rose -- the Dolphins were seen as a pretty hot item after winning their first two games under interim coach Dan Campbell -- gives the Patriots a comfortable lead in the AFC East . . . and, incidentally, keeps them undefeated at 7-0.
New England Patriots
Brady connected with Gronkowski for a 47-yard scoring pass on the opening drive, but the Patriots managed a total of 65 yards on their next five possessions. Still, they went up 9-0 on a safety after center Mike Pouncey snapped the ball before Tannehill was ready on a third down from the 9.
Then Brady got going in the two-minute offense. He completed all four of his passes for 59 yards on a scoring drive that was capped by a 16-yard toss to Dion Lewis for a 19-0 lead.
Tannehill led the Dolphins into the end zone to start the second half with Lamar Miller scoring on a 1-yard run. But the Patriots took control in the fourth quarter, with Brady throwing TD passes of 10 and 16 yards to Edelman to put it out of reach.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.