FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The New England Patriots emphasize playing well for 60 minutes. On Saturday, 30 was enough — barely.
Rallying from their worst half of the season, the Patriots scored on their next five possessions and clinched a playoff bye with a 27-24 victory against the Miami Dolphins.
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“You don’t want to, certainly, make a habit of this,” said quarterback Tom Brady, who scored on two 1-yard sneaks and threw for a 1-yard touchdown. “We showed resiliency.”
New England (12-3) won its seventh straight game. After the Houston Texans lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night, the Patriots needed a win or a tie to lock up one of the top two spots in the AFC.
“It’s good to clinch,” said Deion Branch, who caught the touchdown pass from Brady, “but not by the way we played. It’s not the way you want to do it.”
Miami (5-10) lost for the third time in eight games after opening 0-7 and is 1-1 under Todd Bowles, who took over when Tony Sparano was fired.
“First half we came out and played our tempo and our ballgame,” Bowles said. “The second half they made us play theirs.”
The Patriots trailed 17-0 at halftime but made adjustments and went to their no-huddle offense more, keeping the Dolphins from making defensive substitutions. And Brady was on target after a first half in which heavy defensive pressure against a makeshift offensive line affected his accuracy. He completed just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three times in the half.
But in the second half, he completed 20 of 27 passes for 217 yards, finishing at 27 of 46 for 304 yards and leading one scoring drive after another — a 45-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski, the scoring pass to Branch, his own sneak that tied the game, Gostkowski’s 42-yard go-ahead kick after Devin McCourty’s first interception of the year, and then the other sneak with 2:56 left, making it 27-17.
The Dolphins made it closer on Matt Moore’s 15-yard scoring pass to Davone Bess with 1:48 to play. They had three timeouts left, but their hopes faded when Brady hit Wes Welker for a 6-yard gain and a first down.
“We had (Brady’s) number in the first half, but in the second half he came out and made a lot of plays,” Miami linebacker Karlos Dansby said. “He’s a coach on the field.”
The Dolphins seemed headed for a victory and got a break even before the game when Patriots left tackle Matt Light hurt his ankle in warmups and didn’t play. Left guard Logan Mankins took his spot, but he left with a knee injury suffered on New England’s second series.
“There’s always things that are going to go wrong in a football game and things aren’t going to work out the way you want them to all the time,” said Welker, who finished with 12 catches for 138 yards after managing just two for 20 in the first half.
“The main thing is just playing a full 60 minutes and never giving in and understanding that one drive and one score (can) get things going.”
The Patriots punted on their first six series of the first half, then missed a field goal on the other. The Dolphins struggled in the second half when Moore fumbled a snap at his 38 and Vince Wilfork recovered, starting the drive capped by Branch’s touchdown.
“They committed penalties in the first half,” Dolphins guard Richie Incognito said. “We turned the ball over and committed penalties in the second half. That’s never a good recipe.”
Reggie Bush had another outstanding game for Miami with his fourth straight 100-yard-plus rushing day. He finished with 113 on 22 carries one week after gaining a career-high 203 yards.
His latest performance gave him 1,086 yards rushing for the season, the first time in his six years, the first five with New Orleans, that he passed 1,000.
“It really doesn’t mean anything right now,” he said. “This one’s pretty tough.”
The Dolphins took a 3-0 lead on Dan Carpenter’s 47-yard field goal 4:01 into the game, and made it 10-0 with 1:15 gone in the second quarter on Moore’s 19-yard pass to Brandon Marshall.
They stretched it to 17-0, the Patriots biggest deficit of the season, on a 1-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Charles Clay. The 89-yard drive was helped by two pass interference penalties on third down.
But the Patriots remained calm at intermission.
“There wasn’t a bunch of yelling,” Wilfork said. “We came in and said we’ve got to play better, we’ve got to make more plays.”
They did. The Dolphins didn’t.
“Our guys fought,” Bowles said, “but we didn’t finish.”
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