Unbeaten Patriots Show Dolphins No Mercy

Yesterday's New England Patriots–Miami Dolphins game was the biggest mismatch since Angelina Jolie married Billy Bob Thornton. The Patriots, a perfect 6–0, came in looking like Jolie if she were stepping out of a milk bath; the 0–6 Dolphins looked like Billy Bob with a three-day growth. If you're a New England fan, or just a masochist — or am I being redundant? — it was a perfect afternoon: the best team in pro football (maybe) against the worst team (probably).

A few years ago, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, forced a strike on the players' union claiming the need for competitive balance. It was widely thought that baseball should aim for offering fans of every team the same chance of winning the championship as football fans supposedly enjoyed. That's what the luxury tax in baseball was supposed to do: achieve the same level of competitiveness that the NFL's salary cap brought to its league. Now it might be time for the NFL to start looking into how to reach the same level of competition as MLB.

We haven't reached the halfway mark in the season, and already most of the divisions and both conference races are practically a joke. Right now it's pretty obvious that New England, Indianapolis, or Pittsburgh is going to win the AFC and crush whichever NFL team is unlucky enough to face them in the Super Bowl. I shouldn't be telling you this because you might lose interest and stop reading. But if you follow football, you already know this.

What was fascinating about Sunday's Pats-Dolphins game was how it violated what is supposed to be one of the cardinal rules of pro football: namely that you can slow down a great passing offense by keeping them off the field. Not any more; not in the new NFL. The Dolphins were terrific on the ground, rushing for 179 yards — you heard that right, folks — on 30 carries for a sensational average of six yards a shot. Ronnie Brown, who came into the game as the NFL's leading rusher, paced them with 76 yards before adding injury to insult when he left in the third quarter with a knee injury. It was as if Jim Brown was carrying the ball for the Dolphins all day. Miami's time of possession, 35:05, would have made Linda Blair envious. The Pats, on the other hand, gained just a lousy 84 yards on the ground and held the ball for under 25 minutes — and led 42–7 at the half. (The final score was 49–28.) Even after they got up by six touchdowns and were supposed to be running out the clock, the Patriots still couldn't move the ball on the ground, and it didn't matter at all. New England sacked Miami's second-string (or is it third-string — I can never remember which QBs the Dolphins have on their depth chart) quarterback, Cleo Lemon, five times and knocked him down six more. On the other side of the ball, the Miami pass rushers seemed to actually be keeping their distance from Tom Brady, as if they were afraid of incurring dirty looks from his pass blockers.

How many times could this Patriots team beat these Miami Dolphins if they only played each other all 16 games? They'd probably win just 13 or 14, because near the end of the season, New England would be resting their regulars for the playoffs. But if you told the Patriots they had to win all 16 games to get to the Super Bowl, there's no doubt in my mind that they could win every game by more than four touchdowns.

In the fourth quarter of the Patriots–Dolphins game, Brady came out for a second-stringer. A couple of minutes later, to the well-deserved boos of the home crowd — well, the fans who were left anyway; you could hardly call them a crowd at that point — Brady came back in for the sole purpose of tying a team record sixth TD pass (which he promptly did, 16 yards to Wes Welker). Not a league record, mind you, but a team record, set by one of those great Patriot passers such as Drew Bledsoe or Doug Flutie or someone else. Actually, I can't remember any other New England passers, and none of them were great anyway.

It was a crass, classless act by Bill Belichick, the crassest, most classless coach in the NFL, done in the manner of a college coach who lets his quarterback humiliate a beaten opponent to impress the BCS or Heisman voters. You have to wonder if the Miami Dolphins' defenders will remember this. Don't be surprised if you see someone happily risk a 15-yard penalty or even a suspension to get a cheap shot in on Brady when the two teams play an otherwise meaningless game on December 23 in Foxboro.

You also have to wonder if the Indianapolis Colts, never really pressed so far this season, might be going all out against the Jacksonville Jaguars tonight, if only to send a message to the Patriots. Except for the fact that the Jags aren't as high profile as the Dallas Cowboys, this match would be provoking as much attentions as the Pats-Cowboys game last week. Jacksonville is, after all, second in the NFL in points per game on defense behind Pittsburgh, and could present a sterner test to Peyton Manning than the Dallas defense did to Brady.

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Some are calling the Tennessee Titans' 38–36 win over the Houston Texans the most exciting game of the season, and I suppose in some ways it was, since the winning field goal by Ron Bironas came as time expired. There are, after all, few games that feature a 29-point fourth-quarter comeback — or few games that need to. Houston QB Sage Rosenfels, coming off the bench for starter Matt Schaub, threw four fourth-quarter TD passes, though a couple of them might not have been necessary had he not also thrown three second-half interceptions.

Perhaps a sloppy game between two mediocre teams can seem as exciting — and maybe even more exciting — than a well-played one between two good teams. But if you're like me, you want to see a game where the best player — or at least the leading scorer — is someone other than the kicker. Bironas kicked an NFL record eight field goals. The distances of each one were 52, 25, 21, 30, 28, 43, 29, and 29 yards. If your heart didn't beat faster at reading that, then I doubt you would have found it more interesting to actually watch Bironas make the kicks, or at least any of them except the last one. Coaches and commentators prattle on all the time about the importance of the kicking game, but to me all field goals look alike except the last one, and that's only because everyone is on their feet. Kerry Collins is getting much credit for standing in for the injured Titans QB Vince Young, but all Collins did was average 6.6 yards per throw — exactly his mediocre career average. He did connect with Roydell Williams on a 46-yard pass that set up the final field goal. It was just about the only good throw he made all afternoon, though, and this one was under-thrown. It owed its success to poor coverage on the part of the Houston safeties.

If you saw the highlights, you would think this game was a thriller. But watching it as it was played, with all the starting and stopping for the field goals, was about as exciting as watching the Indianapolis 500 run on a Los Angeles freeway during rush hour. If recorded this game to watch it later, trust me: Fast forward to the last 10 minutes. You won't miss a thing.

Mr. Barra is the author of "The Last Coach: A Life of Paul 'Bear' Bryant."